I drag my ass back to my room and flop down onto my mattress, the overload of adrenaline I was feeling dwindling. For a brief second my mind slows down to reflect on how I got to this place. How I could get to such a low. How I created this monster within me—what I would be like if it died. But then I glance down at the names on my arm and remember.

I got here because I’m no one.

I shouldn’t even be alive.


Nova

I follow Tristan’s directions to a small bar on a corner a few miles away. Right beside it is a place called Topless Hotties and Drinks and across from it is a massage parlor, but I have to wonder by the half-naked lady painted on the glass window just what kind of massages they give.

Tristan doesn’t seem to be made uncomfortable by any of this. In fact he seems right at home as he climbs out of the car and lights up.

“So they have the best Jäger bombs here,” he tells me as he opens the tinted glass door at the front of the building. He holds it open for me and I enter, cringing at the dark, smoky atmosphere.

“I don’t really drink anymore,” I tell him and breath eases from my lips as a waitress walks by in a uniform that looks like it was bought at Victoria’s Secret.

Tristan gives me a weird look like he doesn’t quite understand the concept. “Sure. Okay.” Then he leads me out into the open bar area that has tables and chairs on one side and a few pool tables on the other.

There’s a jukebox in the corner playing “Leader of Men” by Nickelback. All the waitresses are dressed similarly to the one we ran into when we walked in, wearing lingerie-type outfits. There are mostly guys hanging out in here, go figure, but thankfully, there are a few women patrons here and there so I don’t feel so out of place. Although I do feel very uncomfortable about the half-dressed waitresses.

“Do you want to play some pool?” Tristan asks, angling his head and checking out one of the waitress not so discreetly.

I shrug. “I’ve never played before.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, really.”

He muses over this, intrigued. “Well, I think it might be time to break that cherry,” he says with a sly expression that makes me wonder if he knows I’m a virgin. If maybe Quinton told him about the little incident in the pond. But for some reason, I just can’t seem to picture Quinton doing that.

“Sounds good.” I play along, knowing that if I want to get information about Quinton’s dad from him, I’m going to have to stay on his good side.

He grins and motions for me to follow him, stopping briefly to order a shot of vodka at the bar. He asks me if I want one and I shake my head, telling him I rarely drink anymore. He gives me a weird look but doesn’t press.

Once he slams it down, he looks even more relaxed, and part of me wishes I could take a shot, too. But I’m afraid one shot may lead to five shots and that may lead to so much more. Plus, I have to drive.

Tristan gets two cues from the wall, hands one to me, then racks the balls up. He waves at some guy with a long beard as he rounds the table to get ready to break the balls and I have to wonder…

“Just how often do you come here?” I ask, leaning my weight on the cue as I prop it vertically against the floor.

He shrugs, lowering his head and slanting over the pool table while aiming the cue at the balls. “I don’t know…like once or twice a week.” The cue jerks forward and the tip slams against the ball. It springs forward and hits the others, scattering them around the table. He stands up straight, smiling proudly as two solid-colored balls go into the pockets. “I think it’s going to be payback time for making me lose at darts all the time.”

“I didn’t make you lose at darts,” I tell him. “I’m just better at it.”

He gives me a cocky grin and moves around the table, setting up his next shot, which he makes. This happens two more times and each time he looks cockier. When he finally does miss a shot, it barely fazes him.

“Go ahead and give it a try,” he says, gesturing at the table.

I almost smile because this feels so normal, like how things used to be, only he’s high and I’m sober. I step up to the table and try my best to hit one of the striped balls, but fail epically. I frown as not a single ball except the white one moves.

He laughs at me and it’s the first real emotion I think I’ve seen, real happiness fleetingly slipping through the drugs taking over his system.

“I’m glad you think this is funny,” I say, and I mean it. It’s good to see him laugh.

“Oh, I do.” His laughter dies down and he studies me from across the table with his blue eyes that used to be so much brighter. He cocks his head to the side as if he’s deliberating his next move and then he sets down his cue and strolls around the table, coming over to the side I’m standing on. “Here, let me help you.”

He reaches for me and I instinctively step back. “But it’s your turn.”

“I know,” he says. “But this can be more of a lesson than a game.”

