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Chapter Two
TRISTAN
Open hallways.
The smell of freshly ground coffee beans.
Windows.
Well, more specifically, windows you can stand beside and gaze out for hours. Or minutes. Or seconds—however long you want, because you get to make choices like that now.
“You okay?” Kim asks, stretching as she moves into the living room.
I let the curtain drop and turn toward her. “Fine. Did you know you have a direct view of the dumpsters from here? You can even see what’s in them when the lids are up.”
“Yeah, it’s gross,” she says, moving toward the kitchen.
Gross? I’ve been watching the activity for over an hour now. It’s amazing what people throw away. Even more fun is what they do when they think they’re alone.
Privacy. Another thing you take for granted until it’s gone.
“Hey, um…” I stop, not sure how to ask this. Not sure I evenwantthe answer I already know. “Do you think Mom and Dad still have any of my stuff? I kind of need…” Fuck, this is hard. “Well, everything.”
I force a quick smile, hating the way her face falls. This is exactly what I was afraid of. Four years of guilt followed by a lifetime more.
“They don’t have it,” she says quietly. “Your stuff is gone,” she clarifies, as if I’d be confused.
I’m not. At all. Of course they got rid of it. I guess there was a small part of me that still knew how to hope. I sense it fizzle out like everything else in my worn, tired soul. Twenty-four, and I feel like my life is over, not beginning.
“They probably dumped it the second I was sent away,” I mutter.
My jaw hardens when she drops her gaze. I’m not surprised, just…
“Trist, I—”
“Don’t,” I say, shaking my head. “Let’s just… move on. Start over, okay?”
I feel her stare as I slip past her to refill my mug. “I made coffee if you want it.”
It’s the truth because Isabel didn’t leave any for me, despite her offer. I guess I wasn’t surprised to find the empty pot when I dared to enter the kitchen once she left. I tried to stay out of her way until then, reading a hostility even greater than what I remember. She hates me. I get it. She hated me before I gave everyone else a reason to hate me.
I knew she had a crush on me since we were kids, but like my sister, that girl was going somewhere. She had enough shit on her plate with her toxic dad, deadbeat mom, and burning drive to be better than what they were. Her grandparents pulled me aside and warned me to stay away, that I was a bad influence and would end up as one more obstacle in her life.
They weren’t wrong, so I did. Broke her heart in the worst possible way so she would hate me instead of chase me. It worked, which was probably good since two months later…
Hell.
“I’m only working a half day,” Kim says, interrupting my well-traveled path down memory lane. Getting lost in my head—something else I’ve excelled at over the last few years. “Let’s go shopping and get you some clothes and stuff. Your old things probably wouldn’t fit anyway. You’re, like, a legit man now.”
She tugs my sleeve with a smile, and I force one back. The clothes aren’t what I wanted.
“Did they trash…everything?”
The hesitant timber I’ve spent years filtering out is back. It sounds foreign, and I find myself tensing at the slip, instinctively on edge and prepared for attack. You learn quick to be what you have to be, not what you are.
When she doesn’t respond, I have my answer.
My stomach sinks, and I bury the fresh sting with the rest of it.
