Tristan Finding Hope

Nova - 3.5

Jessica Sorensen

Prologue

19 years old…

I think I’ve finally become invisible. That I’ve somehow faded into a ghost just like I pretended to do when I was a kid. It was number two on my list of superpowers I wanted to have, right before X-ray vision—mainly because I wished I could see through Tina Bellonte’s shirt—and right after wishing how to fly. I’m pretty sure the invisibility parts came true. X-ray vision got scratched off because I can see underneath women’s shirts now pretty much whenever I feel like it. And flying… well, I’m fairly sure I know how to fly right now. I swear to God I do. I just need to get the balls to test the theory. Take the last step.

“Tristan man, get down from there. You’re fucking tripping,” Dylan calls out from three stories down where the bottom of the apartment reaches the concrete, proving that I might have been wrong about the invisibility because apparently he can see me. But then again, being seen by Dylan isn’t that great of a thing. I wouldn’t necessarily call him a friend, but probably as close as I’ve ever got to having one. He doesn’t talk much, doesn’t ask me questions about my life, which I like. Although he is kind of a douche, but hey, aren’t we all at some point.

“Leave me alone,” I holler back, the night sky above me, so far away, yet when I reach my hand up, it feels like I’m touching the stars.

“Not until your dumb ass gets down,” he shouts, then takes a swig of his beer.

I shake my head, cigarette resting between my lips, arms outstretched to my sides, the wind in my hair. One more step and my flying theory will be tested. “No way. Not unless I jump. It’s the only way.”

“To what?”

“To see if I can fly.”

Dylan shakes his head. “Not that shit again. Jesus, you do this every time you hit acid, man.” He chucks the beer bottle out into the parking lot, annoyed.

“I’m not even that high anymore.” Sadly, it’s the truth. I’m up here of my own free will. Because I was sitting in a room full of people, laughing, drinking, doing drugs, and I was just there, existent, but nonexistent at the same time. It’s been that way forever, me just living life in the shadows while everyone else seems to be in the sunlight.

“Tristan, the last thing anyone needs here is for the police to show up because your dumb ass couldn’t handle his high and decided to try and kill himself,” Dylan says, getting really pissed off now.

“That’s not what I’m doing.” I stare straight ahead at the trees across the street. I’m not lying either. I don’t have a death wish. I’m just confused and trying to sort stuff out, trying to find a point to all of this. Life. It confuses the hell out of me. People, they confuse the hell out of me. Hell, I confuse the hell out of myself.

I’ve been confused for years, the feeling only amplifying the day my parents found out my sister, Ryder, died in a car accident. A car accident where my cousin, Quinton, was driving and crashed into another car—not his fault, just a freak accident. My parents blame him for it though and have been focusing all their energy on making sure to hate him every single day of his life since it happened. They’ve been telling me to do the same, but I’ve never been one to hold grudges. It takes too much energy that I don’t have. So when Quinton called me up, asking for a place to crash this summer, I said okay without much hesitation. Granted I was fucking stoned out of my mind, but still, I’m sure I would have done it sober too. Besides, from what I’ve heard through the family grapevine, Quinton’s been paying for what happened through his own depressing, drug-induced life. So why should I add to his misery?

When I told my parents he was staying with me, though, I officially got shunned by the family. I’ve been shunned by the family a total of nineteen times or so. It’s nothing new. Being alone is nothing new. I’m sure eventually they’ll talk to me again and I’ll let it all go, because that’s what I do. I’m not even sure why I care to have them in my life. They’ve barely acknowledged me ever since I turned sixteen and started getting into trouble, doing drugs for no other reason than I felt lost in life and alone and drugs temporarily filled that void. I couldn’t find a purpose in anything. Couldn’t find friends. But drugs numbed the confusion and made the people around me doing the same thing relatable enough that I could pretend I had friends. When I’m stoned, I’m not so alone, or at least I can see it that way.

This has been my life for the last few years. Getting stoned, drunk, trashed, and each time I got busted, my parents ignored me even more. I became more invisible. After Ryder died, it only got worse. She was “the good one,” according to them. And maybe she was. She did well in school while I wasted my “intelligent mind.” She didn’t get arrested for being a minor under the influence and get put on probation. Didn’t move out of the house to live in a “shithole trailer park to deal drugs.” And they’re right. She was the good one. I’m the bad and I can’t change it. I am who I am.

“I’m going to fucking do it this time,” I yell to Dylan, taking a few massively deep breaths, psyching myself up as I inch my feet closer to the ledge. “I swear I am. And just watch. I’m going to make it.”

“Come down and I’ll get Mallory to fuck you,” he entices.

“I don’t want a pity fuck,” I say. “I’ve had way too many of those.”

Dylan shakes his head and then throws his arms in the air, exasperated. “Fine. Do whatever the hell you want. It’s your funeral.” Then he storms off toward the entrance to the apartment, leaving me alone. There’s nothing stopping me from jumping off the ledge.

Just move your feet. Do it! Stop being such a pussy and fly.

I wonder if I fell off the roof, if anyone would see me. Or if maybe I’d just fly away to the stars, never to be seen again. I could do it and find out—I should do it and find out. But after standing there for what seems like hours, I realize it’s not going to happen and I step back.

Instead of flying for the night, I settle on climbing down from the roof and going back into the house to take another hit. I hang out with people who don’t see me. Sleep with a girl who doesn’t know my name. Then I pass out, knowing that when I wake up tomorrow, I’ll do the whole thing over again. This is my life. There is no meaning. And I wonder if this is how it’ll always be. If I’ll always feel so dead and disconnected inside. So alone.

So invisible.

Chapter 1

4 years later…

My life is one bumpy roller coaster. The last few years I’ve been getting high, getting sober. High. Sober. High. Sober. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve gotten clean. I want to say I’ll never do it again, but I’d be the biggest fucking liar on the planet. I’ll probably do it again, because I struggle to find motivation not to do it and being sober just makes me focus on life. You’d think after spending years on a downward spiral, almost OD’ing, losing my sister, falling in love with a girl—Nova Reed—who ended up falling in love with my cousin—Quinton—getting hepatitis C and having to go through a bunch of treatment to get rid of it, that I’d finally point the finger to the drugs and say that they must be doing this all to me. Sometimes I can see it, how fucked up I am on them, and so I try to stop. But I still always fall back to them, the pull too strong, the need to block out too great. I’m an addict. Plain and simple.

Right now, I’m supposed to be a builder. I’ve been spending the last several months on the road working for Habitat for Humanity. It’s actually more Quinton’s thing. Ever since he got sober, he’s been all about helping the world. I think he thinks if he is always doing something good then it’ll make up for the accident, which maybe that’s the case. And I’m happy he found his sanctuary, the place that makes him feel whole without being jacked up on heroin and methamphetamine. I think Nova helps with that too—helps him stay clean.

