Wicked Restless (Harper Boys #2)(27)

This letter, I think it needs to be the last one I write. I didn’t keep track, but I know I sent you more than twenty. Whatever the number is, it’s the same number you never sent back.

It’s spring, and the weather is warm. I’ve worked ahead of my class here, which really wasn’t very hard. They offered to let me into the Excel Program again, although I’m on probation. My mom has forgiven me, for the most part, and Dwayne comes to visit every weekend. Even Owen came last week.

Owen had a lot of questions about the accident. I think he knows things don’t add up. That man on the road, he lives in one of the housing projects on the edge of town. He’s in his sixties. My mom said he recovered, though, and they’ve settled with him. I don’t ask for the details, because I’m sure Dwayne had to help with the costs. I don’t like that. But I guess that’s just money. I’m alive. I’ll go back to where I was. And you…you’ll be wherever you are.

Oh, and I never told anyone. I never will.

Maybe I’ll see you around.

I probably won’t.

Andrew





One Year Later


Dear Emma,

This letter is for me. It isn’t for you.

I resent you.

I blame you.

I hate you.

And when I sat in my car last week, just out of your view, and saw you dressed in that pink homecoming dress, your hair done up, probably from one of those fancy salons in the city, and saw you kiss that guy on your front porch… I thought about going back to that moment and taking it all back—letting you stay in that seat, letting you lose everything important to you.

I thought about it.

I want to want that for you.

But I can’t. I’ll never want that for you.

I’ll always want you to be the one who gets to be okay.

And I hate you for that most of all.

You said that night ruined everything, and you were right. It ruined me. I will never be the same.

It ruined us—as if there ever was an us.

I can’t stay here. I can’t stay in this town because there’s too much of you in it. I’ve seen you too many times. You never see me, but I see you. I see you f*cking everywhere!

And I don’t want to see you anymore.

I’m going to live with my uncle in Iowa.

It doesn’t matter, because you’ll never visit.

I’ll never give you this letter.

It wasn’t for you anyway.

This letter—it’s the only thing I’ve done in a year for me. Just for me.

I’ll never make the mistake of picking someone else again.

I pick me.

Me.

And you can go to hell.

Andrew





Part II





Chapter 6





Andrew Harper, Age 21



“You’re a f*cking cocksucker, Harper,” Trent says, slapping the back of my head as he passes behind me at the bar. I hit him hard today. He blew it last week, though, and that’s my job—to get guys ready to take hits in the real games.

I get to play, but I’m more of an insurance guy—the one they send in to be distracting and cause trouble for the other guys, to shift the game to our advantage. It lands me in the box a lot, but we’re surprisingly good at penalty kill. We come out stronger, and sometimes we need to feel the pressure to get things going.

“I wouldn’t have to hit you so hard in practice if you weren’t such a * during games, Metzger,” I say, pulling my lips from the rim of my beer bottle just long enough to dish out a quick insult to my best friend.

“Fuck off, you’re just bitter that girls like me more ‘cuz I’m the sexy captain,” he says in this f*cking annoying-ass voice while he rubs his chest like he’s a stripper. It’s creepy.

“Yeah, you got me. Totally jealous of all that,” I deadpan, gesturing toward him.

I kid with him, but truth is Trenton Metzger is the most talented goddamned hockey player I’ve ever been on the ice with. He’s the only reason people talk about Northern Tech hockey, and it’s an honor to be on the roster with him.

Hell, it’s an honor to be on any roster at all. I’m a partial-scholarship player; partial lots of things, really. After two years of busting my ass in junior college and proving myself in junior leagues, I managed to pull together enough of an academic and athletic resume to get my ass into Tech. My grades were never the issue. It was my stint at Lake Crest that gave people pause. The list of schools willing to hand out free money just so I would go there dried up fast even though I finished out high school in the Excel Program, my senior year in independent study—graduating early with shining academics. I was still accepted lots of places, I just couldn’t pay for them.

What a f*cking tease college is. Hey, come to our university and have this awesome life we’re showing you in these glossy pictures. Oh…what? You can’t afford it? Here…here’s a nice mug and calendar magnet of our football schedule instead.

Luckily, I’m enough of an asset on the ice for NTU to pay for part of my last two years. Part. I get another small percentage in academic scholarships, but even then there’s still a shitload I have to figure out on my own. My mom and step-dad Dwayne help, but they don’t have much either. They gave me what little they made from combining households when they got married two years ago, and that little went right to what was left on my tuition tab my first semester. So I work the rest off with odd jobs. Right now, I have two. In the mornings, I work at a nearby elementary school. I get there early for the parents who have to drop their kids off before school actually starts. We play dodgeball for two hours, and the girls sit at the tables and color. It pays shit, but it’s better than nothing.