“Don’t let weed control you. Or your guilt, ’cos I know you have a lot of that, too,” Wade says, his voice firm. “Now, I’m gonna go find a girl, feel her up, and drag her back to my bedroom where if I’m lucky enough, I’ll get her naked. You game for finding one for yourself?”

I shake my head, disgust filling me at the thought of finding some girl I don’t know and dragging her back to my room. “Hell, no.”

I only want one girl and she’s not here.

“You still not over her?” Wade’s voice is gentle, like he’s afraid I might freak out if we talk about her for too long, which is probably pretty accurate. Just thinking about her hurts.

And he doesn’t have to say her name for me to know who he’s talking about. “She’s the reason I needed to take a hit,” I admit. “I thought I saw her at the game earlier, but it wasn’t her.”

“I saw her, you know,” he says nonchalantly.

“Where? At the game?” Bastard. Why didn’t he tell me? Not that I would know what to do when I did see her. Still, I’m jealous.

“Saw her on campus. She ran right by me like she didn’t see me, but I think she did.” Wade rubs a hand along his jaw. “She looked sad.”

I blow out a harsh breath, training my gaze on the party going down in my living room. Some chick has already taken her top off and all the guys are yelling at her, encouraging her to take off more. She does nothing for me. Her tits are way too big and the bra she’s wearing doesn’t do her any favors. Not that any of those guys are protesting. “Don’t tell me that kind of shit, man.”

“Whatever. Thought you should know.” Without another word Wade leaves me where I stand and merges into the crowd, plucking a red cup from some random chick’s hand and taking a long swallow before he hands it back to her, a giant smile on his face.

Just like that, the girl is caught under his spell. Shaggy hair and all. That used to be me, minus the hair. I walked in a room, flashed a smile, said a few words, and I had girls surrounding me. It was easy. Too easy.

I finally meet a challenge, fall for her, and I mess it up. Can’t find the courage to go back to her and make it right. She was the best thing that ever happened to me and I’m still hiding from her.

Still.

Wandering outside, I go to the keg Des brought and pour myself mostly foam, then head out into the yard, away from the party and the noise and the girls. There’s a couple making out behind a tree not too far from where I’m standing, but I ignore them. I pull out my phone and check my texts, pulling up Chelsea’s name. I down the beer in one gulp for courage, realizing the single hit I took off that stupid joint didn’t alter my state of mind much whatsoever.

I’m still a nervous, bumbling fool, my head filled with thoughts of nothing but Chelsea.

Dropping the empty cup onto the ground, I hold my phone in both hands, my fingers shaking. My thumbs hover above the keyboard, my heart’s beating about a million miles a second, and I swear I break out in a sweat.

But I’m doing this. I’m going to message her and tell her the truth. Tell her how I really feel.

It’s the least I can do.

Chelsea

I’m alone. I don’t know what I’m going to do. Kari left almost two weeks ago after she came down with a major bout of mono. Who gets mono anymore? I blame her stupid non-boyfriend Brad. It is, after all, the kissing disease.

Her mother wanted her to withdraw for the rest of the semester and Kari protested big time, but she was so tired and feverish, her parents made her come home. So she did, worried about leaving me all alone in this stupid apartment I can’t afford, but what else could she do? She’s sick. Not severely, but enough that she’s out of commission for a while.

Trying to figure out a way to make this work, I took on extra shifts at the diner. I’ve also found more students at school to tutor, but with all the extra work my grades are starting to suffer.

I’m exhausted. And I’m still broke. I tried to find a roommate but couldn’t, not this late in the semester. Gave notice to my landlord a few days ago, and now he’s anxious for me to move out because he already has new tenants lined up.

I’m screwed. I have nowhere to go. And I refuse to go back home, though Mom is begging me to on an hourly basis.

It’s a Saturday night and I’m not working. I already did a graveyard Friday-night shift and my feet are killing me. I have another shift tomorrow, the breakfast rush, and I’m not looking forward to it.

My life sucks. I don’t know what happened. One minute everything was perfect and bright and filled with happiness and a boy and sex and hope.

Now I have nothing but darkness and exhaustion and work and studying. It’s colorless, sad. Dim.

My cell rings and I answer it, listen to Mom rattle on about how we have no more money and she’s been so worried over what to do. I don’t know how to answer her, don’t know what sort of advice to give. I’ve always been her rock, the one who offers comfort when she’s fallen into despair.

Now I’m the one who feels like she’s lost all hope and Mom’s so focused on her own troubles, she doesn’t even see mine.

And I have a ton of them, not that I’ve told her anything. I’ve turned into a completely different person and she doesn’t even see it.

“I talked to your daddy,” she finally says, and I realize she’s been leading up to this the entire conversation.

I curl up on the overstuffed chair in the living room, soaking up what Mom just said. Kari’s parents took all of her furniture, including the couch. I don’t have much. Kari feels awful, she’s constantly texting me asking if I’m okay, and I wish I could be mad at her.

But I can’t. She got sick and her overprotective parents whisked her away.

“Why are you talking to him after everything he did to you?” I ask, though I’m dreading the answer.

“He wants to help, sweetheart. He understands we’re in a tough predicament and he wants to be there for his family.”

A little too late for that, if you ask me. “How can he do that when he’s in a prison cell?”

“Chelsea! Don’t talk about your daddy like that,” Mom chastises.

I hate it when she calls him my “daddy.” I haven’t called him that in years. I rarely refer to him as anything other than my father. He’s never been a real dad to me. He never really cared.

“Whatever,” I mumble. “I don’t want his help.”

“He’s told me where some money is that he stashed before he went to jail. I’m going to withdraw it from the bank and hold it for him. He said I can go ahead and use part of it now,” she explains, sounding perfectly fine with this arrangement. “Don’t you think that’ll be a big help?”

Unease settles in my stomach, making it turn. “That’s dirty money, Mom.”

“It is not,” she says, her voice prim. She believes what she wants to believe. That’s how she’s always been with her husband.

My father.

He’s a horrible person. Right up there with Owen’s mom.

My mother, for all her man-hating and constant warnings about how men will treat me awful, how I can’t trust them and I’m better off alone, can’t believe her own hype. My father is her absolute weakness.

And she can’t even see it.

“It’s dirty money. He has some secret account he wants you to clean out so he doesn’t have to do the hard work and possibly get caught after he gets out. You’ll save it for him and when he’s released from prison, you’ll give it to him, think everything will be wonderful and perfect between the two of you, and then he’ll leave you. Again.”

She’s sputtering, sounding like a plugged-up faucet right before it blows and spits water everywhere. “How dare you say that, Chelsea. He is your father. He may be in prison doing his time, but you shouldn’t judge him for that. Everyone makes mistakes and now he’s paying his dues. He has redeemed himself.”