“Really?”
“Yeah, you guys go to the house where the sick kids’ families stay.”
“Right. Yes. I’m actually pre-med, and I started going there after I shadowed one of the doctors.”
“Is it okay?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, being around sick kids. Is it okay? Do you freak out or anything?”
“Not really.”
“It’s just… I used to be in the hospital. Like, I was really sick. And I don’t… I just don’t know. If I could.”
“I know you were,” I said, but then fell silent. I had no clue what to say next.
She let her head fall back on the chair. “He must really fucking like you. He doesn’t tell most people about that whole thing. Whatever. I’m asking because I have to do community service. I got sentenced to it the last time I fucked up at school. Hawk’s pissed because I didn’t tell him till last night, but I didn’t want to bother him, you know? He’s so fucking busy with the bar all the time.”
I just nodded.
“Anyway, do you go there a lot? Because maybe I could like…I don’t know. It’s hard to get a volunteer gig unless you know someone. You’d think a kid could just volunteer, but there are applications, interviews. Background checks.”
I pushed my eyebrows up and nodded. “Yeah, I’ve been going a few afternoons a week. Give me your number, and I’ll text you next time I’m going. Can you find your way there?”
Olivia snorted and nodded. “I think so.” She rattled off her number, and I quickly put it in my phone. This was kind of thrilling, I realized — some way I could take some of the burden of Olivia off of Hawk’s hands.
Just then, the door to the bathroom pulled open, and Hawk came out in sweats with no shirt, rubbing at his hair with a huge towel. As stressed as I was about the conversation I knew we were about to have, it was all I could do to keep from drooling. And seeing those tattoos reminded me of all the times I’d licked them top to bottom and made him groan or the times we’d been so athletic in bed that they’d glistened with sweat.
“Christ, Hawk, you could put some clothes on. We have company.”
Hawk sucked in a breath and froze where he stood. “We — oh shit. Olivia, could you give us a minute?”
“And hang out in your nasty guy bedroom? No. Joey and I are friends now anyway.”
Hawk shot me a look that was a mix of surprise and apology.
I laughed. “It’s true.”
Olivia leaned back in her chair threading her fingers together, a look of satisfaction on her face.
I turned to Hawk. “I tried to call. Did your phone die again?”
“Yeah. Just the battery.”
“And you couldn’t plug it in?”
Hawk’s eyes flashed, and I knew it had been the wrong question at the wrong time. The room filled with silence.
Olivia eyed the both of us warily. “I’m gonna go outside for a cigarette.”
Hawk’s mouth tightened into a thin line.
She sighed heavily. “Just tobacco, okay? I swear. No trouble.”
Hawk blew out a breath as she banged out the door. “She used to be such a good kid.” There he went, rubbing the back of his neck again. “Anyway. What are you doing here?”
“You ask that like I haven’t practically lived here for the past few weeks.”
Hawk threw a hand up in the air. “It was my sister. I’ve been dealing with her by myself since my Dad died. There’s no reason to involve you in that mess. Last night was rough. She was here in the apartment screaming and throwing shit and locking herself in my bedroom and it was just…not okay.”
I shook my head. “I can handle it, Hawk. I want to be with you. I want to help.”
Hawk snorted. “No, you don’t. I don’t think you can help with this. And honestly, I don’t know if I want you to.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“I mean, we all know that you have your problems, and they are about too much homework and too much to drink. And my problems are the real, grown-up kind. I don’t want to disturb your college drama.”
It was a damn low blow, and normally I would have said goodbye right then and there. But I knew Hawk, knew how he was with his sister. I could have guessed it was coming, and I knew he didn’t really mean it.
That didn’t mean I was letting him completely off the hook. “Well, I guess that’s your problem. Because lately, my ‘college drama,’ as you put it, has pretty much revolved around you.”
Hawk swallowed and stared at his feet. He knew. He had to know just how much I cared. In a gentler voice, I added, “Besides, you could have come over to my place, Hawk. You could have at least called.” My voice dropped. “I was worried. You know?”
