If Grandpa could see me now, he’d shake his head and sigh heavily. And if he could reach me, he’d cuff my ear and call me ten kinds of idiot.

She replied to the email to tell me her parents were going skiing, but she was going home anyway and would be there alone. In all the scenarios I’d ever imagined, this girl having parents who’d do something so oblivious wasn’t in them.

I’d be hitching a ride in the Hellers’ SUV for the four-hour trek to the coast. They’d rented a beach house and planned to make Thanksgiving dinner there. I would stay with Dad and have a few days of silence, except for the dinner we would share with Charles and Cindy, Carlie and Caleb.

Cole had snagged himself a girlfriend at Duke and had decided to go home to Florida with her for his first break, instead of coming home. His father ragged the hell out of him for a week about mothers-in-law and being whipped and texted questions like, ‘Where are you registered?’ Cole vehemently denied impending marriage or in-laws while Heller laughed his ass off at every infuriated text from his oldest son.

I wished I could tell Jacqueline.

Predictably, the altercation with Kennedy Moore renewed my antagonism and tapped it a notch higher. Monday’s class was torture, between failed attempts to either ignore him or at least resist firing telepathic insults at the back of his head. When he turned and smiled at Jacqueline at the end of class, I left the classroom before I walked down the steps and put a dent in his toothpaste-ad-worthy smile.

Leaning on the wall by Jacqueline’s usual escape door, I watched her emerge with the guy who sat next to her in class. He’d attended one or two of my sessions at the beginning of the semester, three months ago. They both seemed to notice me at the same time, and I could have sworn they were discussing me as they approached. After wishing her a good break, he headed towards the opposite exit, and I examined Jacqueline’s face for signs that he’d told her I was the class tutor. Her expression was jumbled as she stared up at me, her forehead holding the slightest crease. Unable to read her, I fell into step as she passed, pushing the door open as we exited together. Her elbow brushed against me and her now-recognizable scent revived my memories of Saturday night.

‘Can I see you tonight?’ I asked.

‘I have a test tomorrow in astronomy,’ she said. She would be studying with classmates all evening. Nothing strange about that, except for the brief pause that made it seem more pretext than reason.

Dogged by a nagging sense of exposure, I scanned the mass of people, looking for the source. Intuition told me that source was right next to me – but that had to be wrong. ‘Tomorrow night?’

‘I have an ensemble rehearsal tomorrow,’ she said, and the buzzing in my ears increased. She talked about missing practice Sunday morning and packing her bass for the break – familiar ground – but my brain faltered, comprehending that it was familiar for Landon – not Lucas.

I was sprinting headlong into a concrete wall, and I had hit that wall before, hard. I didn’t have to feel the wretched crunch of everything shattering to know how it would feel. I needed this break. I needed the waves on the shore, and my dad’s silent presence. I needed to see if I could break this obsession.

Staring into her eyes, I asked her to text me if her plans changed. With every speck of willpower I possessed, I said, ‘Later, Jacqueline,’ and walked away without touching her or kissing her goodbye.

18

Landon

I thought hitting Clark Richards would make me feel better – and it did. It felt too good, if there’s such a thing as too good. Every blow I landed, and even the hits I took, numbed and transformed the pathetic freak I’d been, bringing to life an unfeeling motherfucker in his place.

My fight with Boyce last year rattled that cage, but hammering the shit out of Richards’s face was the watershed moment. I’d found something better than combining molly and weed, better than alcohol, better than sex for smothering the voices in my head – because even when those things worked, and they sometimes did, the voice I still heard was my own, and it would never let me completely forget. Ever.

‘I’ll only be gone three days,’ Dad had said, his hands cradling her face. ‘We see Charles and Cindy this weekend, right? We’ll plan that Christmas in Rio trip you and she have been harping about for years.’

She pouted at him with a fake scowl. ‘Oh, harping, eh? Maybe you can just stay home, Mr Grinch.’

He slid his hands down her shoulders to her elbows, loosening her crossed arms and pulling her hands to his chest before towing her close and tipping her chin. ‘You can’t leave me behind, Rosie,’ he murmured. ‘Not after last night.’ He leaned down to kiss her like I wasn’t sitting twenty feet away.

‘God, you guys, get a room.’ I clutched the controller in my hand, eyes resolutely staring at the screen and my skateboarder guy doing ollies over spaces between buildings, aerials off walls and slides down escalators – stuff that would kill me in real life. I tried closing my left eye so I couldn’t see my parents, who were standing by the door, saying their long, mouth-sucking goodbyes.

‘This is why we bought you a television and game console for your room, son. So your mother and I can enjoy …’ He smiled down at her. ‘… the rest of the house.’

I hit pause and lay back into the sofa cushions, both hands over my eyes. ‘Oh, man. Seriously?’

Mom laughed. ‘Stop teasing him.’