Page 34 of Getting It Twisted

“Where’s the fun in that?”

“So that’s all this is to you? Some ‘fun’?”

“What else would it be?” I ask, crossing my arms. There’s no way I’ll reveal to George just how much Daniel means to me. Besides, it’s easier to let him think I’m a careless sociopath or whatever. More fun too.

“He just went through a breakup, okay? He’s . . . sensitive. Fragile.”

“What do you mean?”

“Why do you think he couldn’t handle college, huh? Four years ago, he could barely get out of bed. He didn’t shower, didn’t eat. He flunked out of his spring semester. Around the same time, his parents got divorced, so God knowstheydidn’t have time for him. I visited him on campus once, and I . . . I’d never seen him that way. I worried he’d end up like our uncle Ralph.”

“Who?”

“My dad’s twin brother. He hung himself in the shower curtain when they were nineteen.”

“Oh,” I huff. “Maybe that’s why old Wayne is such a stuck-up, miserable fucking—”

George’s fist hits me square on the jaw. The impact causes my teeth to slice the inside of my cheek, filling my mouth with blood, and the back of my head slams into the door.

The world goes black for a moment. When I come back online, George’s fist is clenched in my shirt, and the look in his eyes is one of pure and utter hatred.

“Go on.” I show him my bloody teeth in a smile. “Hit me again. I know you wanna beat the shit out of me. What are you waiting for?”

If I can’t get fucked tonight, I need to see blood. Somebody else’s or my own. The pain of that punch lit up my synapses in much the same way a good fuck would, and now I want more. More pain. More of that sick thrill I get from being at somebody else’s mercy.

If George started beating me for real, maybe Daniel would intervene and finally see his cousin for the asshat he is. He’d take me back home and patch me up. Assure me that everything will be all right, like in the good old days.

But when I don’t fight back, George seems to lose some of his steam.

“I’m not doing this with you,” he says, hand still gripping my shirt. “This is about Daniel. Not you and me.”

“Yeah, you tell yourself that.”

“Where was I?” he continues, paying me no heed. “Right. Daniel’s post-Nathan slump. I thought he was bummed out about his parents’ divorce, but all he ever spoke about the year prior was Nathan this, Nathan that. And that’s when I understood: It was because ofyou. Whatever went down between you two, you really did a number on him by leaving.”

I glare at him glumly, not giving a response. Everything makes a lot more sense now though. Daniel’s wariness toward me. His anger. His downright paranoia. I already figured that my leaving didn’t delight him, but it was a necessary sacrifice at the time.

“I dragged him out of college,” George continues, “and got him a job. During this last year or so, he’s been doing well, okay? He’s dated other people. He was starting to forget about you and wasbetter off for it. But then you have to barge in here and make every little thing about you and your need to ruin everything in your path.”

I run my tongue over my bloody teeth, tasting iron. “You always think I’ve got some conniving reason for everything I do, that I’m some criminal mastermind or whatever—”

“No, I don’t; I think you’re a thug.”

“—and sorry to shatter your worldview, but that’s not the case. I’m here ’cause my mom died, and I gotta take care of her mess of a house. And while I’m here, Daniel and I are just hanging out. Not because I wanna ruin his life or anything. Nothing like that.”

“Whatdoyou want with him, then?”

A smirk spreads across my lips. “Take a guess.”

“I knew it,” George growls. “So what’s your plan? Get him to fuck you a few times just to prove you can, then skip town again?”

“A few times? Way to underestimate me.”

He lets out a guttural sound and shoves me harder against the wall. I laugh, holding my hands up in surrender.

“I was kidding, I was kidding. You’re so fucking easy,” I say with a sigh. I guess he won’t let me off the hook unless I let some truth out. “Is it so hard to believe I just want my friend back? Daniel and I had a blast when we were kids.”

“And you’re gonna try to recreate that now, five years later?”

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