Page 59 of Crazy Pucking Love
I scrubbed a hand over my face. “You can. I’m not sure how much talking I’ve got left in me.”
She sat on the top step of the porch and patted the spot next to her, the way she’d done hundreds of times through the years. The screen door closed with a screech as I lowered myself onto the hard step. Back in the day, we used to fit with room to spare, but now I took up more than my fair share, meaning only an inch or so separated us.
Physically, anyway. When it came to everything else, an entire ocean separated us, all of our past somewhere at the bottom like a sunken ship that’d been plundered of everything good.
For a moment, we just stared across the street at the rundown, squished-together townhouses that mirrored the ones on this side. In the distance, the brick apartments Hudson used to call home jutted into the skyline, the rusted fire escape crisscrossing the building, and just beyond that was the Williamsburg Bridge.
The silence stretched, and I was too damn tired to be the one who attempted to fill it, so instead I let my eyes drift farther away. I could barely make out the green sign of the bodega that didn’t have any shoe or clothing treasures behind a Snapple machine. Just the grocery basics, along with the other basics around here—cigarettes and alcohol. There were newspapers, too, but I wasn’t sure who ever bought them. Reading about the rest of the world when I’d been stuck here only made me feel trapped or like the whole world was going to shit.
Luckily I’d had hockey to keep me occupied, and right now I wished for skates, my stick, and a street game to jump into.
I squinted at the green sign, wishing it was the bodega in Boston, and that I was on my way inside with Megan, even if the price tags on the clothes made me want to run. At least I could make a joke, or she could jab me in the eye with a hanger.
That girl is determined to leave me maimed, I’m sure of it.Megan’s smiling face flickered through my mind, easing some of the weight pressing down on me.
The sniff caught my attention, and I glanced at Jazmine. A tear rolled down her cheek, and despite everything that’d happened between us, it made my chest ache. She didn’t look as rough as she had over Christmas, at least, but she was unnaturally skinny, and her eyes were bloodshot, the dark circles under them pronounced—and that was coming from someone who constantly had those symptoms thanks to lack of sleep.
“Things just fell apart after you left,” she said. “Your sister says the same thing—it’s why we started hanging out in the first place. Because we both missed you.”
I ran a hand through my hair and when it fell back over my eyes, I wished for my hat to hold it back. Then again, maybe it was better to have something to hide behind. “I don’t know how to respond to that. I’ve said I was sorry a hundred times, and I am, Jaz. I’m sorry.”
“I believe you. But it doesn’t change anything. I got left behind. I still have to live here. Your sisters, your family—they still have to make it through the day to day while you’re off having fun at college.”
I kicked at the peeling paint on the next step down. “It’s not all fun and games. I’m working my ass off to try to keep up. Don’t get me wrong, I feel damn lucky that I’ve been given such a big opportunity, but I’m also sure I’m going to screw it up somehow and end up back here.”
“And that would be the worst thing ever, wouldn’t it?”
“It’s definitely not what I want. I’m trying to make it so my parents don’t have to work two jobs each. So that we can all have a better life. But no, ending up back here wouldn’t be the worst thing ever, and I’d find a way to get through it without being wasted or high all the time.”
She flinched and then fire lit her eyes. “You can be such a judgmental asshole, you know that?”
“Yeah. I do. You’ve told me enough times.”
She reached up, pulled one of her curls straight, and then wrapped it around her finger—she’d done that since I met her, and at one time, I used to lie next to her and test out the springiness of each curl.
But that was a lifetime ago. It wasn’t like back then it’d all been sunshine and rainbows. Adding romance made us volatile, and part of me worried the same thing would happen if Megan and I kept on doing whatever we were doing. But I told myself that she was different from Jazmine in every way.
Then guilt rose up, because Jaz might’ve always been a little bit broken, but I was the one who’d wrecked her. First when I left, and then when I failed to keep the promises I made—I’d been so naive, thinking our shared history, our love, would fix everything else, from our issues to our tempers to having a couple of states between us.
“How’d we get here?” she asked, the breeze carrying her words away with a swirl of dried leaves.
“I didn’t come home when your mom died,” I said, the words thick in my throat before they made their way out. “There are a lot of times I think if I had to do it again, I would risk being benched for the rest of the season. But then I think about my family, about what I need to do to make it, and I’m not sure I’d be telling the truth if I said I would jump on the first flight home.”
I twisted and looked her in the eye. “But I will say that I would’ve done a better job of being there for you. I would’ve worked harder to convince you to hang out with a better group of friends. I’d have…I don’t know. Found a way to get you to Boston with me. But we made our decisions, and I can’t change the past, or all of our fights.”Or the road that either of us went down afterward.
I covered her hand with mine. “Jaz, if you need help…there are programs.”
She yanked her hand away, offense pinching her features. “I’m not a junkie, Dane. Once in a while I just take the edge off—I’m in control of it.”
“And Lissa? You gonna jump in if she gets close to the line? Because I’m afraid everyone thinks they’re in control until they’re suddenly not.” I certainly thought I’d been in control my sophomore year. Then everything fell apart, and it took me almost a year to realize how far off the path I’d drifted. Even with my plan in place I was floundering through my classes, and everything that’d happened with Megan proved my self-control was far from ironclad.
“I shouldn’t have blown up when you called and asked me to help with Lissa,” Jazmine said, and my jaw nearly hit the ground. In all of our time together, I think I received one half-hearted apology. I was always the wrong one; the one she demanded an apology from.
I gave them, too, to try to keep her happy. To be the so-called knight in shining armor she needed. Even when I helped her home after finding her nearly passed out at that party she’d told me she didn’t need me, so why didn’t I just do everyone a favor and go back to Boston?
“I’m sorry for the party over Christmas, too.”
I eyed her, wondering if she read minds. Or I might’ve accidentally mumbled—I did that sometimes, mostly during hockey, but maybe I was too tired to keep my inside thoughts inside.
