much more matters than that, and I can’t afford to pretend it doesn’t.
“I’m sorry for your hand,” I say when I get to the door. “And thank you… for helping. For maybe saving my life.”
It feels like a fist slams into my chest at that. Did he save my life? After my family took one away from him?
But then I pause, my hand on the doorknob. Now I can’t seem to leave without asking. I turn, looking over my shoulder. Adrian’s standing in the hallway, like he came partially out to get me but changed his mind.
“Why Casper?” I ask.
“Because you’re the girl with ghosts in her eyes.” That simply, Adrian turns away and walks down the hallway. I’m stumbling out the door, slamming it behind me.
“Because you’re the girl with ghosts in her eyes…”
I don’t know why that hits me so hard, but it does. And he’s right.
It’s not until I’m halfway home that I remember I have Adrian’s phone in my purse and his drugs in my trunk.
Chapter Seven
~Adrian~
My hand hurts like hell when I wake up about one in the afternoon. I never sleep this late, even when I’m up half the night, but since I didn’t have my phone, I didn’t have people calling all day waking me up. I realize she gave me space for a second time, only this time I didn’t have to ask for it. This time it was just because she accidentally took my connection to the world.
For a second I let myself remember what it felt like to kiss her. I would have taken her then and there if she hadn’t stopped me. I need to get her ghosts out of my head, but the second she stopped feelin’ it, I did.
When I was eight, I saw my dad force himself on my mom for the first time. It’s the first memory I have of vomiting. Seeing her tears as she couldn’t look me straight in the eye and hearing her say,
“It’s okay, baby. Close the door.”
But it wasn’t fucking okay. I puked right there in the hallway, pizza from lunch all over my shirt and the floor.
Then I cleaned it up. Scrubbed the carpet while I fought like hell to block out their sounds because I knew if he saw my lunch on the floor, he’d beat my ass. Maybe I should have let him see it. Maybe I deserved an ass-kicking for not making him leave her alone.
Before the memories become too much, I open the drawer beside my bed and pull out the pipe inside. I fill my lungs with smoke before setting it down and wrapping my hand around Ash’s shirt under my pillow.
That’s all I give myself. That one little touch before I’m out of bed, grabbing clothes and heading to the shower. It stings when the hot water hits all the openings in my skin. I close my eyes, imagining the water somehow makes them spread and get deeper until they swallow me whole and all the pain is gone.
But no. I’d never take the easy way out like that.
I turn the water off, wrap my hand, and get dressed. There’s not much time until people probably start showing up at my house, wondering why they can’t get a hold of me and itching to party. The water did nothing to make me feel better. I wish it could absolve me, cleanse me and make it so I never brought Ash in the front yard that day. So that maybe it was me instead of him.
I head over to the little house only a few streets from me. My good hand comes down on the door three separate times before it finally opens to show a little Italian lady named Lettie who’s probably not even five feet tall.
“You’re late,” she says. “Screwing around with some girl when you’re supposed to be workin’?” The old woman winks at me. She has to be at least eighty, but you’d never know it. Her mouth is worse than Colt’s and I’m not sure she isn’t up to something shady, but we help each other out, so it works. She owns my house and about ten other ones in our neighborhood. She has to have money. It’s obvious yet she lives in a house almost as shitty as mine and she pays me more than I deserve for helping her take care of them.
“Nope. That was last
“I’m sorry for your hand,” I say when I get to the door. “And thank you… for helping. For maybe saving my life.”
It feels like a fist slams into my chest at that. Did he save my life? After my family took one away from him?
But then I pause, my hand on the doorknob. Now I can’t seem to leave without asking. I turn, looking over my shoulder. Adrian’s standing in the hallway, like he came partially out to get me but changed his mind.
“Why Casper?” I ask.
“Because you’re the girl with ghosts in her eyes.” That simply, Adrian turns away and walks down the hallway. I’m stumbling out the door, slamming it behind me.
“Because you’re the girl with ghosts in her eyes…”
I don’t know why that hits me so hard, but it does. And he’s right.
It’s not until I’m halfway home that I remember I have Adrian’s phone in my purse and his drugs in my trunk.
Chapter Seven
~Adrian~
My hand hurts like hell when I wake up about one in the afternoon. I never sleep this late, even when I’m up half the night, but since I didn’t have my phone, I didn’t have people calling all day waking me up. I realize she gave me space for a second time, only this time I didn’t have to ask for it. This time it was just because she accidentally took my connection to the world.
For a second I let myself remember what it felt like to kiss her. I would have taken her then and there if she hadn’t stopped me. I need to get her ghosts out of my head, but the second she stopped feelin’ it, I did.
When I was eight, I saw my dad force himself on my mom for the first time. It’s the first memory I have of vomiting. Seeing her tears as she couldn’t look me straight in the eye and hearing her say,
“It’s okay, baby. Close the door.”
But it wasn’t fucking okay. I puked right there in the hallway, pizza from lunch all over my shirt and the floor.
Then I cleaned it up. Scrubbed the carpet while I fought like hell to block out their sounds because I knew if he saw my lunch on the floor, he’d beat my ass. Maybe I should have let him see it. Maybe I deserved an ass-kicking for not making him leave her alone.
Before the memories become too much, I open the drawer beside my bed and pull out the pipe inside. I fill my lungs with smoke before setting it down and wrapping my hand around Ash’s shirt under my pillow.
That’s all I give myself. That one little touch before I’m out of bed, grabbing clothes and heading to the shower. It stings when the hot water hits all the openings in my skin. I close my eyes, imagining the water somehow makes them spread and get deeper until they swallow me whole and all the pain is gone.
But no. I’d never take the easy way out like that.
I turn the water off, wrap my hand, and get dressed. There’s not much time until people probably start showing up at my house, wondering why they can’t get a hold of me and itching to party. The water did nothing to make me feel better. I wish it could absolve me, cleanse me and make it so I never brought Ash in the front yard that day. So that maybe it was me instead of him.
I head over to the little house only a few streets from me. My good hand comes down on the door three separate times before it finally opens to show a little Italian lady named Lettie who’s probably not even five feet tall.
“You’re late,” she says. “Screwing around with some girl when you’re supposed to be workin’?” The old woman winks at me. She has to be at least eighty, but you’d never know it. Her mouth is worse than Colt’s and I’m not sure she isn’t up to something shady, but we help each other out, so it works. She owns my house and about ten other ones in our neighborhood. She has to have money. It’s obvious yet she lives in a house almost as shitty as mine and she pays me more than I deserve for helping her take care of them.
“Nope. That was last
Similar Books
