Page 77 of Here's to Now

I’m fucking awful at keeping promises.

A week has passed since Haley opened up to me about her cancer, and I still haven’t clued her into my past fuck-ups.

It’s crazy to think how much my life has changed since I met her over a year ago. I’ve had many,manydowns, yet recently, I’ve had more ups than I can count. The best change thus far? Since we started talking again, I’m spending more time with my siblings. We’re talking weekly ice cream trips and the occasional sleepover whenever Mercy feels up to it. I’ve never had that before, and I wouldn’t trade it for the world. Mercy’s finally starting to trust me again after what happened with Gunner. It feels good to be trusted again.

I tap the bar at Clyde’s and come face to face with Benny. The hulking bartender glares at me. Yeah, we still haven’t made up since we got into that scrap. He’s still convinced I’m dirty and no good for Haley.

He’s right.

While Haley knows I havesomesort of shady past—hello, scars galore—I’m being a total pussy when it comes to divulging all my secrets. She doesn’t know my parents are dead. She doesn’t know I abandoned my family…twice.

Basically, she doesn’t know what a complete and total dick I am.

I’m a terrible friend, and an even worse person.

“What are you doing here?” Benny doesn’t attempt to be pleasant in the least. Can’t say I blame the dude, especially since the last time we interacted, he had his meaty fist in my face. Yeah, he hates me.

I lift my hands innocently. “This place has the best French fries around and it’s been too long since I’ve had them.”

“Point?”

“Can I get a basket?”

He grumbles something and calls an order back through the kitchen before turning to me. “Drink?”

“Coke.”

“Yeah, I’m sure you’dlovesome coke.”

Heat floods my veins as irrational anger overcomes me. I clench my fists at my sides and ground out, “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

Benny pins me with his stare. “You know exactly what that means.”

“How do you even know about that? That part of my record issealed. I was a minor.”

He leans across the bar, his shadow clouding me in darkness. Again, he doesn’t scare me one bit. To prove it, I lean in toward him, my eyes hard and steely. “I told you, I hear shit. I heard about the kid,” he says quietly, menacingly.

“You don’t know shit,” I spit, trying with everything I can to not punch the bastard again.

“I don’t? So you mean you weren’t hanging out doing coke with your buds when some punk kid overdosed and you were so stoned you didn’t do shit to help him as he died in front of you?”

Everything spins in and out of focus. My breaths become labored and my head starts racing around like a hamster stuck on one of those wheels. I never think about that night. I never think about how it changed my life in so many ways. I definitely never think about whatelsehappened that night.

All I think about is how wrong Benny is.

“You’re wrong,” I whisper, my anger powering its way through me like an electric current ramming and pushing to find its ground.

“Wrong?” He gives a disbelieving laugh. “I doubt that.”

“You know what? Fuck you, Benny. I’ve done nothing to deserve the treatment you’ve given me, and I sure as hell didn’t deserve you sucker punching me for talking to some random girl all those months ago because youthoughtI was cheating on Haley, who, by the way, I wasn’t even with then. You don’t know me. You never once gave me a chance.”

He huffs. “A chance? Why should I give you a chance? After everything I know about you? Give me one good reason.”

Shaking my head in disbelief, I say, “You know, you claim to love those Kamden girls so much and to trust them implicitly, yet when Haley decides she wants to befriend me and obviously trusts me, you don’t want me near her. But, you don’t want me talking to anyone else either.” I curl my lip at him in disgust. “You need to make up your mind about me already. Am I trash or not? Can I be with Haley or no? Make. Up. Your. Fucking. Mind!”

I don’t even give a shit that I yelled the last part. Good. Let other people know what a dick Benny is, how fucking judgmental he is.

Sure, he has good reason to think I’m a little sketchy, but to try to shut me out of someone else’s life, someone who clearly wants me in it, is totally fucked.

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