Page 68 of Revelation (The Josh & Kat Trilogy #2)

JOSH

I flip on the TV in my hotel room and quickly turn it off again.

What’s wrong with me? Am I really this fucked up?

I told Emma the magic words, didn’t I? Which means I’m capable of saying them. But Emma gave me a lot more time than this—ten times more time than this.

But what am I thinking? There’s no comparison between Kat and Emma. I never felt this white-hot passion with Emma—this electricity . How the hell does Kat expect me not to fuck up when I constantly feel like I’m gripping a goddamned electric fence around her?

I get up and look out the window of my hotel room, a glass of Jack Daniels from the mini-bar in my hand. I’ve got a perfect view of the Space Needle from my room. It’s lit up like a Roman candle at night.

I could have stayed at Jonas’ house tonight, of course, but I was too embarrassed not to be staying with Kat to ask him.

Plus, Jonas looked so happy tonight, I didn’t have the heart to bring him down with my pathetic sob story.

Jonas is the one who’s supposed to cry like a big fat baby to me —our relationship doesn’t work the other way around.

“Let’s take a break for a couple days—see how we’re feeling then,” Kat said when I walked her to her door earlier tonight. “Maybe I’ll realize I’m overreacting; maybe not. I’m just too hurt to think straight right now. I think I need some time to regroup and figure out what I’m feeling.”

I take a swig of my whiskey, shaking my head.

How did things go so wrong? I was on top of the world when I picked Kat up tonight.

I couldn’t wait to see her—the same way I always feel when I’m away from her.

I couldn’t wait to take her to the fish market tomorrow morning to sing the “Fish Heads” song with her like a couple of dorks.

And I was losing my mind about meeting her family tomorrow night, too.

And, most of all, I was chomping at the bit to fuck her on her Hello Kitty sheets.

And now it’s all gone. Poof . And here I am, yet again, where I always am, sitting in yet another hotel room, another drink in my hand, looking out at yet another lonely cityscape.

I turn on the TV and flip the channels. Sports. Local news. I flip around and around and finally land on a music station. Lenny Kravitz is singing “Fly Away.” Hey, at least something’s going right for me tonight.

I sit down in an armchair in the corner, lean back with my whiskey, and listen to the song.

Yeah, Lenny, I agree: let’s fly away to anywhere but here—you and me, bro—to a place without stress and responsibility and worry.

A place where I won’t have this thousand-pound weight on my chest at all times—a place where I won’t feel so fucking lonely all the time.

And so fucking guilty . To a place where I’m not constantly being crushed by shit I can’t control and feelings I can’t express and memories that haunt me.

I run my hands through my hair. I’ve never thought of this song as sad before, but, motherfucker, it’s making me wanna cry.

Fuck this shit. I turn the channel to the next music station, only to run smack into “Little Lion Man” by Mumford & Sons.

They’re in the midst of singing the chorus and it’s like they’ve written the words for me.

Kat told me her heart is on the line tonight, didn’t she? —and I really, really fucked it up.

Jesus.

I take another huge guzzle of my whiskey and stare at the Space Needle.

The torturous song ends, thank God—but there ain’t no rest for the wicked: the next song is Adele. She’s wailing her heart out in “Someone Like You.” And kicking me square in the balls.

I take a gigantic gulp of my whiskey.

No, Adele, I’ll never find another woman like Kat. Fuck you. She’s a fucking unicorn, Adele. One of a kind.

I rub my forehead and look out the window with burning eyes .

Goddammit, I fucked up—maybe even irreversibly.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but tonight was a fork in the road for Kat and me and I took the wrong path.

I should have told Kat about my move to Seattle in the first place, for sure, but even more than that, I should have handled things differently tonight when the shit hit the fan.

I should have said all the right things—the things Kat was dying to hear.

But I didn’t.

I imagine myself saying, “My heart’s on the line, too, Kat.” Damn, I should have said that to her. Or, at the very least, “Mine, too.”

