“Yeah,” I tell him with honesty. “It does.”

“Well, it will,” he says as we head down the stairs. “But don’t tell him I told you that.”

I keep quiet until we reach the bottom of the stairway, processing what he just told me. “Why are you telling me this?” I ask.

Tristan gives a shrug, looking around at the bottom floor like he’s searching for someone or something. “I don’t know. Because it’s the truth and you deserve the truth.”

I’m not sure what to make of what he says and the more I examine him, the more I notice how agitated he is: drumming his fingers on the sides of his legs, his jaw moving all over the place. He’s high and it saddens me, but even though I hate to think it, I wonder if this will make it easier to get some information from him.

We head over to my car, not saying anything. The sun has heated the leather seats up, so when I climb in they burn the backs of my legs as I sit down. I hurry and turn on the engine while Tristan buckles his seat belt.

“So where are we going to?” Tristan rubs his hands together with a playful look in his eyes.

“I don’t know…is there somewhere you had in mind?” I place my hands on the steering wheel, but instantly withdraw them when it burns my hands. “Crap, that’s hot.”

He thinks about it briefly and then points to our left, where the city gets darker, more run-down, and that makes me uneasy. “Yeah, there’s a bar a little ways down the street that we can go hang at,” he says. I’m wary about going to a bar around here and it must show because he adds, “It’s totally low-key and safe. I promise.”

“Okay,” I reply, but I’m not sure I trust him or his massive pupils and spastic jaw. But I want answers about Quinton’s dad so I go with it, hoping I’m not making a big mistake. Hoping whatever lies ahead for me will be worth the risk.

Quinton

I think I made a mistake. Or at least that’s what my overriding brain is telling me. That I need to chase down Nova and tell her to stay with me, not go with Tristan, tell her that I’m really here and that I was just upset about the roof thing and had Tristan lie for me. The problem is, they’re already gone, because I hesitated. Torn between what’s right and what the drugs tell me I want.

I’m pacing the floor of the living room like a madman, wondering how things went this way. One minute I told Tristan to cover for me and tell Nova I wasn’t here because I didn’t feel like talking to her after the whole roof incident. In fact, I planned on never seeing her again.

And that’s what I told Tristan.

The next thing I knew, they were leaving together. I’m f**king pissed but a lot of that anger is directed at myself for caring so much that I can’t just let her go, that I want her this bad. Knowing she’s out with Tristan has painfully made me aware of this and so I did the only thing I could think of to try to turn it off.

I do line after line, trying to kill the emotion out of me and the crushing guilt attached to the emotion. But for some reason today crystal is adding fuel to the fire—adding to my emotions. I’m not sure what to do with all the pain and the anger. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt this way and all I want to do is ram my fist through a wall. I stop pacing, pick up a hollowed-out ballpoint pen, and do another line off the cracked coffee table. After the sensation of it hits my body and slams into my heart and mind, I head toward the wall to punch a hole in it like I wanted to, but the front door suddenly swings opens. I do a U-turn and find Dylan shoving Delilah into the room.

“You stupid f**king whore,” he says, shoving Delilah into the apartment, and she lands on her back, her head just missing the corner of the coffee table. “I told you not to mess shit up but you couldn’t keep your mouth shut, could you?”

“I’m sorry.” Tears stream from her eyes as she sits up and struggles to get her feet under her. She only has one shoe on and it causes her to roll her ankle but she manages to get up by supporting her weight against the sofa.

“Fuck you and your sorry.” Dylan slams the door hard enough that shit falls down in the kitchen and I hear glass break. “You’re always sorry, yet you keep messing up.”

I’ve seen them fight before—actually a lot. But they’ve been getting worse lately. A lot of yelling. A lot of shoving each other around. I really think Dylan might be losing it, his inner demons, whatever they are, slipping through the cracks. This seems even worse than what I’ve seen before, but that might be because I’m beyond tweaked out. My mind is racing a thousand miles a minute so that I can’t even keep up with them and everything’s just one big f**king pileup.

