I pushed thoughts of Miles out of my mind and had a beer with Xander.
This year was supposed to be about being a new Nessa. About new beginnings and trying to pull myself from the ashes of before.
Somehow, I’d find a way to make that happen.
Even if I wasn’t sure if the embers had thoroughly doused themselves along the way.
Chapter 2
Miles
“You’re telling me you’re almost done with college, and you still don’t have a girlfriend?”
I barely resisted the urge to roll my eyes at my younger brother as he bit into a French fry and grinned at me.
Aaron was fourteen. He’d been the surprise baby my parents hadn’t expected. After all, they had already been raising twins and hadn’t been prepared for a third kid. But along came Aaron, and our family was complete.
At least, for as long as we’d had it.
Aaron was loud, mischievous in the best ways, loved video games, and was a history nerd. However, he did his best to hide that from the rest of the world so he didn’t get bullied in school. He had plans to use history and some form of media to take over the world. I wasn’t a hundred percent sure how that would happen, but the kid wanted to go to college when the time came, and I was sure he would find a major that worked. It had taken me a while to figure out what I wanted to do, and here I was, in my senior year of college, getting a biomaterials degree, with grad school in the future and all of the lovely paperwork for my course load. And no girlfriend.
A fact that Aaron liked to point out.
Often.
“Hey, you don’t have a boyfriend,” I said. Oh, good. Now, I was kicking at a teenager to make myself feel better. Just kill me now.
Aaron only grinned. “That you know of.”
This time, I did roll my eyes. “If you did, you’d have told me.”
“That’s true,” he said, dipping his French fry into his milkshake. I did the same and sat back in the booth. We were sitting in a diner near campus, spending what little time I had in the afternoon just hanging out. I rarely got time alone with my brother without my parents breathing down my neck, being their overprotective selves. Not that I blamed them given everything that had happened, but it wasn’t like I could do anything beyond seeing Aaron for a couple of hours a week—if that.
I had made my choices before, and I had to live with them. I hated that Aaron had to live with them, as well.
“Seriously, why don’t you have a girlfriend? Weren’t you dating that one girl from your class?”
I bit into my burger, giving myself time to answer. “We’re just friends. Well, I thought we were friends. She wanted to get some things off her checklist,” I said, thinking of Marie. She’d wanted to spend a few weeks together for her plans, though I’d only featured in them marginally. She also fought the curve with me in every one of our upper-level classes.
“You mean she wanted to lose her V-card before she finished school?” My brother whispered the words, but they seemed to echo throughout the diner.
I cringed. “There were so many things wrong with that statement. However, the two of us weren’t on the same path into what we wanted out of a relationship.”
“You want love and marriage and all that?” Aaron asked.
I wanted to reach across the booth and smack him on the back of the head. I refrained. Only barely. “Not exactly. But it’s fine. We’re still friends.”
“Isn’t she in all your classes, though? You said you only had like eight people in each of your senior-level classes. That’s what you said.”
The kid never forgot a thing I told him. “Yes. And she’s dating one of the girls in our class now. They’re happy. I think they’re going off to grad school together.”
“So, you got left behind. Poor guy. It’s okay. I can teach you my moves.”
I snorted. “You’re fourteen. I don’t want to know what your moves are.”
Affronted, Aaron puffed out his chest. “I’ve got moves.”
“You’d better not, or Mom and Dad will bring down the hammer,” I warned, not teasing this time.
Aaron winced. “Okay, I don’t have moves. I have friends. No moves. You know Mom and Dad rarely let me out. I swear, if you hadn’t arranged this whole lunch thing on the weekends for us, I don’t think I’d even get to see you.”
I held back a sigh. “I’m always here, Aaron. No matter what. You know Mom and Dad are only overprotective and strict in their rules because they love us.”
“Yes, because of…well…everything.”
I swallowed hard and reached out and gripped his wrist. “I’m sorry, you know? That you have to deal with my messes.”
Aaron’s throat worked as he swallowed hard, but he looked up at me. “Don’t be sorry. I don’t blame you, you know. For anything.”
Tears pricked the backs of my eyes, and I let Aaron’s wrist go before I leaned back in the booth. The half-eaten burger in my stomach felt like lead, and I wasn’t hungry anymore. I pushed my plate to the middle and ignored my melting shake. “We all make decisions, and we all face the consequences.” At least those who survive the decisions, I thought to myself, but I didn’t say that out loud. Only I knew Aaron thought it, too. After all, it had only been four years ago when everything had changed. Aaron was fourteen now, in his first year of high school, and things were changing even more.
Our parents were strict with him, far more stringent than they had ever been with us. They tried to impose the same rules on me now, even though I wasn’t a child anymore. All because of one night when I hadn’t said no. When I had given in.
I sighed and pushed the thoughts from my mind. I didn’t need to think about that. As it was, I had applications to work on and essays to fill out. Grad school wouldn’t pop into existence on its own. I needed to work on programs that would pay me a stipend and allow me to go to school. I had earned scholarships for undergrad. Had saved throughout high school and college, and my parents saved for me so I wouldn’t end up in debt when it came to school. I was a teacher’s assistant on the side, which helped with bills, but I was still lucky. The grants I had now meant I needed to prove that I was worth it later. Special compensations wouldn’t pop out of nowhere.
“Hey, is there a reason we came here instead of meeting at your place?” Aaron asked after a moment.
I pulled myself out of my thoughts. “Oh, Tanner was in a mood, and I didn’t want to deal with it.”
“At least, he’s better than the guy you were sharing a room with when you were in your dorm your freshman year.”
Freshman year had been a mistake. I had received full room and board that first semester and had told myself I was ready to deal with real life. That I didn’t need to live with my parents. That even though everything had just happened and was so fresh, the wounds still bleeding inside my heart, it was only metaphorically.
My roommate had ended up stealing from me, acted like a douche, and constantly locked me out. He hadn’t liked that I enjoyed reading, science, or things having to do with life outside of banging chicks—at least, according to him. Everything that I had done, even wearing glasses and liking superhero movies, had been too geeky for him, and he’d made sure I understood that. Superhero movies weren’t only for geeks anymore. They were popular culture that everybody liked. Yet, I had been a nerd to him, so he thought I deserved to get my shit stolen and broken.