Page 102 of The Truths We Burn

“Yeah? Just like you don’t need me to make sure you take your meds? Or are you okay calling someone your dead girlfriend’s name?” My eyes zero in on Silas as I toss his sweatshirt back.

Does he not realize that all I’ve been doing since Rose died is protect him? Watch him? Spend every single second I’m awake making sure he’s alright, that he’s alive?

“Everyone calm down,” Thatcher interjects. “It’s been a long night, and everyone just needs to relax, alright?”

He’s right. Like always. The only voice of reason when our tempers start to flare.

But it’s impossible to control myself when it comes to her. It’s like every feeling, every emotion I have is heightened when she is around, when she is mentioned. No matter how many times I try to rip her out of my system, she just finds a way to crawl back, turning me into someone I don’t recognize, someone who gets pissy with his friends because they look at her a certain way or threaten her.

It was supposed to be a game for me, to break the pretty, little cheerleader. And I was the one who got screwed in the end.

Fuck feelings.

Fuck all this.

“Here.” Alistair tosses me a pack of cigarettes. “We all need one.”

I pull one of the white sticks from inside, placing it on my lips before handing it over to Silas. I light the end with my Zippo and inhale the stress-relieving smoke into my lungs.

“Six minutes,” Thatcher says. “Each cigarette takes six minutes off your life, did you know that?”

I can’t help but laugh a little. “Six minutes closer to the goal.”

The smoke comes out in rings, swirling around in the night. My head is stuffy from the light head buzz from the rush of nicotine. There are times I think about when we were younger, fourteen and smoking at the cliff, thinking of all the chaotic things we wanted to do to Ponderosa Springs before we left.

Thinking, how the hell did we end up here?

All of us are even more tormented and twisted than we once were, spending every single day getting closer and closer to the grave.

“A little late for the game tonight, boys. The only thing you guys were good at, and look, we can win it without you now. Seems like it’s this place’s way of telling you it’s time to get the fuck out.”

Just when I thought the evening was starting to settle down, the king of stirring the pot decides to rear his prestigious head.

The last person who needs to talk shit to me tonight.

Our history is a lengthy, messy one, going all the way back to elementary school, and yes, he was just as annoying then as he is now.

I look over my shoulder to see Easton waltzing into the parking lot as if he owns this as well. He walks like that everywhere, as if everything he steps on is his for the taking, as if he already owns it.

The sense of entitlement he carries reeks from miles away.

“It would seem the only reason you won was because of a girl. Not only do you need your daddy to back you up, you now need ladies to fight your battles? If you’re going for the look of pathetic waste of space, you’re nailing it, Sinclair,” Thatcher comments, leaning against Silas’s car and tucking his hands inside of his slacks.

Easton sneers, not enjoying someone threatening his ego. “That’s right, I forgot to ask, how is Sage? Did we get lucky and she did us all a favor by drowning? Or is what I’ve heard true—Rook jumped in to save his damsel in distress?”

And that’s when the twitching in my hand starts.

The persistent and irresistible urge to do something reckless. Something violent.

It stirs in my gut, taking me over, the impulse to do severe damage to his spinal cord or record his screams while I burn him alive for my new ringtone.

That evil I’d been cursed with as a child starts to blend with my unsettled temper, turning into a scary concoction.

Dynamite just waiting for the fuse to light.

He’s not the main target of our retaliation—he never had been—but somehow, he always finds himself right in the fucking middle of it, sticking his nose in a place it doesn’t belong, talking shit about things he shouldn’t.

I look at him, unsure if he knows about Sage and me. Knowing if the boys found out from a scumbag like him, Thatcher would be right again—they wouldn’t trust me. Which means I’m going to have to tell them soon or keep hoping those who knew would keep their mouth shut.