Page 142 of Losers, Part I
“Lucas —” I started slowly, but he wasn’t about to let me apologize.
“Don’t you fucking say you’re sorry,” he said. “Just don’t…don’t leave like that again. Please.” He lowered his voice even more, barely above a whisper, but the pain in his words was impossibly loud. “I can’t watch you walk out the door on me, Manson. I don’t care what you have to do to stay. I’ll listen to you yell all damn day if you need to. Just don’t walk out on me.”
I nodded against him, knotting my hands into the back of his shirt. It had hurt him, frightened him, probably far more than he’d ever say. “I won’t. I’m not going anywhere.”
He cleared his throat as we parted, hurriedly scrubbing his hand over his face so nothing remained but his usual stony expression. He nodded abruptly, reaching his arm out for Jess and slipped it around her shoulders as she took my hand again.
Jason was sitting on the porch when we returned, chewing his thumbnail down to nothing. Bo was beside him, and I expected him to bark at me again, but he wagged his tail and licked my hand when I scratched his head.
“Sorry, buddy,” I said. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”
“Glad to see they dragged you back,” Jason said, embracing me as he got up from the porch. “I was about to go after you myself if you didn’t show up in the next five minutes.”
I clapped his shoulder, finally allowing myself a little laugh. “I didn’t flee the country; I just walked down the street.”
“Yeah, well, you went by yourself.” Jason frowned. “That’s notsupposed to happen. If you’re going to flee anywhere, you better damn well take us with you.”
I’d shed enough tears for one day; I wasn’t about to have him getting me in my feelings again. So I didn’t say how much that meant to me. I couldn’t find the words to tell them that they’d proven wrong every awful thing my brain wanted to believe. But if I couldn’t say it, then I’d find a way to show it.
If I wanted to keep being here for them like they were for me, I needed to face my demons.
“Breakfast is coming up!” Vincent called from the kitchen as we came back inside. I could smell bacon and hash browns, and when I looked into the kitchen, there were multiple bowls on the counter and pans on the stove. He glanced over his shoulder at me with a grin, his long hair messily tied up as he added another pancake to the stack in front of him.
“God, Vince…you didn’t have to…” He held up his hand.
“Don’t. I don’t want to hear a word unless it’swow, Vincent, you’re the best cook ever and so unbearably charming and attractive.” He raised his eyebrows expectantly.
Jess slipped around my side and wrapped her arms around Vince, saying, “Ooh, wow, Chef Vincent, you’re so charming and attractive I might swoon.”
I snickered as Vincent looked at me pointedly. “See? She knows how to do it.”
Jojo had come to sit by my feet, leaning heavily against my legs as she looked up at me and her tail thumped on the ground. No fear, no hatred, no anger. Just her big, goofy smile as I scratched behind her ears.
I don’t know where I’d be without all of them. I wouldn’t have survived this long; I knew that much. No matter what had happened through the years, I’d always had someone to pull me back from the brink, someone to hold on to me when I thought there was nothing left to keep trying for.
When I’d met Lucas, he’d understood me better than anyone I’d ever met. He was a mirror of my own pain and rage in more ways than I’d been prepared for. But he’d been strong when I wasn’t. He’d been there every time I needed him without hesitation, even when it meant facing his own fears to risk being close to me.
And Vincent? God, if he hadn’t been there to bring a never-ending sense of optimism about the shit-show that was my life, I would have wallowed in misery forever. He had the kind of close, loving family I’d always longed for, but that didn’t make him naïve. It made him caring, fiercely protective, willing to do anything and everything for the people he loved.
When we’d met Jason, I’d thought the quiet kid with his nice respectable family couldn’t possibly want to be around losers like us. But I’d watched his entire life be torn into pieces so he could live authentically, all because he dared to stray from the life his parents had forced on him. He’d endured their rejection, all the pain of being abandoned, and not once did I see him falter. He’d been so damn determined to claim his life, to live as he wanted, that it had kept me going too.
And now Jess, whose presence in my life had felt like both an aspiration and a warning. This wasn’t only a game, regardless of whatever silly rules we made or excuses we came up with. Jess had given me something to strive for, but it was more than that.
Her presence here was proof I was better than where I’d come from. I was stronger than the violence and the pain that had formed me. She felt safe here, safe with me — and that meant the world. That was what I’d always wanted for myself and my boys — safety, peace, somewhere we could exist without constant judgment, without fear.
I watched her with them and knew they would protect her as fiercely as they protected me. Whatever the fuck my father tried to do — if anything — we would never let him touchher.
Never.
52
Lucas
The setting sun kissed the horizon, turning the sky pink and orange. The colors melted into the clouds, swirling like paint as the golden light touched my bare arms.
It made me feel nostalgic, although I wasn’t sure why. Was it possible to feel nostalgia for something you’d never experienced? Bedtime stories, running through sprinklers, playgrounds, and holding your parents’ hand — I longed for things I’d seen only on TV, or enviously watched others experience. I craved it as if it had ever been mine and not only a dream.
There was a pop and hiss as Manson opened a beer and handed it to me before opening his own. We were seated in the back of the Bronco, legs dangling over the tall weeds in the middle of the field we were parked in.