She’s warm, and soft, and I wanna stay inside her forever. I could ignore the world, ignore what she thinks of me, just for a while longer. Bury my face in her sweet-smelling hair, feel her curves pressed to my bare skin, and believe I can keep her.

That she’ll keep me.

But that’s a pipe dream, always was, and always will. Nobody wants to keep someone like me. When the hell will I learn? Plus, she doesn’t really want to be here. She thinks she’s paying me back for something I’d have given anyway, that it’s a fee for protecting her and those she loves when I’m helpless when it comes to her.

Yeah, she has no clue, but what chance do I have when in her eyes I’m a criminal she doesn’t want to associate with?

And even worse, she’s right.

Still, pulling out of her is hard. Telling her to go even harder. It’s the best, though, for her. I repeat that to myself when her eyes lose that softness she gets after coming, when that faint glow of pleasure in her expression fades.

I tug off the condom, tie it off and throw it to the floor to pick up later. As I come down from the high of fucking her, holding her, pretending I belong with her, my bad knee starts to ache, and man, I need a drink and a smoke.

Only I can’t stop staring at her, all gleaming pale skin and round tits, her taut rosy nipples and the perfect triangle of her shaved pussy, then those badass black boots. I look up, and I’m caught in her fiery blue eyes.

They narrow at me.

“You’re a real piece of work,” she spits out, and bends over to gather her clothes. “Asshole.”

I eye my pants around my ankles and the thought of bending that knee to pull them up makes me wince. Gritting my teeth, I manage to bend down just enough to snag the waistband and drag them up my legs.

“You’re the one you turned up here,” I mutter, pulling my smokes and lighter from the back pocket and tapping a cigarette out. “You shouldn’t have.”

“What’s your problem?” she hisses, pulling on her panties, then shoving her arms through the straps of her bra and hooking it behind her back, hiding her tits from me. “And what are you looking at?”

I smirk at her, knowing it will piss her off more. “Your tits.”

“Screw you.” A flush rises to her cheeks, and I reach down to stroke my hardening dick through my pants. “What’s wrong with you?”

“That’s a long list,” I tell her, “and a long story.”

She bites her lip, and I exhale, remembering her teeth scraping against mine as we kissed, her pussy gripping my cock like a vise as she came, my name on her lips.

Fuck.

“Save it,” she says, “I don’t want to hear it,” and it shouldn’t fucking hurt, but it does.

“Suit yourself.” I light up, and limp over to the couch. I wasn’t really offering to tell her my life story.

Was I?

I throw the pack of cigarettes and the lighter on the coffee table before sinking down on the sofa with a sigh. God, my knee’s fucked. “And here I thought you came here to talk to me.”

“Now you remember that?”

“What the hell do you want from me, Gigi? Just tell me.” Fuck, and now my eyes burn like I’m about to cry like a little girl. Fuck my life. “Make up your mind.”

“Funny you say that.” From the corner of my eye, I see her yank on her dress and sweater. “You’re the one in a gang. You’re the one ignoring me when your friends are around. And you’re the one asking for sexual favors to help my friend, and to keep me safe.”

I shake my head. “You think that fucking low of me. You really think that’s why I’m helping your friend and keeping you safe?”

“What… what do you mean?” She walks around the couch to face me, hands on her hips, her long blond hair falling in her face. She’s beautiful. “Explain, Jarett.”

“I only ignored you to protect you. And…” I flick the ashes of my cigarette, and take another long drag, hoping my eyes will stop burning. “You know what? Fuck that. Christ.”

She takes a step back as if I slapped her. Her brows dip. “Stop… confusing me.”

“I’m confusing you? What the fuck are you talking about?”

I’m really fucking lost here. I gave her my number, for fuck’s sake. Went down on her. Kissed her. If there’s a girl I’ve ever cared about… it’s her.

And because of that, I can never have her.

She’s still watching me, as if she can see behind my words, behind the smoke from my cigarette. She’s always been able to see me where others couldn’t.

Or so I thought.

“Just… nothing.” She walks over to where her jacket is on the floor, picks it up and puts it on. “Nothing at all.”

She’s leaving again, and this time she’s not coming back. I fucking know it.

She’s walking out of my life, just like she did two years ago, and this time I know I shouldn’t invite her back in.

