His words cut so deep, I’m surprised I’m not bleeding when my eyes drop to the pavement.
That’s the thing, though. There was so much emotion, so much confirmation of what we could be, packed into that kiss.
Into that stupid, public, spiteful, half-a-second kiss that shouldn’t even be allowed on the tally board.
That I have to wonder what would it be like if our lips really met in the way we’ve always deserved?
20
Everett
Droplets of wetness from the pavement hit the back of my calves, the cold darkness surrounding me as my legs pump.
When I could no longer stand the sound of my own thoughts, shut up in my room once more, I decided to come out and exhaust myself physically. Maybe if I run a full fucking marathon, I’ll be able to pass out.
Though my body, limbs and muscles have been put through the ringer, they miraculously healed with little disability. Every time my left foot hits the roads of Brentwick, my ankle cracks. There is a lag in the fingers on my right hand, from being crushed under the weight of a brick in my hole. My right knee also aches for days at a time, where a bullet was shot clean through the flesh. Thankfully, my kneecap was intact, because with broken bones like that, I probably would have died.
So I’m able to run, now that I’ve returned to normal life. My lungs burn with the frigid air pumping in and out of them, and the dark streets of my hometown close in around me. I’m so fucking pissed at myself, at the predicament I’ve landed in, that I want to drown it out with the death metal screaming in my ears.
A fucking idiot, that’s what I am for doing what I did at the diner the other night. I’m not sure what came over me, but I saw red when I spotted Logan and Kennedy in that booth. I wanted to drag her out of there, over my shoulder again. She is mine, even if we’ve been doing this dance around each other, circling closer and closer.
But I shouldn’t have kissed her like that. I wasted it, our first kiss, on an angry whim. I was so numb, so reactive, that I spoiled the one thing I’d been promising her for years. The kiss wasn’t even particularly good, though that hadn’t stopped the sparks crackling between us. And the raw, primal feeling in my gut that it would be the kiss to end all kisses.
No, it should have been special. After I’d taken her on a date, or in a field of fucking fireflies or some shit. Instead, the scent of overdone hamburgers and Logan Myers’s sweaty football jersey tainted the whole thing. So yeah, I’m an idiot, and that moment is one we’ll never get back.
I’ve been running for probably an hour, not counting the miles or minutes, but my innate sense of time calculated to a science. It’s way past the time when anyone would be out here, maybe close to midnight, so when I get to Main Street, I know what I’m headed for before my feet even process where they’re taking me.
I come to a dead halt when I spot it, my own face taunting me from above the square that houses the most popular staple stores and restaurants in town. At my ankle, my knife calls to me, held in the strap that I haven’t been able to take off since I got home. If someone ever comes for me again, I’ll be ready.
The banner hangs above the town square, my face plastered on one side, the words Brentwick’s Real Life Hero, Welcome Home Corporal Everett Brock, next to it.
They’re lies, each and every word. I’m no hero, especially not for the people of this town. I never earned that corporal title, it was honorarily given to me because of my many months in captivity. And it was all fucking bullshit.
The reason I got captured, the real reason my unit was in the place we were in. If anyone in this town knew that, they’d call me a traitor and a murderer. Rage suffuses my blood, and I’m ready to rip out someone’s throat, but I’ll settle for the next best thing.
Luckily, my military muscles still work like they’re supposed to, and I shimmy up the light pole, until I reach where the banner is tied. Pulling my knife from its holster, I cut into the twine, releasing the lying banner from its prominence above the square. It flutters down, landing on the wet pavement still damp from this afternoon’s rain.
My sneakers hit the sidewalk, and I stomp to it, grabbing a fistful of banner and stabbing my knife through it. As I cut, my hand shaking as I pull jagged edge after jagged edge, the fury seeps from my bones into the knife. Slicing through every piece of my personality that people believe they know.
“What are you doing?”
Someone hisses behind me, and I stop, my knife paused in the banner as it divides my face down to the nose. I know the voice, because of course, she’s here to witness this. To see just one more of my failings as a man, as a rational human.
Turning slowly as I push the blade of my army knife back into its handle, Kennedy stands on the street. Her eyes are wide as her jaw hangs open. She’s in her EMT uniform, one I’ve never seen her wear since I wasn’t here when she got certified.
“Doing this town a favor. This banner is bullshit.” I point to it, as if the banner ruined my entire day.
Which, it kind of did.
“Everett, it’s not. This town is so proud of you.” Her eyes flicker, looking sideways, as if she can’t address me directly.
God, she’s such a good person. Even with what I did, with how mad she must be at me, she’s calling me a hero.
“Well, they shouldn’t be. I’m fucked up.” My voice raises a notch.
“You’ve been through something traumatic, but it doesn’t mean you have to be dramatic. You served your country. Your town wants to honor that.”
Did she just call me dramatic? Inside, my blood begins to boil. Because Kennedy, with her perfect fucking life, can’t understand just how tragic mine is.
“You just can’t stand that the world isn’t this orderly, perfect thing that you can mold if you just work hard enough. Everything you’ve ever touched turns to gold in your hands. If you can dream it up in your little diary, then it must come true. Princess wishes and all! Boo fucking hoo, Kennedy. The world fucking chews you up and spits you out, limbs broken and dreams stabbed through the fucking heart.”
