She was definitely right about one thing—we both needed space. I couldn’t stand here waiting for a scrap of attention, a sign of any sort of emotional attachment.

It was fucking pathetic, and I wasn’t doing it.

“I guess I’ll head back,” I said. “Unless you need anything.”

“I’m okay.” She finally looked at me. Really, truly looked at me. “I’ll call you in a few days.”

In a few days? She was dismissing me? Telling me to go away?

Fuck that.

“You can’t just snap your fingers and make me disappear,” I said. “We need to talk about stuff, not ignore it.”

“You said you would never throw it in my face, but you did.” Tears welled in her eyes.

“I said I’d never throw what you did with Nathan in your face, but I have a right to be upset about the drinking.” I was using a low voice, conscious of her family nearby. “And you threw my anger in my face, too, so I’d say we’re even.”

“It’s not a contest. Just give me a few days, please, just some space.”

“You can’t hide every time something bad happens. You can’t shut down.” Didn’t she see that’s what she did? She retreated and withdrew.

A tear trailed down her cheek. “And you can’t hurt me every time you’re scared. You promised to hold up the sky for me, Phoenix.”

That cut me as deeply as a bowie knife. Most of my life I’d been a failure in one way or another. I sucked at school. I sucked at friendship. I sucked at being a good son.

But I had wanted more than anything to be a good boyfriend to Robin. To have the outside action match the love I felt on the inside.

To hear that I had fucked that up, too, well, I couldn’t handle it.

“That’s not fucking fair,” I told her. “I’ve always had your back. This wasn’t something little. I found you unconscious! I’m not trying to hurt you, I’m trying to get you to see how messed up last night was.”

“I am very much aware of how messed up I am. Thanks for reminding me.”

“Now you’re purposefully misunderstanding me.”

“Just leave. Please.”

Damn. That was rough. It must have showed on my face because she winced. “I’m sorry, that didn’t sound right. I didn’t mean to be hurtful.”

But I shook my head. It was too ingrained in me to be strong, to hide my feelings. I had spent a lifetime pretending my mother didn’t hurt me. I wasn’t about to admit that Robin had and could. “Don’t flatter yourself,” I said. “You can’t hurt me.”

Without saying another word, because I knew I would lose it, say something really ugly, I turned and left.

It wasn’t until I got out onto the main road heading for the highway that I allowed myself to shout in the empty car in pure frustration.

“Damn it!” I pounded the steering wheel and wondered why the hell I had to meet Robin if I wasn’t going to get to be with her.

Because the right thing to do would be to walk out of her life for good and let her become the person she was supposed to be, a graphic designer with an accountant husband and a house in the suburbs. Not saddled with a loser who had a record and no money.

But when I got back to her place to drop her car off and walk home, I went inside for some sick, masochistic reason. I headed straight toward the oil paintings she had been working on. Flipping through them one at a time, I saw the dark emotions she had clearly been pushing out through her art.

I lay on the bed—our bed—and stared at the ceiling, remembering the way she had looked at me on my birthday and the first time we’d had sex, her eyes all soft and warm.

Then I stole a picture of us smiling for the camera that she had printed and tucked into the mirror on the door and I left.

Four days. Four whole days went by and I didn’t hear a single word from her.

I didn’t text or call her either, but I was just doing what she asked me to do. Giving her space.

Space sucked.

It sucked hard.

I was going crazy, the days endless, the nights worse. I slept on my cousins’ couch, or pretended to sleep. Mostly I lay there, thoughts turning in a whirlpool in my mind, wondering what I was supposed to do. Wondering whose idea of a joke this bullshit was. Hadn’t I been handed enough crap in life? Now I had to love someone only to have her fade out of my life?

No. It was just bull-fucking-shit.

“You could call her,” Tyler said to me Thursday night as I sat watching TV with Jayden, and he saw me check my phone for the seven hundredth time.

“Mind your own business.”

Tyler made a face at me. “Fine. Be miserable.”

Rory and Jessica were in the kitchen, and I had purposely avoiding asking them about Robin. I didn’t even know if either of them had talked to her. It felt too much like begging to ask them about her.

“I will, thanks.” I was. I was dying to know how Robin was. If she had told her parents the truth. If she was physically feeling better. If she were missing classes. If she hated my face.

My hands were swollen and bruised, scabbing over, from all the boxing I had been doing in the basement. I had been tempted to go over Nathan’s car a second time, but I had resisted. He had shown up to get it on Monday but he hadn’t come into the house and he hadn’t said anything about the condition to Tyler. I figured he was waiting for the right time to get even with me. Whatever. He was an idiot if he didn’t realize I would enjoy it. I didn’t even feel bad that I had put Tyler in an awkward position. His friend was an asshole, end of story.

“She’s coming back tomorrow. Rory told me.”

Then I should probably stop sneaking over to her apartment and stealing random shit and lying on her bed. It was weird, and I knew it was weird, but it made me feel close to her. In one moment of weakness I had even left a card for her on her dresser, and now it was too late to get it back. I mean, seriously, a greeting card? I had never bought one in my entire life and, first of all, was shocked to see they cost like three bucks, but secondly, it was absolutely cheesedick of me. Lame.

It was also too late to give back the painting I’d lifted, the one of the lighthouse, its spotlight cutting across a choppy sea. Or the perfume that she always wore that I didn’t even like. I had them stashed in Jayden and Easton’s room because they would ask the least questions. Though I did have a sneaking suspicion Jayden had used the perfume himself because he was smelling a little floral.

“Glad to hear it,” I said evenly. “She must be feeling better. How is Kylie?”

Tyler shook his head. “Kylie is a hot mess. Nathan is blowing up her phone with apologies.”

I snorted.

“He knows he fucked up and he’s hurting,” Tyler said. “You know he’s going to come after you to take out some of that anger.”

I shrugged. “I can out-anger him any day of the week.”

“I know. That’s what scares me.”

The front door opened, and I glanced over to see my mother walk in the door. Shit. Now? This was when she chose to finally make an appearance? Worst timing ever.

“Hey, Phoenix, I need to talk to you,” she said.

Of course she did. I was definitely not in the mood for a little mother-son chat. “Hey, Mom, so nice to see you for the first time in six months. I’m good, thanks for asking.”

She frowned. “Don’t be a smart-ass.”

Notorious for wearing clothes that were two sizes too small and twenty years too young for her, she was wearing denim acid-washed shorts and a tank that made it very obvious she did not have a bra on. Jesus Christ. I wanted to sigh. In fact, I think I actually did.

“Hi, Aunt Jackie,” Easton said from where he was rolling around on the floor for no apparent reason.

“Hey, brat,” she said, tickling his ribs with her toes.

Yep, she was barefoot.

“How did you know I’d be here?” I asked, not moving from the couch.

“Where else would you be? You ain’t got a pot to pee in, and I know you don’t want to live with that twat girlfriend of yours.”