I nodded, and we didn’t say much for a while but watched the sun sink toward the ocean.
“Well, aren’t we a jolly pair,” Holden said just at the right time, before the quiet got too heavy. “Tell me something good that happened to you today, Wentz. Anything. Before I throw myself into the ocean.”
Shiloh Barrera happened.
I tossed a rock into the fire. Cut that shit out.
Impossible. I remembered every damn word of our conversation, which was longer than any I’d had with anyone in years. I remembered every glance of her brown eyes and where they skimmed over me. I remembered every time she touched me and where. I could feel her gentle fingers on my skin and the sting of alcohol while she cleaned my wound. Like her—sharp and soft at the same time…
She was something good, but I had to leave her alone to make sure she stayed that way.
“I didn’t get suspended,” I said finally.
“Hey, there you go! A two-day streak.”
Holden offered his non-injured hand in a high-five. I hated high fives. I slapped his palm hard and he hissed with pain, laughing.
“Easy, tiger.”
“Your turn. Something good.”
“Hmm, don’t know that it’s good so much as doomed and hopeless but…” He sighed dramatically. “There’s a guy.”
“Okay.”
“I can’t say who, so don’t ask.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“Of course, you weren’t. That’s one of your most endearing characteristics. Anyway, there’s a guy and I don’t want there to be a guy. Not one that I might…”
“Want to fuck?”
“That’s a given.”
“Care about?”
“Exactly. And I can’t care about anyone. Bad for me, worse for them.” He shook his head, watching the fire struggle against a breeze that had picked up. “It’s stupid. And too soon. I didn’t come here to immediately have my every waking thought hijacked by someone I’ve only known for a few days.” He laughed at my wide eyes. “No, it’s not Miller. And I hate to break your heart, but it’s not you either.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“The problem is that the guy in question is not my type, to put it mildly. An All-American good boy. Warm, gooey, everyone loves him. He’s the human equivalent of a grilled cheese sandwich.”
“So?”
“So? It doesn’t make sense. And yet I can’t stop thinking about him and feeling guilty, because…I may have said some things I shouldn’t have.”
“I’m shocked,” I said into my beer. Holden was a smartass with zero filter.
“Oh, shut up,” he said. “But yes, I stirred up some shit for him that I had no business stirring. I even gave him my number in the event he wants to talk. To me. As if I could actually help somehow.” He snorted a laugh. “It’s impossible.”
“Why?”
“I’m not one hundred percent positive that he and I are on the same page, if you catch my drift. I need to leave it alone. Leave him alone.”
I rolled my eyes and hurled a rock into the fire.
Here we go again.
Both my friends were hellbent on being miserable instead of making a stand for what they wanted.
Holden read my scowl. “You disagree?”
“If you care about him—”
“Let’s not go that far.”
“—then tell him.”
“That proves difficult, since he specifically asked that I never speak to him again. And even if by some miracle he were gay, nothing good can come of something with me. Except for sex. I can do meaningless sex.” He narrowed his eyes at me. “That’s not an offer, by the way.”
I snorted a laugh. A short silence fell, and Holden shivered a little as he took a sip from his flask. I sprayed more lighter fluid over the embers until they flared in a wall of light and heat.
“Is that what they stole from you in Alaska?”
Holden’s head whipped to me. “What…?”
“You said nothing good could come of you being with that guy,” I said. “Is that what they taught you? That you’re no good?”
“Yes,” he said slowly. “But it began earlier with my parents. And it’s more complicated—”
“It’s bullshit, is what it is,” I snapped. “Whoever made you think that, no matter when it started, it’s bullshit.”
I finished my beer and strode to the Shack to get two more. I stood over Holden, offering. He looked up at me, gratitude in his eyes, and took one. The flask went into his coat pocket.
We drank our beers while the sun sank lower and then Holden turned to me, his voice more subdued than I’d ever heard it.
“What was it like? Seeing something like…what you did?”
Instantly, my body stiffened. “What the fuck do you think it was like?”
“I have no idea,” Holden said. “I can’t fucking imagine it, actually. As much as I loathe the sentient-viruses-in-human-form that are my parents, to witness something like that…” He shrugged. “I guess what I’m really asking is, are you okay?” I shot him a glare and he held up his hands. “Don’t bite my head off. It’s a valid question.”
I held my stare but the defensive anger was melting away as I realized no one apart from my social worker had ever asked me about my parents. She’d told me most people wouldn’t—that they’d be afraid bringing it up would remind me of my mother’s death. As if I’d forgotten all about it until they said something. As if I didn’t walk around with it all day, every day.
Or relived it in my nightmares every night.
I nearly told Holden to fuck off, but no one asked me if I was okay, either.
“I don’t know,” I said to the fire. “I’m doing my best, I guess. And I’m done talking about it.”
Holden smiled—a rare, soft one with no sharp edges. “Fair enough. Let’s talk about something only slightly less painful and traumatic.”
“Like?”
“Girls. Not my preferred subject, obviously, but I confessed to you the depressing state of my love life. If you wish to unburden yourself likewise, I’m all ears.”
Shiloh’s perfect face with her smooth skin and full lips rose up in my mind. I recalled the intelligence in her eyes as she focused her attention on whatever job was in front of her. Like patching up a criminal like me. That was the gossip at school—Miller was the outcast, Holden was the vampire, and I was an ex-con posing as a high school student.
They were right, in a way. The stain of my father’s crime was all over me. Just standing in Bibi’s house or sitting on the patio with Shiloh felt wrong. Good but wrong. As if I’d broken into their perfect life and left bloody fingerprints all over it. But when I tried to hold back, stay quiet and get to work, Shiloh drew me out of myself. I didn’t want to move so long as she was sitting across from me.
Holden was waiting for an answer.
There’s a girl and I don’t want there to be a girl.
“Nah,” I said tipping back my beer. “There’s no one.”