I shook my head. No. I couldn’t. I’d rather stick my fingers in shit and make snowballs.

“Oh, of course.”

I shot my eyes to Shane. “What does that mean?”

“It means you’re a wimp, Ju-li-et.” She dragged out my true name, making her point.

And I glared at her, curling my toes into the hardwood floors. “Piss off,” I ordered.

And I flipped her off before spinning around to stomp upstairs.

I stared at Liam’s Facebook page, and I could see why he’d never unfriended me. I would have unfriended him, but I had abandoned all my social networking lately.

There were pictures of him and Megan. Out at the Loop last weekend, selfies of them kissing, and a picture he posted recently of them at a Christmas party. A Christmas party last year, while we were still together.

He’d wanted me to see all this, and I bit my bottom lip to keep from giving in to the tears.

“How could he?” I whispered, realizing just how long he’d been going behind my back. And then I saw the post about how I’d gone off at him at the club, how I was mad that we’d broken up, and how I was arrested and carried from the club kicking and screaming.

Which was a lie. I was picked up outside the club on my way home.

And then I did what we should never, ever do on the Internet. I read the comments.

I realized that Tate and Shane were the only people I really had. Everyone else thought I was a joke.

I just stared at the computer, not noticing that I’d been digging my nails into Tate’s wooden desk. Until I heard the scratching and looked down to see I’d left four abrasions where I’d dragged my nails across the wood.

And I slammed the laptop closed, hearing Jax’s music pounding the foundations of the house again.

“Asshole.”

Jared on the phone.

Liam in the Internet.

Mom in my head.

And Jaxon Trent in my ears!

Swinging open Tate’s doors, I squeezed the railing as I hollered over the side. “Hey, hello?” I shouted to the people in his backyard. “Turn down the music!” I bellowed.

A few of the guys looked up from their worktable that had engines or some such shit and then turned back to their work, ignoring my request.

“Hey!” I hollered again, and a couple of girls looked up and started giggling.

Barreling back into the bedroom, I grabbed my cell and dialed the police. Again.

I’d already called twice. Once, an hour ago after Shane had left—probably to go to the party next door—and again forty-five minutes ago when the music, coincidentally, got louder.

“Yeah, hi. Me again,” I chirped through my fake smile. “The music next door is so loud that I think my dead grandmother just shit her pants.”

The lady paused, and I barely heard her babble as Pop Evil’s

“Deal with the Devil” pounded and thundered out of the speakers next door.

Jesus. It was as if he knew every time I reported him!

I could feel the music in my chest, and I only knew the song because Tate had put it on the iPod.

Good song. But I needed quiet right now.

“What?” I jerked my attention back to the phone. “Um, yeah, I watched my language the first two times I called. I’ve listed my complaints. In English. You speak English, right?”

But then I heard a click.

“Hello?” I shouted into the phone. “Hello?”

Throwing my phone on Tate’s bed, I didn’t even watch where it bounced to.

“Jax wants music,” I gritted out, exhaling. “Fine.”

Darting around the room, I yanked Tate’s surround-sound speakers off all four walls and dragged them, along with their thin gray cords, to the open French doors.

One down on the floor peeking out of the corner of the rails. Two and three down in the middle, and four down at the other corner.

All facing Asshole’s house.

Stomping over to Tate’s iPod dock in my red-and-white-pin-striped pajama shorts and red T-shirt, I curled my bare toes into the rug and punched buttons, looking for Katy Perry’s “Firework.”

The light tinkling started, and I smiled, jacking up the volume full fucking blast.

Bobbing my head, I scowled through the doors, seeking my revenge and hoping that my tunes were drowning out his. Peering over the railing, I gritted my teeth, smiling viciously hard at the wide eyes and looks of disgust.

Take that, asswipes.

Katy’s voice rooted in my stomach and filled my chest, crowding the room like a thousand firecrackers in my heart.

And I started singing.

Hard.

I belted out lyrics, growling and shouting, feeling angry and sick. I squeezed my eyes shut, screaming the words throughout the room.

