Page 63 of We Are the Stars

Shit. I feel like a hypocrite.

She’s been a distraction from my anger, my sadness…everything…and I plan to discard her. She can’t get any closer than she already has. Imustkeep her at a distance to protect her. I have darkness in me she can’t even begin to fathom.

We’re using each other, and it’s bound to end badly.

Maybe I should quit while I’m ahead, accept the moments of happiness I’ve had with her as what they are—moments—and move on.

That’s what I need to do.

“How come Nate and Blake looked spooked when you told them about the fight with Jase?”

My jaw locks up; I knew this was coming. “After my mom died, I grew angry. Yelling at anyone who looked at me strange. Drinking too much. Getting into arguments because I felt like it. It wasn’t pretty. One night the guys took me to a party to try to get me out of the house. This guy mouthed off and I sort of…”

I trail off, not sure I want to tell her this.

“Sort of…” she encourages.

“I sort of threw him out a window.”

“Oh. Has anything happened since then?”

I nod in affirmation. “A few small things. Nothing as major. I work fucking hard to keep it all under control. That’s why… Yeah.”

I tense, worried about how she’ll react or what she’ll ask next.

She doesn’t.

“What happened that night?” she asks on a whisper.

I know exactly what night she’s referring to. Boston. The night everything changed. The catalyst for everything in my life since. For my rage issues, for my perpetual sadness. The reason she’s too fucking good for me. The reason I’ll break her.

This is why she’s bad for me, bad to be around, because she makes mewantto tell her things I have no desire to discuss. She makes me hopeful, makes me feel normal, and I’m neither of those things.

But with Elliott, I feel like sheneedsto know, feel like Ma would have wanted me to talk to her.

“It’s written in the stars, Carsen. All of it. Everything happens for a reason. Remember to appreciate the small moments. Sometimes those mean more than the big ones.”

If only she knew how wrong she was. The big ones hurt like a bitch.

I close my eyes against the pain that ricochets in my chest. As much as I don’t want to talk about it, she deserves to know what happened, and not just what she’s read in articles online that no doubt paint me as a maniac.

“My mom was in Boston waiting for…waiting for a dinner function to end. Once it did my…”

I choke on the word. I can’t say it out loud. Hell, I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve said it in my head.

“Sorry.” My voice sounds like I’ve been drinking sand. “It’s hard to…”

“You don’t have to.”

“No. I should. You should know.”

“Okay.”

She waits for me to talk. And then she waits some more. And more.

She has the patience of a saint at this point.

“He came home and wasn’t happy that my mother hadn’t attended the event with him as planned. Apparently, the fact that I didn’t bother to show up either is what really set him off. Ma called me in hysterics. I dropped everything and drove straight there because I was done with the asshole at that point, tired of having to hear my mom cry. When I arrived, she was locked in a bathroom and he was banging on the door. I could hear them from the elevator on the ride up.”

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