Bad Things (Tristan & Danika #1)(102)

It timed out. I didn’t pause before calling and starting right up again.

“Nat pulled all kinds of jealous tantrums on me, always accusing me of cheating, when I wasn’t. I think that’s one of the reasons why it was so hard for me to stomach how she’d lied to me, again and again. I broke it off, and swore off relationships altogether, because she had taught me that I just wasn’t good at them.”

“I see now how wrong that was, how much power I’d given her, even when I’d been over her for years. I’m sorry for that. I’m sorry that you and I had a rough start, and part of it was because of baggage that didn’t deserve the weight I’d given it.”

It timed out again. I redialed again.

“I see now that I didn’t know a thing about love before I met you. When it’s right, like it is with us, it doesn’t make your life harder, it makes your life better, even when it’s hard. I’ve never been so happy as I’ve been with you, and I don’t begin to know how to get past that. I can’t stomach the thought that you could get over me, when I know I won’t be getting over you. I love your smile, your honesty, your loyalty. I love your sarcastic sense of humor, and the way your eyes light up when you’re giving me shit. I may just love that the most. I don’t just love you, I need you, and I don’t begin to know how that’s ever going to stop. I guess this is a warning, in a way. If you think I’m letting you go easy, you’re in for a shock. Buckle up, sweetheart, one way or another, I’m getting you back.”

That was the last message I left before the waiting began.

I waited.

And waited.

Five more days passed, and I let the black moods take me again, but it wasn’t because I’d given up. It was only that I couldn’t bear how much I missed her, as I bided my time.

I thought that waiting was the hardest thing I’d ever been through in my life, but life was about to prove me very wrong.

CHAPTER FORTY

TRISTAN

I doubted anyone had ever had their worst nightmare come to life and not doubted that it was real. And so my first reaction to the news was denial. This had to be a trick. It had to be some sick prank. Jared couldn’t be gone. He was my baby brother. It was my job to protect him. It wasn’t possible that something like this could have happened to him on my watch…

My mother was sobbing endlessly, but the noise was always somewhere in the background, as though my brain was muting it, to soften the pain.

I didn’t cry. I just sat, blank-faced and quiet, telling myself over and over again that this wasn’t really happening.

A stinging slap to the face was what finally took me painfully out of my own head.

I blinked at my mother, who stood, furious and crying, in front of me.

“This is your fault!” she screamed at me. “It was your job to look after him, and look what’s happened! You shouldn’t have encouraged him to act so wild, you bastard!”

Her words hurt, each one inflicting a deeper wound, and some even opening old ones up wider.

I did the only thing I knew how to do under attack. I went on the offensive. “Me?” I asked her quietly, a lifetime’s worth of contempt in the short word. “Me? You were supposed to be our mother! You fed us pills like candy, you were drinking hard liquor and smoking pot with us by the time we were twelve! And you blame me for this? You blame me for the fact that he was a drug addict, when you’re the one that got him hooked!”

She collapsed to the floor, sobbing uncontrollably, and I instantly regretted every word I’d said, even though it had all been the truth, if a hard truth to stomach.

I tried to comfort her, but she would have none of it, and I gave up quickly, going into a numb sort of stupor.

This isn’t real.

This can’t be happening. Not to Jared. He was the sweetest kid, always. Things like this didn’t happen to kids that sweet. Bad things were supposed to happen to bad people, and Jared had always just been good.

He didn’t fight like me. He wouldn’t have hurt another person to save his own life. He didn’t sleep around. He’d been waiting for the right girl to come along, for f**k’s sake. Every shortcoming I had, he had been above, and I’d always taken a deep kind of pride in that.

People were talking in the background, though I couldn’t have named them. I wasn’t paying much attention to anything that was going on, so I only caught bits and pieces of what they were saying, little snippets here and there, and none of it made any sense to me.

Jared had died of a heart attack. A heart attack? A fit twenty-one year old didn’t just have a heart attack. Did he? But of course that wasn’t all of the story. Even in full on disconnect mode, I knew that. Drugs were the story. The only question was what, and how he’d miscalculated so far that he’d killed himself. Killed himself? No. No. No. That was wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

I was in my mom’s house, though I didn’t even remember driving there. I remembered getting the phone call from Cory, and then I’d just been here, my mother’s hysterical cries, her shrill accusations, just background noise.

I’d known lots of siblings that didn’t get along. Dean had a little brother, and all that they seemed to do was rip into each other. Even mellow Cory and his sister hardly spoke.

That had never, never been the case with Jared and me. We had always been best friends. Even when we didn’t agree on something, we respected each other, always, and respect went a long way. I didn’t know how to accept the idea of his loss. I didn’t know how to get past the denial, and face the absolute horror, the utter agony of it.