There’s only Jason. And Kayla. It can’t be Jason. Letting him crash on my couch costs me nothing.
Though Jason reminds me of Raine.
Fuck, he reminds me of Raine, and Kayla is whispering my name, and it’s like water eating away at the stone walls I’ve built around myself.
“Hey… Everything okay?” She’s watching me, watching my face.
“Yeah,” I say gruffly, my mind spinning.
There’s concern written all over her pretty features, flickering in her big gray eyes, but she’s not giving me the once-over, or blushing, or doing anything to indicate she’s affected by what we did earlier on the table—what I did to her. She seemed to like it at the time—but what if she was just caught by surprise? I didn’t exactly ask before kissing her, before touching her, before letting my need for her take over.
Shit. Since when do I lose control like that? Since when do I think of myself first?
Fuck, better not answer this one. Since always, according to my old man, and above all according to Raine, and he’s probably right. It’s why he won’t talk to me.
Yet she’s still here, still offering to help. A good person. A good friend. Better than I deserve.
And these two things together—the memory of Raine and Kayla’s uncertain presence and kindness are for some reason threatening to shatter me to fucking pieces.
“Your drawings.” She’s pointing at the doodles I have taped to the kitchen door. I put them there on a day I decided to make the apartment feel more like a home, and they were the only thing that really felt like my own. “I’ve been meaning to ask you. Why do you draw only parts of people or objects?”
“Because.” Good question. I frown at the scraps of paper. “Because I don’t care about the whole thing?”
“You don’t care about the whole picture?”
I shrug. I’ve completed sketches and drawings, of course. Wouldn’t be a tattoo artist otherwise. But those are work. These are… for me. Like I’m trying to figure out something.
Figure out everything, when everything is broken. People. Relationships. Feelings. Thoughts.
“You’re such a puzzle,” she says.
“No, I’m not.”
Life is. Mine, anyway.
Silence stretches like an elastic band, about to snap and hurtle me into space.
“Look,” she says, her eyes not meeting mine. “What happened tonight... I don’t expect anything, okay? It means nothing. So don’t worry about it.”
“It means nothing?” I repeat in a whisper, feeling cold. “Kay…”
“Yes?”
I want to tell her tonight was important to me, like a door was thrown open and I glimpsed what could make me happy, but then I think of Jason in the next room, I think of my fucked up family, of my fucked up past, of my burden and my guilt and my hell, and shake my head.
“Nothing.” Letting the wooden spoon rest inside the pot and pulling my cell from my back pocket, I stride out of the kitchen, heading out of the apartment.
***
It means nothing.
Not to her, it doesn’t, and it shouldn’t mean anything to me, either. It shouldn’t, but for a moment there I thought it had, and it had felt damn good.
Should’ve known better than to allow myself to believe even for a second she’d felt it, too. Better this way. End it before it even starts.
Oh fuck me. What’s wrong with me? I should be relieved. I should be glad.
But my heart is racing with something like desperation, and I need… need to hear Raine’s voice, make sure he’s okay.