“But you said, in your letter …”
“Forget the fucking letter, Kennedy. Jesus, you’re like a desperate child. Do you not understand that nothing is the way it was? I’m not fulfilling school kid promises, or chasing crushes like it’s some freshman year football game! Grow the fuck up, this is the real world. People lie, they disappointment you, and love is a fucking sham! You have no idea what I’m capable of. Or what evils the world holds.”
I’ve said too much, and I stalk away before I betray my secret even more. If I tell her, I’m not sure I could protect her. If anyone ever found out that I slipped up, that I revealed something to her …
Not only that, but the talk of our letters unnerves me. There is a letter in the bundle, one of mine that was never sent. It’s the one that contains too many of my feelings, that betrays too much of how deeply I care about her. In the light of day, I think I can handle this thing between Kennedy and me. That I can live a normal life, overcome my demons, love a person as they should be loved.
But it’s when the darkness sinks in that I know the truth. I’m not a normal person, I never will be again. What happened to me, what I’ve been put through, it chemically alters a part of your soul. I am the thing that goes bump in the night, and Kennedy Dover shouldn’t be shackled to my evil for the rest of her life.
“So tell me! Tell me, Everett! I’m not afraid of the big, bad wolf! Give me your worst!” She’s yelling, holding her arms out as if she wants me to try to attack her.
She wants the truth? She wants the Boogie Man? Fine. I’ll unleash it.
“When I was taken prisoner, I didn’t think there could be anything that would break me. How fucking naïve I was, and you are, too. There was this one guy, particularly specialized in acute, localized pain. Or at least that’s how I thought of him in my head, I never could understand any of those fuckers. That in itself messes with you, no one speaking your language for the be
tter part of a year, it throws you out of your element. Anyways, he used to target one specific area, one you’d never think would hurt. Or, at least you never thought about being hurt in that place. Take the eardrums, for explain. There was this one week he’d pop one of my eardrums every day. Do you know how much that shit hurts? It also steals your balance, so I’d barely be able to stand, or prepare for when they came into my cell to beat me. He’d rip off fingernails, send electroshocks through my nose, one time he used a drill to—”
“Stop it. Stop it!” Kennedy’s voice is a broken thing as she places a hand on my arm.
I flinch. “I told you not to touch me.”
“I’m sorry. It’s just … I understand. I guess I don’t, because how could I? What you went through sounds like hell. But, you lived. You came out on the other side. You must have found something deep within you while they had you that helped you push through.”
It’s at this moment that I realize she still thinks there is a positive that came from my entrapment. That the ending is one of a hero, some brave blockbuster movie finish with redemption and rescue.
That’s why she, and everyone else, will never understand. I didn’t pull myself through with thoughts of home. I didn’t visualize her face, or strengthen my mind with fantasies of a normal life.
There is just a point, after you cross into a certain pain threshold, after every hope and flicker of positivity is stolen from you, that you just go numb. My body was on autopilot after a time, not allowing me to live but not allowing me to die either. I’m not back here because I want to be, because I saved my own life by perseverance.
If it was all the same to me, I’d rather they offed me in that goddamn filthy bunker. It would be better than living like this. There are just certain people, after they experience the level of trauma I have, who should be put out of their misery. Like a sick dog, someone should just put us down.
And then Kennedy says the last words I ever expect to hear.
“I know what it’s like to watch someone die.”
21
Kennedy
“I know what it’s like to watch someone die.” My tone is hushed, and Everett’s head snaps up.
His eyes are a hard, flinty clover, as if the green is seeping out of him the more furious he grows. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
When I got off of my night shift, I thought I’d be scurrying to my car in the cold. Not bumping into the next Michael Myers, who happens to be my next door neighbor, shredding his own hero banner.
Before I said anything, I watched Everett go to town on the plastic sign, knifing it with such anger that it stole my breath. His rage, it was palpable through the air, and even though I’m furious at him for what happened at the diner, I couldn’t let him self-destruct like that. Maybe I hadn’t realized, up until this point, just what he’d been through.
Hearing him describe his torture makes me physically ill, and I still feel like I could bend over and empty the contents of my stomach on my shoes.
But I need to tell him this, to tell him that I know a fraction of what he went through.
“Maybe I don’t. I can’t begin to understand what you went through, the horrible things you’ve seen. But I’ve seen horrible things too. I’ve held someone’s hand as they took their last breath. I’ve watched a man struggle through a heart attack, only to lose the battle. I’ve seen a family thrown from their vehicle, all four of them including their children—”
I break off, not able to complete my sentence because of the sob making its way out of my throat.
Everett assesses me, skeptical and guarded but with a shimmer of understanding passing over his face.
Swiping at the tears I can’t keep from falling down my cheeks, I speak directly to him. “The point is, I know what death looks like. I know firsthand how horrible it can be to deal with that. And if you want to talk about what you went through, I’m here. No matter what’s gone on between us, I’m here. But don’t think that just because you did some terrible things for the greater good of your country … don’t think it still doesn’t make you a hero. You dared to do things not a lot of people could stomach. That alone should mean something.”
