{18+ COMPLETE} For the past three years, Bren Hadaway has been preparing to die.
When he was sixteen, he watched his dad murder his mom. And ever since, he's been counting down the days until it was his turn to be at the end of a gun. And Bren has...
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I was trying really hard to be normal on the car ride back to Oakland. But that was the problem, wasn't it?
I wasn't fucking normal.
I didn't have a normal life with normal problems. I couldn't just have a normal relationship and go to college like a normal nineteen-year-old. Nah, I couldn't have any of that.
I knew Madie could sense something was up, but she just kept telling me that it would be okay. That nothing had to change now that we were back. That we could still probably crash in each other's rooms sometimes. That we could hang out every night.
And that all sounded like a fucking dream.
That sounded normal.
I wasn't normal.
When we got on campus, we parked the car and walked across that same lot that I'd carried Madie through after Quinton had... done what he'd done. Ass. And it was weird—so weird. It was weird going back into her room, and I tried desperately not to think about the last time we were here. When she was packing to leave with me.
It was different now. I was still leaving, but this time she wasn't coming with me.
Madie dropped her bags on her tiny dorm bed before looking back at me with questions in her eyes.
I was hovering by the door.
My gut rolled. It had been rolling for days. Every minute that had passed by made it worse. Actually, my entire body was over here protesting the idea of being separated from Madie Lenertz. My legs had this weird tingling sensation—like I was already trying to numb the pain of being alone, of being without her. And yet, even though my heart hurt, that pain was the only thing keeping me going.
There was a reason why this hurt so badly, and that reason was simple. I fucking loved this girl.
But hell, I didn't want this moment to be here so soon. I'd thought that I would have another week and a half with her at Caroline's, that I would bring this conversation up slowly. I'd thought I could tell her that I'd visit every weekend, that it wouldn't be that big of a deal for me to take a semester off to sort out my shit. I could have even stayed a few nights extra with her here before leaving.
But then I remembered.
No, I was reminded.
I wasn't normal.
I cleared my throat. "School was never my thing, Madie."
She sat on the edge of her bed and tilted her pretty head to the side, trying to figure out what I was saying. "I know," she said quietly. "But it doesn't need to be your thing. You have lots of other things."
Leaning back on the door, I closed my eyes for a moment before peering over at her. "When I left high school, I told myself that I could make it. I could make it be my thing." Fuck, I wasn't sure why I was saying this shit. It was irrelevant at this point.
