I started to shake as all those horrific and gory images from that night started to play behind my eyes.
There was so much blood.
I could smell the metallic scent and see the brilliant crimson as it spread everywhere.
There was twisted metal and broken glass. I remembered hearing the crunch and feeling the shards of glass poke into my skin as I was thrown from the vehicle. I remembered the lights and sirens. I remembered the sheriff and the paramedics. I remembered the body bag and the sensation of having a million fingers pointed in my direction while I was mostly unconscious, the residual effects of a bump of coke swirling through my blood. All of it was so wrong, but I couldn’t tell anyone that. All I could do was lie there, bleeding, broken, and wondering if everything that hurt was finally . . . finally going to stop hurting.
“Cable. Son . . . hey, kiddo, I need you to breathe.” I heard the doc’s voice from far away, almost like he was talking in a tunnel. I felt someone grab my shoulders and give a shake, but I was so gone it was as if none of it was happening to me. I heard my name again and then the sound of the door opening. A whoosh rushed between my ears as loud as the ocean roaring. Everything inside of my head was scrambling to overtake each frantic thought before it. I was a jumbled mess, and all I could see were blood and bodies.
“Cable.” It was my name, just my name, but it was said in that husky voice with the slow, southern drawl that I enjoyed so much. She said she hated me, but there was worry and concern in her voice, and something about it pulled me back from the brink. I managed to blink until her freckles and almost purple eyes came into focus. She put a shaking hand on my cheek and said my name again. “Cable, are you all right?”
Vaguely, I realized that I was on the floor on my knees. I was bent over, head in my hands, and I was crying─or at least I had hot, furious tears leaking out of my eyes. It took every ounce of strength I had to lift my hand and wrap my fingers around Affton’s wrist. Her pulse was pounding against my touch, and her skin was silky soft.
I shook my head slowly to try and marshal my thoughts back into order.
This was exactly why I didn’t want to talk about that night. It destroyed me. It took me apart. It ended me.
“What did you do to him? Aren’t you supposed to be helping him?” Affton sounded pissed, and I had to admit that I reveled in the fact that she was pissed for me instead of at me, for once. She looked good when she was riled up, which was why I did my best to work my way under her skin. Now, she was riled on my behalf, and I was sure I had never seen any girl look better.
“Panic attack. I had no idea he was prone to those. That’s not in his paperwork anywhere. Is this a common occurrence, Cable? Are you on any kind of medication for these kinds of episodes?” The shrink hunched down next to Affton who was on her knees in front of me, concern radiating off every line of her lithe body.
I latched onto that, onto her, like a lifeline. She was the only thing that seemed solid and real in all the confusion and disorder tumbling around in my brain.
“I’m okay.” It was a lie.
I was very obviously not okay.
Affton’s pale eyebrows pulled into a pinched V, and she lifted her other hand to my cheek so she was holding my face. Absently, she used the pad of her thumb to wipe away the wet tracks on my face. If only it was that easy to erase the things that sliced me open repeatedly. “Are you sure? You’re shaking, and you’re on the floor. Has this happened before?”
I tried to shake my head in the negative, but all I could manage was a stiff jerk. “No. This is a first.”
She looked over her shoulder at the doctor and switched her frown to him. “What did you do to him?”
The shrink got back to his feet and tilted his head to the side, considering me intently. “I was asking him about the night of his accident. I told Cable he needs to talk about that night, if not with me, then with someone else he trusts. I told him all his emotions relating to that incident were going to find their way out, one way or another.”
I expected the sympathy on Affton’s face to falter, but it didn’t. Her mouth tightened in a line of disapproval, and she pulled back from me so she could climb to her feet. She reached out a hand for me, and selfishly I grabbed it and allowed her to help me to my feet. Since she invaded my space at the start of the summer, I seemed to find myself leaning on this girl, giving her the weight I couldn’t carry alone anymore. She made me feel lighter than ever before.
