Reid’s eyes surveyed me. He was the only guy who could ever see through all my bullshit. We’d never openly spoken about Kennedy, but he’d been witness to all the shit I pulled on her growing up, and while he never questioned it, I knew he understood.

“Just checkin’.” Reid walked past me, clipped my shoulder with his hand, and disappeared into the bevy of inebriated people dancing in my living room.

It was the last night before everyone was supposed to head back to college, so it called for one final hoorah before school took over. I had too much riding on this semester to fuck up (again) so for me it really was the last night to let loose.

On a scale of one to apocalyptic, my first year at college had definitely tipped closer towards apocalyptic. It was filled with booze, parties, and faceless girls, something my father hadn’t taken lightly. He’d given me an ultimatum – shape up, or ship out. To him that meant get my shit together or be cut off. So I chose to get my shit together.

After grabbing a bottle of Jack Daniels, I made my way upstairs to my bedroom. I ignored the people filling up my staircase, and left the party downstairs to its own devices. I didn’t care what happened in my absence. The house could burn down and I wouldn’t have given two shits. In fact, I’d hoped that someone would accidentally set the place alight. That way I could be free of it.

I locked my bedroom door, hoping to deter anyone who might disturb me, and sat down on my bed. The room was dark, save for the moonlight that came in through my windows, and I’d never felt more…lost. Alone.

I unscrewed the lid off the bottle, and made sure to throw it somewhere I wouldn’t be able to find it. There was no way I was going to stop until this bottle was empty.

I needed it to bring me the numbness I so badly craved, and the reprieve from the anger and hatred exploding between my ribs.

The amber liquid burned as I took a swig, and as soon as my senses started to dull, I kept going. I fell back onto my bed, and shut my eyes, only to be assaulted with images of Kennedy. I did a mental check of how much she’d changed since I last saw her. She looked thinner, but not in a bony kind of way. Her hair was longer, and her body had far more definition that I’d remembered. And was it just me or were her boobs bigger too? They looked full, and lush, and perfectly rounded. Puberty had been good to her, obviously. Or maybe it was the tank top she was wearing that made them look that way. I might have hated her, but that didn’t mean my body was indifferent to hers.

Too bad I could never act on those feelings though. My loathing now outweighed my desire to fuck her senseless, and I finally had a good enough reason to really hate her.

Our lives were wrecked the night we graduated high school and while she wasn’t responsible for what happened, she was related to the person who was. That was enough for me.

I had no idea where she’d been for the last year and a half, and I’d managed to convince myself that I didn’t care. As far as I was concerned, not having her around made my life easier, and it was after she’d left that I’d willingly fallen off the deep end.

And now she was back.

** ** **

I GROANED, AND tried to roll over onto my back.

Fuck.

My head.

The smallest of movements made it feel like I had a caveman banging away in my skull.

Why did I have to drink so much last night?

Dammit.

After a few minutes of trying to gather my bearings, I dragged my tired, hung over ass to the shower. I smelled like shit, and a quick glance in the mirror told me I looked like shit too.

Truth be told, I felt far worse than I looked.

My brown hair was disheveled, and my eyes were bloodshot, with dark purple bags underneath. Not exactly a pretty sight, but it wasn’t anything a hot shower and fresh coffee couldn’t fix.

When I was sure I’d all but scrubbed the alcohol out my system, I dried off, pulled on some clean clothes, and headed downstairs in search of some fresh java.

The house was a fucking mess. Empty cups, and beer bottles were strewn across the floor, along with a few random bottom feeders who’d obviously passed out at some point during the party. I stepped around the after-effects of last nights’ blow out, and found Reid leaning against a marble counter in the kitchen with a cup of steaming coffee in his hand.

“He has risen,” he joked, taking the cup to his mouth.

“Fuck off,” I replied. I grabbed my own cup, and silently praised the heavens that the coffee was still fresh.

“Did you have a bad night, pumpkin?”

Reid was joking, I knew that, but my sense of humor had yet to make a re-appearance after last night. Or perhaps it was chilling at the bottom of the empty Jack Daniels bottle I left next to my bed.

I flipped him the bird from over my shoulder, and then added milk and two sugars to my cup. Reid chuckled, and mumbled something under his breath. I would have asked him to repeat it, but I didn’t have the energy. Not to mention the fact that even talking hurt like a motherfucker.

“You disappeared last night,” remarked Reid. He emptied his cup, and rinsed it before turning back to face me.

When the caffeine made it possible to talk without hurting my head, I replied, “I got over it, so I went up to my room.”

I avoided his gaze, and shrugged, as if he’d accept that as a good enough explanation.

“Did it have anything to do with Kennedy showing up here last night? Because you were fine before she came. In fact, I seem to remember walking in on you with some brunette’s mouth around your junk.”

I frowned. “Don’t be stupid,” I replied, biting back my sudden annoyance. “Why the fuck would I care if Kennedy was here?”

Reid’s brows arched, and he crossed his arms. “Because you kinda threw that chick off like she was a disease as soon as you heard Kennedy’s voice.”

Fuck. He had me there because I did in fact throw Misty off me when I thought I’d heard Kennedy’s voice. She wasn’t impressed, but it’s not like I promised her more than getting the chance to suck me off. I might have hinted at the possibility of reciprocation, but the moment Kennedy showed up all bets were off.

“That’s what I thought,” Reid added. He pushed himself off the counter, and stopped at the mouth of the kitchen that led back into the living room. “We need to get going. You calling the cleaning service to come clean this place up before we lock up?”

I nodded, and then looked away. My jaw ticked, and my body was rife with agitation. Pushing that aside, I called the cleaning company I used after every party I had, and made arrangements for them to come clean up before Reid and I headed back to the university campus. They’d clean up, and cover all the furniture with cloth, and that’s how the house would stay until I needed a place to crash when the dorms closed over break. My parents moved out shortly after I graduated high school, and honestly I couldn’t blame them. It was no longer a home for us, and only held the memories that hurt.

My mother needed to get away, so my father took her with him on a few business trips, and when they came back I found out he’d bought another house for them a few hours away in Dallas. He couldn’t bring himself to sell our old one, so he’d left it vacant.

I used it for my parties, which were almost a nightly occurrence this past year, and sometimes I’d come back just to be alone. To remember. No matter how hard it was.

But, it was time to pack up again, and start my second year at Brighton University. I was studying a Bachelor of Science in Architecture, a decision I made because it was what I’d really wanted. I learned that life is too short to do what others wanted you to do, and you should follow your dreams instead of living out the plans someone else had set out for you. Too bad my douchebag of a father didn’t get that memo. He’d had his own dreams for me, and while we might have agreed on them at some point, fate had other ideas. And I listened.