How could I not have known?

I can’t get the nagging thought to go the fuck away. I was so eager to have Chloe, to ruin her, to make sure she’d remember me forever, that I didn’t stop to consider the possibility I’d be her first.

If I had known, I would have done it differently. She’d have a better memory of her first time.

I should have fucking known.

Drew dated her for a month when I was away, up north with Romano. He told me he was lying about the rumors of her sucking him off behind the school, but at the time, I wasn’t sure if he was telling me the truth or not because I was slamming his face into the cement. I thought he took her first. The day I heard what he was telling other people, I thought he’d taken her V-card.

Her only other boyfriend was Jared Santack.

They went to semi formals together and I saw him kiss her. I know they went home together that night. It was the night I came home from my first stint in jail. I remember thinking for a split second how she deserved someone like Jared, then I planned how I’d fuck up his car the next day, just because he needed to have something of his broken too.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Carter asks me from across the dining room.

My gaze shifts to him and I try to fix the pissed off look I know is on my face, but I can’t. Last night fucked me up in a way I can’t explain. I run my hand down my face and try to shrug it all off. The chair legs scratch on the floor as I get up from the table and go to the window. Carter’s family’s house is on the outskirts of the city and backs up to the woods. It’s dark and there’s not much to look at out there, but I stare outside anyway, trying to get my shit together.

My knuckles rap on the worn-out buffet table in front of the window as he asks me, “She getting to you?”

Is Chloe Rose getting to me?

She’s always gotten to me.

I don’t answer him, instead, I try to make up a lie, but it doesn’t occur to me that the lie is a truth until the words are spoken. “Being here just reminds me of family,” I tell him. My spine stiffens and a chill runs through me.

“Shit, man,” Carter tells me, “I’m sorry.” As if it’s his fault. As if he has anything at all to be sorry about.

I shake it off, hating that tonight of all nights I’m making this about me. That I can’t focus and be there for my only friend.

“How did the treatment go?” I ask him. And the look on his face instantly changes. The sympathy morphs into anguish.

He doesn’t say anything, although he tries. Instead, he looks me in the eyes and shakes his head.

My heart drops down to the pit of my stomach. “Fuck.” It’s all I can give him and then we’re both looking out the window.

“Tell me something good.”

His request catches me off guard and I consider him for a moment.

Something good. It takes me longer than it should to think of something. All thoughts lead back to Chloe Rose.

“I fucked Chlo last night,” I tell him. “I was her first.”

“Shit, really?” he asks. “She’s twenty?” I nod, waiting for him to say something else. For him to understand what it meant to me. But I don’t think he will. No one will. They don’t get it. I don’t even understand it.

Ever since I laid eyes on her, she was mine. It didn’t matter that I didn’t want anyone, because I didn’t have a choice. She was mine. Fate picked her for me, and vice versa. Last night was meant to happen. I know it.

The sound of the door opening distracts us both, drawing our attention to the front door we can’t see.

Carter grabs the edge of the buffet tighter at the sound of his dad calling out for him. “Back here,” he replies and steels himself, staring straight ahead and trying to relax his posture.

I fucking hate it. I hate how he’s scared of his own father. He tells me it’s the way it is and that it’s no different from how his father was raised, but that doesn’t make it right.

I expect his father to be drunk and angry, like the last few times I’ve seen him. He pissed himself the one night he was so hammered, we had to drag him home.

His steps get louder and then the old man is right in front of us, his hands slipping into his pockets as he leans against the doorway. “You two eat already?” he asks us and gives me a short nod before pulling out a smoke.

He lights up as we answer him. I can feel the aggression rolling off of me, my expression getting tighter, but I know that’s no good for Carter. He doesn’t want a war, he just wants to do what’s right by his mom.

Mr. Cross walks to the dining room table, sifting through the bills and puffing on his cigarette.

“How is she?” Carter asks him, and I glance between the two of them. His father’s expression falters for a split second before he changes it to something else, something stronger than the weak man who’s withering away just as his wife is.

