Leo's Chance(55)

She finishes in the bathroom, and I pull on my boxers and t-shirt and get in under the covers.

When she gets back, she pulls on her underwear and tank top and slides in next to me, taking her spot in my bed. I spoon her from behind and put my arm around her, cupping her breast possessively, in what has become our sleep position. She looks over her shoulder at me and smiles, and I lean forward and kiss her, and then lean back and put my leg over her hip.

She pushes back against me. "Your leg is too heavy. It’s making me feel trapped."

"You are trapped. I’m going to keep you here in my bed indefinitely, trapped under my body, having my way with you."

She giggles. "Indefinitely? We’ll need to eat at some point."

"I have a half a pack of gum in my bedside table. We’ll cut each piece into tiny portions and ration."

"You’d live on rationed gum to have unlimited sex with me?"

"Not just sex. I like everything we do in my bed… the snuggling, the talking, the sniffing." I stick my nose in her neck and inhale and she giggles. "I just want you with me twenty-four hours a day. Right here."

"Aw, that’s so sweet."

I pause. "But mostly sex. Mostly for the sex."

She laughs and pushes my leg off of her, and turns around still smiling. She snuggles into me and I wrap my arms around her, kissing her on the top of her sweet-smelling head. I don’t know exactly how long it takes me to fall asleep, but I know I do it smiling.





CHAPTER 24


I’m just finishing up my P.T. when Doc walks in the gym. My physical therapist, Mark, is already working with someone else, and I’m on my own, doing a few extra exercises to help my range of motion.

"Looks like you’re just about back to normal there."

I stand up, pulling a small towel around my neck and taking a drink from my water bottle. "Yeah, I am. I feel good. Patched up inside and out." I grin.

He smiles back. "All packed up?"

"Yeah." I run my hand through my hair, landing on the scar on the back of my head. "It’s gonna feel weird to leave this place. I almost feel like I started a new life here. And now I need to go out there and start over again."

"Not start over. Just continue on. I’m not worried about you." He smiles and claps his hand on my shoulder, squeezing it before pulling away.

I blow out a little puff of air. "I’M worried about me. What if I screw this up, Doc?" And by "this," I mean all of it – the company, Evie, the rest of my life.

He shakes his head. "You won’t. You know why?"

"Why?" We’ve started walking out of the gym and turn down the hall toward my room now.

"Because when a person is on the right path, they know it. And, Jake, you’re a survivor, a fighter. You’ll fight to stay on the path you’re on now. The path that you know you’re MEANT to be on. Did anything about the last eight years feel right to you?"

I take a deep breath. "No. Not a single thing."

"You get that feeling again, you turn the other way, okay?"

"Yeah. Okay, Doc."

As we walk, I think back over the last eight years… arriving in San Diego, so much hope… that first horrifying week, hating myself every f*cking day after that.

A visual of myself veering off a path laid out in front of me flashes through my mind.

I think about high school. I think about how differently I was received in that school in California than I had ever been in any school before that – first as a kid who got free lunches and then later, as a foster kid. I think about liking how that felt and hating myself for liking it. I think about trying out for sports and being good at them, getting popular, girls liking me. I had dozens of so-called "friends" and yet not one of them really knew me. Always a thread of misery running through my heart. Always a loneliness I couldn’t completely shut out, always a longing I could never fill. I think about drinking at parties, doing drugs if they were there. I think about how when it came to sex, anyone could have me, which in some f*cked up way, meant that no one had me. All those rich kids seemed to live that way too, passing each other around, living for the next party. But I was the worst of them all because I knew better, because I was a f*cking sell out. I realize now that although I didn’t have much in Ohio, the one thing I did have was hope, and once that was gone, despite the fact that I finally had every material possession imaginable, I had nothing. Nothing at all.

I think of moving out of Lauren and Phil’s house, going to college, but still carrying around that self-hatred that would never let me get enough of a finger hold to climb out of the pit of despair that I was constantly in. And so I made all the same mistakes then that I had made in high school. I had meaningless relationships that only made me feel more miserable, always trying to claim something back, but never knowing exactly what. I drank when it got so bad I didn’t know what else to do, and finally, the straw – Seth. Roaring out of that driveway on a mission of death. I could admit that now. And Evie, God, Evie. Missing her every second of every day and hurting so damn bad because I knew she’d never forgive me. But maybe, just maybe I had been wrong. I was going to find out. I was finally strong enough to find out. Please, please don’t let it be too late.