Page 183 of Falling in Reverse

“That’s an impressionable age for a boy to lose his father.”

My next hit is long, causing me to cough slightly because it was more than impressionable. It was a prison sentence with my mother and her bat-shit crazy headspace.

“I lost my so-called mom a few months ago,” she freely tells me. “Took a shitload of pills and decided to hang herself in my parents’ bedroom. My youngest sister found her.”

My brows clash together. “Shit. How old is your sister?”

“Eight.”

“Fuck…I’m sorry, McQueen.”

“Don’t be for me.” She leans back and props herself up on her palms. “I don’t miss her. We’ve never gotten along, but she treated my sisters well, thank God. I just wish she didn’t make a show of her dying for one of them to find, you know?”

“How’s your sister handling it?”

“Fine…she doesn’t show any weird signs of anything. She doesn’t act differently. She’s…just Mae.”

“And you’re just Bay who has been sucked into another world you don’t want to be in.”

She tsks, her head tilting back to look up at the ceiling. “You have no idea how true that is, Reevie.”

I thought so.

“On the flip side, you got to meet me.” I wish I could see her face when I say it, but it’s blanketed a bit with darkness. “I’m pretty cool once you get to know me.”

“I’ve noticed. However, can I make a suggestion?”

“Sure.”

“You should rub more on Torin.” I should, there’s just no amount of me that would be able to cloak such a dude with a full stick shoved up his ass all the time.

However, he has his own reasons and faults for it. I’m just the guy who brings sunshine and rainbows to our small group.

“How about we stop talkin’ about Torin and how you’re going to smile every time you see me,” I vouch. He’s the last person I want to think about and, also, the least individual I’d like her to be pondering about, too.

I hear another chuckle from her chest. “I’m not anything special other than being on the wrong side of that black line that divides us.”

“I don’t see a line when I look at you.”

Silence drapes over the small enclosure, and I feel her gaze on me even through the dark.

Everything I say feels as though it’s going to go through one ear and out the other.

But I’m not one to bullshit.

And I’m also not one to just say pretty words and expect great things.

Pussy is a dime a dozen, whether I’m in The Landings or even if I wanted to venture into South Shore. I don’t want Bay because of her bangin’ body—well, I do, but that’s not the whole reason. I’m intrigued because she doesn’t give a fuck about the Forsaken Crew, and she’s hit back as hard as the boys have.

“You see Levi Wallace’s girl?” she presses after a beat. “Someone to literally fuck him over with?”

I shake my head against that accusation, because I don’t think of him at all, nor does he play a factor in how I view her. In fact, I believe the whole thing to be bullshit the more and more someone talks about it. “Nah, I see my future girl.”

“Your future…” Girl.

Yeah.

Torin can be doing whatever it is he wants, think he can get her to bow down before us or fuck all the way off, but he’s not a total fucking idiot to believe all that. It’s why he’s gone through all the trouble he has to get her to go away.

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