Hawk rolled his eyes, and my stomach soured. “I didn’t want to leave her alone. And honestly, I didn’t know what to say. I feel like shit about what I said, but that was fucking weird.”
“What was weird?”
“I don’t know. The whole thing. I didn’t belong there, at that party. In that world of yours. I just don’t fit.”
He wouldn’t make eye contact, wouldn’t even look at me. His expression remained stone-dead. It was the look of someone who didn’t give a shit about the person he was talking to.
I swallowed a lump in my throat. “What do you mean? What are you saying?”
He rolled his eyes, like he was telling my stupidity to fuck off. “I don’t know. I felt like I had to dress up just to play your boyfriend. And when they asked about my major, and the way you said I wasn’t taking more than a couple classes ‘right now’… Joey, you know I’m never going to be taking more than a couple classes, right? I am who I am. I’m not going to change.”
I shook my head, confused. “How are you ever going to graduate?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I won’t.”
I felt like there was a glitch in my brain. “Okay, but then why are you even taking classes at all?” I fought the icky, judgmental feeling deep inside me that said I might never have started dating him if I’d known he didn’t plan to be a college graduate.
“Keep your voice down, okay? I don’t want to piss her off even more.”
I shook my head like I’d been slapped. It certainly felt like I had. “Explain to me exactly what about that would piss your sister off. And why you care so much more about her being pissed off than you care about me being pissed off.”
“Listen, Joey. I told you I have baggage. You barely know me, and now is not the best time to explain it to you. Okay?”
I thought we were way past explanations. I suddenly had trouble getting air into my lungs. “No, Hawk. It’s fucking not okay. We have been together for almost two months, and I thought we’d told each other the important things. And we’ve done…what we’ve done…and I’m really tired of ignoring shit that I don’t want to ignore anymore.”
His voice went cold. “Exactly what shit are you talking about?”
“Well, let’s start with how you can turn this relationship on and off without blinking. Like how you were perfectly happy to ditch me at date party last night.”
“You knew there was no way you were riding home with me on the motorbike with as much as you were drinking, didn’t you?” There was a vicious bite to his voice that, honestly, scared me a little.
Oh, shit. I had gone on sorority-Joey, date-planning autopilot and not even given a thought about having to get on his bike. Hadn’t even crossed my mind.
Obviously.
“You forgot I drive a bike, didn’t you?”
“I didn’t think… We could have taken a cab,” I said in a low, choked voice.
“I bought a tie, so I came on the bike. I’m broke, remember?”
Anger surged through me. I shouldn’t have felt bad about drinking. I’d just wanted to have one fun night out, like normal college students. Couldn’t he take one night off from his stupid bike?
“God, why do you insist on driving a fr
ickin’ motorbike, Hawk? It’s Philly. It’s freezing half the year and raining the rest. Your bike is totally impractical.”
He clenched his fists at his side, a muscle jumping in his jaw. “I drive the goddamn bike because my dad died in a car crash. And I don’t feel safe in a car. When I’m on the bike, it’s just me and the road. I can make split-second decisions. The bike doesn’t control me — I control the bike. I like it that way.”
“Yeah, you like to control everything, don’t you? In fact, you’ve been controlling me since that day in class when you took over the project. And ever since then, deciding what to tell me and when to tell it. Dammit, Hawk. You’re not in charge of everything.”
Hawk scoffed. “And you’re not controlling, Miss I-Have-to-Go-to-Med-School-or-the-World-Will-Explode-and-My-Whole-Life-Revolves-Around-Fucking-Orgo’?’ You’re just as fucking messed up as I am, but at least I admit it. You can’t even tell yourself the truth. That fucking major is killing you, and you don’t even see it. How am I supposed to trust you to help me with my own shit when you can’t deal with yours?”
His words were like a punch in the gut. I thought I was the only one who knew how much my coursework was killing me, how out of control I felt. But I wasn’t about to lose the argument now.