Me, well I’m not that strong. I don’t really have anyone but myself, which makes it easier to disappear and fall off the cliff again until someone convinces me to climb back up for a little bit. Which is why I’m here. Well, sort of. I was basically dragged into this because Quinton and Nova thought I needed a good distraction from my life of misdirection and bad choices. And they’re probably right. I just wish I could focus more on the distraction instead of the addiction.

“Hey, hand me that nail gun, would you?” Quinton says while messing around with one of the cupboard doors. The house we’re working on right now should be finished by tomorrow and then we’ll be on the road again, to I think Georgia.

Quinton wipes some sweat from his brow as I reach down and pick up the nail gun beside my feet with the hand that’s not holding the cigarette. I give it to him and he shoots a few nails in the side of the house. “I’m fucking hot.” My shirt is soaked in sweat and sticking to my back. “When are we quitting today?”

Quinton sighs. I’m sure he’s getting irritated with my lack of motivation. But he’ll never say anything because of my sister. I think part of him will always blame himself for her death, and for some reason he thinks he needs to be nice to me even when I might not deserve it. “You can take off if you want to, but I think Nova had something planned for tonight.” He puts the nail gun on the ground and picks up a bottle of water. “To celebrate you being hepatitis free and all.”

I shake my head. I just found out yesterday at my doctor visit that I’m officially disease free again and I’m glad. “She knows it’s not normal to celebrate something like that, right? It’s not like I was cured of cancer or something.” I grab my own bottle of water that’s beside the cooler. “I got the disease because I was a fucking idiot and shared needles with a bunch of druggies.”

He scratches the back of his neck, looking uncomfortable, then takes along sip of his water. “Look, man. I totally get the self-blame and everything.” He raises his eyebrows as he puts the lid back on the water. “But trust me, just be grateful you’re clean and healthy now. We can celebrate that, right?”

I want to point out how many times I’ve slipped up on the clean part—the last time being only three weeks ago, a day when I did a line of meth—but I decide to be cooperative since he’s letting me bail on building early. “All right, I’m down for celebrating, but what I’d really like to do is get laid. It’s been a long time.”

Quinton rolls his eyes. “Only you.”

I hold back a smile and shrug, start packing up my tools, thinking about how I’ll go back to the hotel and sit there in the silence, wondering how long I’ll let the empty feeling go on. Maybe I’ll turn on some television, but not to really watch it. Just to hear the noise so I’ll try not to think about all the hell I went through and how much I want to fall back into to it.

But in the end it’s all I’ll think about, no matter what I do.

Chapter 2

It’s always been a little awkward being around Nova Reed because we have some history together and now that she’s with my cousin, it’s just plain weird. I’m not even sure when I actually started liking her to begin with. I think it was around when I was eighteen and we had this really hot make-out session, or at least I thought we did until she started crying and then ran off. She was just always such a nice, good person and cute as hell and she saw me for some reason, although always as a friend. I’ve gotten to know her over the last few years and she really helped me out for a while after the first time I got clean. I managed to sneak in a few kisses here and there, but she never really reciprocated them. Then she fell in love with my cousin and I permanently went into the friend zone. Yeah, I’m that fucking cool. Seriously, it’s the story of my life. I’ve never really been in love, although I got close to with Nova. Never had a real girlfriend. Just screwed and screwed and screwed.

But I’m over Nova for the most part and happy for both her and Quinton. Well, as long as they don’t make out in front of me. That gets old really fast.

“So where are we going to go celebrate?” I ask, digging through my bag for a clean shirt. We stay in motel rooms when we’re on the road, living out of suitcases. The motel rooms are usually pretty crappy, but anything’s better than the run-down trailer homes and crack houses I’ve lived in over the years.

The motel we’re staying at right now has got a nice view of junkyard across the street, but it’s only a couple of miles from the house we’re building so it makes it easy to walk there. Nova and Quinton share the adjoining room next door, which allows me to hear noises I’d rather not hear. Right now, he’s wandered into my room and seated himself at the table near the window.

“Nova wanted to try that restaurant out on the north side of town.” He’s smoking a cigarette, the window cracked open so the smoke mostly goes outside.

It makes the need to feed my own nicotine habit rise and I take one out of my pack and light up, breathing in the sweet taste that feeds my craving. “A restaurant.” I frown, picking up the ashtray on the nightstand. “Seems kind of boring.”

Quinton sighs as he puts his cigarette out in the ashtray and gets to his feet. “Look, you know there’s no way she’s going to let us both go to a bar.”

“Well, she technically can only tell one of us to do stuff.” I make a whipping sound and motion my hand, pretending to crack a whip. It’s all fun and games, although I kind of mean it. He is whipped. I remember the days when we’d just sit around and get high and do nothing. I sometimes miss it, miss the stillness, and the lack of responsibility to do anything. Day by day. That’s what we did. But then again, we were kind of lucky to make it to the end of the day alive.

He rolls his eyes at me, but doesn’t argue. “Whatever man. You know as well as I do that you’ll come out with us.”

I balance my cigarette on the ashtray so I can tug my shirt over my head. “Fine, what time are we leaving?” I ask, picking my cigarette back up.

He checks his watch and then nods at the door. “Let’s get going now. We have to pick up Nova from the site and then we’ll take a cab downtown.”

“Fine, give me just a second.” I put out my cigarette, go into the bathroom to put on some deodorant and cologne when my phone rings from my pocket. I check the screen and see it’s my mother. I hate talking to her and I almost ignore it, but then realize that if I do, she’ll excessively call me all night.

“What’s up?” I answer, balancing the phone between my ear and shoulder why I spray on some cologne.

“Hey sweetie,” she says sweetly and I can tell she’s on her meds by the sound of euphoria in her voice. It’s Ryder’s birthday tomorrow and she always gets overly emotional during it and ends up having to take a few sedatives over the course of the week until her emotions pass. The first time I got high was actually from her stash. “I was just calling to see when you were going to be home.”

I grab my wallet off the bathroom counter and tuck it in my back pocket. “I already told you, I can’t make it out there right now, Mom.” I fuck around with my blond hair, trying to get it out of my face, but it’s gotten too long and keeps falling into my eyes, so I give up.

She gives a really long, drawn-out sigh. “Tristan, you have to. It’s Ryder’s birthday.”

“It was my birthday a couple of weeks ago,” I remind her. “And you didn’t even call me.”

“I’m sorry I forgot… but this is important. You need to be here.”

“It’s not that simple,” I tell her, leaning against the wall, staring at the mirror across from me. I can see me so should she, right. I do exist. “I’m in North Carolina right now.”

“North Carolina? Why are you way out there? It’s so far from Wyoming.” The longer she talks, the higher she sounds and the more pointless I realize this conversation is. “Look, I have to go, Mom. I’m headed out.”

