I buried thoughts of Shiloh and told Miller my story. I said the words that tasted like blood. But the shack was a place where you could be yourself, no matter how fucked up.
Still, I waited for Miller to decide I must be too much of a psycho to hang out with anymore, but he let it be and said nothing. What could he say anyway? Nothing that would change what happened. Nothing I could do either. My chance to stop my dad had passed, and I’d never get it back.
When I returned from gathering more driftwood for the fire, Miller was messing with his guitar.
“It’s about time,” I said.
“I don’t play much for people.”
“Why not?”
“Don’t know. Besides, you don’t want to hear the shit I’ve been writing.”
I dumped the wood over the smoldering remains of the first fire I’d lit. “How the fuck do you know that?”
“What kind of music do you listen to?”
“Heavy stuff. Melvins. Tool.”
“Yeah, what I play is not that. Mostly, I’ve been writing songs for a girl.”
“A girl.” I popped another beer and handed it over. “Now I really feel bad that you can’t get drunk.”
“Amen,” he said, and we clinked beer bottles. Thanks to his diabetes, Miller was stuck with a two-beer maximum.
“What’s the story?” I asked.
“You’ll just call me a pussy, tell me to fuck someone else and get over it.”
“Yeah, maybe I will.”
He laughed, but it collapsed into a sigh. “It’s hopeless is what it is. She’s perfect and rich, and I’m a poor bastard without a working pancreas.”
I snorted a laugh.
“Her name is Violet,” Miller said, his eyes on the fire. “When I was thirteen, I passed out in her backyard, pissed myself, and woke up in the hospital to see her sitting there, looking like a mess. Crying over me. Because she cared, you know?”
I didn’t know. I’d never had a girl cry over me. Couldn’t imagine it.
“That was the moment I knew she was it for me. Always.” Miller’s voice turned bitter. “And the same day we swore a blood oath to stay friends. Violet’s idea.” He took off his beanie and ran a hand through his brown hair. “So there you go.”
“Yep. You need to fuck someone else and get over it.”
I was going to stay out of his business like he’d stayed out of mine, but I remembered all the times my mother was ready to take me and get the hell away from Dad and never did. And then one day, it was too late.
“Nah, that’s bullshit,” I said. “You need to tell her.”
Miller frowned. “She’s hell-bent on us being friends. She thinks it’d ruin us if we tried to be more.”
“So? Tell her anyway.”
“I can’t. She’d shoot me down, and things would never be the same. Though I guess they’re pretty fucked already.”
“So don’t talk to her,” I said. “Just…I don’t know. Kiss her.”
Shiloh’s perfect lips rose in my mind. I took a sip of beer to wash the imagined taste of her out of my mouth.
“No way,” Miller said.