“Look at that — you’re trying to control me again. Shocker. Tell me this, Hawk. What would you know about being stressed out at school? You can’t bother to show up half the time, and you certainly haven’t even thought about picking a major yet.”
His eyes flashed dangerously. “My school record has nothing to do with this. Or maybe it does. Maybe you’re pissed off because school isn’t killing me like it is you. You have some stupid idea that says you can only be happy if you’re studying till you die and never have a life. Have you ever even taken a second to ask yourself what you really want? It’s all about what your mom wants or what all your friends are doing.”
Tears welled up in my eyes, and I could barely get the words out. “What my dad wants. This is what my dad wanted.”
My whisper made Hawk pause and stare at me, confusion written across his face.
I couldn’t look at him, couldn’t do anything but force the words out, each one getting louder and louder. “When Dad died, I promised him I’d be a doctor. So the fact that I can’t fucking pass Orgo II means that I’m not just failing myself and my own stupid idea of what success means. I’m failing him. And he’s dead, and there’s no other way I can make him proud.” I was shouting now, but I really couldn’t stop. “So don’t you fucking say I’m being selfish, Hawk. Because that’s what I promised I would do. It is the fucking opposite of selfish.”
I burst into tears, burying my face in my hands and full-on weeping right there on his couch.
I felt the cushion next to me indent as he sat down next to me. There was a pause before he lightly touched my back, then let his hand drop. “I’m sorry, Joey. But I know your dad must have been a good guy, and I don’t think he would have wanted to see you miserable. That’s all I was saying.”
Slowly, I took my head out of my hands, sat up straight. The rage was building in my center, waiting to burst out like a volcano. I’d kept all this shit about dad inside. The need to make him happy and proud. To be a daughter who would fight the monster that took his life.
And all I could hear was Hawk dismissing that out of hand.
I smacked him across the face so hard he put his palm to his cheek and grunted. Then I growled, “Don’t you ever speak about what my father wanted again. You didn’t know him, and you barely know me. And just because you had a fucked-up relationship with your father doesn’t mean you can run around fucking up everyone else’s.”
Hawk’s eyes flared wide, and then he blinked hard. “Yeah, that’s all I’ve been doing, isn’t it? Fucking up your life. Just like you said in that note.”
My entire body froze while Hawk leaned forward, the tattoos on his shoulder stretching, and rolled open the drawer on the coffee table. He fished out that same piece of mangled notebook paper I’d shoved in his mailbox all those weeks ago. Even though it was a mess when I’d written it, the paper looked much more worn now, like it had been carried around, read over and over again.
My mind raced, wondering how he’d gotten it, until I remembered — I’d shoved it in my pocket, then dropped those pants on the floor of Hawk’s room and never seen the note again. Dammit.
“Do I need to read it to you?”
“No,” I said quietly. “Hawk, you have to understand. That day, I thought — ”
“No, you assumed. From day one, you assumed that since I ride a motorbike and have a fucking tattoo and was late to class that I was a loser who didn’t care about school. Didn’t you?”
“I — ”
“Didn’t you?” he roared, and if he hadn’t been screaming in my face, I would swear I heard a twist of anguish to his voice that told me he was about to break down, too.
“I stole your keys. I shoved it in your mailbox, and then I stole your keys to get it back out. I realized I didn’t mean it as soon as I put it in your mailbox, I swear.”
Hawk stood up and walked three paces toward the door, facing away from me. “As soon as I rolled up and explained, you mean. How long am I going to have to keep justifying my choices to you, Joey? Especially when I’ve never made you justify yours?”
I stood up and stalked over to him, but he still refused to turn and face me. I didn’t care. I screamed anyway. “What the hell is that supposed to mean? Name one questionable choice of mine that you have a problem with.”
He finally whirled around to stare me down. “I have a problem with you being so goddamn stubborn about pre-med when it’s clearly killing you. I don’t want you to be a victim of your dad’s decisions ten years ago any more than I want the same for myself.”
