Page 51 of Let the Light Shine Through

I blow out the candle, then lie down beside her, so I’m facing her. Her closed eyelids twitch, but she doesn’t stir otherwise. With my head on my bicep, I press my lips to her forehead, tucking my arm around her back and drawing her to me until her front’s flush against mine.

Her sleepy voice breathes the word, “One,” making a grin stretch my lips.

One. One moment to be in. One life to live in. One kiss to make Gia believe in.

Here we fucking go.

Gia

The box on my passenger seat stares back at me accusingly.

“I know,” I groan aloud for the fifty-eighth time today as I rethink this whole plan. Again. Roz invited me over to celebrate the Fourth of July at his place. His roommates are throwing a party, even though everyone will eventually be leaving to watch the fireworks at the town square. Everyone, but us.

After a week straight of hanging out together, you’d think he’d be sick of me, or vice versa really, but nope. The guy follows me around like a lost puppy, and stupid me, I keep giving him belly rubs. Not literally though. Ever since our “date” at the pizzeria, we haven’t pushed those limits—unfortunately. Not even when I woke up to him draped across me like a poncho in a snowstorm. He takes his cuddling very seriously, that guy. I just need to figure out how to get him to snuggle without clothes now, then it’d be easier to stop with all this chummy shit because we’ve already established Roz and I can’t be friends. Besides, I have Rowdy for that. And like a dozen other dirtbags I call friends. Once I screw Roz out of my system and wipe that final kiss off my debt, then I’ll be free to move on already.

That’s what I tell myself as I grab the box and hop out of my truck.

That’s what I’ve been telling myself all along and it still hasn’t stuck.

As I’m walking up, Roz dives for the volleyball, his interlocked fists bumping the ball before it can hit the ground and sending it high enough for one of his teammates to spike over to the other team. It’s a far cry from the Roz I first stumbled across. Months ago, he was adrift in a sea of loneliness. Even when he was among people, he wasn’t engaged, not like this. He’s participating now. He’s living again. He’s stunning.

This right here…this is exactly why I haven’t sent Roz packing yet. This is what I’ve been waiting to see for myself. All week Roz has been…this. This mesmerizing model of rebellion. Of resilience. He’s played, he’s laughed, joked, talked. He’s gotten up and gotten out. He’s taken me for more “dates” than I’ve ever been on and will probably ever go on in my lifetime. And he never stops feeding me. Every time I see him, he’s holding food for me. I take it, but only on the condition that he has to help me eat it. He’s already put some weight back on and it’s only been a week. Roz is on his way to being healthy again, which is more important than being happy because happiness can always be rediscovered. Health isn’t so easy to restore though. Happiness can be manufactured again and again, pulled out of thin air, slipped on as easily as a Halloween mask. But health…health can fade without so much as a single warning. Sometimes when it’s gone, it really is gone. Forever.

I didn’t want that for Roz. I don’t want that for Roz. He’s different. He treats me different than most people do. He treats me…like me.

Someone slaps the volleyball into the net, forcing a timeout to fix the lights the previous fraternity had to string the net with after a gnarly wind storm ripped out chunks of the netting. With the sun just starting to sink below the horizon, the lights are lit up, but several bulbs are burned out from being hit by idiots with shit aim. Or drunks. Probably drunks. The guys that lived here before might’ve been Greek by choice, but they were Irish by blood and outdrank everybody on Greek Sac.

Once upon a time, this house was my hangout every weekend. And weekdays. I was here so much, I could’ve pledged the frat myself. I used to get trashed out of my mind before passing out wherever my body fell for the night. Or day. That was the summer my mom got diagnosed and all I wanted was to disappear before she could. The idea of losing her nearly crippled me, but the fact that it could’ve possibly been prevented pissed me off and I made a lot of bad decisions with a lot of bad people, T.J. being one of them. I wanted to smother the anger that stemmed from my pain with anything I could get my hands on. But the pain I felt, the regret I had to chew on like a fatty piece of meat, after I came out of the fog I’d willingly trapped myself in, was so much worse. I’ll never get that summer back and it kills me. Still. That entire time in my life makes me sick actually and this house holds a lot of memories I wish I could forget. Except Roz’s room since it was the president’s, and he didn’t let anybody inside it. I think anyway. If I did end up in there, I don’t remember it.

I was stupid then. Way stupider than I am now.

When my mom’s cancer metastasized to her lungs, reality woke me the fuck up and I came to my senses in time to spend what ended up being the last year of my mother’s life right by her side. I gave up everything, even school. To this day, she remains my favorite person and I don’t regret a single thing I sacrificed for that time I got with her. I still find myself wishing my collection of memories with her was bigger, but then I remind myself that quality really is better than quantity.

My eyes fall down Roz’s firm back as he runs a hand through his hair absentmindedly, chatting up someone beside him. He still hasn’t seen me and I kinda like it—watching him, but from afar, like a fly on the wall. Or a bird in the sky.

I should leave.

Roz is on the mend. He doesn’t need me anymore. He doesn’t need me at all.

Starting to turn, I notice a platinum blonde with a pixie-cut high-five Roz and I freeze. Good. This is good. Great even.

But as she leans into him and he stares down at her like the rest of us don’t exist, it doesn’t feel so great. Not like I thought it would. Not like I hoped it would. I’m actually…I don’t know how to describe it. It doesn’t make any sense, what I’m feeling. She’s wearing a floral Brazilian bikini and she’s wearing it so well that if I didn’t want to rip her arm from her body, I’d probably be drinking that shit in myself. Everybody else is. Especially Fletcher, who’s practically drooling down the front of his hot-pink muscle shirt. To be clear, he has no muscles, but that’s the only way to describe his shirt that says Sun’s Out, Buns Out with no real sides whatsoever as it’s held together with a thin strip of material at the bottom. On the opposite team as Roz, he’s supposed to be serving right now, but he’s so busy gawking at Pixie, he’s holding up the game.

Roz’s roommate, Johnny, calls out to me, blowing my cover wide open as Roz’s gaze snaps to mine. Damn. Those eyes. Those golden eyes. When they’re open, really open, they’re like a portal to everything I wish I could have. He’s everything I wish I could have.

At least I have him for a little while. For tonight. Quality over quantity.

“What up, Johnny?” I say when I pass, tapping Roz’s roommate’s outstretched knuckles with the box in my hold. It’s a little sloppy, but he’s double fisting a couple of spiked ciders, so he’s not in a position to judge anyone. He’s also the one I got that bottle of wine from the last time I was here.

I nod in greeting to a couple of others on my way cutting through the messy formation of Roz’s teammates.

“G, I’m surprised you’re back. Didn’t think we’d be seeing you again,” Fletcher says from the other side of the net and I don’t miss his meaning. I fucking know, I want to yell for the fifty-ninth time.

Instead I say, “Don’t worry, Fletch. You won’t after you wake up tomorrow.” And I know he catches my drift just as easily.

So does Roz because his entire demeanor changes just before I shove the box into his chest.

I lock my eyes on Pixie’s so I can’t see the hurt in Roz’s. I’ve been upfront with him from day one.