Page 110 of Past the Broken Bridges

“You like him. It’s a big deal.”

“Tell me about the baseball player,” I insist, hoping the topic change will get me out of the current conversation. “What’s his name?”

Thankfully, Dixie gives me a break, her excitement switching to Miles, the pitcher for LSU’s team. It’s a welcome distraction from anything going on in my life, including the taunting dream I haven’t been able to shake.

I have a horrible feeling.

By the end of lunch, I have plans Saturday night to meet Dixie’s newest crush at a party that will hopefully be the turning point I need to shift my mood.

I’m excited about it until later that night, when Banks knocks on my door and sees me with another cloth pressed against my nose, stained with red.

He doesn’t say a word.

Doesn’t seem upset that our previous plans that involved far less clothing have changed.

He simply cleans me up like he did the first time, except his touches are softer, lasting longer, like the familiarity he has with me is stronger than before.

And my heart reacts.

It races. And pleads. And drums a sound I’m sure only he can hear.

And Ihateit.

I hate that my body comes alive when he’s near, how the hair on my arms stands up and my legs squeeze as if they remember how he feels between them.

I hate that he’s nice to me. That he takes care of me when he doesn’t need to. I hate that he’s so close, always tempting me, always there without question.

And when I wake up the next day to a dehumidifier waiting outside my door, next to the boy with an armful of cooking ingredients, I hate him even more.

Even when he says, “It’s old. I found it in my closet.”

And especially when I go over to his unlocked apartment when he asks me to grab the pot he forgot and see the receipt for one dehumidifier crumpled on the counter.

“Dammit, Banks,” I whisper, staring angrily at it with a fresh glaze of tears in my eyes. I swipe at my lashes and take a deep breath, staring at the ceiling. “Don’t you dare make me love you.”

I hide the receipt, dry my eyes, and pretend I never saw a thing when I return.

But my feelings remain the same.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Banks

There’s only one light on in my childhood home as I pull up to the curb, which means Dad is watching the nightly news in the living room like he always does. The question is, is he sober or not?

A heavy feeling weighs down my gut as I unlock the door using the spare key and push it open. “Dad?” I call out, smelling the smoke from his cigar.

I haven’t heard from him in a while, and he didn’t answer the phone when I called to check in on him so I wouldn’t need to come here. As much as I didn’t want to, I knew I needed to make sure everything was okay.

“Dad?” I say again, walking into the living room.

The old man is fast asleep in his recliner with a lit cigar in his hand burning a hole into the arm of the chair. When I see it spark, I jump into action.

That was my first mistake.

The second was not noticing the empty bottle of scotch on the coffee table. Or the empty twelve-pack in the kitchen.There’s no food around—no dirty plates or take-out containers. Nothing to soak up the alcohol that must have caused him to pass out with a lit cigar in his hand.

I grab the cigar from him before it burns a bigger hole into the upholstery, and he jerks awake. And for a second time in less than six months, he swings at me. Except this time, his fist knocks me off balance until I fall backward into the coffee table and crack the wood and glass.

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