FROM THE AWARD-WINNING AUTHORS OF THE CHEATER.FAKER.TROUBLEMAKER SERIES (WATTY'S 2016, FICTION AWARDS 2016, HACHETTE AUDIO 2017), JENNY ROSEN & KRISTEN MAGLONZO.
After bullies, braces, and brutal heartbreak shatters his faith in love, soon-to-be fre...
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CHAPTER 20
Elias
I wake up alone.
Face throbbing. Body bruised. Spirit broken. But nobody's stopped to notice. Nobody's stopped to help.
I wait for the earthquake pounding its way through my skull to ease up a little before I try to move. My lungs tense up and cough out a violent reminder of what Josh could've done if he'd kept going.
Just a couple more seconds of squeezing and the pain would've stopped. Just a little more room for a misunderstanding to go terribly wrong and everything would've been over.
But at least if he'd finished what he'd started, I wouldn't have to stick around for the fall out. I wouldn't have to feel like this.
I wouldn't be trying and failing to choke back tears that handfuls of Mission Bay and Cardinal kids are watching me drown in as they pass by.
Even crying hurts.
Salt's slipping down the sides of my face and finding its way into every single cut my best friend left behind. My right eye's swollen to the point where the weight of it's almost too much to keep forcing open.
How the hell am I gonna explain this?
Mom won't know what to do. Tanner won't know what to say. Caleigh won't know how to help me.
I can't go home tonight.
Even if it means begging my way into a party, so I can get wasted to the point where I forget everything that's happened.
My family doesn't need anymore chaos-- and that's all having a best friend like Josh turned out to be.
A disaster dressed up as something pretty. Years of hangouts, kick backs, and conversations all dissolved into nothing because of a girl. Because of me. Because of Josh not hearing me out any longer than his temper would allow him to.
It wasn't supposed to be like this.
He was supposed to understand.
I was supposed to make him understand.
But he didn't.
The truth was supposed to fix things.
But I couldn't even tell it to him straight. Maybe if I'd figured out the right way to explain what happened, he would've forgiven me.