“After two sessions, you decided he was ready for that?” She gave the shrink the evil eye and bumped my hip with hers to get me moving in the direction of the door. “There is such a thing as pushing too hard, too fast.”
The doctor gave her an odd look and reached for his discarded pad and pen. “I get the distinct impression that Mr. McCaffrey is very rarely pushed and is used to getting his own way far too often. I’m not going to justify my methods to a teenager, but I will apologize for not realizing a panic attack might be an option. I didn’t have all the information I should have had before we started treatment.” The doctor gave me another lopsided grin as Affton practically dragged me toward the door. “The good news is that I think you have every single tool at your disposal you will need to make some serious improvements in your life, Cable. I’ll see you next week.”
Affton slammed the door shut behind us and hustled me out of the office into the parking lot. Her shoulders were stiff, and it was obvious she was incredibly agitated as we approached her ratty old car. I hated the thing. But I didn’t have a license or a car anymore, and I was learning beggars couldn’t be choosers.
“You all right over there, Reed? You look like you’re ready to take someone’s head off.” I was still a little wobbly and unsteady, but now that the memories had retreated into the dark where I would prefer they stay, I could slam some of my usual deflection and diversion methods back in place.
She cut me a look out of the corner of her eye, and I could practically see the way she was deliberately picking the words to respond to my question.
When she spoke, her raspy voice was low and huskier than usual. “You scared me, Cable. That was scary.” She pulled her gaze away from mine and walked away from me. “When that doctor came out of his office and told me something was wrong with you, all I could think about was what happened with my mom. I might not enjoy the time I have to spend with you very much, but I really don’t want you to die.”
She sounded on the verge of tears, and a wave of self-loathing slammed into me. This was hard for her.
I was hard for her . . . and I was purposely going out of my way to make myself even harder to handle.
I cleared my throat and ran my hands roughly through my hair. “Don’t worry about me, Reed. I’m not worth it.”
She lifted her eyes back to mine, and this time she was the one with tears running unchecked over her freckled cheeks. “I wish that was true, because if it were, this summer would be so much easier.”
Her pale head disappeared into the car, leaving me turning her words over in my head as I slowly followed suit.
Before the night that changed everything, I was already struggling with what purpose I served other than to take up space in my parents’ lavish home. After the accident, I was convinced my only purpose was to suffer and to make others suffer even more. I was already raw and hurting on the inside. Now I couldn’t take a breath without being reminded that I had managed to hurt others infinitely more than I ever hurt myself.
Pain was my purpose; how Affton could think I was worth anything was something I’d never understand . . . but there was no denying I was overwhelmingly grateful that she did.
Affton
AFTER HIS BREAKDOWN and my admission that it was terrifying to watch him fall apart—that it was scary to see his vulnerable underbelly he hid so well—Cable kept his distance even more than he had been.
He was typically gone when I got up in the morning; a hastily scrawled note telling me he was on the water was my only hint
that he was going to be gone for most of the day. At first, it annoyed me because he wasn’t supposed to be out of my sight, but so far, all his drug tests had come back clean, and he never showed back up at the house bleary-eyed or obviously strung out. All the hours he spent in the sun and sand while he was surfing had him looking healthier and sturdier than I’d ever seen him. Which I was happy to report back to his mother. It was nice to give her some shred of hope that there was redemption waiting for her son. She called every other day to check in and lately I’d had nothing new to report. She didn’t need to know that his blond hair now had streaks almost as white as mine. Or that if he wasn’t spending the day on the water, he holed himself up in the media room or perched himself in the shade of the deck with his sketch pad. He seemed a million miles away. I’d never spent so much time near someone who felt so out of reach. It was unnerving, and I found myself trying to bridge the growing gap that yawned wide between us.
I asked him if he wanted company during his gore movie fests and got no response.
I asked him if he wanted to study for his GED and was blatantly ignored.
I suggested he wait for me one morning and he could teach me how to surf, and wasn’t surprised when I got up that he was once again gone until the sun came down.
