“Here, take this.”

I look up from toying with the black ski mask in my hand to see Jerry, one of Declan’s “guys” looking at me blankly. I feel sluggish, my head still drowning slowly in my thoughts and my regrets - thinking of Ivy, and the way I just watched her run away from me.

Something horrible inside of me wonders if this time, it really will be the last time I watch her do that.

I blink at Jerry. “Huh?”

He frowns and gestures down with his eyes. I follow them, and something seizes up in my chest.

He’s holding a gun, handle towards me.

“What the fuck is this?” I growl, finally finding my voice as I shake my head and lean away from the offered gun.

Declan snorts from the front passenger seat. “It’s a nine millimeter, kid. The hell does it look like?”

I narrow my eyes at him. “You said no guns.”

“I lied.”

Jerry chuckles. “No guns? Who the fuck do you think we’re ripping off here, a pizza place?”

“You said no guns,” I say again, my voice cold and my pulse thudding in my veins.

“Look I know what I said,” Declan turns, pulling his sunglasses down to look at me. “Deal with it.” He nods at the gun. “Take the fucking gun, kid. You probably won’t have to use it anyways.”

Probably.

It’s heavy in my hand - cold metal pressed into the hot palm of my hand. I check the safety, notice that there’s a round chambered, and then double check the safety again as we pull out of Declan’s ritzy neighborhood.

What the fuck am I doing?

There’s something screaming inside of me, there in the back of that van with a gun in one hand and a mask in the other. Because here I am making the exact same mistake I made eight years ago. I can lie to myself and say I’m doing this to protect the ones I love, but I know it’s more than that. I know that deep down, I’m drawn to this. Deep down, underneath the man I’d like to say I’ve become, I know I’m still the same thing I’ve always been.

The wrong little boy, from the wrong side of town.

The troublemaker.

The rule breaker.

The thief.

Deep down, this comes naturally, and underneath the pain and the heartache and the regrets, I know there’s something else there.

Excitement.

It’s like a horrible little junky’s itch - the addiction of the steal creeping up inside like some sort of waking dragon.

And I hate it. I hate it because it means no matter what I’ve said and done and strived for over the last eight years, I’m still the same fucking dumb kid looking for trouble that I was before.

I think it was Einstein that said stupidity is doing the same thing again and again and expecting different results. And here I am doing the same damn thing all over again. Here I am on the same path, making the same mistakes. I am exactly the same guy I was all those years ago, making the same mistakes, breaking the same girl’s heart all over again.

Except you’re not.

The voice growls inside of me, tearing up from the depths of me and making my head spin.

I’m fucking not the same dumb kid I was back then. I’ve grown up. I’ve bled, and made mistakes, and learned what it truly means to lose. Eight years ago I was an idiot doing some dumb shit with no conceivable idea of what the consequences would be. I was in love with a girl who I didn’t deserve in a million fucking years, and I thought I had something to prove to her.

I thought I had something to prove to myself about being good enough for her.

Except that was all bullshit inside my own head, and I know that now. I know now that she loved me for me back then. I know now that the only proving I had to do was to myself, inside my own damn head.

I have no idea how she feels about me now, or if she could ever find her way back to loving me the way she did when we were kids, but there’s a moment there in the back of that van, with a gun in my hand and the weight of the world on my heart, that I know…

I know I truly am damned and lost if I let the chance to find out slip away.

I truly am forgotten if I lose that girl again.

And I know right then that it’s time to prove I’m as good as she always thought I was. It’s time to be the man I’m supposed to be.

For her.

And I know what I have to do.

“Stop the van.”

Jerry turns to me, raising an eyebrow.

The van keeps moving.

“I said stop the fucking van!”

The words roar out of me, and this time Declan, both other guys, and even the driver shoot me looks.

Declan laughs, breaking the sudden stillness. “He’s got nerves.” He chuckles, turning to glance at me as he brings a flask to his lips. “I told you you’d gotten soft kid-”

He goes silent as the gun in my hand presses to his chest.

Jerry and one of the other guys go for their own guns, but I jerk my head around and shake it at them. “Don’t.” I shake my head. “Don’t try me.”

I turn back to my uncle.

“Stop the van, Declan.”

My voice is level, even this time, and the whole car goes dead silent.

Declan’s face darkens, his eyes dropping to focus on the gun. “Alright, listen kid, I don’t know what your play is here, but-”

“Now, Declan.”

The driver glances nervously at him, and my uncle nods. “Stop the fucking car.”

We slow and pull to the side of the road out of town.

“What’s your play here, Silas,” Declan says quietly, his eyes narrowed to slits at me.

“I’m out. That’s my play.”

Declan swears. “Jesus fucking Christ, kid!” he seethes. “We’re on a time limit here! We have a plan to-”

“Fuck your plan, Declan,” I mutter, shaking my head. “I’ve got my own plan now.”

I keep the gun to his chest as I reach for the side door, sliding it open and slowly stepping out.

I keep the gun trained on him.

“You walk away from this you’re walking away from family, you little bastard,” Declan growls. ‘And in case you fucking forgot, let me remind you that accidents happen to other-”

“Declan, stop talking.” I shake my head at him. “You’re my uncle and in the interest of family and my mom, I’m going to say this once. Don’t do this job.”

He rolls his eyes.

“Dec, you’ve got a wife who loves you for God knows what reasons, you’ve got money, what the fuck are you even-”

“Ain’t nothing in this world free unless you take it, right kid?”

I shake my head. “You’ve been saying that for years, and you know what?”

I smile thinly at him.

“It’s bullshit.”

I turn to the others. “Guns on the ground outside the van. Now. You can grab them when I’m a hundred feet down the road.”

They hesitate for a second before I press the gun against Declan’s neck, and then they do as I say.

I turn back to my uncle. “Last warning, Dec. You don’t have to do this, you know.”

He sneers at me. “You know what? Fine. Walk away you ungrateful little bastard. This ain’t over though, between you and me.”

I keep the gun leveled at him as I slowly back away from the van.

“Yes it is.”

I’m done.

I turn and start to jog, almost expecting to feel a bullet in my back. But there’s only the sound of distant swearing, of the van door swinging shut with a thud, and of the tires kicking up gravel as the crew roars off to the job.

Without me.

I watch the van until it’s out of sight around a corner. Then I turn, and I start to run.

I run like I’ve been late to get somewhere for eight fucking years, and now it’s my last chance to get there. I wipe the gun down with the edge of my shirt, and as I run down the shore road, I chuck it over the bluffs into the ocean.

Because that’s not me.

My feet pound the road as I run back into Shelter Harbor like a man on fire. I’m done making the same mistakes, and walking the same path, and watching myself lose the same girl all over again. Not this time. This time, I’m stopping myself before the fall, and I’ll be damned if I let myself lose her again.

And this time, I’m ready to tell the whole fucking world that I love her, come hell or high water.