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"So where are we going to get tacos?" She sidesteps around s her legs into the truck

"You pick," I say as I shut the door

She s me the benefit of a real one "It doesn’t matter to me," she says as I climb into the cab Then she kicks her feet up on the dash and flops her head back against the seat, looking as calm as can be

I have to wonder if she reallyto et tacos, stop by a drugstore, go to the electronics store to pick up a new phone for hio back to his dorht as air, which makes it complicated, in my book It’s too easy to be around his are supposed to be hard so it makes it easier to keep up my wall and stay detached, so if and when he decides to exit my life, it’ll be like he was never really there at all

But I can feel , especially when he didn’t kiss me while ere by his truck He could have and I could tell he wanted to I probably would have let him, too, if only to taste the rush of adrenaline that was forue the second he leaned into me The way I was hyperaware of his body heat and my oas unfamiliar and it terrifiedinside ot on the inside He wasthe and I had a difficult ti what to do So I just stood there and let him decide and eventually he moved back and I was left relieved and disappointed

I’ why The only conclusion I can co to the police department to clearly

Onlyin his dorm room, he leaves me alone in his room to take a shower He has packed up hardly any of his stuff, whichcomes around

I douse a cotton ball with peroxide and press it to ainst my dirty, scraped skin I now have 756 less than I did, all because Luke didn’t want et an infection I was fine with the risk, but he insisted it was unsafe I alhed at hiet for me

I flop back on the bed that doesn’t have a sheet on it, just a , and stare up at the ceiling, rotating the cotton ball around on my hand It burns and ure out my next step

I’ve never had a friend before, if that’s even where Luke and I aretoward Preston and Kelley were the closest to friends I ever had, but they wereThere was no one actually caring enough about me to convince me to buy peroxide and Band-Aids, to clean some cut up and properly take care of myself There was no one ould beat so my breast Luke had hammered his fist into Preston’s face without even so ht

My heart starts to pump harder as I think about it, the way he did it without any hesitation, when the dor a torapped around his waist, his skin still a little da with a ot a serious set of tattoos Most are sketched in dark ink and tribal shapes except for an inscription that’s too small for me to read from this far away

I drape my arm over my head, unable to take my eyes off him "I like your tats"

He sets his dirty clothes down on the dresser and shuts the door with his foot, his brow curving upward "Was that a compliment?"

"Perhaps"

He sinks down on the made bed across from me and disappears out of my line of vision "You have soht?"

"Yeah, two of the, -out cotton ball "I have h"

"Where?"

"It’s a secret"

He pauses and the mattress squeaks "So, do you want to just crash? I’ to h I’m tired, if I just crash then I’ll have to think about what happened and if I think about what happened I’ll have to feel how I feel about it and if I feel it, I’ll just want to get up and do soet tired, wanting to crash, and the whole process will start over It’s a vicious cycle "I’hs heavyheartedly "Then what do you want to do?"

I boost up onmy attention on his swollen jaw instead of where his towel is starting to open up "What do you usually do on a Sunday night?"

He reaches for a bottle of Jack Daniel’s on the desk by the foot of his bed "Get drunk and get laid" He watches

"Isn’t getting drunk bad for you… because you’re a diabetic?"

He shifts his weight uncomfortably and then looks away toward the"I’ I can’t handle"

I see hio, since I’ood and bad for thelaid is what you want to do then you’re going to have to go have fun solo," I say "Because I don’t do either of those things Well, I drink soe the truth to him, but not deliberately My brain is clearly tired

His eyes immediately snap in my direction as he chokes and alcohol sprays out of histhe bottle back down

"What? Drinking makes me act vicious and kind of crazy so I try to avoid it unless I want to act h He’s choking because I said I was a virgin

"Youthe whiskey away fros and the split on aze travel toward theuys’ eyes many times I can’t help but wonder if Luke could be o that route The way he hit Preston, without so ht… it erous, whichBut do I really want to get involved? Feel a connection? Because when he kissedother than nuine how bad I can get," I say

His heated gaze ski then" His fingers seek the bottle again, his blazing eyes still fastened onover the bottle atback onhiin, yet he won’t coain and his tongue slips out of his et crazy and vicious when you’re drunk make me uneasy? Why would it when you’re that way sober?"