“With who?” She pauses. “You’re going out with him, aren’t you?”

I should just lie to her. It’d be easier if I did. But I hate lying and I hate that she wants to push me to hold grudges against Quinton. I’ve made my peace with it. Accidents are accidents. Shit happens. And holding on to it is tiring. “If you mean Quinton, then yeah.” I head toward the door. “Look, we’ve been over this. You can stay mad at him if you want. Do what you have to do, but I’m choosing to let it go.”

“Let your sister go,” she gasps. “Tristan Morganson, how dare you. Don’t you say that. Don’t you dare.”

I stop in front of the door and press my fingertips to the bridge of my nose. There’s no point in this conversation. We’ve had the same one for years and it’s becoming a broken record. “Look, Mom, I have to go. We’re going out to celebrate me being disease free,” I say, knowing she won’t acknowledge it—anything related to my drug days she won’t, because she’s ashamed of me. I open the door. “Call me tomorrow if you feel like it.”

“You’re a terrible son.” It’s her last attempt to make me feel guilty, to lure me home.

“I know,” I say, slipping on one of my boots. “And I’m sorry for that. Tell Dad I said hi.”

“Tell him yourself,” she snaps. “I’m not your messenger.”

“Bye, Mom.” I hang up the phone and stuff it into the back pocket of my jeans before I put my other boot on and step outside. It’s still hot and muggy, but that’s June in North Carolina.

Quinton is outside smoking, sitting on the curb just in front of the door. I’m surprised to see Nova sitting beside him, since we were supposed to be picking her up. She’s talking to Quinton, her blue eyes are all lit up, so she’s excited about something. She’s still wearing her work clothes, jeans and a black tank top, her brown hair braided to the side. Her face is sun-kissed and she looks gorgeous, but she’s not mine and I shouldn’t be thinking about her that way.

When she leans in and kisses Quinton, I almost back up and sneak into my room, pretend I’m sick, just so I won’t have to see it, but mid-kiss she must sense I’m there because she opens her eyes and smiles at me.

“Hey you.” Her smile brightens as she stands up and walks over to me. “Congrats, by the way. I’ve been meaning to tell you that all day.”

Leave it to Nova to congratulate me on being disease free. “What, just congrats?” I joke. “What, no card?”

She lets out an exaggerated sigh, her lips quirking with amusement. “Sorry, but I couldn’t find one for your exact situation. I think I’m going to call up the card companies and suggest that they need a hep C-free line.” She grins.

“Oh, I’m sure that’ll go over well,” I say as Quinton joins us, handing me a cigarette as he lights up one himself. “I can just picture it now. A needle on the front and inside ‘Congrats on not being a disgusting user anymore.’ ” Just talking about the needle makes my veins throb with need.

Nova’s face instantly falls and Quinton shoots me a warning. “What’s wrong?” Nova asks. “You should be happy, but you’re not.”

She’s right. I’m not. I don’t think I ever really have been. Half the time I’m not even sure why, but today I know. My mom’s got me feeling guilty about Ryder and her birthday. I envied the high I could hear in my mom’s voice, not just because it’ll take all the emotional pain away but because it’s easier to deal with being so alone when I’m out of it. But I’m good at faking being happy and I plaster a smile on my face. “Sorry. I just didn’t sleep very well last night… I had a lot of stuff on my mind.”

Nova leans in closer. “You want to talk about it?”

I shake my head, popping the cigarette into my mouth and then reaching into my pocket to get my lighter. “No, I’m good, but thanks.” I inch away from her and light up as she leans back. “I am fucking hungry, though. So how about we go eat.” I say it because it’s what she wants to hear and it’ll get her to leave me alone so I can sulk in my own head because what I really want to doing is snort lines. I know it’s wrong. Know I’m fucked up for not being able to stop. But I’ve accepted that I might always be that way. An addict and I’m about to fuck up again, be the loser I am. But I tell myself I need it, that I can’t live without it, because it makes it easier to do.

Chapter 3

Nova has to get ready and Quinton goes back into the room with her. It’s the perfect opportunity for me to take care of my craving. So I pretend to go back into my room, then I slip outside unnoticed and walk to the last door of the motel. There’s a guy there who call himself D-Man. I ran into him once when I was wandering around outside. He was totally a tweaker: skinny, thinning hair, pale skin, bones protruding, teeth rotting, sores on his skin. It was looking into a mirror of the past and after chatting for a little while, I ended up doing a line with him, hence my slipup a few weeks ago. Quinton was the one who found out. Ex-tweakers have a radar for people who are spun out of their minds. He stayed with me until my system was clean, until the crashing was over, and he’s been watching me like a hawk every since. He didn’t tell Nova about it, which I’m grateful for. The last thing I want to do is see the disappointment in her eyes that I’ve seen many times before, including when I kissed her. That one stung.

I rap on the door and he opens up, his eyes glossed over with that look I crave. I need to make it quick before I get busted, so I say I need to buy a hit, or two, or three, or four.

“Sure man,” he says, his voice in that same euphoric state as my mother’s. He goes back into the room and I wait outside because I can see the syringe and spoon on his nightstand and I know if I step over the threshold I’ll want to do that, but I can’t. Not without being busted the moment I pass out. Plus that’s the cause behind why we’re going out to celebrate that I’m disease free today. Still, I crave it and I think I pretty much keep my eyes on it the entire time until D-Man comes back with a small bag with a pinch of white crystals in it. I give him the money, and then tuck it into my pocket, hurrying back toward my room so I’ll have time to do it before we go out.

But my plan goes to shit because Quinton’s waiting outside when I get there, smoking, and when he sees me coming, he gets this weird look on his face like his tweaker radar is on.

“Where’ve you been?” he asks, ashing his cigarette as he searches my eyes, probably for enlarged pupils and lack of blinking.

I miss a beat, but recover. “I went to see if they have any gum in the vending machines,” I say, pointing over my shoulder. “If we’re going to a restaurant, I’m not going to be able to smoke when I want to and I’m going to need something to keep me from wanting to grind the shit out of my teeth all night.”

He’s not buying it, but doesn’t press. “Nova will be out in just a second,” he says and plops down on the curb, stretching out his legs. He doesn’t ask me to sit down and I could easily slip back into my room and do my line. It’d make tonight a hell of a lot easier to bear. But I know if I do, he’s going to sense something else is up, and honestly, I don’t want him to know that I’m still that person who runs to drugs every time there’s a bump in the road. Or maybe I’m just deciding what road I want to go down.

Chapter 4

Quinton and I sit on the curb while we wait for Nova to come out. We smoke and stare as the blue sky shifts to gray. It’s fairly quiet and we only talk every few minutes. It reminds me of when we were both doing drugs and we just sit and let time waste away. It makes it difficult not to pull out the bag and say “Let’s take a hit,” and it makes the bag feel like it’s burning a hole in my pocket. I’m going to have to find a way to get alone so I can do it.

