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“Just fuckin’ tell me, Punk.”
I looked down at my first love—bitter, broken, beyond repair—and tried to think of all the ways I would fix him if I could. All the ways Ken had already fixed himself.
“He doesn’t drink,” I blurted.
Knight coughed out a laugh, and for a split second, I swear I saw him smile. It was the first time I’d seen him smile since I could remember. And not a sneer, not a smirk, a real smile.
The kind he only did for me.
“That’s good,” he said, slurring slightly where the T met the S. “He’s way fuckin’ better than me then. What else?”
“Knight, we don’t have to do this.”
“Tell me, Punk. Please. I need to know—” Knight took a deep breath, followed by a sharp, pained one. “I need to know I did something right.”
“Okay,” I whispered, unable to talk around the tightness in my throat. “He’s calm. And quiet. And gentle. He doesn’t ever yell at me or try to scare me.” Knight became blurry as a wall of tears filled my eyes. “And he likes to help. It’s really sweet.” My voice broke as the wall came tumbling down my cheeks. “He just wants to help me with everything.”
I reached up and wiped the tears from my face as Knight tipped his head back and looked up at my window. I couldn’t make out his features in the shadow of the tree, but when he spoke, I could almost taste his tears.
“Then, it was worth it,” he rasped, pushing himself to stand.
As I watched Knight drag himself away from me, like he’d been doing ever since he left for the Marines the first time, I didn’t have the heart to tell him that he was wrong.
It had all been for nothing.
Because that guy I’d told him about, he was just a lie.
