Waste My Time by Kelsey Clayton

I walk downstairs feeling like a new man. Pushing my way through the crowded party in my living room, I slip into the kitchen to grab a beer. It's amazing how one person can change everything. No amount of drugs I've taken in the last few months ever came anywhere near making me feel like this.

So alive.

So content.

Like I rose from the ashes of rock bottom and am ready to fly.

“E,” Zayn calls as he comes toward me. “How's Tess? She okay?”

My grin stretches from ear to ear. “Couldn't be better.We couldn't be better.”

He cocks a brow at me. “You mean you two...”

“Yep.” I tilt my head back as I take a long swig of beer. “I think we're going to make it this time. I have a good feeling about it.”

“Damn,” he says. “I thought she was still all hung up on her teacher.”

Even the mention of that guy has the ability to make my smile falter. If I had known Tessa would move on as fast as she did, I never would have left in the first place. But none of that matters now, because she's mine again, and I won't let anything get in the way of us.

“Being as she's naked in my bed right now, I'd say she's over his ancient ass.”

He snorts. “Twenty-eight isn't ancient.”

“Whatever.” I wave it off and start heading for the stairs again. “I'd love to stay and chat, but I'd rather get back to my girl.”

“Easton,” he says, grabbing my attention as I'm three steps up.

I stop and turn back around to face him. “What?”

“Just be careful.” His words are more a warning than an order. “She seems pretty fragile lately.”

“Have you met Tessa? Fragile is the last thing I'd use to describe her.”

Leaving him behind me, I take the stairs two at a time and head down the hall. As soon as I get back in my room, I notice the door to my bathroom is shut. A feeling of dread sits in the pit of my stomach that I can't seem to shake.

“Tess?” I call, knocking on the door, but there's no response. “Tessa?”

Nothing.

The realization that I told her where to find my stash hits me like a truck and panic sets in. My fist pounds on the door as I scream her name.

“Tessa!”

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

With all the strength I have, I rear back and start kicking the door.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

The wood breaks into pieces as I finally get it to open, but there's no relief from finally getting inside. My heart sinks as I find Tessa on the floor, a near-empty bottle of vodka clutched in her hand and her head slumped to the side. For a second I hope she's just drunk, until my eyes land on the empty prescription bottle in the sink—the same one that was full of oxycodone just a couple hours ago.

“No, no!” I shout, dropping to my knees and taking her face in my hands.

“Tessa? Tessa!” I tap her cheeks to try to get a response, but all I get is an empty look in her eyes. “Answer me!”

Her hand releases the bottle of vodka as she starts slipping away right in front of me. I watch as her eyes start to roll back and her head falls heavily against my hand.

No.

This can't be happening.

No!

“Shit! Zayn!” I scream my best friend's name as I panic to maneuver Tessa so she's lying flat on the floor. “Zayn!”

With my hands on her chest, I start doing CPR as I call for my roommate in unadulterated fear. Her body feels hollow beneath my touch. I can feel her ribs creaking under the pressure, but I can’t stop. If this is the only thing keeping her alive, I’ll do it for as long as I need to.

“Don't die on me. Please don't die on me,” I plead through sobs. Tears that I didn’t know were streaming down my face fall onto Tess’s lifeless body. “Fuck, Zayn!”

Finally, he comes running into my room. When he realizes the scene in front of him, he looks just as terrified as I feel. His eyes double in size and his skin goes almost as pale as Tessa’s.

“Call 911!” I tell him urgently. “Now!”

My lungs fill with air as I jolt awake. The dark room provides a sense of relief as I realize it was just a nightmare—the same recurring nightmare I've had since it happened. The one that makes me feel all the same things I did when I lived through it.

Kennedy lies beside me, sound asleep and turned away. A part of me wants to reach out and touch her, but after everything we went through last night, I don't think waking her would do any good. It's better not to risk it.

The floor creaks beneath my feet as I slip out of bed and head downstairs. I make my way into the kitchen and open the fridge, grabbing an ice-cold beer and cracking it open. The liquid slides down my throat and cools me from the inside out, bringing me back into reality and away from the memories that haunt me at night.

“Again?” Zayn asks, appearing out of nowhere. “I thought they stopped.”

I push myself up to sit on the counter. “I thought so, too.”

“You really should see a therapist. You have PTSD, and it really helped Jace.”

Shaking my head, I stare down at my beer as he grabs one for himself. “We don't do this. I act like I'm fine, and you pretend you believe I'm fine. That's how we operate. Remember?”

He cracks the can open and leans against the island across from me. “Are the nightmares making you want drugs?”

“No, Z,” I say calmly, knowing he's only asking because he cares. “Reliving the memory of my ex-girlfriend nearly dying in my arms is not triggering the urge to relapse.”

“Good enough, then I'll drop it. But at least consider therapy.”

I nod but say nothing else. The two of us sit in total silence, but there's a mutual respect. He knows that just being here is exactly what I need, even if we don't talk.

“I'm asking Amelia to marry me,” he announces out of the blue.

Sputtering beer, I struggle to catch my breath. “Fuck, man. Seriously?”

The corners of his mouth raise. “I love her, E. There's no one else I could imagine spending the rest of my life with.”

“Jesus Christ, she turned you into a damn Hallmark card,” I tease.

Zayn has been my best friend since we were riding on training wheels. He's one of the most loyal and protective people I know, which is probably the only reason I'm so calm right now, given that he's standing here telling me he's going to propose to my little sister.

Them dating was something I never saw coming. When I found out they were hooking up behind my back, it was a shock to my system, but I don't think I could find a better guy for her. Just seeing the two of them together, I know he'd throw himself on a blade if it was in her best interest.

“You haven't killed me yet,” he quips. “That's a good sign.”

