Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 83394 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 417(@200wpm)___ 334(@250wpm)___ 278(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83394 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 417(@200wpm)___ 334(@250wpm)___ 278(@300wpm)
Gage made me wish for the latter. As much as I tried to deny it, I would always want to stay with him.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Gage
It was the best day I’d had since I was a teenager, since we would steal moments or hours together, being happy. But as the day went on, I could sense a shift in Joey. He started to get more restless, more agitated. It was his birthday, the day all the shit had gone down, the day I’d killed his father. How could he not be upset? Regardless of what his father had done, I’d killed him.
He kept looking at his phone. I knew he had to leave soon. He’d said he had to be home around eight, but when it came and went, he didn’t go.
By half after, he couldn’t sit still, pacing and running a hand through his hair, and it hit me what he was doing. Bile burned like acid through my esophagus. I wanted to grab him, hold him, kiss him, take him, never let him go, but I couldn’t do that. I didn’t have the right. We’d decided we would be friends, and after all we went through, how could it ever be anything more than that again?
How could he ever trust me like that again?
“It’s okay, ya know?” He had every right to go out with another man.
Jojo stopped pacing, turned and looked at me with his lips set into a frown. It twisted around me, familiar. God, how many times had he frowned at me like that? Confused and trying to work through something. “What’s okay?” he finally asked.
I looked down at the table where I was sitting, traced lines along it with the tip of my finger. “Remember that guy Mike, when we all went out? I don’t know why it didn’t hit me until that night, but it was a sucker punch straight to the chest. I think…I think I just always thought of you as mine, and then this guy was there, someone who could take you away from me.”
“Yeah, well, lucky you only had to deal with that once. Every time you went out with a girl or hooked up with a girl, I had to live that pain. It killed me, Gage. Every damn time, even before Katie, when you didn’t do things like go to dances with them. It always felt like someone was taking out more and more of my insides until eventually there wouldn’t be any left.”
There was an edge to his voice, sharp as a knife. It spurred my own burst of anger, probably more because of what I was trying to tell him and knowing he would never be mine again.
“You think I don’t fucking know that? Believe me, I got it after that night. And maybe it’s wrong or unfair, but I can’t change the past. None of it. We can’t change a damn thing that happened.”
“Shit,” he cursed, dropping his head back. “I don’t want to fight with you. We never used to fight.”
“We were dumb kids.” We’d thought we had so much ahead of us, that it would all be so easy. We never expected any of the things that happened, the darkness that had taken over those two boys we’d been, who just wanted to love each other. “I don’t want to fight with you either. All I was trying to say is, you can go. If you’re meeting up with a guy or whatever, I know I don’t have a say in that anymore. We’re friends and—”
An almost manic laugh cut me off. It was so loud, so wrong, it startled me. I didn’t believe it could have been him at first.
“You think I need to leave so I can, what? Go get a birthday lay? I’m not going to pretend I’ve never fucked on this day, but if I did, it was rough and dirty, in some alley or the back of a club.”
I stumbled backward at that, unsure when I’d even stood up.
“I’m not going to have sex, Gage. I’m going to fight.”
Memories of the bruises, the injuries he’d had the second time I’d seen him, banged around inside my head to the beat of Mouse’s words telling me what he did. “Fuck that,” I spit out. “You’re not doing that. I don’t care what I have to do to keep you here, Jojo. I’m not going to let you continue punishing yourself for something I did—Oh shit. That’s what you’re doing, isn’t it?” The whole picture formed in my mind, all the puzzle pieces finding their places. “You’re punishing yourself for that night. For my mistakes.”
“You don’t have the right to—”
“Please,” I begged. “Please don’t do that, Jojo. Please, please, please. I can’t… Jesus, you saw me last night. I can’t handle the thought of you hurt like that.”