I’ll fucking say it.

“I hate you the most. I hate that I love you. I hate that Tommy loves you. I hate that you’re the fucking greatest thing to ever happen to me. I hate that I thought you saw me—that you understood me. I hate that you came into my life and turned my entire world upside down. I hate that I think about you every second of every fucking day. I hate that you’re the last fucking thing I think about. I hate that I still wake up thinking about you. And I hate that in between all that I fucking dream about you. You and your fucking eyes. I hate your eyes.” Her tears have stopped and she just stands there, unblinking, unmoving, taking every single blow I deliver. “And I hate that you did all this because you’re leaving me. You’re leaving us! You’re just like everyone else!”

“What happened to you, Josh?” she whispers.

“You did!” I shout. “You and Hunter, and Natalie, and my dad! You all leave us. Because he’s fucking dying, Becca, and I can’t do anything about it!”

She releases a sob, her hand reaching out for me but I cower away from her touch.

“All I can do is watch him die because he won’t even talk to me. He hates me so much he can’t even fucking look at me!”

“Josh…” She reaches for me again but I take a step back. “No! Just don’t, okay? It doesn’t change shit. It’s done. Just like us!”

Her gaze drops and the sound of my thumping heart fills my ears. I wait for the anger to pass, but it doesn’t, it just builds more and more as I stand there, watching them all watching me.

Then I see Chloe from the corner of my eye as she comes up beside me. “Get in the car,” she says quietly.

“What?” I turn to her just as she pinches my ear and drags me behind her and toward their car. Her breath is warm against my ear, or maybe it’s because she’s about to rip the fucker right off my head. “I said get in the fucking car!”

★★★

I keep quiet, my head lowered as Chloe drives—more like speeds—through the residential streets to who the fuck knows where. Probably somewhere to kill me and dump my body.

“How’s your ear?” she shouts. I think she’s pissed and I highly doubt she gives a shit about my ear.

“It’s fine.”

“I’m sorry,” she says, but she’s still yelling, and now I’m sure she’s pissed. “It’s just that you got me so angry. And I don’t know. Something else.”

“Something else?”

“Shut up!”

I cringe. “Okay…”

We don’t speak another word until she drives onto the half-court and parks right in the middle. “Get out!”

I do as she as says because right now I think she might be a little crazy.

She waits for me at the front of the car, the headlights still on. I stand in front of her, my hands in my pockets. I watch her. She watches me. Then she shoves my chest just like I’d done to her husband. “You’re a dick!”

I roll me eyes. “I know.”

“I’m sorry about your dad,” she snaps. “But he’s not dead, asshole. He’s dying. There’s a big difference. You still have time with him,” she says, her voice softer. “If you want to make it right. Make it right. You’re old enough to make that choice, Josh.” Her voice cracks and so does my heart because, fuck, it’s Chloe. The girl who’s married to my best friend, the girl who was diagnosed with the same cancer that killed her mom and her aunt, and she stands in front me, her shoulders squared and jaw set in determination. She stands tall, brave, in the middle of a world she could’ve given up on.

Just like I have.

But she hasn’t.

With a sigh, I pull on her arm and bring her into me, one hand on her back, the other in her hair that wasn’t there a year ago. “I’m sorry, Chloe. You’re right. About everything.”

Her body relaxes against mine and when she pulls back, she wipes her eyes. “I really am sorry about your dad. Please don’t tell me it’s cancer because I’ll kick the shit out of something if it is.”

I smile—which is strange given the situation. “It’s not. He’s got um…” I swallow nervously, knowing it’s the first time the words will leave my mouth. “Chronic kidney disease. It came out of nowhere.”

“How’d you find out?”

“My mom. She came to see me when he decided to quit dialysis. He’d rather live a full life than a long one.”

Chloe nods once, giving me a sad smile before saying, “You know what we need?”

“What?”

She smirks before going back to the car. I follow. She reaches into the glove box and finds what I think is a carton of tampons. “What the fire truck?”

“Relax,” she says through a laugh and pulls out a bag of joints.

I step back. “I don’t know, Chloe. You remember the last time we did that?”

She rolls her eyes. “I have a script.” She points to herself. “Cancer.”

I nod. “Right.”

“Just don’t tell Blake. He doesn’t know I have it anymore. Hence the tampons.”

“Got it.”

She uses the dash lighter to spark one, smiles as she inhales and then hands it to me. I look at the joint between my fingers. “Fuck it.” I take a puff and sit on the hood of the car with her. She lies down and I lie next to her.