About fifteen minutes later, Nova walks out of their room wearing shorts and a clean tank top, her hair down and running down her back in waves. “Okay, so Avery should be here any second.”

“Who the hell is Avery?” I ask as Quinton says, “Sounds good.”

Nova shuts the door, slinging her purse over her shoulder. “Oh, she’s the girl whose house we’re building. She actually stopped by today and we got talking and I said how we were going out to celebrate. She mentioned she knew some good places with good music and offered to take us out as a thank-you.” She plops down on the curb between Quinton and me. “She’s really nice. I think you’ll like her.”

I rake my fingers through my hair. Great. One more person I’m going to have to escape tonight. “What exactly did you say we’re celebrating?”

“Life,” Nova says simply. I press back a smile. Only her.

A moment later a horn beeps and Nova glances around the parking lot and then waves at this old red Jeep with the top off parked just a ways off. “There she is.” She gets up and heads over and Quinton and I follow her.

“You okay with this?” Quinton asks quietly cross the parking lot.

“With what?” I ask, patting my pocket to make sure I have my cigarettes and lighter on me.

“With going out with a stranger on your night?”

“My night?” I say in a sarcastic tone. “You make it sound like I’m a sixteen-year-old girl going to prom.”

He snorts a laugh. “You know what I mean.”

I shrug. “Yeah, I’m fine with whoever goes. It’s all the same.”

He nods and then slows down as we reach the Jeep. He opens the door to get in and the girl… Avery or whatever says hi to him as he flips the seat back and climbs in. I follow, letting Nova take the front. As I’m getting situated in the backseat, I get a good look at this Avery girl. When Nova said that there was a girl coming with us and that it was the one we were building the house for, I expected someone older. Avery has long brown hair with a streak of purple going down it, hazel eyes surrounded by black eyeliner, and full lips with a piercing just above the top one. She’s got to be around twenty, give or take a few years, which has me confused why we’re building her a house. She looks like she should be in college. Usually when we build houses, they’re for families.

“I’m Avery,” she says as she turns in her seat and extends her hand to me. I notice she has a cross tattooed on her forearm with the word Survivor below it. I wonder what she’s survived.

“Tristan,” I say, taking her hand and shaking it. There’s this weird moment between the two of us where I sense that she’s checking me out just as much as I’m checking her out. She’s not bad on the eyes at all. Totally fuckable. She looks like she’s been through some stuff, rough around the edges, eyes that carry secrets. I wonder what those secrets are—I wonder if they’re as fucked up as mine.

“Nice to meet you, Tristan,” she says, giving me a once-over, in this slow, lasting way.

She takes one last look then turns to Quinton, smiling, but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “And good to see you again, Quinton.”

“Likewise,” Quinton says as Nova hops into the front seat and closes the door. “So where are you taking us?”

Avery grabs the shifter as she turns on the headlights. “I was thinking about going to the The Vibe. They’ve got some really good food and music and it’s not as rowdy as some of the other shit around here.” She drives onto the road, the wind sweeping through the roofless vehicle. “You guys are all twenty-one, right?” She specifically glances at me from over her shoulder and I almost laugh. That’s a first. Usually people think I’m older.

“I’m twenty-three,” I tell her, then just because, I decided to throw it back at her. “You don’t look old enough, though.”

“Twenty-two.” She winks. “But I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“I meant it as a compliment.” And now I’m flirting.

Quinton glances at me, arching a brow, like Really, you’re going to go there? Avery seems to enjoy it, still smiling as she turns around in her seat.

“What?” I ask him, playing dumb.

“Nothing.” He shakes his head, then leans toward me. “Be careful, man. Remember, she’s the person we’re building a house for and it’s not going to go over well if you hook up with her and bail out the next morning.”

I glance up front to see if Nova and Avery are paying attention, but they’re chatting about bands. Nova plays the drums and Avery plays the guitar and they both seem excited about this.

“Who said I’m planning on hooking up and bailing on her?” I ask quietly.

“You have that look in your eyes.”

“What look?”

He gives me an accusing look. “The one you get right before you hook up and then leave the girl two seconds later. I know the drill man. I used to do it too, remember.”

“Hey, maybe I’m planning on hooking up with her and sticking around for a while,” I say.

“In the four years we’ve been around each other,” he says. “I’ve never seen you ever once stick around.”

I want to tell him that’s not true. That I stuck around for Nova, even when we didn’t hook up. I almost do too, mainly so he’ll get pissed and I can go get high without worrying about him keeping an eye on me. But Nova and Avery are in the car and I don’t know Avery and Nova’s seen enough of the ugly in me for a while. So I keep my lips shut and I kind of zone out for the rest of the drive, thinking about Ryder. I feel bad for not going home, but not because of my mother. Ryder was a good sister. Things were easier when she was there. When I was younger, she saw me when I was invisible to everyone else in my family. I should have gone home, if nothing else, for her.

Guilt creeps up inside me and I want nothing more than to quiet it the one way I know how. I put my hand into my pocket and feel the plastic in the palm of my hand. God, what I’d give to pull it out now.

The sky gets darker as we merge into the heart of the small town, the buildings lining the sides of the roads lighting up the night with their signs and flashing lights. I start flicking my lighter restlessly, needing to light up, but I’m not about to do it somebody else’s car. So I wait until we’re parked, then I hop out and quickly light up, feeling my heart and thoughts still. Quinton lights up too, and then Avery surprises me when she asks to borrow my lighter so she can light up as well.

“Wow, I feel like I’m about to get cancer,” Nova jokes as we walk toward the front door with a cloud of smoke around us.

“Oh, do you want me to put is out?” Avery asks, bending down like she’s going to put it out on the ground. She’s got a nice body, leggy, a tight ass. She’s wearing a tight black dress with boots, the back of her dress low and revealing a tattoo of a tree, half dead, half flourishing. The flourishing half has leaves blowing away from it and below it the words: Carry me away, to where I can breathe, to where my soul can thrive again, to where I can be free to where I can live again. There’s more too it than that, but it goes below the dress. I’m curious what the rest of it says. I have my own tattoos with their own meanings and that kind of a tattoo has to have a meaning. Maybe it’s her life story. It makes me wonder if I can get under the dress to see if she was able to live again and why she thought she was dying.

“So do you have any of your own?”

I jerk from my thoughts and realize that Avery is standing to the side of me and Nova and Quinton have migrated to the front. “Any of my own what?” I ask distracted by how intense Avery’s eyes are up close—this girl has definitely been through some stuff.

She reaches around and touches her back. “Tats.” Her hand falls to her side. “I saw you staring at mine.”

