Page 6 of Saving Barrette

When I watched my mom’s casket being lowered into the ground last week, I had one thought. Actually, two. First was how I was relieved that she was no longer in pain. Second? That I wished Barrette had been there for me. Maybe that’s why I snapped and beat the crap out of my mom’s boyfriend’s son, or maybe it was that I couldn’t stand the son of a bitch for a moment longer. Either way, I wasn’t exactly in my right mind.

“Thatgirl,” Roman whispers, letting out a low whistle watching Barrette in the distance. She’s hunched over inside a car searching through it, her ass clearly visible in the high-waist shorts she’s wearing.

That girl is right. She’s the kind that should come with a label.Cute, tiny, and has the potency to knock you dead with one look.Underside effects it should say,May destroy your heart forever. I want to tell her she’s all I’ve thought about these last four years. I want to tell her I’m sorry I disappeared from her life. But I don’t say anything. It’s clear by the way she’s acting she wants nothing to do with me.

“Is she—” I pause, struggling with the words. I certainly don’t appreciate the way Roman says “that girl,” like he’s had her. The idea, the assumption, it hits me right in the chest like a knife. It takes the breath from my lungs. I stare, contemplating his meaning. Hell, I fucking shake. Clearing my throat, I don’t look at him when I mumble, “Is she with someone?”

Roman snorts and raises his eyebrows. “With someone?” I nod, and he smirks. “B?”

“Yes, fucker.” I shove him away from me and jerk my chin towardher. The impatient part of me needs to know. I don’t have time to play around. The teenage boy in me is the one hesitant to know. “Is she seeing anyone?”

He gives me that look. The one that screams, “I wish it was me,” but he doesn’t say anything to that effect. At least not around me because he knows if he ever touched her, I’d kill him.

“No, not that I know of,” he says, smiling. Roman rights his sunglasses on his face, hiding away his expression from me and pulling up the hood of his sweatshirt. “She’s off limits if you know what I mean.”

Off-limits? I need a second to clear my head, but I don’t have it. I snap my eyes to him, drawing in a breath. “Am I supposed to know what that means?”

“You know exactly what the fuck it means.” Roman stands tall, his linebacker shoulders stiffening. He’s not a linebacker, but he’s sure built like one.

I wait for him to continue, but he doesn’t. Yeah, I suppose I do know what it means at least on my end, but hers, no, I don’t. She certainly wasn’t waiting for me, was she?

He flips his shades up, his eyes focused in the distance on a group of guys. “Why are you even questioning it? That girl has been hung up on your ass, for like,ever.” He slaps his hand to my chest. “She don’t pay any mind to any of these fools.”

For reasons I don’t understand, anger and jealousy surge through me that I left her with guys like this, the ones watching her ass, and that she’s been hung up on me the entire time. I should be glad that she is, but the feeling isn’t there yet.

I don’t know any of the guys hanging around in the driveway, but they’re watching Barrette with rapt attention. It sends a jolt of jealousy through me when one approaches the car she’s at.

While she’s bent over, he makes an obscene gesture toward his friends like he’s fucking her doggie style or something.

“What a douche,” I mumble, only to have Roman snort. He leans forward, rocking on his heels to see who I’m talking about.

He laughs and then looks at me. “Sounds ’bout right.”

In the distance, Barrette straightens up, turns around and faces the guy behind her. She smiles a familiar smile, one she used to give me. I probably don’t deserve those smiles anymore, but it doesn’t stop me from wanting them.

Roman nudges my arm with his. When I don’t look, he slaps his palm to my chest. “Bro, Heather’s lookin’ for ya.”

My stomach tightens, and not in a good way.

“No thanks,” I mumble, my eyes fixed on the interaction between Barrette and the guy next to her. “Who’s that?”

Roman sighs, his frustration with me evident. “Xander. Graduated this year.”

I nod, trying to appear uninterested, and failing at it. I can’t look away, no matter how hard I try. I hate when she laughs at something he says, or when she takes his fucking shirt and gives me the stink eye like I did something wrong.

I did, though. I left and didn’t call her when she called my mom’s house looking for me. I didn’t call her back because I felt bad about the way I just left without much of an explanation. I was trying to deal with the turn my life had taken and didn’t know how to talk to anyone about it. Not exactly the best way to keep a friend. Especially someone who was supposed to be my best friend.

“C’mon, man. Let’s party. It’s been a while.”

I look back at the house where the party is in full swing, and then at Barrette who’s walking away with Xander, his arm around her shoulder. I walk back to the party with him knowing damn well I shouldn’t.

I DON’T KNOWthat many people at this party, but they all know me. They ask me questions and make conversations. I sit across from her, a fire raging between us. And every single time someone touches her, it sends a jolt of jealousy through me, especially when Xander approaches her again. I don’t know him, or her anymore either, and it fucking kills me.

I know where this is heading. If I stay, I’m going to go over there, and I know what will happen. I’ll get in a fight and my dad will be right. I’m emotional and raw and not in my right mind.

That’s what the therapist says so it must be accurate, right? Or maybe I’m just an eighteen-year-old kid who doesn’t fucking care and has lost everything he loved.

I don’t leave. I sit and bounce my knee. I drink even though I know I shouldn’t. I bite my nails and obsess over the girl I can’t stop thinking about. I don’t know anything about her anymore, but then again, I know everything there is to know. Little things like the way she tucks her hair behind her ear when she’s nervous or the way she stares at the trees like they hold meaning for her. She’s always been obsessed with the forest and the mystery it has.

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