Delilah’s sobbing and her cheek is inflamed like he hit her and Dylan is hyped up, eyes bulging, veins defiant under his skin. He looks like he’s tripping on acid and maybe he is. Whatever it is, when he storms toward her with his hand up, something snaps inside me. Here I am freaking out because I want a girl that I can’t have—don’t deserve—because I killed my girlfriend—lost her—and he has his girlfriend right here that he can have whenever he wants and he’s choosing to hit her.

I see red and before I realize what I’m doing, I jump between the two of them. It might not be the brightest idea, since Dylan might be going a little crazy and he’s always carrying that stupid gun around in his pocket, but I don’t care at the moment. He’s pissing me off, not even realizing what he has. Plus, I’m so jacked up I can barely hold my head still, my fingers twitching and I think I might have done too much or something because my heart and mind feel like they’re going to explode.

“Hey, back off,” I say, not shoving him back, but I do stick out my hand, causing him to walk straight into it and trip backward.

“Are you f**king kidding me?” he snaps, rage flaring as he regains his balance and barrels toward me.

I slam my palms against his chest and push him back again. He seems to be really struggling to keep his footing, tripping sideways and bumping into the wall. I figure he’s high and that I should be able to get him away, but suddenly he gets a second wind, racing toward me and swinging his fist.

I don’t have time to duck and his fist collides with my face. My jaw pops as I stagger into Delilah and accidentally knock her to the ground. She starts to wail, crying out something that sounds a lot like “Please don’t hurt him.” I’m not sure if she’s referring to me or Dylan but it doesn’t matter. Dylan smirks at me and the anger I was feeling when they walked in magnifies, combusts, bursts. I barrel back at Dylan, my adrenaline pulsating as I raise my fist and I ram it into his face. His lip splits open and blood splatters everywhere.

Things sort of blur after that.

He makes threats of kicking me out as he spits in my face. “You’re f**king done.”

I tell him to go to hell as I shove him back with so much anger and adrenaline inside me it scares the shit out of me. “Fuck you. You have no say in who gets to stay in this house. It’s all of ours.”

His face reddens. “I do get the say because I’m the one who controls everything. Without me and my connections, no one would have any money or drugs to survive. I bring in the drugs to deal. I built this.” He points around the apartment like he’s claiming a prize.

“And what a f**king prize that is.” I ball my hands into fists, wanting to wring his neck, kick him out of the house. My anger is searing so viciously through my body, I’m shaking as my blood roars in my ears.

We keep arguing about this shitty apartment and life, getting in each other’s faces, breathing down each other’s necks. I’ve never felt so much rage in my life, besides maybe the time I realized I had been brought back to life while everyone else was dead. It feels like I might do anything at the moment. I’m out of control. He’s out of control. I’m not even sure what would have happened, but Delilah steps between us and shoves me away from Dylan.

“Leave him alone!” she cries, spinning to face me.

I gape at her with my hands out to the sides. “Are you kidding me? He was about to hit you.”

She quickly shakes her head, adjusting her shirt back into place and smoothing her hair down, like fixing herself fixes the problem. But her cheek is still swollen and her eyes are still stained with mascara. “We were just fighting, Quinton. That’s all.”

I want to argue with her, but she takes Dylan’s hand and leads him around me and to the hallway. “Come on, baby. Let’s go put some ice on your face.”

Dylan glares at me, his cheek puffy where my knuckles collided. “I want you and Tristan looking for a new place. I mean it. I’m done with you two,” he says.

“You’re always done with us and yet we never leave!” I yell and he narrows his eyes at me as Delilah tugs him down the hall.