“Oh.” I take a drag from my cigarette, thinking of what Quinton said about staying away from her and how I want to do the opposite at the moment. “A few here and there.”

Her eyes scroll over my body and she smiles, but it’s a ghost smile, masking this tremendous amount of pain her eyes carry. “Leaving it up to my imagination, huh?”

I’m not sure if she’s just being friendly or flirting, but I’m going with the latter because it gives me a good excuse for what I do next. “One on my ribs. One on my arm. The third one’s a secret.” I wink at her. “Maybe I’ll show it to you later.”

Her expression never wavers, making it hard to unravel her. And flirt. She ashes her cigarette before taking a drag off it. “Any of them mean anything?”

“They all do.” I arch a brow at her. “Yours?”

She nods, biting her lip. “All five of them.”

I want to ask her about the one on her back, but we’re approaching the line in front of the entrance to the place we’re going to and the crowd’s voices silence me.

“You guys wait here,” Avery says, walking back toward the front of the line with a finger held up. “I’ll be right back.”

As soon as she’s out of sight, Nova says, “Are you guys going to be okay with this place?”

Quinton glances at the door then back at her. “As much as I love you, you need to relax. We’ve been to clubs before, even after we got clean.”

I discreetly catch Quinton glancing at me, which means he’s worried about me, but isn’t going to say anything to Nova because it’ll only make her worry more.

“I should have told her no places with alcohol,” Nova mutters, frowning at the ground.

“Every place has alcohol,” I tell her, then playfully nudge her shoulder. “Would you relax? We’ll be fine.” I lift up my hand as if making a vow. “And I won’t drink. I promise.” I’ll just do the line in my pocket.

She still seems concerned, but gets distracted when Avery comes skipping back with a half-smoked cigarette in her mouth and three pink bands in her hand and one around her wrist. “Here. Put these on.” She hands us each a band, looking very proud of herself. “And follow me.”

“What about the line?” Nova asks as she puts the band on her wrist.

Avery pulls her cigarette out of her mouth. “I have connections.” She turns around to head to the front, giving me another once-over, looking like she’s trying to be nonchalant about the fact that she’s checking me out, but falters a little. It makes it really hard not to just grab her and kiss her. I’m not that kind of guy, though. I’m honestly not even sure when the last time I just made out with a girl was. I’ve fucked a lot of girls, ones I didn’t know, ones that were high—I was high. I’m not even sure if I know how to just kiss.

We follow Avery to the front of the line and the bouncer lets us right through, giving Avery a kiss on the cheek as she walk by and muttering something about being sorry to hear about Conner. The name makes her expression falter, but she quickly recovers and plaster a fake smile on her face. Boy, she’s fucking good. It always takes me a beat or two to fake it. She must have a lot of practice. Why, though?

“Thanks,” she says to the bouncer, then opens the door and we follow her inside the club.

The lighting is low, like it is in most clubs. The music loud and bass throbbing. The air smells like smoke, sweat, and booze. There’s a dance floor that gives everyone an excuse to rub up against each other until they all become so horny they have to pair off and go back for a one-night stand. I know the scene. Lived it for a long, long time, and it makes me want to live it again. Maybe Nova’s right. We probably should have avoided places like this tonight.

We find a table in the back corner where it’s less noisy. Nova and Quinton sit down and Nova picks up a menu. I’m glancing around, looking for the bathroom, not because I have to piss, but because I need to do this line before it drives me insane.

“You want to come with me to get drinks?” Avery asks me. She has this accusing look on her face and I swear she knows exactly what I was just thinking. But how could she? No one possibly could.

“Sure,” I tell her, one single word that’s really fucking hard to get out.

“You guys want anything?” Avery asks Nova and Quinton.

“A water’s fine,” Quinton says, but I can tell it’s a little difficult for him to say it when we’re here in a room full of booze.

“A diet Coke,” Nova says, opening up the menu. Her gaze flicks to me for a moment and I can tell she’s wondering what I’m going to come back with.

“Relax,” I say to her, just so she’ll stop. “I’ll be a good boy. I promise.”

That gets her to smile.

I follow Avery to the bar area where she leans over the counter, trying to flag down the bartender. Her dress rides up and I get a glimpse of this unique flower symbol-type tattoo on the back of her thigh. That makes three I’ve seen. Only two more to go.

“Hey Benny, would you hurry your ass up,” Avery calls out playfully to the bartender, who glances over at her and grins.

“Keep your panties on,” he says as he pours some shots. God, it’s been a while since I’ve had a shot. “I’ll be over in a second.”

Avery laughs and then settles on a barstool, her eyes landing on me. “So are you going to sit down or just stand there?”

She’s got me thrown off a little. Very blunt. Very forward, or at least that’s how it seems. But like I said, there’s this look in her eyes like she’s trying to keep a lot of secrets buried.

I drop down on the stool and rest my arms on the countertop. “You come here a lot? You seem to know a lot of people around here.”

“Well, I should,” she says with a twinkle in her eyes. “Since I work here every afternoon from noon to five.”

I want to ask her why she’s in desperate need for a house, but I don’t want to make her uncomfortable, so I opt for option number two. “So what’s the tattoo on the back of your leg mean?”

She smiles at me again in this dark, mysterious sort of way. “You noticed that one, huh?”

I nod. “Yeah, while you were flagging the bartender down.”

She rolls her tongue in her mouth like she’s trying not to laugh. “When you were checking out my ass?”

I could deny it, but I don’t want to. “Hey, it’s a nice ass. It’s hard not to look at it.”

That gets her to laugh. “I knew it,” she says, shaking her head with a grin as she looks ahead at the mirror in front of us.

I lean forward to catch her gaze. “Knew what?”

She laughs a little more, amused with whatever she’s thinking. “That you were one of those guys.”

“Those guys?” I’m curious what she means.

She doesn’t answer right away or look at me. The song switches from this poppy, silly one to “All the Same” by Sick Puppies and I’m grateful because I hate club music.

Finally she looks me, slowly scanning me over from head to toe. “Blond hair, pretty blue eyes, a charming smile. You’re one of those guys who knows he’s hot and knows just the right thing to make a girl swoon or whatever.”

“Swoon?” I question, trying not to laugh. “Really?”

She shrugs. “Hey, I’m just saying it how it is. I totally hate the word.” She points a finger at me, her smile still there. “And I never do it. Ever.”

“So you’re saying that my blond hair, pretty blue eyes,” I wink at her, “and hotness aren’t affecting you at all.”

She shakes her head, eyes locked on me. “I don’t do pretty boys.”

“Who said I was a pretty boy? What if I’m a bad boy underneath it all?”

“I don’t do bad boys either.”

I lean in, catching her scent. It’s nice, some sort of perfume mixed with vanilla. “Then what do you do?”

