My heart jumps out of my chest as I scan the shadows of my room for whatever just yanked me from sleep.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
I bite back a yelp as my eyes register the dark silhouette standing outside my bedroom window.
About the same time as my brain computes the notion that an axe murderer wouldn’t be knocking—they’d just break in—my phone vibrates on the nightstand beside me. The illuminated screen shows text after text from Vince.
I scramble out of bed, bleary-eyed and anxious. With a glance toward my bedroom door to make sure it’s shut, I pull the curtain aside and open the window as quietly as possible.
“What are you doing?” I whisper-yell before emitting a nervous chuckle and looking over my shoulder again. He’s removed the screen. There’s no way he can come in here. What if my parents hear? What if they walk in? What if— “Are you out of your mind? Do you know how grounded I’ll be if my parents find you here? How much trouble we’ll be in?”
But at the same time, I’m so glad he is. Our fight earlier was a rarity, and I hated the sick feeling I had in my stomach when I went to bed without hearing from him.
“Trouble?” He chuckles, but it doesn’t sound like the Vincent I know. He sounds off. Dejected. Maybe even drunk. “Like I care about getting in trouble.” He cups the back of my neck and brings his mouth to mine.
For the briefest of seconds, the fight from earlier disappears, and I lose myself in everything Vincent Jennings has become to me. The dark spark in my mundane life. The best friend I can tell anything. The rebel that pushes my boundaries when I’d rather paint inside the lines—or exactly, perfectly on the lines. The person who looks at me and makes me feel beautiful.
My first love.
But there’s something more to this kiss and the faint taste of beer on his tongue, and it takes me a few seconds to recognize it.
There’s desperation here—hunger—an urgency that I can’t comprehend.
“Vince?” I ask as the kiss ends and he rests his forehead on mine, his hand still at the base of my neck holding me to him. “What’s wrong?”
He gives the slightest shake of his head but doesn’t move.
He’s been like this before when whatever happens at his house . . . happens. He’s come to me not wanting to talk but needing my company. He’s come to me with a swollen cheek or busted lip but has refused to explain other than to play it off with a “you should’ve seen the other guy” type of comment.
But he’s never knocked on my window at two in the morning. He’s never kissed me so it makes me feel like this might be our last kiss. His presence has never caused the panic fluttering in my throat like it is right now.
I don’t know what to do so I kiss him again. Soft and slow and unknowingly try to give him everything he needs but won’t say that he does.
“Bristol,” he murmurs against my lips before forcibly taking a step back.
“What? What is it?” I glance toward my door again. “Tell me.” Please tell me this time. “Climb in.”
He’s in my room in a second. When his feet land on the floor, it sounds like a herd of elephants in my head, and I’m more than certain my parents will be rushing in here at any second.
But they don’t come.
My door doesn’t barge open.
It’s just Vince and me facing each other in the darkness of my room, both hands holding on to each other’s. But when he shifts and the moonlight hits his face, I can see the bruise on his cheek. I notice his red-rimmed eyes, and for the first time ever, I hope it’s from the alcohol and not from crying.
While his kiss tasted like beer, I know it’s not from that.
The solemnity in his demeanor tells me what I don’t want to know and what he has never talked about in the three years we’ve been together.
His house.
His dad.
The things that happen there.
I scramble for what to say as he looks at me with a resigned determination I don’t understand . . . and don’t think I want to.
“Is this about earlier?” I ask, grasping for something to erase the expression on his face.
He gives a smile that is as subtle as the shake of his head for his answer.
“I’ve thought about it and realized that I caused a fight because I was nervous. What will people think of me if they find out we went all the way? Then I was worried it might be different between us after we did it and . . . I just don’t want it to ruin this. Us. And . . .” My nervous chuckle stops my endless ramble that we know can go on forever. I slide my hand around the back of his neck and bring his lips to mine. “I’m ready, Vince. I want to—”
“No, Shug.” The tensing of my body has him swearing. “God, yes, I want you. How could you think otherwise? You’re all I think about. Sometimes I want you so bad it physically hurts. But not like this. Not now.”
“But . . .” His rejection stings and is more confusing than what he’s doing here right now.
“Don’t you see? You deserve so much better than me. So much more than what I can give you. Than—”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” I grab his head in both of my hands and stare into those green eyes that are so light they’re almost translucent. “You’re all I need. You’re everything to me.”
“For now, maybe. But you have a huge future ahead of you. You’ll be valedictorian when you graduate. Then off to college. Then law school after that. I mean—”
“We already talked about this. Planned this. You’re going to go with me. Play in the local clubs wherever I go and try to be seen there. No one thought we’d last a month, yet here we are. It’ll be hard but we’ll make it work. We always have.”
He nods but refuses to meet my eyes.
“What is it, Vince? What are you not telling me?” That panic resurfaces, clawing its way up my throat.
“I’m leaving, Shug.”
“What do you mean you’re leaving? Like for the weekend?” My mind races. “I thought we were going to go to . . . never mind. I get it. You have plans. But you’ll be back on Sunday, right?”
