chapter eleven
Knox
“So, you both fucked her… at the same time?”
Katie and I are at The Coug, eating brunch and drinking away the hangover with bottomless mimosas.
“I don’t even understand how it fucking happened, but it did,” I groan, running my hands through my hair.
“I thought you hated him?”
If I’m being real, it’s rare that I keep friends that are girls. I either fuck them or I keep them at an arm’s length. Katie falls into neither of those categories, and I don’t really understand it. She has this air about her that makes me feel like I can trust and confide in her.
This is shit I would never even talk to the guys about, but I don’t even think twice about telling her.
“I do,” I grumble, downing the rest of my mimosa.
“Okay, permission to be fully honest with you?” This is something she’s done since we first started hanging out. When she thinks I’m full of shit, she asks me if it’s okay if she calls me on it. It’s ridiculous, but I low key like it.
“Fucking say it, Katie,” I deadpan.
“If I truly hated someone, I wouldn’t be caught dead naked in bed with them.”
“Katie…”
“I’m not saying you were there for him, but still. It’s not something you do with someone you truly can’t stand. You weren’t paying any mind to that girl prior to him paying attention to her, and then it was like you were…” She doesn’t finish her sentence, looking at me with cautious eyes.
“Like I was what?”
“Jealous, Knox. Like you were jealous.”
“That’s ridiculous,” I scoff.
“Is it, though? If you’re being fully honest with yourself, and with me, is it really that ridiculous?”
Luckily, I don’t have to answer that because the server comes at that exact moment and hands us our refilled mimosas. I hate how insightful and perceptive she is. I swear she can read me better than I can even read myself, and it freaks me the fuck out.
We eat a few more bites of our food in silence before she pins me with a pointed stare.
“What, Katie? Just fucking spit it out.”
“One, don’t talk to me like that, Knox.”
Rolling my eyes, I say nothing and let her continue. Most women can’t handle my attitude, so it’s a fucking miracle she does.
“Two, I think it’s time you tell me the reason you have such an issue with him. I think it would really help me help you.”
“Jesus fuck, Katie. Right now?”
“Yup,” she says, sitting back, looking really proud of herself.
“You’re a real pain in my fucking ass, you know that?”
“Shut up, you love me. I’m waiting.”
Knowing I’m not going to get out of this, I chug the rest of my drink, setting it on the table, and indicating to the server that I’d like another.
Sighing dramatically, I mentally prepare to tell her the story I haven’t ever told anyone.
“The summer before my junior year in high school, there was a party at a buddy of mine’s house. All of the guys were there, and a handful of us had popped ecstasy, including Aston.”
The server brings us our refills, and I take a drink before continuing.
“Up until that night, I hadn’t spoken to him a lot before. He’s a year younger than me and really only hung out with us because he was Luca’s friend. I was outside smoking by myself when he came out to do the same, and it was fine, but then once we finished our cigarettes, he fucking kissed me!”
She laughs.
No, she hysterically laughs.
“What is so fucking funny?”
“Knox,” she says in between catching her breath. “That is the most underwhelming story I’ve ever heard. I expected some big, dramatic story, and this is what I got? He kissed you? That’s it?”
“What the fuck do you mean, that’s it? Yeah, that’s it. I’m not fucking gay.”
“I don’t mean to laugh, but I don’t know why that would cause you to hate him for years. It sounds like you both were high, and it just happened, right?”
“Katie. I’m. Not. Fucking. Gay.”
Raising her hands in a mock surrender, she says, “I didn’t say you were, but—”
“There is no ‘but,’ Katie. Fuck off about this already.”
Refusing to sit here and let her psychoanalyze me, I’m out of my seat and headed for the door before I even realize what I’m doing. I need to be alone, and I can’t be talking about this.
She doesn’t fucking get it.
No one does.
Heading toward home, I instantly regret my choice of clothing today. Katie and I took an Uber here, so I’m dressed lightly, and it’s fucking snowing right now. I can’t sit and wait for a car to show up, so walking it is, but fuck, it’s cold.
My phone is going off repeatedly, probably Katie, but I can’t fucking talk to her right now. Taking my phone out of my pocket, I turn it off, shoving it back inside my coat.
About two blocks from home, I pick up the pace and start jogging. Out of breath by the time I get there, I barrel through the front door, stopping dead in my tracks.
“Ahh fuck! My fucking eyes!”
