AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“It’s been two weeks, bro. We’re all a bit tired of hearing about it.” He pulls out the joint that was placed behind his ear and puts it between his lips. “Let’s go outside,” he kindly suggests.
Luke Baker is one of the gentlest souls that inhabits this planet.
His soul is kind and caring. He means no harm, ever. He is a great listener, and he likes making people feel better, helping them out. He truly is my best friend, always cracking a joke when everyone is down. He’s got his flaws, like everyone. Mainly, he can’t keep a relationship going for more than a week or so. People call him fuckboy-Luke, but in reality, he never promises anything to any of them. He tries his shot, scores, and happens to not fall in love. I wonder if he loves Emily. He’s never been with a girl for this long.
He’s not a fuckboy, he’s just desperately trying to find the one. Unlike me, number one asshole who dated Camila for two years and spent most of them cheating on her with NSF girls. North Shore of the Falls, where the girls are wild and don’t give a shit about Stoneview politics. Maybe that’s where I should be right now to forget about Jamie. Except I won’t, because people expect me to be here. They expect me to give them a wild party, to be Stoneview’s golden boy and smile and be the life of the party.
The guys expect me to play beer pong with them and down solo cups, shouting about how we’re going to destroy everyone in the upcoming lacrosse season now that I’m their captain. And the girls, they expect me to take one or two up to one of Luke’s guest rooms. They probably also expect Chris to join but the fucker is way over this now. Him and his secret girlfriend who’s just too good for us.
But what they don’t understand is I don’t feel anything when I’m around them. All those people who want things from me, they don’t get that I don’t give a shit about them. I play the part well because that’s what it is to have a normal life. That’s the whole point of being with the Murrays. But inside, there’s nothing. Absolute blackhole. I stopped caring for people, stopped differentiating good from bad a long fucking time ago. Bianco made sure of that.
The only time I feel is when I’m around Jamie. The girl made her way through my heart without even trying and now look at me, an idiot in love with a girl who played him. I tried to show her I cared. I agreed to take her on a date, didn’t I? I told her she was mine, I told her I didn’t want to sleep with other girls. What is it she didn’t get? I basically poured my heart out when I asked what she wanted from me. She didn’t take it that way, instead she threw Nate in my face desperately trying to hurt me.
I follow Luke out in the cold. There are way too many people chilling in his backyard for this temperature. Mid-November, fuck off inside.
Ozy is on a rattan egg chair, pretending to listen to her friend Ciara scolding her for ditching her in their physics class today. I’m not even asking my twin where she was. She stank of Sam’s cologne when she showed up here, five minutes before midnight. Right on time to blow out our candles together. I can’t believe she almost missed out on this for the second time.
I recognized his smell because it’s the kind that brings me back to my childhood. The kind that could send me into a panic attack. I’m still trying to understand if she’s doing jobs for him or…more. I’m not sure which one would be worse but she’s not about to tell me anyway. He’s got nothing to blackmail her with anymore, why does she keep going back?
“Jake!” some girl shouts after us.
I turn around slightly – showing I’m not actually stopping for a conversation but still hearing her out – and recognize one of Ella’s best friends. Anna? Anita?
“Hey, I don’t know if you remember me, I’m Ania, Ella’s friend. Um, so she kind of ditched me and I was wondering what you’re doing now? Like, do you want to hang out or something?”
The girl is a hot mess. A mix of alcohol-induced braveness and intimidation when she realizes she took the bold step to come and talk to me.
“Where’s Ella?” Luke cuts off before I can answer anything.
Ania’s eyes widen. “She’s…uh…she went…to…the bathroom?” She says the whole sentence with her eyes on her solo cup.
Her hands are perfectly manicured and the jewelry on her wrists adorned with diamonds. I take my eyes from her hands to look at the rest of her. She’s cute, small with great curves. Her black dress fits her flawlessly, her hair is a perfect blond that’s been worked on by an expensive hairdresser. She is typical Stoneview. Perfect on the outside – polished to the point that she could be the cover of a magazine right now – and no doubt as empty inside as Camila is. Beautiful shells they are, the girls who grew up in Stoneview.
Except Jamie.
“You’re at a party full of drunk people and you left my sister on her own? How about you find your drunk friend before you chase after dick?” Luke scolds.
I chortle so loud I can see the girl’s heart breaking through her eyes.
“You should go back, Ania. Nothing for you here,” I conclude. As soon as she’s far enough, I turn to my friend. “Do you want to check on Ella?” I ask. God knows I get the feeling of looking for a sneaky sister.
Luke shakes his head no. “And find my sister doing god knows what with god knows who? No thanks. She always invites Ania to parties just to leave her on her own.”
Luke and I walk around his swimming pool and past the last people hanging around. The Bakers’ grounds go far into the forest. They own a good chunk of it. Stoneview lake is part of the forest they don’t own, it’s not too far from here. The bit they don’t own is where I tried to scare Jamie out of my life. Whereas now I’m pretty desperate to be in hers.
We pass a few trees before we settle in our favorite spot to smoke. As soon as Luke turned eighteen, his wonderful, typical Stoneview parents fucked off to their New York penthouse and left him with Ella and their au pair. Au pair that Luke used to fuck occasionally and now pays double to stay out of the house most of the time. But when we were younger, his dad, Gerald, would be on Luke like a fucking hawk, trying to find the smallest flaw in his behavior and use it as an excuse to belittle him. Because his son couldn’t give Bakers & Son a bad image. That’s why we would go that far into the forest to smoke. We wouldn’t get caught.
I recognized Luke was being abused about a week after meeting him. It wasn’t physical, well sometimes it was but nothing that would show. Mainly, it was emotional. It still is. That’s the thing about emotional abuse, you can do it from New York when your kid is in Stoneview. Smart.
It was obvious Ozy and I were abused when we arrived in Stoneview. We were covered in bruises. The Murrays had to wait three weeks before putting us in school, some were still fading. Anyone who tried to say anything, I shut them up with a fist to the face. Luke helped and we became friends. He was already friends with Chris, it was just meant to be.
It wasn’t that obvious for Luke, but his behavior screamed mistreated. In his mind, he wasn’t good enough, or he’d say he retook eighth grade because he wasn’t smart enough. It was in the way he would apologize for the smallest things and try to change the topic when I’d ask about his parents. He was always happy, that was the main thing. He spent his time trying to make others better when he was broken inside. This is where our closeness grew. This is why I felt comfortable opening up to him about my past.
We both settle against a huge tree trunk, leaning our backs on it. We stand in silence for a minute or so. I know he’s waiting for me to talk, I’m just not sure where to start. He offers me the lit-up joint and I take a few puffs before handing it back.
“Did Emily ever say anything about a boyfriend?” I blurt out.
“Nah, bro. I would have told you.”
