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Aly came to a stop when she saw the boy she couldn’t get off her mind walking ahead of her on the opposite sidewalk toward the main street. Spring had come, the morning air crisp but warm, but still Jared wore a heavy black leather jacket, his attention focused entirely on his boots as they ate up the ground in his long stride.
She rushed across the street, closing the space between them. “Jared, wait.”
He didn’t even acknowledge her.
She called out to him again, “Hey, Jared, wait up.”
He finally hesitated before he turned around, rushing a nervous hand through his hair. He bounced anxiously as he looked at her. Through her, really. “Aly… ,” he managed to say.
Aly frowned, unable to look away from his pupils, which had all but disappeared, his light blue eyes too wide, frozen ice.
He glanced away, and he raked his hand through his hair again. “Hey,” he mumbled into the distance.
Aly fidgeted. “How are you?” She cringed. What the hell was she thinking, asking something so dumb? How did she think he was?
Jared turned back to her, just blinked, looking everywhere but at her face.
“So, uh, we miss you at the house,” Aly ventured, feeling more like an idiot, completely out of her element. But weren’t they all? None of this was their element. Everything was wrecked, and all of them had been left on foreign ground. “Why don’t you come around anymore? I know Christopher would like to see you.”
She would like to see him.
She needed to see him.
Jared twitched. “I’ve just been busy,” he said at the same moment he looked behind him, back toward the busy street. “Listen, I’ve got to go. I’ll see you around.”
Aly’s heart sank. She stood watching the boy who consumed her walk away from her, his head hanging toward the ground as he gripped the hair at the back of his head.
Aly closed her eyes, wishing for a way to make things better, even though she knew there was absolutely nothing she could do.
When she opened them, he was gone.
Aly frowned when she saw her dad’s car parked in the driveway after she got off from school that day. He never made it home before five.
Aly cracked open the door. The second she did, she knew something was off, could feel the tension in the air. Their house had been so much like that lately – off – emotions rising, then waning, heartbreak, then glimpses of joy, slipping back into overwhelming sadness. They’d diagnosed her mom with grief-related depression, had written her some prescriptions to help her get through the time they said would pass. There’d been some days when she never got out of bed, but like her mom had said last night, she was getting better.
Lately Aly never knew what kind of day it was going to be when she walked through the door.
Now she tiptoed inside. Today she wasn’t met with the deluge of sadness. Instead she found anger.
From the foyer, Aly listened to her dad yelling accusations. “They found heroin and stolen pills in his locker, Christopher… You’re telling me you knew nothing about this?”
Dread seized Aly, her heart feeling like it was going to falter while it pounded at the same time.
No.
Aly eased closer, hid herself up against the wall so she could peer inside at what was happening in the kitchen where Christopher sat on a stool at the bar and their father stood looming over him.
“Dad, I promise you,” Christopher said, his voice low and pleading. “I haven’t been doing any of that stuff. Yeah, I drink some and I’ve gotten high a few times, but I haven’t been using. And it’s not like Jared wants anything to do with me now, anyway.”
Christopher’s confession did nothing to calm their father. Instead he roared, “I can’t believe you, Christopher. After all the trust we put in you? Go to your room. You’re grounded… indefinitely.”
“Dad – ”
“Go.”
Christopher’s chair screeched against the tiled floor, and he stormed down the hall to his room. The slam of his door rattled through the house.
“Don’t you think you’re being a little harsh on him, Dave?” Karen looked up when she spoke. Aly could see she’d been crying again. “He’s sixteen… and the last two months have been really tough on everyone. You need to be a little more understanding.”
“What I don’t understand, Karen, is how Jared could do this to his dad. After everything? Does he have any idea the hell he’s already caused his family? And now he’s doing something like this? My God, Karen, the kid had enough drugs in there to get him on intent to sell. He’d better thank his lucky stars he only got expelled and they’re charging him with possession.”
“He’s hurting, Dave.”
“That’s bullshit, Karen. That boy doesn’t care about anyone but himself, and I don’t want my kids anywhere near him. I won’t stand aside and let him take my family down, too.”
Aly’s mom started crying again. “Dave, please.”
Her dad pressed his palms to his wife’s cheeks and tilted her face up to him. “I’m just protecting my family, Karen… what’s most important to me. Don’t ask me to compromise that.”
Aly slid to the floor. She’d already known… had seen it so clearly this morning. She wasn’t surprised. It didn’t mean she wasn’t terrified for him, that he wasn’t hurt and scared and broken.
Because she knew that’s exactly what Jared was.
TWENTY-TWO
Jared
Buzzing filled the confines of the small room, the vibration of the gun an oppressive weight. I struggled for air. A slow blaze lit along the surface of my skin, the burn of the needle branding my chest. I was fucking gritting my teeth, my hands clenched into the tightest fists, my heart racing.
I always knew she’d be another mark. Another scar. Another sin to add to the insurmountable others.
“You doin’ okay, man?” The tattoo artist pulled away from the job, looking up at me in twisted concern, like maybe I was the biggest pussy to ever step through his door.
The guy had me pegged. I was in pain. But not the kind of pain he was faulting me for. This hurt in the fucking darkest place of my spirit, where the obscene consorted with the vile.
“Yep. Perfect,” I forced out, my nails digging into the palms of my hands.
The guy wiped up some of the blood and ink with a paper towel, then leaned in close to color more. “Just about finished here.”
I nodded, but was unable to say anything while I submitted to the abuse the memories of her face inflicted on my already defeated mind. It was already November. More than two months had passed since I left her begging my name, since I fully laid it all to waste, since I swung the final blow.
The greatest lie I’d ever told had been told to Aly.
Yeah, I’d walked away, but there wasn’t a chance in this godforsaken world that I could forget about her.
That girl was unforgettable.
Fucking perfect. Too bright to fully see.
So I’d done my best at blocking her out. The days had blurred and bled, slowed and sped in an unending spiral of city lights and drugs and alcohol. I’d filled my body with just about anything I could find, searching for something to take away the ache she had left behind. But there was no high that could reach the bottom of this low. Nothing came close to touching it. Nothing dimmed or dulled it. Nothing could erase it. It was like this cancer that ate and fed, rotted and decayed.
Memories of her had only intensified the void that her touch had somehow managed to fill. Even if it were only for a time, she had, and maybe that’s what stung the most. I’d been foolish enough to think I’d treasure those memories, as if I’d find some sort of comfort in them once I was gone. Now I’d give anything to take them away. Because I couldn’t fucking stand knowing she might be hurting like me.