I was living with a very attractive ghost. One who couldn’t see, hear, or interact with me at all. One who was haunting me. The more he vanished into himself and got lost inside his own head, the harder I tried to grab ahold of him, but it was like trying to clutch smoke between my fingers. He drifted away as soon as I touched him.
In a last-ditch effort to figure out a way to pull him back from whatever brink he was standing on, I had started peppering Miglena with questions. The housekeeper was much younger and far more beautiful than I expected her to be. The first time I encountered her in the kitchen, I thought she was one of the beach bunnies who followed Cable around like he was the Pied Piper of sex and satisfaction. I was going to run her off and chew Cable a new asshole for sneaking in a piece of ass I didn’t thoroughly check when the woman offered to make me an omelet and told me she really didn’t mind cooking for me while I was Cable’s keeper.
She resembled a super sexy Bond villain with her sleek, dark hair and milky white skin. She sounded like one as well with her thick Eastern European accent. In our chats, she told me she was from Bulgaria originally and that she had been working for the McCaffreys since she was a teenager. She was extremely friendly, super chatty, and it was obvious she had a soft spot a mile wide for Cable. She indulged him by buying all the crap I refused to get for him and not once did she scold him or seem annoyed at his careless, sloppy ways. I couldn’t count the times I tripped over his discarded shoes or found myself picking up items of clothing he had left lying haphazardly around. The boy couldn’t seem to keep a shirt on . . . not that I really could complain about it . . . and his wet board shorts were always draped over the deck railing or one of the chairs that dotted the kitchen island. It bugged me on principle since I was still scared to touch anything in the overly extravagant house. But Miglena didn’t seem phased. When I asked her about it, she told me, “Cable’s a sweet boy. He’s always gone out of his way to get his parents’ attention, but they never noticed. I don’t mind cleaning up after him. It lets him know someone is watching out for him.”
I wondered if Cable had it in him to recognize that the simple act of someone throwing his wet clothes in the wash was still someone taking care of him, showing him that he wasn’t as alone as he seemed to think.
It was an afternoon after one of his random drug tests, one that seemed to put him in an irrationally sour mood, that I made the mistake of pointing out he had people on his side even if he was choosing to ignore them.
We got back to the house after an incredibly tense and silent ride home, and I followed behind him as he not only stripped off his shirt but kicked off his shoes into the middle of the entryway. He was running his hands through his hair in aggravation, and every line of his tattooed back was tense. He resembled a wild animal poised to attack, and I should have known that I was the only prey available as I picked up one of his Chucks and tossed it at him. It hit his arm and fell to the floor with a thump. I immediately regretted my actions as he turned on me, nearly black eyes blazing with too many different emotions to name.
I gulped down the sudden spurt of fear that burst across my tongue and crossed my arms over my chest because I was subconsciously trying to protect my heart. “It won’t kill you to take those with you or to leave them neatly by the door, you know.” I wasn’t sure what kind of reaction I was going to get out of him, but I knew the second I threw the shoe at him I was going to get one. Whatever it was going to be had to be better than the deep freeze he’d been giving me lately.
He scowled at me and copied my pose, though his had a definite aura of menace to it. “Why do you care? Miglena will grab them and toss them wherever they need to go.”
I scoffed at him, bravado I didn’t really feel, but made my words sharp. “Miglena isn’t always going to be around to take care of you. At some point, you need to start taking care of yourself, Cable.”
It had been a little over three weeks, and so far he had gone to all his counseling appointments and hadn’t missed one of his mandatory drug tests. In the great scheme of things, he was doing far better than I thought he would be after finding him plastered and pissed off that first night. He was sloppy and inconsiderate, but he was taking care of himself better than he had been back in Loveless. I should give him credit for that, but I wasn’t. Instead, I was purposely needling him, pointedly aggravating him, because I hated how easy it was for him to move through and around me. I’d gotten used to him looking at me. I couldn’t stand him looking through me.