She shakes her head, biting her lip again. “Nothing. Work. Go to school. Go home. That’s all.”

“So no guys?”

“Nope, no guys.” She seems pretty adamant about it.

I’m not sure what to do with this information. On the one hand it means she doesn’t have a boyfriend, but on the other hand it also means she doesn’t want one or any guy for that matter. Maybe she likes girls.

“I’m not a lesbian,” she says as if she can read my thoughts for the second time tonight. “I’m just not interested in dating, having a relationship, or fucking around for many, many different reasons.” All her humor vanishes and all I can see is pain. It’s almost overwhelming to look at and I want to look away but I can’t seem to bring myself to do so. So we end up just staring at each other, unable to look away, yet unable to find anything to say.

Thankfully, the bartender comes over and interrupts us. “So what are you doing here tonight on your night off?” he asks, leaning over the counter toward Avery.

Avery nonchalantly shrugs, tearing her gaze off me and fixes it on him. “I was bored. Thought I’d get out of the house for a while.”

“Good. You need to,” he says and I catch him glancing down the top of her dress. In the middle of it, he notices me noticing his not so discreet checking out. “Who are you?” he asks Avery, and I can tell right away that he must have a thing for her or something by the coldness in his tone.

“This is Tristan,” Avery tells him. “He’s one of the people helping build my house.”

“Oh.” He relaxes and gives me a chin nod. “It’s nice to meet you, man.”

“Likewise,” I say, deciding maybe it’s time to make that trip to the bathroom so I can get on with my night plans.

“So what do you guys want to drink?” he asks. “First round on the house, for giving this beautiful and very deserving girl over here a roof over her head.”

“I’ll just have a Coke,” I tell him, wishing I could say with a bit of Jack Daniel’s in it.

“All right.” He looks at Avery. “And I’m guessing just the usual diet Coke for you.”

“Two actually. And one water.” She points over her shoulder at where Quinton and Nova are sitting with a menu opened up in front of them, but their focused on each other, not picking something out to eat. “I’m here with a few more people.”

“All right. Be back in a sec.” He leaves to get our drinks.

“So you don’t drink either, huh?” Avery asks me, fixing her attention back on me.

I shake my head. “Not really.”

“And neither does Nova and Quinton, I take it.”

“Yeah, are you getting excited? You get to spend the night with a bunch of boring, sober people,” I joke with a forced smile.

“I’m glad,” she says. “It makes it easier to keep my own sobriety.”

That shocks me a little. “For how long?”

She touches her collarbone, where there’s another tattoo. “Two years, three months, and fifteen days,” she tells me as I read the black ink on her smooth, flawless skin. Never forget the strength it took to free yourself. “How long has it been for you?”

“I’m not a recovering alcoholic,” I say, my eyes flicking back to hers.

“Then what are you?” she asks with her head angled to the side, strands of her hair framing her face; strands I want to brush back and tuck behind her ear, but I won’t.

I’m not sure whether to tell her the truth. It’s hard to say how she’ll react. People tend to get a little scared when you mention drugs, especially things like meth and heroin. I open my mouth, fully intending just to tell her weed, but the truth comes out.

“I was into heroin and meth pretty hardcore for a while,” I say and I swear to God the bag of meth in my pocket jumps out and says: And he’s about to do it again.

I expect her to ask how long I’ve been clean, but she says, “That’s good. That you got cleaned up from that I mean.” She seems really nervous and reaches for a napkin and starts shredding it to pieces. “I’ve heard that stuff can really ruin your life.” The way she says it has me wondering if she’s speaking from experience. Not personally, but maybe someone close to her.

“That tattoo on your neck.” Before I can stop myself, I graze my finger across it. I quickly pull my hand away, playing it off as cool, when really I want to leave my fingers there, feel the softness of her skin just a little bit longer. “You got that when you got clean?”

She tries to appear calm, but I detect a hint of a shiver, perhaps from my touch. She peels off another piece of the napkin. “Once I hit the one-year marker.” She traces her finger over the tattoo and this time I notice there’s a scar above it, right across her throat. It’s faint but still there, across her skin. Her finger trembles as she touches the scar, then drops her hand to the countertop. “So what’s it like building a house?”

It’s clear she wants a subject change so I give it to her. “Honestly?” I ask and she nods. “Hot and boring.”

She laughs, finally shoving the napkin to the side and looking at me again and not in a way that she has to look at me because we’re sitting here, chatting. She’s looking at me like she wants to look at me, like she’s fully noticing me now, like she’s enjoying sitting here beside me. “So why are you doing it then?”

I nod toward Nova and Quinton without taking my eyes off her. “Those two are into it and they asked me to come with them.” I pause. “They keep me out of trouble.”

She nods. “Gotcha. So then they’re kind of like you’re sponsors or something.”

“Yeah, something like that,” I say, not wanting to get into the details of our complicated triangle.

She’s about to say something else when suddenly someone says something really loud and her attention snaps to the side of us. I sense her tense up, her hands balling into fists, her jaw setting tight. I turn to find what’s got her so scared and see a guy striding toward us through the crowd with his eyes focused solely on her as he pushes people out of his path. He looks rough around the edges; short hair, goatee, arms covered in tattoos that go up to his shoulders and his neck.

“Fuck,” she utters under her breath. “I can’t handle this shit tonight.”

I’m about to ask her what when the guy reaches us. “You didn’t call me back,” he says to Avery.

“That’s because I had nothing to say.” Avery reaches for her napkin and starts ripping it to pieces.

He moves around to the back of her and her whole body goes rigid. “We need to fucking talk, Avery. You can’t just keep ignoring me.”

“Of course I can,” she says, staring ahead instead of at him. “Besides, you’re not even supposed to be talking to me at all. Court’s orders.”

Shit. This is the last thing I want to get in the middle of. I’m about to get up and walk away, go to the bathroom and do my thing, when the guys says, “Who the fuck is this?”

I’ve had my ass kicked many times. I’m an ex-junkie who used to deal and steal and mess with the wrong people. In fact, I almost got killed over it once. That alone should have me getting up and leaving, because this guy seems like the kind who would start swinging with no real cause except for he thinks I’m doing something to him. But Avery looks at me with this plea in her eyes that says Please don’t leave me.

“He’s just a friend, Conner,” she says tightly. “So don’t do anything stupid.”

Conner. The guy the bouncer was talking about.

Conner stares me down, trying to intimidate me and I stare right back, refusing to look away, knowing what it’ll mean if I do. Finally, he’s the one who gives up and looks back at Avery.

“Can I talk to you in private?” he asks, leaning in toward her.

“No,” Avery says, attempting to sound firm, but there’s fear in her voice. Why is this girl afraid of him? I wonder if it has to do with the scar on her neck.

“It’s about Mason,” Conner says.