But who am I kidding? Kat didn’t want to hear me say my heart’s on the line—she wanted more than that. She wanted the magic words—the whole nine yards. And I let her down.

I drain the rest of my drink and pour myself another tall one.

Jesus. Adele’s voice is cutting me like a thousand razors dragged across my heart.

Kat wanted a promise of forever from me tonight.

It was written all over her face. But what she doesn’t understand is there’s no such thing as forever—I mean, shit, there’s no such thing as next week .

Anything could happen. Nothing’s guaranteed.

A guys’ life can change in a single afternoon.

I mean, hell, a guy might go out to a football game with his dad in the morning and come back later that day to find out no one will ever sing “You Are My Sunshine” to him again.

Or call him Little Fishy. Or, worst of all, say the words, “I love you.”

I take a long swig of my drink.

“No, son, they don’t let kids go to the morgue,” my father said. “You’ll just have to say goodbye to her in your prayers, son.”

“But I wanna say goodbye to her face and kiss her lips and tell her I love her. Not like in a prayer. For real.”

“You can’t do it to her face—you have to do it in a prayer.”

“But I wanna see her face when I say it. Not like talking on the phone.”

“Fine. Shit. I dunno. Then say it to her photo, then.”

“But I don’t have a photo of her.”

“Well, Jesus Fucking Christ, Joshua William. Fine... Take this one. Your mother always loved this photo of the three of you. Say everything to her face in the photo and stop talking about it. I’ve got my own goodbyes to say, son—we’re all hurting, not just you.

I’m sorry but I can’t talk about this anymore. ”

My eyes are stinging. I rub them and take another long gulp of my whiskey.

Kat wants me to promise her fifty-two days? Shit. I can’t even promise her tomorrow.

Because a guy might go to school one morning and then return home that afternoon to find out his dad had shipped his brother off to a “treatment center” without even letting him say goodbye.

And just to add insult to injury, the guy’s dad might even say his brother will “never come home again” because “that boy’s fucking crazy” and “we’re better off without him” and “you need to stop crying about him like a little fucking baby.”

Motherfucker .

I drain the last of my drink, refill my glass, and settle into my chair again.

What’s the point in putting anything on the calendar at all when a guy could get called at a football game because his dad’s brains have unexpectedly exploded all over the carpet in the study?

And not only that, his brother’s lying in a hospital bed, not talking or responding to anyone, after driving himself off a fucking bridge?

When a guy could sit in his big, empty house in the dark, right after the cleaning crew’s finished scraping his dad’s brains off the ceiling, and fight tooth and nail to convince himself that marching into his father’s bathroom and taking every fucking pill in the medicine cabinet is a terrible idea rather than the best fucking idea he’s ever had?

I swallow hard, keeping my emotions at bay, and take another long sip of my whiskey.

Kat wanted to hear those three little words tonight—I know she did.

But those are words I simply can’t deliver to her.

Not yet, anyway. If only she’d give me more time.

If only she’d understand. I said those loaded words to Emma and look what happened—the relief of saying them for the first time lulled me into saying other things, too—things I shouldn’t have said—and only a month after I’d first said the magic words, Emma was long gone.

I love you, I told her. Please don’t leave me. Please .

But she left.

I bought myself a fucking Lamborghini after Emma left me—so what am I gonna buy myself this time when the girl doing the leaving is my fantasy sprung to life? A jumbo jet?

Fuck me.

I look down at the glass of whiskey in my hand and, suddenly, a rage wells up inside me like a fucking tsunami. Fuck overcoming . Fuck this shit.

Fuck me.

Without a conscious thought in my head, I hurl my glass against the wall, shattering it into a million tiny pieces and spraying glass and whiskey all over the white fluffy bed.

My chest is heaving. My eyes are stinging.

I rub them and force down my emotion. Fuck you, Adele, you fucking bitch.

No, I won’t find someone like Kat. I’ll never find someone like her again as long as I fucking live.

I’ll be alone and lonely and fucked up and worthless—just like I’ve always been. Just like I’ll always be.

Forever .