Page 47 of The Casualty of Us
The confusion doesn’t leave his face, but he gives me a short nod and I’m off again, trusting some pull in my gut and hoping it’s not coming from misplaced sympathy.
“I was messing around with my football in our playroom when we were like eight, right?” I start to pace small circles in front of him, burning off the nerves that still come with the story. “I was being an idiot, and O kept warning me to stop before I broke something of hers, but of course I didn’t. The next thing I knew, I’d launched the ball clear across the room, and it went crashing into it. Completely collapsing the thing and breaking the stupid elevator and everything.” I turn to check in with him and bring myself to a stop. “You with me?”
He nods slowly. “Not sure why, but yeah.”
“O had begged for that stupid house all year.” I frown. “It was the only thing she wanted for our birthday, and I broke it a week later.”
He winces. “Damn.”
“You have no idea.” I shake my head slowly, brows falling more at the memories. “I remember the look on her face when it happened, or the lack of one really. She just stared at it for a couple of seconds before saying everything was fine and we’d just go play outside likenormal.” Dragging in a deep breath to damn him with my own wince. “That everything would justgo back to the way it was.”
His eyes widen with a dawning realization. “Fuck.”
“Yeah, fuck,” I concur wholeheartedly. “It wasn’t until a couple of weeks later that I noticed it. Little things. A stupid action figure I kept next to my bed weirdly changing poses every few days. My jersey that was conveniently missing before a game would turn up in my drawer afterward. All the answers on my freaking spelling homework changed.” Shaking my head with another deep breath, I try to brush off the horror while finishing. “I broke her Barbie Dreamhouse and she launched a full-scaleassault worthy of psychological strategists at eight years old, dude.”
A half-scared laugh leaves me becausegood fucking luck, Flynn.
“I thought I was either losing it or being haunted by the time she pranced into my room a month later saying we could talk about my carelessness now.”
Hayes steeples his hands over the bridge of his nose, rubbing upward. “Fuck.” The curse is one part frustration and three parts what sounds like desperation. “What do I do, Ollie?” He drops his hands. “How do I fix—”
“You can’t.” I give him a solid shake of my head. “You broke it. You have to deal with it. My advice is do as she says and just act fucking normal, like whatever happened between you two never did.”
“Because that’ll work,” he throws back frustratedly. “We can’t just. I can’t just—”
“Dude!” I shout, annoyance with him flaring up again. “You broke her Dreamhouse!” His face quickly empties, and I glare at him with the admission that I really need him to fucking get, if he doesn’t already. “Except it wasn’t her Dreamhouse this time…I think it might’ve been her heart, and I’ve never seen the fallout from that.”
He shakes his head, face twisting up. “Ollie, I’m so fucking sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt her.” His fists clench and unclench as he drags in a breath. “I care about her so fucking much, and I swear to God I pushed—”
“Save it.” I frown, not that sympathetic. “Because this isn’t about your feelings anymore, and you’ll probably need whatever tears you have to plead for your sanity one day.”
“Yeah, I got that,” he shoots back. “She told me to drop dead, then left me on read so that I can see she’s still getting my messages.”
I start to chuckle before he even ends. “See? Fucking psychological warfare.” A happy smile finally pulls at my lips. “Good for her.”
“Come on,” Hayes groans, standing up again. “Give me something, please. I can’t lose her. I can’t, Ollie. You don’t understand. I don’t think I even did until—”
“Okay, okay, fuck,” I hurry out on an annoyed breath, really fucking hoping I never fuck up so bad to be in his shoes one day. “O isn’t reactive, she’s proactive. She’s a plotter. A strategist. She waits until she’s sure of victory to make her move.” I lift a hand to make a quick sign of the cross because I don’t want that shit anywhere near me. “And she’s fucking petty when she’s pissed, so may you rest in peace, Flynn.”
His eyes narrow with the first spark of anger I’ve really seen since walking in here. “That doesn’t fucking help me, Fitzroy.”
“Eighteen years, and that’s all I got.” I shrug. “You’re just going to have to take it. Act normal and wait until she’s had her pound of flesh, then beg for friendship so the next three years aren’t awkward as fuck.”
His face falls, eyes dimming again. “Friendship?”
“If you’re lucky.” I nod seriously, reaching out to give his shoulder a smack before looking around pointedly. “You need to shower and clean, man. This isn’t passing the normal vibe check.”
“I’ll get right on that,” he mutters, falling right back into the full-on depressive brood. “Right after I finish scraping up some shred of my heart that I didn’t obliterate.”
“Nice, see that you do.” I crack a grin, turning with a step before remembering something and swinging back with my fist already clenched.
It hits his face a little lower this time, more on the jaw than the cheekbone, but there’s still a resounding crack that I love from it.
“What the fuck, man?” He stumbles back a step. “What was that for?”
“I have a lot of repressed rage from the past couple of weeks.” I lift a shoulder carelessly. “Might take me a few more to work off.”
“Great.” He works his jaw a couple of times. “Can’t fucking wait.”