“Don’t you dare say his name,” she snaps, shoving him back. “You don’t even deserve to say it.”

Rage flares in Conner’s eyes and suddenly he has Avery by the arm and is dragging her through the crowd toward the back of the building. Part of me is screaming at myself to stay out of it but the other part of me wants to run after them.

I hesitate, deciding what I’m going to do. “Fuck,” I say and then get up from the stool, pushing after them, wondering just how big of a mess I’m running after. And if I can handle it.

Chapter 5

When I reach them, Avery is jerking her arm, trying to get it out of his hold as he slams his hand against the back door and steps outside. I follow a few moments later and by the time I get out there, he’s got her trapped against the wall by the Dumpster and is already yelling at her. I can tell he’s definitely done something to hurt her in the past, by the way she flinches every time he raises his voice. I’m going back and forth with whether to go back inside or step in. Do I want to get into this mess? Can I handle this mess?

“You made it sound worse than it was,” he shouts, getting in her face, veins bulging in his neck. “This is bullshit.”

She hugs her arms around herself. “All I did was tell the truth, you fucking asshole,” she yells back, but her voice cracks.

“You are such a fucking liar,” he says, slamming his hand against the Dumpster and causing her to wince. “A fucking alcoholic just like your mother.”

“I’m nothing like my mother,” she shouts back, getting brave enough to get in his face. “And I’m sober now. And being a drunk is a hell of a lot better than what you are.”

I see him raise his hand and my uncertainty whether to get into this mess vanishes in a heartbeat. I stride forward and shove him back, knowing this is all about to blow up in my face, especially when he ends up bashing his head into the Dumpster.

“Shit,” Avery says, staring in horror at Connor as he works to regain his footing. She pushes me back toward the door without taking her eyes off him. “Tristan, go back inside.”

I gape at her. “You’re seriously trying to protect me right now.”

She gives me another push, this time looking at me, and all I can see is fear in her eyes. “Trust me. It’s for your own good.”

I’m shaking my head, confused as hell, because this guy was just about to beat the crap out of her and she’s trying to protect me instead of herself, when Conner gets to his feet.

“You’re fucking dead, pretty boy,” he says, reaching for his pocket, with this annoying smirk on his face.

What is with all the pretty boy comments tonight?

“Avery, let’s go inside,” I say, taking Avery buy the arm and guiding her behind me. I can sense something bad is about to happen. Whatever he’s about to pull out of his pocket is not going to be a cigarette—that’s for sure. It’s a knife and not a small pocketknife, but a larger, hunting-type knife.

I’ve had a few guns pulled out on me before, knives, brass knuckles; it’s nothing new. Yet it is. Because I’m sober. When I was high, it was easier to ignore the bigger picture. But I can fully see it now—how easily I could die if this guy wanted to kill me.

I instantly step in front of Avery and spread my hands out to the side, protecting her. “Go inside,” I call over my shoulder.

“Just friends, huh?” Conner shakes his head, aggravated, as he moves toward us with the knife out in front of him. “I knew that shit couldn’t be true. You’re too much of a slut to have a friend that’s a guy.”

I hear Avery dialing someone on her cell phone from behind me. The cops I hope.

Seconds later, Conner takes a swing at me and I double back, but he ends up clipping my side. I stagger over my feet as the tip of the knife splits my shirt and grazes the skin. I quickly recover and throw a punch of my own, my fist connecting with his jaw. His eyes redden with anger and I’m not sure if hitting him was a good idea or not.

He lets out this growl and then dives at me with no control over his movements at all, like he would easily kill me and not care, but I jump to the side and he ends up ramming into the building wall behind us. He curses, then turns around, wiping some blood off his split lip. Dead, he mouths.

Avery shouts something and I hear sirens seconds later. Thank fucking God. Conner glances down at the end of the alley and then with no hesitation, he takes off running in the other direction, hoping over the fence at the end. I start to chase him down, when Avery yells, “No, don’t.” Her hand touches my arm. “Let him go.”

I turn around. “Let him go? He just tried to kill me.”

“If you chase him down, then he might finish the job,” she says in a serious voice, her eyes wild with fear, and I can feel her pulse racing in her fingertips.

I settle my breathing before I speak again. “Are you okay?”

She gapes at me. “I’m fine. But what about you?” She lifts up my shirt without even asking first. She examines the cut on my side, her fingers tracing gently around it, but I barely feel a thing, too busy watching her watching me. “It doesn’t look too deep.” Her voice quivers as she pulls down my shirt down. “But you might want to get it checked out, just in case.”

“It’s fine. I’ve had worse,” I tell her. The fear and pain in her eyes tell me so has she. We stand there for a moment, just staring at each other, breathing in and out. I have no idea what the hell is going on, not just between her and me, but with her and that Conner guy. I’m about to ask her, when the cops show up.

We end up answering a few questions and filing a report. Nova and Quinton come out when I text them. I pick up bits and pieces of the conversation between Avery and the cops and put together enough that Conner is her ex-husband and that he just got out of jail for something. I want to ask her a ton of questions and I’m planning on doing so, but I never get the chance. After the police leave, we all get into the Jeep and she drives us back to the motel. Nova asks her a few questions, but Avery is vague and Nova being Nova senses that Avery doesn’t want to talk about it and instantly drops the questioning. I think about staying in the car when we pull up to the motel. I just want to know… well, I’m not sure what I want to know. If she’s okay? If she’s going to be okay? But Quinton ushers me out, despite me giving him a dirty look.

I’m heading back to my motel room when I hear Avery say, “Hey, Tristan, can I talk to you for a minute?”

“Yeah,” I call out, hoping I’ll get an explanation. I tell Nova and Quinton that I’ll meet them inside. Then I turn around and jog back to the Jeep. Avery has the window rolled down and she’s not looking at me, but just over my shoulder, in Nova and Quinton’s direction.

“What’s up?” I ask as I reach the Jeep.

She holds up a finger. “Just a second.” She waits until Nova and Quinton disappear into the room, then her eyes land on me. She doesn’t say anything right away, instead reaching down toward her boot and taking something out of it.

My face instantly falls when I see what it is. “Where did you get that?” I ask in a tight voice.

She holds the bag of crystal in her hand and it takes a lot of energy not to rip it from her. “It fell out of your pocket when you were fighting Conner,” she says, staring at it. “I picked it up and tucked it into my boot when the police came. I was going to just dump it down the toilet when I got home, but then I…” She trails off, looking at me.

“But you wanted to see why I had it,” I finish for her.

She nods. “I thought you said you were clean.”

I try to act cool about it, but her disappointed gaze makes me feel guilty for some reason. Obviously this girl’s been through shit and she managed to get sober. I can’t get my dumb ass clean for more than a couple of weeks at a time. “I did, but I never said for how long.”

“How long?” she asks, her eyes searching mine.