His eyes change, and it’s the tiniest shift in the energy between us, but I feel it.
I know it’s going to happen before he makes a move. This moment, the one I’ve been imagining and wishing for since I first knew the word crush, it’s about to come true.
Everett steps into me, sweat trickling down his brow, and my heart vibrates so hard in my chest, I think it might just pop out. The kiss at the diner is all but forgotten. This is the moment we were meant to have, the slow, pulse-pounding first touch that the universe fated for us.
His hand comes up to my cheek, and my eyes flutter closed, then open slowly. I want to shut them, but I also want to see his face until the very last second. Those green eyes are full of lust, but also concern and restraint. Is he as afraid as I am?
Inside, I’m freaking out. My heart is going a mile a minute, and the hand that just wrapped itself around the back of Everett’s neck is shaking. I press up on my toes, ready to meet his mouth as it descends to mine.
For the briefest of moments, our lips only touch. That point of contact, the only one I’ll ever remembering existing between me and another human after this, is so right and pure I want to cry. We don’t move, neither of us seeks for more, we just taste and breathe and remain still.
Then Everett breaks, and the floodgates open. His hands dive into my hair, my fingers grip the nape of his neck and pull at the collar of his sweatshirt to bring him as close as possible. Our lips punish each other, working in a rhythm I am sure I’ll never find with anyone else.
When his tongue slips inside my mouth, I groan at the same time a husky growl vibrates from Everett’s throat. We’re alone on the dark town square, this carnal session of kissing for our eyes only. It’s been such a long time coming, that neither of us seem to be able to control ourselves. We’re trying for too much, too fast, but then again, how else was this supposed to go?
“Perfect. You are perfect.” He breathes onto my lips.
It’s only a split second that Everett pulls back, but in no time, we’re seeking each other out, our mouths clawing to get back to one another.
And as we continue this torrid make-out session, born of passion and anger and fate, I know it for a fact now.
Everett Brock has ruined me for any other man.
If he doesn’t want me after this, I’m not sure how I’ll survive.
22
Kennedy
“Did he text you yet?”
The question Bianca has been asking me every morning at our breakfast table in the cafeteria grates on my nerves.
“Not yet, Bi. When he does, you’ll be the first to know,” I mumble, picking at my chocolate chip muffin but having zero appetite.
Everett kissed me on the street at midnight and hasn’t been in touch since. When I got home that night, I laid awake in bed, wondering if he was doing the same thing while thinking about me. That kiss, it’s the one I’ve been waiting for my entire life. I thought once it happened, once we finally reached that point, that all the other issues would work themselves out.
Clearly, since it’s been exactly a week since Everett has spoken to me or even bothered coming around, that’s not the case.
“He’s an asshole. I can’t believe it. No, actually I can. Everett Brock has always had that fuckboy vibe to him.” Rachel nods at her own opinion.
I shrug, not wanting to talk about this at all. Not only do I have a huge trigonometry test today, but I have my college acceptances to worry about for the next five months, so I have plenty to stress about.
“Do you want to go to Everdeen this weekend?” Bianca changes the subject.
Rach claps her hands. “Oh my God, yes! Graden texted Scott the other day and they’re throwing this huge rager at their house off campus.”
Everdeen is the universi
ty about an hour from Brentwick, and it’s one that a lot of the students from our high school attend. Some would call it Brentwick 2.0, but I just call it too close to home. I didn’t even apply, because I know there would be too many familiar faces. I want a challenge, somewhere that I can forge my own path and meet new types of people.
Rach and Bi, and the group of our friends that often accompany on weekend adventures, always want to go to Everdeen. It’s a guaranteed party, with guaranteed alcohol, and is just far enough out of parent supervision that there is little risk of punishment. I’ve gone a couple times, and it’s always fun. But, I’m just not into it this week.
“Count me out. I just don’t feel up to it right now, girls, I’m sorry.”
I know I’m being a bummer, but it’s all just caught up to me. My best friends exchange a worried look, but they keep their mouths shut.
If only I had an answer, then I wouldn’t feel such turmoil rolling around my gut. I’m stuck in limbo, waiting to see if that perfect kiss was just a one-time thing, or if Everett is ready for the possibility of more between us. I’m pathetic, I know this, but when you wait years for a guy, it’s pretty hard to just cut off all feelings.
Severing the part of me that’s in love with Everett Brock has never worked, no matter how hard I’ve tried. Even when I thought he was gone from this world, my heart ached to be with him. Now that he’s kissed me, that I’ve tasted what it’s like to experience that, it’s going to take a lot of strength to move on from it if he rejects me.
“Hey.” Logan sidles up next to me, his big form taking over the table.
“Hey.” I give him a small smile.
He has no idea what’s been going on with Everett, though he has been texting me to ask if I’m planning to go here or there during the weekend, and how my days have been. I know that Logan is trying to start something, and he’s a nice guy, but as has already been demonstrated, I don’t feel an ounce for him what I do for Everett.
Hometown Heartless Page 11
