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Now that we’re not around the rest of them, I can talk more about what I feel and what I’m thinking. I’ll open up to Chaz—he’s not a threat. I don’t talk with the others around. They worship me and love the reputation they get by being in my inner circle. They just hang out with me for what I’ll do for their image.
The more I think about this shit, the more pissed off I get. I’ve been living a lie.
“I don’t know,” I say.
“I think you do,” Chaz says.
I glare at him, but he doesn’t waver. He’s not as scared of me as everyone else.
“It’s that girl, isn’t it?” he asks when I don’t say anything.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Quit being such a hard ass, man,” Chaz says. “You’re so full of shit.”
“What the hell did you just say to me?” I ask. I grab him by his shirt and get right up in his face.
Chaz doesn’t flinch. “You can’t use your fists to fuck up your emotions, bro.” His voice is too calm for the situation he’s in. Maybe he knows I’ll never fuck him up. He’s like my brother, the only person I would really call family. “Beating me up isn’t going to change what you feel.”
I sigh and let go of him, shoving him away from me.
“You make me fucking livid, you know that?” I ask.
Chaz chuckles. “Yeah, I know. What’s with her? I’ve seen a lot of women pissed off at you, but you never care. You never look like you’ve been gutted.”
I don’t answer him. We walk all the way across campus together, enter the dorm, and climb the flights of stairs to my floor. When we’re in my room and I shut my door, I finally speak.
“I fucking love her, man.”
Chaz raises his eyebrows.
“Hard to believe I’m capable of love, I know,” I sneer.
“Don’t be a dick,” Chaz claps back. Jesus, he’s not going to take any shit from me today. “It’s hard to believe a girl is different enough for you to be interested; that’s what surprises me.”
I don’t know what to say to that. I turn to my bar and reach for the bourbon, but I pause before I pour myself a glass. I always turn to alcohol. I drown my feelings, and those that seem to slip through, I punch away. That’s how I do shit.
But Raina’s face flashes before me. Her father was an alcoholic, and he beat her when he drank. If I’m drunk…what will she see when she looks at me?
The thought that she might compare me to her father makes my blood curdle, and I set the bottle of liquor down again.
“Talk to me, man,” Chaz says. “Why is she pissed at you?”
“You know that asshole I was watching in the pub that night?” I ask.
We’d gone to a scummy hole in the ground pub, the Fifth that night, because I was looking for someone.
“Yeah?”
“That’s her father.”
“Okay?”
“He beat her since she was a kid. When she was with me one day, he came in and blackmailed her, demanding money. She couldn’t get away from him, so I fixed it.”
Chaz narrows his eyes. “What do you mean, you fixed it?”
“He won’t beat her again,” I say hotly.
