Page 6 of Fright Night
Tricking one another was the game that led us to graduation. It allowed me to experience Knox on a more intimate level than anyone else was able to. It was powerful knowing, had anyone else, even his closest friends, done any of the shit I did, they’d be six feet under. OnlyIhad those rights and I loved them.
Whyever he let me.
The game also led to the way my crush was forced to end.
I took it too far one night, fucked up, and never got the chance to apologize to Knox.
Which made the final time of seeing him face-to-face take place when he was being hauled away in the back of a cop car—by my own actions.
THREE
KNOX
Asshole DNA Doner
Heard you’re back in town.
Me
As of days ago. Don’t worry, not here to ruin your precious life. Just get mine back.
Asshole DNA Doner
I know why you’re here. You’re as obsessed with her now as you were then. Stay away from Oakley.
He’s not wrong,but I despise him stating it. Like the asshole hasanyright to intrude on the relationship he created. By marrying Jill, her mother, he put Oakley and me on the same fucked-up path. By being his cruel asshole self, it made her sympathize with me, and to this day, the feel of her hand holding a cool cloth to my bruising cheek lives rent-free in my head; the sight of her cryingfor mewas soothing in ways the cloth never could be.
Me
You only care because you need to be a family man to the public. You don’t care about her or Jill.
Dad needed to complete the family picture for his colleagues, since apparently it looks bad if the mayor doesn’t have the whole white picket fence thing going on, and her mother was seeking a place to end up after a string of failed relationships after her first divorce from Oakley’s birth father.
Asshole DNA Doner
You have no idea what you’re talking about.
That statement is practically his slogan at this point.
He scarcely cares about Jill, who spends every March to August travelling the world, surviving the loveless marriage-of-convenience they created for themselves.
Me
I’m here to get my life back after paying my dues. Deal with it.
Asshole DNA Doner
Your sister’s on a good path. Don’t mess this up for her. Again.
Annoyed, I switch off my cell entirely, in case he thinks to message more, and glance up from my spot across the street where, ironically, he works. Facing City Hall, I glare at the window of his office. A window I’ve spent many hours staring out of as the phrase‘Fuck, get me out of here’, would circulate throughout my mind. That was before he decided I wasn’t good enough to be his son anymore.
That change happened in the month following his new marriage, when I was pissed at him and avoiding my new stepsister’s expressive hazel eyes. I came home drunk one night, literally stumbling through the door, much to his distaste.
“Ever think I didn’t want a new mother? That you forced two families together for your own gains.”
“You have no idea what you’re fucking talking about.” Dad shoves me into the wall, and normally, I’d be strong enough to deal with him, but alcohol makes my movements sluggish. “Go to bed, Knox. If you’re going to be like this, never show your face in my building. Can’t have whateverthisis around the good people who help this town function.”
I sneer, shoving him off me and gathering my hoodie from where I apparently dropped it when he pushed me into the wall. If getting drunk is all it took to get out of my mandated trips to his office once a week, so all City Hall employees can see what a “great” relationship father and son has, I’d have done it ages ago.
