He sounds desperate and so damn distraught. “Hey, okay.” I wrap my arm around his big shoulders and take a deep breath, hoping he’ll follow and do the same. Thankfully, he does. “It’s okay.”

“I can’t be with her anymore. It was toxic. She didn’t like me.”

My eyes flutter closed momentarily, and then I open them again. “Everyone likes you.”

He half chuckles at that, but it’s far from his real laugh. “She didn’t. She wanted me to be someone else. To be interested in going to dances and shit I don’t care about. She acted like there was something wrong with me for not wanting to be just like her.”

She’s always been like that. I wonder what’s changed now, but I don’t say it out loud. He doesn’t need that right now. “You deserve to be whoever you want to be.” The words clench around my heart like a vise, but I keep going. “If it was becoming toxic, it’s a good thing you broke up.”

“Oh, I know. I’m not sad. I’m glad. Really fucking glad. She could be so goddamn hateful.”

I start to realize that maybe I didn’t know just how bad it was between them, because he looks equally relieved to be away from her and horrified by their past. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know it was that bad.”

“She just . . .” He pushes his hand through his hair and shakes it off. “I tried to break up with her a few times before, but she’d get really nasty, which turned to crying, and then somehow, I stayed. But this time I didn’t. This time I stuck to it, and it feels fucking awesome.”

He’s smiling now, which pulls a small smile from me. “Well, good. I’m glad you’re free then.”

“Yeah.” He sits up a little straighter and pats my thigh with his meaty hand. “Free. I like that.” He’s full-on grinning now. “We should go to a party.”

“Uh, what?” There’s no way I’m going to a party tonight, and that came out of nowhere.

“Yeah.” He stands up excitedly. “There’s one in Great Lodge tonight.”

I raise an eyebrow at him and don’t move from my spot on the bed. Great Lodge is about thirty minutes away and has the closest community college. “A college party?”

He nods with a big smile. “Yeah. I mean, maybe we could even go to college there together. Thirty minutes isn’t too far. Or you know, you could go there, but I can stay here and work. We could get a place somewhere in the middle.”