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“How? By fucking interventioning me on my relationship with a woman who’s leaving me in four days?”
“So, that’s it,” Dane said. “You feel like she’s leaving you, so you’re not gonna bother telling her you don’t want her to.”
I really wanted to tell him to shut the fuck up.
But he was right. And when he said it like that… it sounded pretty fucking pathetic.
Because I wasn’t gonna bother. Officially, as of this morning, I pretty much decided that I wasn’t gonna bother.
But then every time I thought of her in her life down in California, it made me feel sick all over again.
And every time I thought of her face at the fight, and afterwards, in the limo… It killed me a little more. Shewashorrified.
Was that really the memory of me I wanted to leave her with?
She cared about me. I knew she did.
But not enough to tell me she wasn’t going back to San Diego.
She wasn’t staying.
“Maybe there’s no reason for me to tell her not to go,” I said bitterly. “You ever think about that?”
My friends all just stared at me, looking unimpressed as shit, and I wondered what ridiculous crap they were about to say. Some bullshit at the end of a rom com.We’ve never seen you like this. No one makes you happy like she does. Quit moping around and just go get her!
But they didn’t say any of that shit.
“You keep fighting,” Dane said evenly, “eventually, you have no one left to fight. And then what happens? Who do you fight? The guy in the mirror? That sounds like a pretty sad way to grow old, if you ask me.”
I scowled at him. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about the car accident.”
I went and pulled my shirt on. “Why the fuck are you bringing that up?” My voice was rising. I needed to get out of here.
“Because, Shane. You’ve never been the same since that accident. And someone should fucking tell you.”
I looked at him.
“What happened to that guy?” he asked me.
“What guy?” I spat.
“The guy you were in high school,” he said calmly. “The guy I met in sophomore year, when I moved out here. That kid had charisma just falling out of his pockets and so much talent. Not just talent for hockey. Talent forlife. And you know what? He was fucking happy. He was gonna play pro hockey—”
“Yeah,” I growled. “Well, that kid fucking died.”
Dane just stared at me. They all stared at me.
“What are you talking about?” he said.
“He died, Dane. That car went off a fucking cliff and smashed. They had to pry me out. And you know what, that kid never came with me. I woke up in a hospital bed to find out…” I stopped talking. I couldn’t get the words out.
“What?” Dane pressed.
“I woke up to find out that my whole life was over,” I said through the lump in my throat. “That kid was fucking dead.”
The room had gone scarily silent.
