Page 19 of Give Me Forever Love

So much has happened. How simple things were. God, so much has changed. How can someone so important to me now, not even be a blimp on my radar before?

But he was. I just didn’t know it. I’ve thought about the boy I gazed at through my old bedroom window. I wondered what his story was, as his dad pulled his mom from my broken home.

And our paths finally crossed again, but in such a different way. We were no longer kids under our parents’ control. We were adults, so broken at the time. Neither of us realized how much we needed one another.

When I looked at him, handsome and mysterious on that staircase, I didn’t say to myself,this is the person who will heal me.

This is the man whom I’ll be forever grateful for.

He saved my life in more ways than one.

This man has flipped my world. Everything I knew then seems so far away and useless.

He gave me a bigger picture.

He made me see how great things can be, but now I’m completely lost and he may be choosing this place over me.

I sigh and push off the car, walking toward the alley. Taking the stairs, I knock on the door once I reach the top.

Moments later, Jace answers with bed hair and no shirt.

He eyeballs me. “Hey,” he says sleepy-eyed with a smoke behind his ear. I miss his short buzzed hair and funny jokes. I miss how things were before.

When I met Jace in Mug & Books, he was so full of life even though his had already been falling apart.

I know it was because he was with his brother. Jace needs Bryce. He’s his stabilizer.

I pull my shades up. “Hey,” I say.

“Get out,” Jace says. I blink, but when he moves to the side, I see a woman in the bed, and I realize he isn’t talking to me. “Now.” He grabs the smoke and pulls a lighter out from his black sweats pocket. The girl scrambles from the bed, hurrying to get her things as Jace lights his cigarette. Sleep lines web out on the right side of his face.

He looks tired.

He looks like I feel.

The woman looks at me like I’m Jace’s girl and she’s sorry she slept with my boyfriend. I want to laugh—I feel it swirling in my lungs—but nothing happens. I’m not this boy’s girlfriend. I’m in love with his brother, and it’s killing me.

Food is my enemy, and our bed gives me zero comfort.

Jace hits his smoke. “Come in,” he tells me. How kind of him to invite me inside my own home? There’s that chuckle again, begging to bubble up. But my heart snatches it back.

“We don’t laugh,” she says.

He walks over and grabs a shirt from the top of the dresser before reaching over and starting the record player sitting on top. I slide my hands into my jeans pockets as he places the cigarette onto the aged wood, letting the burning end hang off the side as he pulls the shirt over his head and Bon Iver sings “Skinny Love”. It sets the tone in this loft.

Sad and hopeless as fuck.

My eyes go to the cocaine and empty beer bottles. I see he’s doing exactly what I thought he was. He leans down, picking up the rolled bill. He breathes in the white powder before tilting his head back and wiping his nose. Grabbing his smoke, he puts it between his teeth. There was a time when he didn’t even want me to see his habit.

Ah, well, he says it’s not, so we’ll call it his pleasure.

What the fuck ever.

“Glad to see you’re alive,” I say. “Why haven’t you been answering your phone?”

“Broke it,” he says. “Gotta get a new one.”

I exhale and look over the room, feeling weird for being in here without Bryce. While his apartment in the sky is nice and comfortable, this feels like him.

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