“Three weeks,” I say, holding her gaze.

She considers what I said without looking away from me. “What do you want me to do with it?”

“You’re seriously giving me choice?” Is this girl for real?

“It doesn’t really matter if I get rid of it,” she says. “If you don’t want me to, then you’ll just go get some more.”

Those are the words of someone who understands being an addict. It makes me hate her and really fucking like her at the same time. “What if I said I wanted it back?” I ask. “Would you give it to me?”

She thinks about it and nods with reluctance. “If that’s what you wanted.”

I consider what I want. Her, my mind screams. It makes me want to ask her to come back to my room, but I decided to be a nice guy for one night—do something good for a change, even though it just about kills me just thinking about it. But she did just almost get her ass kicked by her ex-husband.

“You can dump it down the toilet when you get home,” I say, even though it’s painful to say it. My pulse accelerates from the words and my palms dampen. It feels like I’m being strangled.

She blows out a breath, relaxing. “If that’s what you want,” she says with a hint of amusement and it makes me smile just a little. She puts the bag back in her boot and reaches for the shifter, about to drive away. I start to leave when she says, “Oh and Tristan.”

I pause and turn to face her. “Yeah.”

She hesitates, considering something for a moment, then ultimately leans out her window and presses her lips to mine. It’s a quick kiss. No tongue, but there’s a lot of emotion behind it. I feel my heart rate quicken for a split second. Then she’s pulling away. “Thanks,” she says, biting her lip. “For stepping in. Not a lot of people would have done that.” She doesn’t saying anything else and doesn’t give me time to respond, driving away into the night, leaving me with a thousand questions running through my head.

And the biggest need to kiss her again.

Chapter 6

I’m anxious the next day to get some information about Avery. While we’re walking to the site on the side of the road, I ask Nova if she’ll give me Avery’s number, even though I’m not sure if I should call her.

“What happened last night?” Nova asks as she kicks rocks up on the side of the road with her feet. “Seriously, Tristan. Avery seemed really upset and you had that cut on your side…” She glances down at my ribs.

“I already told you what I know,” I say with my hands stuffed inside my pockets of my jeans. “Her ex-husband showed up and tried to beat her up, so I helped her out.”

“Well, it was very brave of you,” Nova says, pulling her sunglasses over her head and taking a sip of her coffee. “And kind of stupid.”

“I’m going to second that,” Quinton says, reaching for his cigarettes in his pocket. “I think we’ve gotten in enough fights to last us a lifetime.”

“Yeah, I know. But I doubt that will be my last,” I say, tossing him his lighter that I borrowed earlier.

Quinton shakes his head again as he lights up. He doesn’t say anything more, putting the lighter in his pocket and puffing on his cigarette.

“Well, I don’t have her number,” Nova says with an apologetic look. “But I’m sure she’ll be there today, since the house will be finished up. I think I even heard her say something about picking up the keys. She seemed really excited about it.”

I nod, unsure if it’s a good thing or a bad one that I’m eager to see her again. I keep telling myself that it’s because I want answer to what the hell last night was about—nothing more. But there’s a voice in the back of my head, telling me I’m wrong. That it had to do with the kiss, wanting to see all of her tattoos, and the fact that I dreamt about her last night, over and over again.

“Do you know why she needs the house?” I wonder, trying to seem like I’m just asking it to make conversation.

Nova shakes her head. “She didn’t mention it and I didn’t want to ask her, just in case it was something painful.”

I nod and then make the rest of the walk in silence. I try my best to get through the day without thinking about Avery too much, helping out with the finishing touches on the house. It’s probably the hardest I’ve worked in a long time and when I’m done, I’m tired and ready to head back to the motel to sleep. But instead I help clean up, hoping Avery will come by before we leave. Just to get some answers, I keep telling myself.

But eventually, all the tools are packed up and Avery still hasn’t shown up. The sun is descending below the hills and there’s nothing left to do but leave. I’m sitting on the cooler in front of the house, staring at the sunset when Nova walks up to me.

“She left town for a while,” Nova says, taking a seat beside me on the cooler.

“Who?” I play dumb, eyes fixed on the light slipping away behind the hills.

“The person you’ve been pretending not to look for all day.” She nudges her shoulder into mine. “This woman showed up and was talking to someone about Avery having to leave town for a little and that she was supposed to pick up the house keys for her.” She pauses. “I can go ask the woman for Avery’s number if you want.”

I shake my head, brushing my hair out of my eyes. “Nah, that’s okay.”

“Are you sure?” Nova asks. “It’s not a big deal.”

I pause, trying to sift through all my thoughts. What is the real reason I want to talk to Avery so much? Is it because I want answers or is there more to it than that? I mean, I barely know her. Hell, I don’t even know her last name. Yet I’m extremely curious about her, want to get to know her. Attracted to her. But seriously, what would be the point? We’d chat for like five minutes and then tomorrow I’d be gone. That would be the end of it. Besides, it’s probably for the better. I’m not the kind of person she needs in her life, I’m sure. Some ex-junkie who slips up pretty much every other week. I can’t even keep my own shit together and the girl seems like she has a lot of her own shit to deal with. Still, it’s hard to just walk away.

“Yeah, I’m sure,” I say to Nova, but for some reason, it feels like I’m making the biggest mistake of my life.

Nova looks sad, but nods and gets to her feet. “How about I go find Quinton and then we can take off?” She stretches her arms above her head. “I’m really tired.”

I get to my own feet. “Sounds good. I got to run inside and grab something and then I’ll meet you guys by the truck.”

We part ways and I go into the house, not to get anything like I said, but to do something I’m not sure I should be doing. I don’t even know what compels me to do it. I’ve had people come and go through my life, over and over again. Hardly any of them I can remember. Some are just ghost memories. And I’ve completely forgotten most. I’m not sure that I’ll ever forget Avery completely. I’m not sure whether it’s because of the crazy stuff that happened or because for a moment it seemed like we shared a moment.

So I go into the kitchen and find a pen someone left on one of the counters, probably used for measuring. Then I open one of the lower cupboards below the kitchen sink and crouch down in front of it. I know I could get into deep shit for doing this if anyone found out, but I’ve never been one to fear getting into trouble.

I lean into the cupboard and press the pen to the side of it, pausing before I write.

Avery,

I’m not sure if you’re okay, but I hope so. I know this is probably weird, some guy you met for like two seconds writing on your kitchen cupboard, but I just wanted to say that I hope you find the place where you can breathe, to where your soul can thrive again, to where you can be free, to where you can live again.… I never really did see the rest of the tattoo so I’m not sure. Maybe you already have. I hope so.

It was nice meeting you. Hopefully one day our paths will cross again.

Tristan.

aka the pretty boy

Content

Tristan Finding Hope
Nova - 3.5
Jessica Sorensen

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6