I can’t hear you, Gutless. No one hears you!

Tears spilled down my cheeks.

Gutless. Helpless.

I screamed the lyrics, the pitch coming deep from the pit of my stomach.

I pounded my fists. I wasn’t those things!

I was violent. I yelled so hard that my throat ached with rawness.

I was furious. I threw my head back and pounded the floor with my feet.

I was wild.

Violent. Furious. And wild.

And that was when I felt it.

The flutters.

In my stomach. In my chest. In my head. In my legs.

I broke out in a huge smile, gasping through my laughter.

I dropped my head and continued to let the rumble pour out of my lungs, and I let the tears fall, streaming down my face and making me a sloppy mess.

Because with every tear, every laugh, every breath, all the years of feeling powerless left my body, and I felt what I don’t remember ever feeling before.

Freedom.

I just let go.

As I bobbed onto my knees, the words came out shaky.

“ ‘You just gotta … ignite … the light,’ ” I stuttered, my voice growing stronger, “ ‘and let it shine.’ ” I spread out my arms and belted out the goddamn lyrics.

“ ‘Just own the night like the Fourth of Ju-ly!’ ”

And when the drums started pounding, I popped my knees up off the floor and jumped up and down like a crazy person, whipping my head front, back, side to side, and singing. Singing for me.

Laughing, smiling, throwing my arms in the air every which way, I leaped onto the bed and bounced back to the floor, twirling around the room and forgetting the party outside.

The song was inside me, and I was fucking happy for the first time in my life. Liam didn’t do it. Neither did Jax. Nor my friends or my family.

When the song ended, I played it again. And again. And again. Dancing. Laughing. Living.

I guessed we’ve all built ourselves up through sadness, disappointment, and experience. It just happens at different times and in different ways.

Jared’s parties pissed off Tate, so she beat him.

Jax’s parties pissed me off, so I joined him.

CHAPTER 9

JAXON

If there was one thing I craved day after day, it was the feeling of want.

We want a house, a car, a fancy fucking vacation, and prestige, so what do we do? We go to school, and we get jobs we hate to pay for the things we want. We deal with people we don’t like and waste years of our lives sitting in stark, fluorescent-lit rooms and listening to coworkers who bore us so we can pay for a small amount of precious time to enjoy what makes us happy. To achieve a fraction of our lives just feeling as if it was all worth it.

We sacrifice to earn.

Well, I had a house. Not a mansion but a warm, clean home given to me by a woman who loved me and became the mother she didn’t have to be.

I had a car. Not a Ferrari or some other coveted sports car but a loud and fast Mustang GT given to me by a brother I loved.

I had a fancy fucking vacation. I was still on it. Given to me by a new mother and a good brother who had rescued me from abuse and foster care.

I had prestige. Sure, it was in the small town of Shelburne Falls, and no one outside the county limits knew who the hell I was, but the people I saw every day and considered friends were the only ones who mattered.

I had everything everyone else sells their entire lives for.

I had everything except K. C. Carter, the one thing I wanted.

The first time I ever saw her, the ground flipped beneath my feet, and the world spun all around me. Even though I’d had girlfriends and had sex more times than I could count, I’d never had a crush on someone.

And I loved it. I loved the way she resisted me.

Wanting her was more addicting than the idea of actually getting her. I started to live for that feeling of knowing I was going to see her every day at school. She’s in the cafeteria. I can feel her.

Standing in a group with her and feeling the pull to touch her as if we were two fucking magnets, and I had to fight the urge not to reach out. The hair on my body would stand on end as soon as she was near. Knowing her eyes were on me, and relishing the way she’d look away as soon as I caught her.

Every time she shot out some snotty insult or made a face at me, I nearly laughed, because she was going to be a fucking prize when I finally got her.

But I never pushed too hard. I never really tried. Wanting her was an addiction, and that was why I’d never made my move. I wanted her in my head more than I wanted her in my bed. I never wanted the chase to end.

Until I’d had a taste of her in the weight room. Then everything left my control.

“Are you serious?” she screamed, loud enough to hear over the party music.