[ - ]
Table of Contents [Report This]
Printer Chapter or Story Microsoft Word Chapter or Story
- Text Size +
Chapter One Hundred-Ten
Point of View: AJ


I felt like a fuck-up. A total and complete fuck-up. What the fuck kind of friend was I? I should've pushed her away. I should've shoved her away. I should've screamed and hollered things at her, things like "What do you think you're doing?" or "What about Nick, you cheating whore?". But in the moment, when someone you've suddenly found yourself attracted to - someone forbidden - comes onto you, in the setting of one of your yet-to-be-had fantasies... It's amazing I didn't give in, didn't rip her clothes off and take her right there on the floor.

I'd run to the parking lot, to my car, to the safety of air-conditioned solitude. I clutched my steering wheel as I drove out of the winding parking lot, my hands shaking, my mind reeling with images and memories and confusion and a reckless mess of adjectives for myself that were all negative.

Driving home, I blasted a screamo rock CD that Nick had burned for me a couple months before, when he'd still been on drugs. He'd called the CD spellbinding and relieving. He must've been on drugs when he listened to it, because it was like a shitload of noise to me, but it was agonized noise, the way most screamo rock is, and it was reflecting what was inside me at that moment.

I had to avoid Kayla from now on, I decided, I just wouldn't see her. It was dangerous, because I wanted her too much. She was Nick's. She belonged with Nick. Nick deserved her. Nick was such a great guy, and he'd been through so much lately, Nick deserved the beautiful, caring woman, who was available to love fully and completely. Nick needed Kayla.

But knowledge that Nick should be the one that got her, and acceptance of that, ability to follow through with that, were two different things. I felt as though I were giving him one of my limbs. My arm or something.

Why the fuck was I so attached to someone I only just met? To something that was never really mine?

I pulled into my driveway and saw a car I didn't recognize parked out front. I stopped and got out of my own car and saw someone sitting on my front steps. As I strode closer, they looked up, and I recognized her. I stopped walking, surprised to see her there.

"I saw his house," she said, her eyes brilliant blue like his. She got up and rushed towards me, "Is he okay?"

Leslie Carter has always looked like the female version of Nick. They have the same eyes, the same nose, the same baby-cheeks. Her eyes now were just as scared and wild as Nick's had been the night of the fire, when he told me Zoe was in the ambulance. She flung her arms around me.

I felt like I had betrayed her as well as Nick by not pushing Kayla away, and her hug made me feel guiltier than I already had been. Behind my sunglasses, my eyes were about to leak.

I'm a fucking horrible friend, I thought.

Leslie's cheek rested against my chest and I rubbed her back.

"I've been a bad sister," she whispered, "I haven't been there for him. None of us have..."

I couldn't argue with her.

"Has Mom called?" she asked.

I shook my head, "Not that I'm aware of. But if she had, she probably called Brian anyway. Most people call Brian. Brian's ... Brian's Nick's best friend. Brian would never betray him."

Leslie nodded, "Brian's a good man."

Brian's a better man.

"Are you, uh, hungry or something?" I asked, nodding toward my door.

Leslie nodded, "I flew from Toronto and pretty much haven't sat still for ten minutes since. You need to fill me in on everything. I wanna be here for Nick for once instead of him always just being there for me."



Standing in the bathroom that evening, I watched my face as I brushed my teeth. The lines around my eyes were exaggerated because I was fucking exhausted. Sleeping on the floor of a hospital will do a number to you. I had dark rings around my eyes, like a fucking raccoon.

I rubbed my forehead.

I wondered where Kayla was, if she was feeling as shitty as I was, if she was regretting kissing me as much as I was regretting allowing her to kiss me.

My cell phone rang in my pocket, and I knew it was Brian because The Almost's Amazing Because It Is was playing the chorus of Amazing Grace. I pulled it out and flipped the phone open. "Sup?" I asked, spitting out my toothpaste.

"AJ, some stuff went on today..." Brian began.

My stomach turned. He knows, I thought.

"AJ, Nick's okay," he said, "He was shot."

"Shot?" I felt like I'd been punched. I dropped the phone and sat down on the bathroom carpet, numb.

"Three times, in the back..." Brian was still talking, still telling me about what happened.

I closed my eyes.

Nick was going through fucking hell. Worse than hell. Hell would be a vacation for this guy.

I should've shoved Kayla into next fucking Tuesday for trying to cheat on Nick with me.