Saving Quinton (Nova #2)(41)
Author: Jessica Sorensen

Emotions I’ve worked hard to bury clutch at my heart and it hurts like needles are lodged in my skin, all connected to my guilt. “I didn’t do anything but watch you do stuff you shouldn’t.”

“And you kept reminding me that I shouldn’t—you kept trying to make me see what I was doing.”

“But I didn’t stop you.”

“Because you couldn’t.” She traces her fingers across my scruffy jawline. “You were—are still—obviously going through some stuff and you did the only thing you could for me at the time. You kept me out of getting into too much trouble, you listened to me ramble, and you didn’t take advantage of my vulnerability when a lot of guys would have.”

“A lot of guys would have kicked you out of the house in the first place, before you did anything,” I snap. “Just because I didn’t f**k you when you were sad doesn’t make me a good guy.”

She flinches but then composes herself, slanting closer to me, her hand firmly in place on my cheek. “Yes, it does. It makes you a great guy.”

The more she says this, the angrier I get, and the sharper the needles become. She needs to stop saying good things about me. I’m not good. I’m a terrible person and she needs to accept that just like I have and everyone else has.

“No it doesn’t.” I lean into her, our breaths mixing and creating heat, eyes so close I can see her pupils dilating.

She nods, whispering, “Yes, it does, and I’m going to think that no matter what you say.”

I want her to shut up, be afraid of me, so I don’t have to feel the emotions she’s triggering. All the work I did today, all the shit I shoved up my nose so I wouldn’t have to think the thoughts racing through my head, and now she’s saying shit that’s making me think them anyway.

I’m not a good guy. I deserve nothing. I deserve to be rotting under the ground. I deserve pain. I deserve to suffer, not sit here with her, being touched by her, loving being touched by her.

“Quinton, I’m sick of this,” my dad says. “It’s time for you to move out…I don’t want you around anymore. Not when you’re like this.”

“Nova, stop talking about shit you don’t get,” I growl, and it should scare her, yet it seems to fuel her with determination.

“But I do get it,” she snaps, equally harshly, and I swear to God it seems like she leans in, too, giving in to the pull like me. Our foreheads touch and I can smell the scent of her, vanilla mixed with a hint of perfume. “I do get how much it hurts.” She pounds her hand against her chest. “How much you think about all the other paths your life could have taken if you would have just done this or that. I get how much you want to forget about it all. How much you hate yourself for not doing things that would make it so they were still here!” She shouts at the end, her eyes massive, her breathing ragged, and my body is trembling from the emotion emitting from her and being absorbed into my skin, like I can connect with everything she’s going through.

We’re so close that our legs are touching and there’s only a sliver of space between our lips. I could kiss her, but I’m too pissed off. At her. At myself. But dear God I want to kiss her, just to get a small taste of the life flowing off her, to feel her, breathe in her warm scent. It’s an amazing feeling, like for a moment she’s become more powerful than the meth.

But then she says, “You and I are so alike.”

That makes me jerk back and her hand falls from my face. “No we’re not and don’t ever say that again.” I swing my legs back over to the roof and get to my feet, bumping into one of the signs. “We’re not the same, Nova. Not even close.”

She rushes after me and cuts me off halfway to the door with her arms out to the sides. “Yes, we are. We were both using drugs and this life to escape our feelings—the stuff that happened to us. The terrible stuff that happened to us.”

I shake my head, my buzz flying away in the wind like loose powder. “You have no idea what the f**k you’re talking about,” I say, looking away from her. “You did weed for like what? A couple of months. Weed’s nothing, Nova.” I encounter her gaze. “You have no idea how dark stuff can get.” I pause, rage erupting inside me, and for a moment I think about saying it aloud. What I did. How I killed my girlfriend and cousin—the entire story about how I killed two people, so hopefully she’ll realize the full extent of it and leave me.

She swallows hard, but manages to keep her voice even. “So what? Just because I haven’t done anything harder, doesn’t mean I don’t get things—don’t get death. I get what you’re going through.”

“No, you don’t.” I get in her face, hoping to scare her back, but she stands firm. “You lost your boyfriend because he chose to leave. I crashed a goddamned car and killed my f**king girlfriend and cousin—Tristan’s sister—I took their lives. And everyone f**king hates me for it.” I wait for the disgust in her eyes to appear, the disgust I’ve seen countless times, whenever anyone hears my story.

But she completely blindsides me and looks at me with sympathy. “Everyone doesn’t hate you. How could they, when it was an accident?” She stands firm and her voice is loud but it cracks. She’s not even shocked. Yeah, I told her I killed some people but I didn’t tell her who, yet it seems like she already knew. “I know it wasn’t your fault…I read the newspaper article.”

Suddenly it makes sense that there was no shock factor for her. She already knew about my messed-up, twisted past, what happened that night. How I was responsible for two people’s deaths. She probably even knows I died.

Something about the idea of her digging up my past elicits a dark and sinister feeling inside me. It makes me furious and not I-just-need-to-get-another-hit furious. She was the only one who didn’t fully know my story and now she does—now she knows what I am, down to the very last details.

“The newspaper doesn’t know jack f**king shit. Yeah, maybe the police report said it wasn’t entirely my fault, but ask f**king anyone.” I cup my hand over my upper arm, because I swear to God I’m feeling the pain again of when I put the tattoos there, sharp pricks, the burn, the pain I deserve—I deserve so much more. “Ryder’s parents, Lexi’s parents. You can even ask my father and they’ll all tell you that it was my fault…he even blames me for my mother’s death…” I trail off, losing my voice, as I remember all the silence between my father and me—how, growing up, I could always feel the distance between us, because every time he looked at me, he probably thought about how my mother died bringing me into this world. It makes me realize just how long I’ve felt this blame, just not as bluntly. “They’ll all tell you I’m a piece of shit that should be f**king dead instead of everyone else.” I’m on the verge of tears. But they’re tears of rage more than anything and I need to find a way to get them to stop. Find a way to get Nova to stop looking at me like I’m an injured dog that she just kicked and gave more pain to. Find a way for her to stop pitying me and get on the same page as everyone else.