His words had my head spinning.

Or maybe the car was spinning.

Fuck it. Maybe the entire world was spinning.

He continued. “You remember what I said the day I told you I was leaving?” he asked. He didn’t wait for my response. “You said ‘you shouldn’t let ’em take it.’ I asked you what the hell you were talking about it. You said ‘You, Steve, don’t let them own you.’” He raised his hand and wiped at his cheek. “But here I am, Ky, letting them take me. And you know why? Because that pain I feel, it’s inside me. Just like it’s inside you—and no amount of drugs can change that.” He brought up the girl’s hand he was holding and kissed the back of it. “Go home, Ky. Go home to your family...” He waved his finger in a circle, “. . . and be better than this. You don’t belong here.” It wasn’t said out of anger or bitterness. It seemed like he was resigned to the fact this was his life and at that moment, I could tell he fucking hated it.

“You don’t have to belong here either, Steve.”

He let out a bitter laugh. “A little late for all that.” He got off the hood and helped his girl down, and then offered me his hand.

To say that I felt like an ass was an understatement.

“Are you good to drive?” he asked, helping me into my car.

I told him was fine.

I wasn’t.

He nodded as he lit up a smoke. “I love you, bro. Take care, all right?”

I returned his nod, started the car, and peeled out of there.

I got about two miles down the road before I pulled over and puked. Fuck weed. And fuck Steve, because he was right. It didn’t help at all.

When I stumbled back in the car, I could barely move, let alone drive.

So I slept.

The sound of sirens startled me awake. My eyes tried to focus on a dozen cop cars and ambulances speeding past me. My full-blown paranoia took over. I got out of there as fast as possible, doing everything I could to keep my focus on the roads. I don’t even remember how I managed to get home.

***

It felt like the entire house was shaking with the constant banging on the door.

“Kyler!” a man shouted, and the banging started again.

My heart picked up its pace. It could only be one man, my dad.

I shrugged on a shirt and ran downstairs, ignoring the fog in my head from the weed the night before. Christine was already at the door, peeking out the window next to it. She was prepared this time, shotgun in her hand. “Christine?”

“What do you want?” she yelled.

“I need to speak to Ky!”

Christine turned to me just as Jackson came to stand beside me.

“You say the word and I’ll tell him to leave.”

I squared my shoulders, took a step forward and opened the door. Then there I was—face to face with the devil.

Jax stood behind me and Christine was right next to him. “W-w-what do you want?”

The devil’s gaze flicked from Jackson to Christine and then settled on me. His face was red, but not out of anger. He wiped his eyes, and I saw it then—a completely different side of him. “It’s your brother,” he said quietly.

And even though I already knew the answer, still I found myself asking, “What about him?”

“He’s dead.”

***

The official cause of death was a drug overdose. The unofficial cause was he’d taken bad drugs. Word was that it was bad ecstasy laced with crack. Whatever the fuck it was—it had killed him. And I was one of the last people to see him. I was also the reason he was there in the first place. I asked him to—no—I begged him to go. And now he was dead.

Just like Jeff.

The funeral was small. The party next door wasn’t.

I didn’t know what to do. I could barely function. I had held in my tears when Jeff died, but now...it felt like I’d lost everything important to me. And as much as Christine and Jax tried to comfort me—I felt completely alone. And that was my fault. I isolated myself from them because I couldn’t deal, and I didn’t want my burden on them.

They’d lost enough.

But the worst part—was the guilt.

It was overwhelming.

So was the pain.

So was the anger.

I was so fucking angry.

“It’s okay to show your suffering, Kyler,” Christine said, stepping into my room and placing a tray of food on the nightstand. “You’ve lost two people very dear to you. Two people you loved...all in a week. It’s okay to feel sorry for yourself.”

No.

It wasn’t okay.

She had no fucking clue what she was talking about. I didn’t deserve to feel anything but pain.

I got out of bed and held the door open for her. “Get out,” I clipped.

“Kyler!”

“Get out!” I yelled.

Jackson stepped out of his room. “Don’t talk to Mom like that!”

“It’s fine, Jackson,” Christine said, but she was looking right at me. “It’s fine,” she repeated. There were tears in eyes, but they were no longer from sadness or pity. They were from disappointment.

“It is fine,” I said, staring down at her. “You’re allowed to hate me. I hate me, too.”

***

Two days later, I turned eighteen and walked into the Army recruiter’s office.

Three months later, I graduated.

That night, I packed my bags and slipped a note under Jackson’s bedroom door. I told him to take care of his mom. I apologized for not being able to be the man they expected—the man I wanted to be.

And I told him that I loved them both.

Then I got on a bus to Ft. Hood, Texas.

And I never looked back.

MADISON

Shit.

15

KY

SHE BLOWS OUT a heavy breath. “Ky. . .”

I turn away from her, not wanting to see the pity in her eyes. “So no, Madison, I don’t think I deserve people’s gratitude. People enlist for honorable reasons. I enlisted because I wanted an out.”

“That doesn’t mean—”

“It means everything.”

She stays silent.

“So that’s me...” I say, hoping to end the conversation. “That’s all of me, Maddy.”

“So Ashlee...” she trails off.

I look back at her.

“She’s the reason you haven’t been with anyone since you were seventeen?”

My eyebrows pinch. “What?”

“You said that—”

I grimace. “No. I think you misunderstood.” I tread carefully. “I said I hadn’t dated since I was seventeen. That doesn’t mean I haven’t been with anyone—”

“Oh!” Her eyes go huge; then she scrunches her nose in disgust. She tries to get off my lap, but I hold on to her tighter.

“I just want to be honest with you. And now that you know about Ashlee and what she did—the hurt she caused—I expect you to do the same. I don’t like vague, and I don’t want secrets between us. I don’t want to feel like that again.”

Her gaze drops between us. She doesn’t respond. Not with words, and not with anything else. She scoots back, trying to remove herself from my hold.