I blow out a breath, not even realizing how nervous I was, how much tension was in the air until it’s gone. I cup my cheek where he hit me, feeling the hot pain spread up my entire face. I’m not sure what to do, not just about the living situation or Dylan but also with myself. I’m not sure of anything anymore. What just happened—that fight. It wasn’t me. What I did on the roof—being rude to Nova like that. It wasn’t me. I used to never get in fights or yell at girls. But then again, I’m not who I used to be anymore. But who the f**k am I exactly? This person inside me, the one that survived the accident and is now all doped up and barely living, doesn’t feel right. He feels damaged and distorted, ugly and tangled. Gashed and split open. Vulnerable and unstable. And I’m not sure if it has to do with Nova randomly showing up or if I’d feel like this anyway, regardless of who was around. But it seems like only a week ago I was more stable, which has to make me wonder. Just how much she affects me, how much fighting her affects me.

I drag my ass back to my room and flop down onto my mattress, the overload of adrenaline I was feeling dwindling. For a brief second my mind slows down to reflect on how I got to this place. How I could get to such a low. How I created this monster within me—what I would be like if it died. But then I glance down at the names on my arm and remember.

I got here because I’m no one.

I shouldn’t even be alive.

Nova

I follow Tristan’s directions to a small bar on a corner a few miles away. Right beside it is a place called Topless Hotties and Drinks and across from it is a massage parlor, but I have to wonder by the half-naked lady painted on the glass window just what kind of massages they give.

Tristan doesn’t seem to be made uncomfortable by any of this. In fact he seems right at home as he climbs out of the car and lights up.

“So they have the best Jäger bombs here,” he tells me as he opens the tinted glass door at the front of the building. He holds it open for me and I enter, cringing at the dark, smoky atmosphere.

“I don’t really drink anymore¸” I tell him and breath eases from my lips as a waitress walks by in a uniform that looks like it was bought at Victoria’s Secret.

Tristan gives me a weird look like he doesn’t quite understand the concept. “Sure. Okay.” Then he leads me out into the open bar area that has tables and chairs on one side and a few pool tables on the other.

There’s a jukebox in the corner playing “Leader of Men” by Nickelback. All the waitresses are dressed similarly to the one we ran into when we walked in, wearing lingerie-type outfits. There are mostly guys hanging out in here, go figure, but thankfully, there are a few women patrons here and there so I don’t feel so out of place. Although I do feel very uncomfortable about the half-dressed waitresses.

“Do you want to play some pool?” Tristan asks, angling his head and checking out one of the waitress not so discreetly.

I shrug. “I’ve never played before.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, really.”

He muses over this, intrigued. “Well, I think it might be time to break that cherry,” he says with a sly expression that makes me wonder if he knows I’m a virgin. If maybe Quinton told him about the little incident in the pond. But for some reason, I just can’t seem to picture Quinton doing that.

“Sounds good.” I play along, knowing that if I want to get information about Quinton’s dad from him, I’m going to have to stay on his good side.

He grins and motions for me to follow him, stopping briefly to order a shot of vodka at the bar. He asks me if I want one and I shake my head, telling him I rarely drink anymore. He gives me a weird look but doesn’t press.

Once he slams it down, he looks even more relaxed, and part of me wishes I could take a shot, too. But I’m afraid one shot may lead to five shots and that may lead to so much more. Plus, I have to drive.

Tristan gets two cues from the wall, hands one to me, then racks the balls up. He waves at some guy with a long beard as he rounds the table to get ready to break the balls and I have to wonder…

“Just how often do you come here?” I ask, leaning my weight on the cue as I prop it vertically against the floor.

He shrugs, lowering his head and slanting over the pool table while aiming the cue at the balls. “I don’t know…like once or twice a week.” The cue jerks forward and the tip slams against the ball. It springs forward and hits the others, scattering them around the table. He stands up straight, smiling proudly as two solid-colored balls go into the pockets. “I think it’s going to be payback time for making me lose at darts all the time.”

“I didn’t make you lose at darts,” I tell him. “I’m just better at it.”