I pout. “Am I that bad?”

He suppresses a laugh. “Just let me help you.”

I let out a loud breath. “Okay.”

He grins and then steps up to my side. “Face the table,” he says and I do, turning around. He puts an arm on each side of me and his chest presses against my back as I lean down and he moves with me, showing me how to hold the cue correctly by putting his hands over mine and guiding them into the right position.

His closeness makes me nervous, especially when his warm breath caresses my cheek as he dips his head forward. I think he’s going to say something, maybe kiss my cheek. I wonder if I’d let him—how far I’d go to get what I need in order to help Quinton. I’m not liking my thoughts very much right now, but thankfully, I get to escape them when all Tristan does is help me aim the cue and then shoot it forward. This time a lot of balls scatter and one even makes it in.

“See, not so hard, right?” he asks, his hands leaving mine.

I shake off my jitteriness and turn around. “No, but now that you’ve showed me how, you’ve made it harder for you to win.”

He chuckles as he rubs his scruffy jaw. “For some reason I doubt it.”

“Yeah, me, too,” I agree, stepping around the pool table to make my next shot, which I miss. He laughs amusedly.

We play for a little bit longer and of course he kicks my ass, which he comments on a few times as we find a seat at a table so he can order another drink. After the waitress leaves to go get Tristan his Jäger bomb and me my Coke, he grabs the saltshaker and starts rotating it between his hands.

“So are you going to tell me what you wanted to talk about?” he asks, setting the saltshaker aside and leaning back in his chair. He places his hands behind his head, elbows bent outward. “Because I’m guessing it wasn’t about pool.”

I shake my head, picking at the cracks in the table. “I wanted to ask you something about Quinton.”

He pretends to be nonchalant, but I can tell he gets tense because he starts grinding his teeth. “What about him?”

I fidget with the band on my wrist, trying to figure out where to begin. “Well, I was sort of wondering about his dad?”

His eyes fasten on mine, shadowed with irritation. “What about him?”

God, how do I say this? I mean, I don’t want to bring up his sister at all, but how do I avoid it and still get what I want? “Does he ever talk to him?”

Tristan lowers his arms onto the table. “Nope, at least not that I know of.” He reclines in the chair as the waitress arrives and puts our drinks on the table, and he waits for her to leave before he speaks again. “They don’t get along at all.” He drops the shot of Jäger into the taller glass then picks it up. “In fact, it’s pretty much why he ended up in Maple Grove—because his dad kicked him out of the house.”

I want to ask him if Quinton’s dad knows about his drug use, but since Tristan’s high I’m not sure how well that’d go over. “Yeah, but if he knew where he was living, do you think he’d want to talk to him?” I take a sip of the soda. “Help him?”

“Help him with what exactly?” There’s a challenge in his eyes, daring me to say “drug use” aloud.

I stir my straw around in my drink. “I don’t know…I was just curious…if they talked or if someone’s told him anything about the situation.”

He takes another large swallow of his drink, staring at me over the brim of the glass. “And what situation is that?”

I’m obviously pushing the wrong buttons and I don’t know any way around it, so I decide to be blunt. “Look, I know I’m making you mad right now, but I really want to help Quinton and I just think that maybe if I could get ahold of his dad and tell him what’s going on, it could maybe help him get better. But I need you to give me his name and number in order to do that.”

“Who said I was getting mad at you?” he asks calmly and then finishes off the rest of his drink.

He’s being an ass but I know for a fact it’s not really him, but this ghost, drug-addict version of himself. He doesn’t say anything else to me and gets up from the chair to take the empty glass to the bar. I wait for him to come back, but instead he starts hitting on our waitress, a leggy woman whose top is see-through when the light hits her at the right angle.

Tristan seems to be going out of his way to make it obvious that he’s hitting on her, even going as far as groping her breast. The woman giggles in response and starts coiling a strand of her hair around her finger. The longer the scene goes on the more awkward I feel and finally I get up from the table, deciding this was a bad idea and that I need to come up with a better plan. I throw a five on the table to cover my drink and then leave the musty bar. When I step into the sunlight, I breathe freely, but the feeling that I failed crushes my chest.