“No. I’m going. Now. Tonight.” He lifts his gaze to meet mine, and all the air is sucked from the room as his expression pulls tight. “For good.”
“I—I don’t understand.” Emotion balls in my throat and chills chase over my skin. “You can’t go. We have plans.” I shake my head as if the action will help this make sense. It doesn’t. “But you—”
“I can’t take this anymore.” His voice breaks right along with my heart at the sound of it.
“Take what?” I ask but know before he answers. His dad. The reason why in the three years we’ve been dating, I’ve only met the man once, and why I’m only allowed over to his house when his dad’s not home.
Fairfield knows Vince’s father, Deegan Jennings, as the man who mostly keeps to himself. The one who sits in his vintage Bronco on the street outside the football stadium to watch the high school games from afar wishing his son were on the field instead of playing with his secondhand guitar. The man who wants a homecoming king for a son instead of an outcast who doesn’t care if he fits in. The one who frequents the liquor store a little too regularly but always has a subtle nod or quiet smile to anyone who says hi.
But I know him as the man Vince hates. I know him as the man with sharp criticism and demeaning quips in the background during our phone conversations. I know him as the man responsible for the marks on Vince’s face even though he’s never confirmed it.
“I just can’t, okay?” He swallows, his voice thick from the tears brimming in his eyes that he blinks away. “I should have done it the day I graduated, got the hell out of here . . . but . . .”
“But you stayed because of me.”
He put up with whatever hell he won’t talk about because of me. My heart breaks a little more.
He nods. “You’re the only good thing I have here, Bristol.”
“But it isn’t enough.” My voice is barely audible.
“No. That’s not it.” He holds my chin up and stares into my eyes as his first tear slips down his cheek. This boy . . . this man that I love, seems so broken, and I don’t know how to fix him. How to help him. “You’re more than enough. You’re everything, but if I stay, I don’t think I’ll ever take the chance at becoming what he thinks I can’t be, and I know I can be.”
“Yes, you will. I know you will. You’re—”
“Shh.” He presses a finger to my lips and shakes his head. “And if I stay, you won’t take those chances you need to take. You’ll hold yourself back because of me. You’ll pick a college where you think there’s a music scene for me instead of one that’s best for you.”
“I won’t. I promise.”
“I know you better than that. You’re selfless like that, and I can’t do that to you. I can’t hold you back from being the person we both know you can be.”
“You’re just saying this to make it easier to leave. You’re just—”
“You’re right. I am.” He swallows roughly. “I have to believe it.” His hands are on my cheeks. His forehead is resting against mine again. “It’s the only way I can do this. It’s for the best.”
Salt is on my lips. My own tears falling hard and fast while my brain tries to process Vince’s decision.
That he really is leaving.
That he’s walking away without a fight.
We had plans. Tomorrows and forevers. A future.
I love him.
I can see those same thoughts reflected in his eyes. The same pain. The same hurt. The same regret.
I can’t make him suffer more because of his loyalty to me. I can’t force him to endure whatever hell happens in his house simply because I need him.
He needs so much more. He deserves so much better.
I press the most tender of kisses to his lips. Goodbye, Vince. Somewhere deep down, I find the strength to give him what he needs while it slowly kills me.
“I understand,” I whisper and choke on the next words. “It’s for the best.”
His eyes hold mine before he nods and moves back toward the window.
Another kiss.
A squeeze of our linked fingers.
A shuddered breath of acceptance even though I don’t want to accept anything.
He climbs out the window.
Fight the tears.
He turns to face me.
Don’t let your voice break.
“I’ll call you,” he says, but I know he won’t.
If there’s one thing I know about my boyfriend, it’s that he’s all or nothing. And his all is ahead of him, and I’m the nothing that must remain behind. I’m the nothing that might pull him back when he can’t even chance looking back.
“Don’t call,” I say.
His eyes flash to mine. Hurt flares in them followed shortly by acceptance.
This is it.
A clean break.
The chance to walk away while I’m holding the broken pieces of myself together . . . so he doesn’t have to see them fall apart.
He stares at me long and hard for a moment. The darkness masking so much, and I’m not sure if I’m grateful that it does or if I’d prefer to see it.
“Goodbye, Shug.”
“Goodbye, Vince.”
“Maybe I’ll see you around sometime.”
“Maybe.”
I struggle for composure. My hands fisting. My teeth digging into my bottom lip. My jaw is clenched tightly.
I watch his shadow disappear into the night . . . “Vince, wait!” But he keeps walking right out of my life.
“I miss you already,” I whisper.
I don’t even make it to my bed before I fall apart. The tears come fast, hard, and uncontrollably.
He’s gone.
My strength dissolves into despair. My resolve shatters into heartbreak.
I’d wait for him. He knows it. I know it. But I also can’t spend my life waiting for him either.
Hope is enough to sustain someone and break them simultaneously.
I’d hold it tight if I thought it would help.
But for some reason I think it’s already lost.
He deserves so much more than being his father’s punching bag.
“Make all your dreams come true, Vince. I know someday your star will shine.”
