Did I? Dr. Lange was always saying the more you talked about something, the less power it had over you. I found that impossible to believe. I could spend the rest of my life talking about what was done to us in Alaska, and the cold would never leave. Imbedded forever.
I turned my gaze to the ocean, waves crashing against the shore in bursts of white foam, then retreating. Ronan was silent.
“Alcohol keeps me warm because Alaska stole something from me,” I said finally. “It stole something and left me with nightmares—memories—to remind me I’ll never get it back.”
“The camp?”
I nodded. “It fucked me up, and I wasn’t entirely solid to begin with. There were seven of us. It broke us down until we were nearly dead. Or wanted to die.”
Ronan was silent. When I glanced at him, his gray eyes were stormy, his hand balled into a fist, flexing the inked muscles on his forearm.
“Anyway, that’s why most days are vodka days. And why I sometimes put my fist through bathroom mirrors. Or”—I cleared my throat—“why I dare people to stab me in the chest at parties.”
A silence fell and I hunched deeper into my coat.
Welp, if he was on the fence about hanging around with me, that should push him over.
“I don’t live with my parents because they’re dead,” Ronan said suddenly.
I held very still. Ronan offering a piece of himself was like finding a diamond in a pile of coal. But I’d offered a piece of myself and now he was giving in return. Keeping the scales balanced. A feeling expanded in my chest, warm and soft and utterly foreign to me. Unfamiliar.
Acceptance. This is what acceptance feels like.
“What happened?” I asked gently.
“When I was a kid, my father killed my mother. I watched it happen.”
“Holy shit… How old were you?”
“Eight. He went to prison and died there. I went into foster care.”
My heart ached and I couldn’t think of anything to say, except that I hate
d Ronan carried that kind of pain. I wished I could erase it or carry it for him. I had enough baggage. One more shit-tastic memory wouldn’t kill me.
“I was pretty messed up,” Ronan said, his eyes on the dying fire. “I had to repeat fourth grade and did ten years in foster care. Eventually, social services tracked down my mother’s brother. That’s how I ended up here.”
“I’m so sorry about your mother, Ronan.”
He nodded and a silence fell that should’ve been awkward or uncomfortable, but instead I felt our friendship cement into something more solid with every passing minute. The sun began to sink, the sky bruised yet beautiful. Peaceful.
“Well, aren’t we a jolly pair,” I said after a while. “Tell me something good that happened to you today, Wentz. Anything. Before I throw myself into the ocean.”
He rubbed his stubbled chin, thinking. “I didn’t get suspended.”
“Hey, there you go! A two-day streak.” I offered up a high-five and got a resounding smack on the palm. I hissed a breath and shook my stinging hand. “Easy, tiger.”
Ronan almost smiled. “Your turn. Something good.”
“Hmm, don’t know that it’s good so much as doomed and hopeless but…” I heaved a sigh. “There’s a guy.”
“Okay.”
“I can’t say who, so don’t ask.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“Of course, you weren’t,” I said. “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…”