Things are going downhill, with the gang getting deeper into dangerous jobs and Seb flying off the handle more and more often. Better if she’s not nearby. I can’t drag her down with me, even if letting her go is the last thing I want.

* * *

Suzie was right.

I got fired from the bar. Too many missed shifts, and with her not willing to cover for me anymore, I was handed a pink slip and shown the door.

Fuckers.

It’s my fault, I know, but with Angel and Mav riding my ass for not joining the gang activities enough and getting all suspicious about anyone I hang around, like Gigi, it’s not as if I had much of a choice.

So now I’m checking ads on my phone, trying to find something else, and wondering where the hell Sebastian has vanished to, again.

I’m worried, even if I hate the guy. After all, he’s my charge. He’s probably getting high somewhere, or coming down, shivering and sick. He may be lying dead from an overdose, and I’ll never know, not until the police find him.

I rub my forehead, trying to erase the headache tightening its hold around my skull. His mom will ask me where he is, how he is. Once more I’ll have to lie to her. You’d think after two years of this, I’d be used to it, be good at it, do it without a second thought.

Yeah. I wish that was the case, too. Would’ve made my life so much easier.

Letting out a long breath, I lean back in my rickety kitchen chair and look around me. Since Gigi has been here, I’ve been seeing my apartment—hell, my life—with different eyes. Cold, bare, empty. A hand-me-down, old and worn and unwanted.

Like me.

I look down at myself, my ratty sweats and bare feet, the ink on my chest. At the empty bottle of scotch on the table. Look at my package of cigarettes and reach for them but let my hand drop on the table, empty.

If I light up now, I’ll go up in flames, I’m so soaked in alcohol. I stink of it, and sweat, and grime.

Why the hell do I care, though? There’s nobody here to smell me, or see me, or talk to me. Nobody to get offended, or upset.

Nobody to worry about me.

I make myself get up anyway, to take a leak and splash some water on my face. It’s late, the time when I’d normally be working at the bar or following the gang around. Ironic that I was fired just when gang activity eased a little.

Then again, what did I expect? Just my fucking luck, and fuuuck, I’m so drunk. The bathroom tilts in my eyes as I piss, and I end up splashing urine all over. I find myself on my knees, snickering, wondering what Seb will think if he finds me like this, if he finds the bathroom covered in piss.

And then get angry, because why the fuck should I care? I’ve been cleaning up his messes for years, worse messes than a little piss on the tiles, and what the hell am I doing with my life?

I curl up on the floor, and close my eyes, fighting a new wave of depression. Dammit, getting shitfaced was supposed to make me forget, not drag me down deeper.

If I left the gang, if I moved away… if I became someone else, would I stand a chance with a girl like Gigi?

A chance with Gigi, dammit, cuz there’s no other girl like her, and now I’m shaking with cold on the wet floor and cursing.

Something’s got to give. This ain’t no life. It’s a lie I’ve been telling myself.

And what’s one more fucking lie, right? Until you realize you don’t know what is the truth anymore.

* * *

Macy, the receptionist at the nursing home, gives me a critical look. “Rough night?”

I shrug. “I’ve had worse.”

Waking up on the bathroom floor, frozen solid and covered in piss is a new fucking low. Even worse is the weight on my chest that won’t let me breathe, a weight coming from the inside, from my dark places in my mind, from the pit. Digging myself out is getting harder every time.

I’m not even sure I made it out. My skin is crawling, my thoughts are full of shifting shadows and patched-up holes.

Sometimes I’m not sure how my mind doesn’t come apart at the seams. It feels like it’s held together by a thread that’s slowly unraveling.

“Jarett?”

I blink. “What?”

Macy is glaring at me. “You spaced out. What’s the matter with you? I’m not letting you inside if you’re high.”

“What? I’m just tired.”

“You sure?” She gives me a long look, and it annoys the hell out of me.

I mean, shit, I know I look like roadkill, but I’ve been coming down here for two years. Just because I won’t fuck her, that doesn’t give her the right to keep me out.

“I’m sure,” I tell her, and head toward Mrs. Lowe’s room before Macy can try and stop me, or send the bored guard standing by the entrance after me.

Goddammit.

My knee is killing me, and my head is pounding. Today is pure misery. Which is why I need to see her face.

Mom’s face.

Even if I don’t get to call her that. Even if she’s not really my mother, or will ever be. There’s no one else who can replace her, and today I need her.

