Destiny on Ice (Boys of Winter #1)(84)

How f*cked up is that? Thanks, Dad.

My father, Jack Gartner, is part of the reason why Cassie and I fell in together. She lost her dad when she was young, just like me. And let me tell you, that shared sympathy bonded us hard and tight.

But our woven-together grief, sadly, led to disaster.

On those days when finding solace in each other’s arms just wasn’t enough, we searched for outside sources to ease the pain. And, oh, did we find shit to do—weed, Oxy, X, cocaine, and other drugs Chase would kill me for if he ever knew I even tried them.

Bad enough he knows what he knows. But there is more, so much more.

Chase also thinks Cass and I never spoke to one another after I broke up with her, back when I was fifteen. For a while, it was true, we didn’t talk. I was clean, and Cassie…well, she wasn’t. She had done a stint in rehab back when we were in high school, but it didn’t stick. Her mom ended up transferring her to a private school on the outskirts of Las Vegas. I guess she was hoping the move would get Cassie in with a different crowd, a straight-laced crew of kids.

It didn’t work. Cass was still using, only with a whole new set of people, kids that were far from straight-laced. She still texted me too, all the time, even when I told her I didn’t want to see her anymore.

I knew it was time to move on. Like, for real.

But, I had just turned sixteen and was horny as hell. So when Cass started asking me to meet her just to hook up, I’d go.

Every … single … time.

As a result, we ended up having sex all over town—in the backseat of the car my mom had given me for my sixteenth birthday, in alleys where we once scored drugs, and in cheap motels, located in the parts of Vegas tourists never see.

I wasn’t doing any drugs that summer. Except for one—Cassie.

I’d given up all the bad things, but I couldn’t quite give up on her. Not until her mom found out we were seeing one another did it end. Mrs. Sutter made sure it was over for us when she moved away. Taking Cassie with her, of course.

Off to a different state, they flew. At least I think they settled in a different state. I don’t really know for sure. All I do know is I haven’t seen Cassie since the last day we were together, almost six years ago.

That doesn’t mean I still don’t think about her from time to time. Not a lot, granted, but sometimes, like now.

I wonder if she ever got her life together, the girl I once loved. I wonder if she got clean. Did she go to college? Maybe she got married? Hell, she could even have a kid by now, for all I know.

But mostly, beyond all those things, I hope my first love found the inner peace she so desperately sought.