“I don’t think you can call my dad wanting me to save people victimizing.”
“Only if it forces you to go through med school when you obviously hate it. You know it and I know it, Joey.”
“Yeah, well, that frickin’ bar is forcing you out of any hope for a real future, isn’t it? You can’t see past getting the dishes done and maybe a new stage in the corner. Yeah. That’s gonna be huge.”
“At least I know I can get the job done. You may not respect it, but I’m doing the job well every day, Joey. Can you say the same about being a doctor?” He practically spat the words at my feet, ripping my soul out in the process.
We locked eyes, our storms of rage growing stronger and stronger. I’d argued with Hawk before, of course, but this felt like the end. Like we’d broken something beyond fixing.
He must have felt the same thing because he walked the two remaining steps to the door and just stood there with it open, his hand on the knob. Waiting for me to leave. Controlling me again.
I’d lost the upper hand. I’d lost any hand and was just grappling at the slippery walls of this relationship, trying to regain any footing I’d once felt I had. So I whispered, “I will see you next Thursday for our presentation. And after that, I don’t ever want to see you again.”
And in that moment, with the heat and the betrayal of Hawk’s words burning through me like a raging, destroying fire, I meant every single word. I didn’t even care enough about our Business project to spend one more second with him.
Goddammit. There went my fucking grade.
As I half-ran, half-tripped down the rickety stairs leading out of the building, I shook my head. I could never, ever think about Hawk and I being together again. Especially when, in the back of my mind, I knew that I’d had fleeting thoughts of us being together forever.
The bus wouldn’t come for over forty-five minutes, and I couldn’t just stand outside Hawk’s building like an idiot. I knew it was eleven blocks back to the Kappa Delta house, and the air had a disgusting wet chill to it. But I still carried that fire of anger inside me, and maybe a walk was exactly what I needed.
I kept my head down and stalked throug
h the Philadelphia streets, feeling broken and driven all at the same time. But a weird thing happened as I passed block after block. With each step, I became less and less sure of how right I really was. Then I berated myself for folding so soon. Then I knew I was right again. By the time I was two blocks from the house, I really couldn’t have replayed the whole argument again if I’d tried. And by the time I walked up the front steps, I just felt drained and sad. Miserable, actually.
Cat was still there, fussing around my room. When I walked in, her back was turned to me, and she was bent over my bed, yanking off the sheets.
“You didn’t puke on them or anything, but they smell like Jack Daniels. She grunted as she freed the far corner of the sheet from the mattress. “So you guys kiss and make up?”
“No,” I sniffed. “We fought even more.”
Cat spun around to look at me. “Holy shit. You look like hell.”
“No kidding. And the damn headache is back.”
“Oh, babe. What did he say?”
“He said I shouldn’t be pre-med. That I couldn’t hack it. And then he said I never really respected what he was doing.” The hurt of those words mixed with the anger on Hawk’s face would give me nightmares for a long time.
She plopped down on the clean sheets with a sigh. “Okay, but he’s right about that second thing. Isn’t he?”
I stared at Cat, confused. “Of course he’s not right. What are you talking about?”
“You wouldn’t have dated him — wouldn’t have even kissed him — if he hadn’t been in college.”
I couldn’t imagine seeing Hawk and not wanting to kiss him. “Yes, I would’ve.”
Cat laughed. “No. No way. You told me once you would never date a guy who hadn’t gone to college or grad school because that would mean he didn’t care about his future.”
A sense of dread settled over the conversation, and a pit formed in my stomach. She was right about that. I definitely had said those things. “Okay, but Hawk does care about his future.”
Cat wagged her finger. “That’s the new Joey talking. The one who loves Hawk. But old Joey wouldn’t have felt that way. Old Joey wouldn’t have given our boy Hawk a second look. Didn’t give him a second look, actually. I remember what you said about him when you first met, and you thought he was a total loser. I’m kind of shocked you let yourself get close to the guy. I’m even more shocked you eased up on the studying enough to date him.”
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