Luca is straddling Branson’s lap on the damn couch, pants undone, cocks out, like they don’t have two other roommates that could walk in at any minute.
“What the fuck, guys! Get a fucking room! Jesus Christ. Is that a fucking piercing?!”
They both stare at me, but Luca at least has the decency to look mortified.
“You know what? Don’t fucking answer that,” I yell, storming down the hall to my room, locking it once I get inside.
Shaking out of my jacket and taking my pack of smokes out of my back pocket, I head over to the window, open it, and sit on the bench directly below it. Placing the cigarette between my lips, I light it up, inhaling deeply. The minty tobacco smoke fills my lungs until they burn before I exhale the smoke out the window.
My tongue darts out, wetting my bottom lip, and I let my head fall back against the wall, eyes drifting closed. Sitting there, taking hit after hit of the cigarette, my mind wanders to earlier at the restaurant with Katie, how I stormed out, leaving her with the bill and with no explanation.
What a fucking asshole I am.
I will need to reach out to her and apologize once I’ve calmed down.
She probably won’t forgive me, and why would she? She deserves better friends than someone broken like me, someone who is incapable of talking about their own feelings.
After the frat party, I told myself I wasn’t going to do it anymore—and I haven’t—but I need it. I need the release, the placement of pain somewhere other than my fucking head.
Taking one more deep hit of the cigarette, I hold it between my middle finger and thumb, putting it out on my inner forearm again, right next to the first one. Biting my lip to silence the cry threatening to come out, I get up and toss the butt in a half-empty water bottle I find on my desk.
Wiping away the moisture pooling under my eyes, I walk over and open my desk drawer, taking out the first aid kit, making quick work of applying the burn cream and bandages. Heading over to my closet, I grab a black hoodie, pulling it over my head.
Once I remember that I turned my phone off, I grab that and go lie down on my bed, powering it back on. My head feels lighter, exhaustion quickly taking over my body, and a nap sounds great right about now.
My phone buzzes, alerting me of text messages.
Katie: What the hell, Knox?
Katie: You’re going to leave me here?
Katie: This isn’t over just because you ran away, throwing a tantrum.
She is such a pain in the ass, even more so because I know she means well. She isn’t trying to be nosy. She genuinely wants what’s best for me, and I’m a fucking dick and stormed out on her.
Opening up my Venmo app, I send her thirty dollars for the lunch I left her with before tossing it on the pillow beside me and shutting my eyes.
A quick nap.
******
“Knox!”
Startled out of a dead sleep, I hear a banging on my bedroom door.
“Knox Oliver fucking Finnegan, open up. I know you’re in there!”
Glancing at my phone next to me, I can see it’s after five. Holy shit, I’ve slept basically the whole day.
“Knox, I’m not going away, so you may as well open up.”
Recognizing Katie’s voice through the door, I get up, unlocking and opening it, before heading back to my bed.
“Wow, he’s alive,” she says sarcastically, coming to sit on the bed next to me.
“Listen, I’m sorry about this morning. I don’t know what came over me, but I shouldn’t have left you there.”
“You’re damn right you shouldn’t have.”
Looking up to meet her eyes, I’m surprised I don’t find anger or hostility gazing back at me. Instead, all I see is concern from someone who cares. How can she still care about me after I treated her like that earlier?
“Knox, look, I understand I can be kind of pushy and have a tendency to pry into other people’s business, but I promise I do it from a place of concern, especially with you. I didn’t mean to hit a nerve. I’m sorry.”
She’s picking at her nails, and the fact that she feels like she needs to apologize to me, instead of the other way around, makes a wave of guilt swarm inside of me that I’m not used to feeling.
“Katie, shut up.” I wrap my hand around hers to stop her from the anxious picking. “You have nothing to be sorry for. It’s me who should be apologizing. I should have never reacted the way I did. You were only trying to be there for me, and I snapped. I have a lot of shit from my past and my head is a fucked up place, but that isn’t your fault or your responsibility. I’m fucking sorry, dude.”
“Oh, Knox,” she cries, launching herself at me, throwing her arms around my neck. “I love you, you big jerk. You’re my best friend, and no matter how fucked up you are, I’m here.”
Wrapping my arms around her too, I tighten the hug. It’s still bizarre as hell to have a best friend that is a chick, but it works. She may be my goddamn saving grace.
“We don’t have to talk about it now, but I’m here if you ever want to dive into whatever all that was about earlier, you know that, right?”
“Yeah,” I whisper. “I do.”