“And we’ll kill him just because he pointed a bullet in your direction, but hell, Ivan, I don’t think we’re the only ones he came back for...”
ChapterEighteen
Marcos
There was something peculiar in my best friend, something soft and gracious enough that he was able to pull magic right out of people.
His heart had been broken a time or two, battered most by the people who were supposed to love him, and still, it beats.
A little stronger.
A little louder.
He might be the best person I’ve ever met, and if soulmates existed in this small sphere of friendship, then Toby was mine.
We sat beneath a pile of blankets, huddled together on his couch. The cushions were soft and oversized, hugging me from all sides. A fire crackled across the room, but otherwise, it was quiet.
Just us.
The misery in the air was almost palpable, touching each of us in a distant, familiar sort of way. Every so often, I blinked back an angry tear, refusing to let it bleed down my cheek. Between my lungs was a scream I knew would come loose, eventually.
Manny’s memory was pillow-soft, falling off my lips in hushed, delicate words. Toby listened with a cheek on my shoulder, his hand inside of mine. He was sad for me and angry all at once.. and maybe he was right too.
Maybe my parents shouldn’t have let me grow up believing I wasn’t enough… but how could they have made me believe anything else when that’s what they believed too?
I was born for a very specific purpose, and though I didn’t mean to, I’d fucked it up before my tenth birthday. It was a bizarre thing as a kid to look around a world you didn’t understand and wonder what you were supposed to do now.
“I don’t know that either of them really had the energy to be parents after Manny died, and I don’t think they ever really stopped viewing me as a tool.”
“That’s fucked up.”
Despite everything, I smiled.
Toby rarely swore—only when he was excited orincrediblypissed off.
“I’m serious,” he said. “It’s totally fucked up, and I hope your dad is miserable without his coffee maker.”
I barked a laugh.
Toby’s own lips curled into a chuckle, his face flushing a warm red. Still… there was a sadness to each inhale, a similar sound to what lingered beneath mine. He was a navigator of his own pain, and I think he understood, more than anyone, how easy it was to get comfortable in your misery.
Change was difficult, even when it was for the better.
“I should’ve quit that job a long time ago.”
“There was still a piece of you that hoped your father would come around. There's nothing wrong with hope, M, and there’s nothing wrong with wishing he’d love you like he was supposed to.”
That wasn’t my wish.
Not anymore.
How many had I wasted on a father who’d only ever tolerated me?
Toby shifted then, pulling his head from my shoulder to rest it on the back of the couch. The cushions molded around his freckled cheeks, and he looked over at me with a wobbly smile. His eyes were damp with grief that wasn’t his own, and I felt a twinge of gratitude tugging at my chest.
Toby wasn’t my big brother, but I think pieces of them were built the same.
For two people who spent most of their lives in pain, they never stopped trying to make mine better.