Page 58 of Waste of Worth

She liked to drive fast, and had the speeding tickets to prove it, though her father almost always laughed them off. Nobody thought twice about the accident—no one ever thought she’d have made that turn if only …

If only she hadn’t been just something to Dino.

And that’s why he found himself there … bleeding and unable to call out, to even beg for help. That’s why his clothes were soaked in sweat and blood, and the bottom of his pants were stained with mud and vomit.

In that basement of a worn-down house Ben DeLuca grew up in, Dino could live, die, or learn.

Learn that he didn’t get to choose.

Learn that he couldn’t take what wasn’t given.

Learn that he was still weak.

“Dino!”

She died on a turnpike, going fifteen over the speed limit because her breaks had been cut, while he learned from his mistake.

She’d been the mistake.

Him caring for her had been the mistake.

Dino never got to apologize.

At least not to her.

At her funeral, he’d stood back from the mourners, separated from the crowd because he didn’t belong with them.

Ben had been right at his side the whole time.

“Look at what your selfishness caused, Dino,” his uncle had said. “Look at the heartbreak they feel because of you.”

“I’m sorry,” he’d managed to mumble.

He’d said it only because that’s what Ben had wanted.

More so, he’d said it because he knew Ben was right.

“Dino!”

Finally—finally—he saw a blackness begin to saturate the edges of the memory, promising to take it away soon and drag him back from the hell he lived in every time he closed his eyes. There was always a small part of him that held onto the memories, like a punishment of sort, because he absolutely believed that he deserved to live inside them forever.

It was his life, after all.

He should own it.

“Jesus, Dino!”

It was only the frantic panic in Karen’s voice that made his eyes peel open to see the darkness of the bedroom staring back at him. His heart beat hard in his chest, sending heat and fear spinning through his bloodstream.

But he was awake.

Dino took a breath, and then another.

He blinked up at the ceiling as Karen leaned over him to turn the bedside lamp on, illuminating her worried face looking down at him.

“You feel like you’re made of rocks,” she muttered.

Her hand slid up his shaking arm, then down to his clenched fist, and skipped over the tautness of his stomach, and more carefully up to his chest. She rubbed the hardness settling in his muscles, as if willing the stress and pain away with her movements. It helped a bit, but not entirely.