When I open the door and step inside her little room, she’s sitting at her usual place in front of the TV, and my heart gives that funny twist it always does when I spot her.

Gray hair pulled back from her face in a loose ponytail, her face more lined than it was a year ago, her kind eyes hooded. On the table beside her, there’s a plastic plate with a small cake, like every Thursday, brought by who knows who.

She turns them on me, and a faint smile spreads on her lips. “You came.”

It’s a moment frozen in time, a moment from the past, and I don’t wanna move in case I break it. In this stolen moment, she’s my mom, and we’re home, and everything’s fine with the world.

Then she starts trying to get up, and her gaze turns anxious. “Sebastian?”

My heartbeat falters. “No, I’m not—”

“Seb. You’re here.”

My jaw clenches, and sadness washes through me. This happens sometimes. She thinks I’m him, and today it hits me harder than ever.

“Seb. Gonna make you those meatballs you like.” She’s still trying to get up, but her motor skills are shot, and she’ll never make it up on her own.

I walk over to her, put a hand on her frail shoulder, gently push her back down. “It’s okay, Mom. I’m not hungry.”

It’s ironic that these are the only times I allow myself to call her this, call her Mom, out loud. When it’s all pretend and lies.

So many fucking lies. They’re getting too heavy to bear.

“You’re a growing boy,” she says, voice slurring a little. She tries to catch my hand but misses. “You need food.”

“I just ate,” I reply, and swallow hard.

She thinks she’s back at home. She thinks I’m her little boy. She has returned to the past, and I guess it was a good time, before her husband passed away and she got sick, so who am I to begrudge her that return?

Even if back then she hadn’t even met me.

“Sit,” she says, or I think she says, and then something I can’t make out. Cold fear seeps into me when I realize her speech may go soon. “Siddown, lemme…”

I go to my knees beside her, grab her hands. “I’m here. No need to go anywhere.”

Her eyes fill up. “You’re never happy, Seb. Why?” Her words are garbled, but they’re still clear, and they stab me. “What did I do?”

“It’s not you,” I tell her honestly. I know it’s not her fault.

“You need a brother,” she says.

“Yeah.” What else can I say?

“To keep you safe. When I won’t be around no more.”

“Stop, all right? Stop.” She hasn’t said anything like this before. “Is that why you took me in? To make Seb happy? I can’t…”

I release her hands and shoot to my feet.

Not sure what I expected. I mean, she’s been waiting for Seb to show up for two years now. Of course she loves him. Of course she’d do anything for him.

And if I thought she’d decided back then that she wanted one more child, for herself, for me, that was all in my mind. I had those romantic fantasies where my mom would show up and take me in her arms, say she was sorry she left me and wanted me back.

Only my real mom is dead. That should have been a real fucking important clue, right? An indication that there’s no going back. That fantasies remain fantasies.

And I can’t do this today. Fuck. Glancing at her, I find her staring blankly at the mute TV, and I know that if I stay longer, I’ll break down. I’ll beg her to see me, to realize who I am, to tell me she’ll be okay.

No fucking way. Upsetting her is the worst thing I could do, and for what?

Wiping a hand over my face, I turn around and leave. It’s the only thing I can do.

* * *

“You need to sign out,” Macy tells me as I storm toward the exit of the nursing home.

“You didn’t tell me she was getting worse,” I snap, and double back to scratch my signature in the visitors’ book.

“She’ll keep getting worse, Jarett. I thought you were aware of that.”

Of course I knew this, I’ve read all I could find on the disease, but somehow I thought she’d stop deteriorating.

Stay with me. But nobody ever stays.

“Look, sorry I asked if you were high earlier.” She turns the book back around, smooths the paper, not looking at me. “I know this is hard.”

I nod, toss the pen on the counter and make to the door. I don’t care about her apology. All I want is to get out, breathe some fresh air.

“You can talk to me, you know!” she calls out after me, and I roll my eyes, because, really?

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I mutter as I step out into the cold, pulling my jacket closed.

There’s nobody I can talk to, nobody who has any faith left in me, not even Gigi.

Especially not Gigi.

And if there was one person I’d have spilled my guts to, explained why I do the things I do and asked for forgiveness, for understanding, it’d have been her.

Always her.

So it makes perfect fucking sense that she’s not the one offering to listen, and that she doesn’t give a shit about my story.