A deep chuckle echoes through me. “Are you kidding? If I put so much as a scratch on you, Amelia would rip me to shreds.”

“Touché. Though from what it sounded like earlier, Kennedy might do that for her.”

I wince. “You heard all that?”

He shrugs and a small laugh bubbles out of him. “Parts of it. She isn't exactly the quietest person we know.”

The look on Kennedy's face when she realized I’d been lying to her is one that's going to stay burned into my mind forever. Just like everything else I've done wrong. And the way she screamed at me earlier? Yeah, I more than deserved it.

“You want to talk about it?” Z asks.

Taking a deep breath, I exhale slowly. “I've been hanging out with Tess behind her back. She found out.”

His brows raise. “E!”

“I know, I know. I don't need the lecture,” I tell him honestly. “I fucked up.”

“Fucked up is a massive understatement.” He pauses and runs his fingers through his hair. “Shit, Amelia might kill you anyway.”

I hop down from the counter and throw my empty can into the recycling bin. “Say something nice at my funeral?”

He chuckles. “Leave me your record collection, and I'll do my best.”

“Deal.”

I start making my way back to my room, but just before I leave the kitchen, Zayn stops me.

“E,” he calls. I turn around to look back at him. “Kennedy doesn't deserve that shit.”

Nodding slowly, I rub the back of my neck. “I know. I'm going to fix it.”

“I hope you can.”

As I climb back into bed a few moments later and see my girlfriend sleeping soundly beside me, I let my head sink into the pillow and drape an arm over top of her.

“Me too.”

TENSE. THAT'S THE ONLY way to describe things between Kennedy and me. While Amelia is around, she acts like everything is fine, but I can tell. It's the way she leaves a couple inches of space between us on the couch. The way her whole body stiffens when my phone gets a text message. The way she looks at me when we have to be away from each other. It's almost as if she's terrified of what I’ll do next.

I hold the bouquet of pink roses tightly in my hand as I walk up the steps. As I sat through my eighty-minute lecture this morning, all I could think about was how I could make this up to her. Flowers may not solve everything, but they're at least a start.

Opening the door, Kennedy is standing in the kitchen with Zayn and Amelia. My sister glances back at me, and when she sees the present for Kennedy, her face lights up.

“Oh my God,” she coos. “You can be a sweetheart after all.”

I chuckle and roll my eyes as I ignore her and head for my girl. “You told me once that pink roses are your favorite.”

She smiles as she takes them from me, but I can tell it's a forced one. “They are. Thank you.”

Arching on her tiptoes, she kisses my cheek and then lets me wrap her in my arms while her head rests on my chest. It's a show. All of it. And it's all for Amelia's sake. She doesn't want her to know, and that's mostly for my sake. She said that she doesn't want my sister to hate me, and fuck, that broke me. How can she still be thinking of me and my reputation, when I hurt her so badly?

She's a goddess, that's how.

“Zayn never buys me flowers,” Amelia says with a pout.

Z snorts. “Because the one time I did, you kept them three weeks after they were dead because you didn't want to hurt my feelings by throwing them away.”

“It wasn't that long.”

“They attracted bugs, babe.”

Kennedy and I laugh at their banter, but I'm mostly relishing in the way I'm allowed to hold her close while they're around. I know the second they walk out the door, she's going to pull away from me again—roses or no roses.

“Oh, whatever,” Amelia groans. “Come on. I want to get lunch before class.”

She blows a kiss to Kennedy and heads for the door, and Zayn pats me on the shoulder as he follows dutifully. My hold on my girlfriend tightens as I watch them leave, knowing what's coming.

Sure enough, the second the door closes behind them she takes a deep breath, almost as if she's committing the feeling to memory, then removes herself from my embrace. Her head drops as she makes her way up the stairs.

“Kennedy,” I plead as I follow behind her.

No answer. She carries the flowers upstairs and into my bedroom before tossing the bouquet down on my bed. Her hands rub over her face, and I can tell she's trying to keep herself from crying.

“Babe,” I try again. “Please. I'm trying to fix this.”

She scoffs. “And you think flowers are the way to do that? I found out that months of our relationship have been a lie, and you think flowers are just going to make it all better?”

“Of course not! But I'm trying here.” I sit down on my bed and take a breath to try to calm myself. “You're acting like I cheated on you. I told you, nothing happened.”

“So you keep claiming, but what I want to know is why were you sneaking around with her then?” She crosses her arms over her chest and holds her head high. “If you weren't sleeping with her—which I only believe because she's still happily in a relationship last time I checked—then what the hell were you doing?”

My mouth opens and closes, trying to think of an excuse, but if I have any shot at fixing this, I need to give her at least somewhat of the truth.

“She's been helping me through some things,” I confess.

Kennedy flinches like my words hit the weakest spot she has. “The nightmares you have?”

Fuck. “That's part of it.”

Her eyes fill with tears as she runs her fingers through her hair. “So, instead of confiding in your girlfriend, who has done nothing but try to help you, you decide it's better to fuck off with your ex. That's great, E. Just great.”

She turns around and grabs her books. Everything feels so broken as I watch her go to leave. I can't let her walk out that door right now, because the fear that she might never come back is getting increasingly real by the second.

“Ken,” I say, reaching out for her.

She shrugs off my touch and turns around, her piercing glare on me through bloodshot eyes. “Don't.” She takes a step into the hallway before stopping once more. “You know, I honestly would have preferred you sleeping with her. That would have hurt less than this.”

I stay at the top of the steps and watch as she walks out the front door, not once looking back. The moment she's gone, I go back into my room and find the bouquet of flowers still lying on my bed. I pick them up and admire their beauty before chucking them with all the force I can manage.

I'm going to lose her.

I can feel it.