He nods at Carter and tells him, “She had a good day.” With his lips pressed in a thin line, he tells us he’s going to bed. Carter told me the days he doesn’t drink are different, but I haven’t seen him like this in a long time. A long damn time. It’s been two years of hell, with my hate growing for this man, but seeing him sober is different.

Carter nudges me as his father starts to walk away and I reach in my back pocket for the cash. “Mr. Cross,” I call out to him and take the three steps forward to pass him the bundle. “I just wanted to help out if you’ll take it,” I offer. “I won it on a bet and I don’t need it.”

“I wish I had the decency not to,” he answers me. “This isn’t charity.”

“Call it a loan then,” I answer him quickly as he tries to give it back. Taking a step away from him, I tell him, “I don’t care either way.” He nods his head in agreement, but the old man’s eyes turn paler and glossy.

It’s quiet for a long time as I watch the man do his best not to break down in front of me, tapping the wad of cash against his palm.

“I don’t know how to tell your brothers.” He talks to Carter without looking at me, staring down at the cash before slapping it down on the dining room table. The strength he had diminishes, and his face crumples with hopelessness.

“She’s not going to be here for much longer,” he starts to cry and it fucking hurts watching a grown man lose it. “I can’t lose your mother.” He covers his face with one hand, his other bracing him on the table to keep himself upright.

“They know, Dad,” Carter tells him, although he doesn’t go to his dad, he doesn’t try to comfort him. He stands strong and his father only seems to respect the decision as he rights himself, brushing away the tears and sniffling hard to be done with it.

“They don’t know,” he says in a single breath, his face going stony. “They can’t know until it happens. Nothing can prepare you for it.”

Carter looks down and stares at his mud-covered boots; I know he wants to object.

His father’s right though. Even knowing the end is coming can’t help. Nothing can prepare you for the type of destruction death brings.

“We’ll be all right,” his father sniffs and grabs Carter’s shoulder, squeezing it and waiting for Carter to look him in the eye. “All boys,” his father says and huffs a humorless laugh although a faint smile is on his lips. He looks at me as he asks, “Can you believe that?”

I offer him a weak laugh, feeling awkward and out of place.

“Their mother wanted a little girl and instead I gave her five sons. All Irish; the Irish boys have to be tough.” He nods his head as he talks to neither of us in particular. “The men have to be tough,” he repeats and then gives his son’s shoulder one more squeeze.

“Carter will do good,” he says and then sniffles again, giving me a glance before walking toward the worn doorway. “Carter will take care of them,” he says softly.

“You’re talking like you’re already dead,” Carter comments. “You’re still here.” The tension between them changes to something else, and for the first time, I see why Carter doesn’t blame his father. He would never go against his father. It’s the fear of losing him that keeps him loyal. Between the alcohol and his hopelessness, he’s already close to losing him.

“I won’t live much longer after she goes. That’s how it works.” His father doesn’t say anything else in the awkward silence that follows and neither does Carter.

It’s only when the stairs creak with the weight of his father going to bed, that Carter says anything.

“He’s a different man when he isn’t drinking. You see it, right?” Carter asks me, his voice more hopeful than I thought it’d be. “He’s not all bad.”

I can only nod, not wanting to fight with Carter. Carter’s told me his father treats him differently from Daniel, who’s the second oldest. He’s told me some days he doesn’t even know if his father loves him. I can’t forgive a man for treating his son like that. I won’t.

“Thanks for the loan, man,” he tells me, even though I’m aware he doesn’t like that he had to take it.

“Yeah, no problem. It’s nothing,” I say and try to brush it off like it doesn’t matter. “I have to go home to Chlo.”

“Look at you,” Carter jokes and I can feel the tension leave him, grateful to move on to a different subject. “Don’t fuck it up.”

I almost joke back and tell him that I know I’m going to ruin it somehow. But it’s too close to the truth and I don’t want to speak life into the words.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way in my head, not like this.

“She has no one,” I tell Carter, just wanting him to understand her the way I do. “The worst thing I can imagine is having no one.” It’s only when the words are spoken that I realize how alone I’ve really been. I wait for Carter to say something, but his mind is elsewhere.

Maybe there is something worse though. Like having someone, but knowing you’re bound to lose them.