As I stared at him, the image of who I really wanted to hurt was in my head. Kyle, Kyle who had hurt me and had taken the one thing that I hadn’t even really wanted to give to him. I couldn’t ever get that back. I couldn’t get that moment back. That’s what hurt the most.

I pressed my lips together tightly so that I wouldn’t sob and shook my head, my eyes dropped as the tears spilled down my cheeks. It felt like an eternity before I felt Kent’s strong, warm arms come around me.

“Quit crying. We’re gonna go do something fun,” he said softly. He swayed slowly with me in his arms.

“Like what?” My voice sounded foreign to my ears, it was thick with tears.

“Can’t tell you that, Els. It would ruin the surprise.”

Chapter Four

After we’d both showered, and I’d said goodbye to Stacy, Kent put me in his crappy car and ran around to join me. I settled back into the passenger seat which used to fit my body like a glove. It sagged a bit now. I buckled up and smiled as he did the same. “Are you going to tell me where we’re going now?”

“No. Quit asking or I’ll turn this car around.”

I scoffed. “I dare you.”

He looked over at me with a sly grin on his lips. “You dare me, huh?”

I met his grin with a challenging lift of my eyebrows and an indifferent shrug of my shoulders. “Yep. Turn this car around. See if I care,” I said. He turned the car on and carefully backed out of the space as some offending metal band screamed through the speakers. “Oh, my god! How can you listen to that?” I covered one ear and put the other to my shoulder to try to block it out as I reached forward with my other hand to turn it off.

He was snickering beside me. “It gets me out of my head for a little while.”

“What’s wrong with being inside your head?”

“Lots of things. So… it was awful, huh?”

I really didn’t want to talk about this. Not with him. He obviously didn’t take it seriously. I’d been sober when I’d lost mine, unlike Kent had been, and I would remember every single detail for the rest of my life.

“Yep. It wasn’t great that’s for sure.”