He glanced down at the fallen shoe and then back at me. An ugly smile twisted his face as he lifted a brow at me. It was a nasty look, one that made me shiver and fall back a step.
“Miglena isn’t going anywhere.” He scoffed a little bit and lifted his chin defiantly. “She treats all my dad’s kids the same . . . even the two he left her with before moving on to someone else.”
I let out a startled gasp that made his grin darken. I was the one angling for a reaction, but without any effort, he was ripping one from me. He always seemed to have the upper hand, which wasn’t fair. He was the one who was a mess. I theoretically had my shit together, had a plan and purpose that never failed me. I shouldn’t be the one scrambling to keep up with him all the time. It should be the other way around.
“That’s right, Reed. Miglena doesn’t just take care of this house and me because she’s a sweetheart. She does it because once upon a time she got to play house with my old man here. All those kids she has, two of them are my half-sisters. Sisters I’ve never met because my mom pays Miglena to keep them away. Sisters my dad has never claimed and never mentioned. Not once. My dad knocked her up when she was barely legal. Promised her the sun and the moon until a younger, prettier distraction came along. She did her best to prove she was perfect wife material, which included taking care of poor, unpredictable Cable. She’s a nice lady, one in a long line that my old man has fucked over, but don’t, for a single second, think she actually gives two shits about my well-being.”
I let my hands fall and stood there in the hallway staring at him with my mouth hanging open. I always thought my home life was tragic and complicated, but it didn’t have anything on the soap opera happening in the McCaffrey’s household. No wonder his mom and dad had missed his headlong slide into addiction. They were too busy fucking other people and each other over to have any time to help their son. It was all so tragically preventable if anyone bothered to put in the effort.
“You’re wrong.” I shifted and took a step toward him so I could pick up both discarded shoes. “She may have ulterior motives, but she does care about you.” I was sure of it. Her voice softened when she talked about him, and she watched him with the same kind of watchful concern I found myse
lf watching him with. “You make it really hard, Cable, but you can’t stop someone from caring about you. You can’t stop them from wanting what’s best for you.”
I let out a startled yelp when he was suddenly standing directly in front of me, his rough hands wrapped around my upper arms. His fingers squeezed as he pulled me up onto my toes so that we were nose to nose. His black eyes burned into mine and those damn shoes that were so inconsequential fell back to the floor with a thump as his stare paralyzed me with both fear and fascination.
He didn’t feel like vapor anymore.
He wasn’t going around me.
He wasn’t oblivious to my presence. If the way he was breathing hard and fast was any indication, my presence was finally unsettling him as much as his unsettled me.
“I can’t stop them, but I can warn them. Don’t care about me, Reed. Don’t worry about what’s best for me. The only thing I have to offer anyone is disappointment. If I start picking up my shoes and throwing my shit in the laundry, Miglena might get the idea that I’m trying.” He lowered his head until his forehead touched mine. His skin was hot, and his words were scented with ash and disgust. “I’m not trying, Affton. That’s not something I do.”
His fingers bit into my arms, and I almost fell over when he suddenly released me and took a step back. We stared at each other, waging a war I was fairly certain neither one of us could ever win. I struggled to keep my expression blank as he deliberately popped the button on his jeans and pushed the denim down over his hips. I was used to seeing him in the baggy board shorts he wore when he went surfing, but the sight of him in nothing more than tight, black boxer briefs was enough to make me blush and swallow . . . hard. He did it to be aggravating. I would never tell him I was tempted instead.
I reached up and pushed my hair out of my face. I bent back down to pick up his shoes and his clothes. When I stood back up, I gave him a once over and told him sincerely, “Every single day you don’t use, you are trying, Cable. Every appointment you keep with Doc Howard, you’re trying, and as long as you try, even if you fail, that’s not a disappointment. That’s all anyone can expect.” My mom hadn’t bothered to try and that had led to something far worse than disappointment.