“Why would you do that, if you don’t care?”

I scoff. I care, and he knows I care. He’s trying to force me to admit it. Maybe I should. Pretending she doesn’t matter to me hasn’t accomplished a whole heck of a lot. It’s landed me bitter and freezing out here.

Mark sighs when I say nothing else. “He doesn’t look like a guy who just got laid. He looks like a guy who doesn’t have a shot in hell with the girl he wants. You do.” Mark claps my shoulder, then heads inside.

I sit for a while longer, letting the cold numb me. I’m sober, which I haven’t been in weeks.

Eventually, I fish my keys out of my pocket and walk toward my truck. I’m not sure why I came tonight. Part of me wishes I hadn’t. Now I have the sight of Cassia coming downstairs seared into my brain.

It was an attempt to return to normalcy, I guess. An acknowledgment the path I’m on is a destructive one. My dad would want better. Would be disappointed by the way I’ve acted since his death. That realization singes in a way little else has managed to affect me in weeks.

All the lights are off across the street when I park in the driveway. Cassia’s car isn’t there. The knowledge niggles against my skin like a rash, persistent and irritating. Maybe she went home with Baker. Maybe she’s still at the party, dancing and drinking.

She’s not mine. I have no claim over what she does or who she chooses to do it with. But yeah, it fucking stings.

Sydney is sitting on the couch, arms crossed, when I walk into the living room. I sigh, then drop my keys in the dish on the coffee table.

Of course this would be the night she stays up past eleven p.m. It’s bad enough I feel like I’m disappointing my dad’s ghost. I’m letting her down too.

“What happened to your hand?” she asks.

The bleeding has stopped, but my knuckles are still red and swollen. I debate lying, but she’ll hear the truth at school on Monday. “I punched a cabinet.”

Sydney’s eyes widen. “What? Why?”

“Felt like it. I’m going to bed.” I turn, heading toward the stairs.

“Was Cassia there?”

I still but don’t turn around. “Yeah.”

It didn’t occur to me she would have told Sydney she was going to Jack’s party. It should have.

“Did you apologize?”

I wince, recalling what I said to her. “She doesn’t want to hear it. She hates me.”

“Goddammit, Holden.”

I flinch. Sydney never swears.