Harder (Caroline & West #2)(46)

“You think I wouldn’t, if I could see some way to? You think I’m enjoying myself? I’m raising a ten-year-old, working thirty hours at the f*cking window factory, taking classes, and trying to clear all my incompletes from last semester, and I can’t put things back the way they were, okay? I can’t. It’s not possible.”

His face is grave. “Caroline seems to think it’s possible.”

“Yeah.”

He rocks up and down on the balls of his feet. “That’s all you have to say? ‘Yeah’?”

“What do you want me to say, that I have some kind of grand plan where I’ve got me and Caroline figured out?”

He closes the space between us and gets right up in my face, madder than I’ve ever seen him. “I want you to say you’re going to get your head out of your ass and take her back.”

“I don’t deserve her back.”

His gaze lowers to the ground. He kicks a chunk of snow, sending it sailing over the frozen lawn.

When he looks up, meets my eyes, I feel the cold seep through my coat and into my bones. “I owe you something,” he says. “You took a fall for me with the cops. You didn’t have to do that, and you didn’t even hesitate. It f*cked me up, and then Bridget told me, look, you’re friends. This is what friends do for each other. But then the way you cut me off, cut Caroline off, did whatever it is you did to her that she won’t tell me—that’s not how friends act. So, you know, I can’t say what you deserve. I don’t know if you’re the person I thought you were or somebody else. But f*cking hell, West, cut me some slack and come to the goddamn party. Make it possible for me to f*cking like you again.”

“I can’t.”

“I know you can’t. Bring your sister and do it anyway. Tomorrow night. For my birthday. I’ll make dinner.”

“You cook?”

“Bridget’s been teaching me.”

I think I must smile at that, because he smirks, and then he reaches up and shoves off my hat, running his hand all over my hair. “You should shave it off,” he says. “Go the extra badass mile.”

“Tattoo ‘f*ck your mother’ on my forehead.”

“That would be sweet.”

“Maybe I’ll do that for tomorrow.”

“I’ll live in suspense.”

He’s grinning. It’s a sham—the banter, the smile—but a sham smile is better than nothing.

It was never all that hard to make Krishna happy. I just had to let him hang around me. Talk to him. Throw him a bone every now and then.

I never thought much before about whether he was doing the same thing for me.

“Is Caroline gonna be there?” I ask.

“She lives there.”

He spins around and saunters away.

I go to study, and then I go to work, heading into a whole afternoon and evening of the same shit I always do at the factory. Counting things. Measuring and marking. Loading and unloading. But I notice that the plant smells like cut wood, sawdust, and that’s what I’m thinking about—how much I like that smell.

How I like the sound of the factory floor, this vast concrete space filled with echoes and the swirling lights on top of the forklifts, the beep of the backup alarm, the clang of metal against stone.

I feel like I’m waking up. I’ve stopped craving cigarettes beyond the occasional random impulse, and in the space where the craving was are sounds and smells, color and numbers, Frankie, Krishna, Caroline.

I think about the rest of the week and how, tomorrow morning, I can tell Frankie about dinner at Caroline’s place.

I’m looking forward to it.

It’s been so long since I looked forward to something, I forgot what it was like. It feels good. Dangerous, but good.

When my phone rings, I see that Caroline’s calling me, and that feels pretty f*cking good, too, until I hear what it is she’s got to say.


The school counselor’s my age.

He’s leading me down a hall. Frankie follows, and Caroline brings up the rear. I don’t know where we’re going.

When I got here, these three were waiting outside the office, Caroline in the middle of a conversation with the counselor that died as soon as I walked up.

The school’s deserted. They’ve been here awhile—talking, I guess, dealing with whatever this is. Waiting on me while I told my boss I needed an emergency day off and tore across town to get to the school.

“Here we are,” the counselor says.

His name’s Jeff. He can’t be my age—not for real. He’s got to be old enough to have a bachelor’s. But he doesn’t look any older than me, and between the pleasant smile, the soft handshake, and his purple tie, I can’t bring myself to trust him.

“Why don’t you three take a few minutes in here to talk privately?” he asks. “And Mr. Leavitt, when you’re ready, I’d like to have a brief word before you leave.”

The door closes, and then it’s just the three of us standing around a table in a room the size of a walk-in closet. It smells like janitorial supplies—sweet and woodsy, laced with chemicals.

Caroline pulls out a chair for Frankie and takes the seat next to her. Frankie reaches out for her hand.

“Want to tell me what happened?” I ask.