Page 55 of No Place Like Home

She didn’t need to yell at me or curse. I felt the edge of her words in my gut. My anger turned into shame.

My heart was beating fast. I was panting to the point that every breath I took was stabbing me and causing me pain. Jess might have been in my arms, but she was still miles away from me—yet close enough to destroy me.

“You sit in a fancy-ass house that most people only dream of living in.” Her voice was steady, but sharp.

She stayed in my arms, unmoving, and I stopped breathing.

“You spend your days drinking on a couch that costs more than I make in a month, and you stay there all day feeling sorry for yourself.”

“That’s enough!” I barked at her in a cold voice.

She had no idea all the shit that I was going through.

Slowly, her head moved until her eyes met mine. That was when I saw it: rage. Her eyes were full of it, enough to drown mine out.

“Your ACL is torn. So. Fucking. What?”

That made me snap. I bared my teeth at her. Part of me was taken aback by her audacity and insensitivity. I let go of her because I might accidentally hurt her if she kept it up. I knew she could tell I was about to lose it, but she didn’t care. She stood tiny compared to my 6’4” height, her hands fisted at her sides, ready to verbally spar with me.

“So. Fucking. What?” I seethed after her.

I cannot believe she said that shit. I looked down at her, waiting for her to leave, to apologize for what she’d said, but she just kept glaring at me. My torn ACL and MCL, my freak accident, made me feel like I was invalid, losing a vital part of myself.

“I lost everything!” I roared loud enough that my scream echoed through the lake, and Jess didn’t flinch. “My dream. My career. All of it gone in a matter of seconds. I worked my whole life for this, Jess! Since I could walk, I had a ball attached to my hands. I disciplined myself... all for what?” I gestured to my knee. “So It could come crashing down on me? Yet, you call me pathetic.”

I gritted out now, looking down at her. We were toe-to-toe, Jess coming to my shoulders. Her hair was in a messy bun, and her long dress was moving with the wind.

“Youarepathetic.” She seemed to lean into me, her eyes blazing with fire, looking for a fight.

At that moment, I was too lost in my own hurt to look past it and recognize hers.

“I lost everything!”

Her hands gripped my shirt, bunching the fabric almost as if she was trying to shred it.“I lost my mother! I lost it all in a matter of seconds! You lost nothing of—”

I was so angry and hurt, not just for me but also for her, for how unfair this world was, that I kissed her.

I kissed her with all the rage I was feeling inside me. I kissed her with all the emotions that were drowning me, but she kissed me with the same. We drowned in each other, pulling at all the ugliness we each carried, trying to outmatch the other and drawing out all the hate to validate our claims of injustice. We got so lost in this kiss that we forgot why we were hurting in the first place.

This kiss wasn’t salvation or redemption. This kiss was oblivion. My hands were tangled in her hair, my forehead pressed against hers, and my eyes were closed. I was scared to open them and see what was behind her dark eyes.

CHAPTERSIXTEEN

As we grow older,we look back and realize life marks us differently. Some good and some bad.

In my case, most of them weren’t mundane things like most people I knew. My first sleepover impacted me. A winter storm. A decorated ornament. And now a kiss.

I’m not saying the kiss was terrible, but it wasn’t butterflies in the pit of your stomach. The kiss was like a hurricane, swirling and twirling with angry winds trying to dominate me.

“Jessa,” Q whispered hoarsely as he held on to my cheek.

It was the first time he had called me that since seeing him again.

I’d had kisses and sex, but none of that had meant a thing. Baring your body was not the same as baring your soul. There was something intimately frightening about tasting someone's rage, about swallowing the poison they carried inside them.

“I need to go,” I said in a panicked voice.

I pushed Quincy away, and I think he let me, because he moved aside without hesitation.

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