He double checks my count. “Or you could just not do drugs.”

Laughing, I snatch the bag from him and cram it down the front of my jeans. “Not exactly good advice coming from a dealer. Don’t they teach you marketing in college?”

“I only sell it. I don’t do it.”

I jump off the fence and give him a friendly smack on the back. “Do yourself a favor and don’t do either.”

Too tired to find a girl drunk enough to go down on me, I ditch the party and head for my car, parked on a dark, dead-end street. On my way, I spot a lone girl leaning against a car in front of Jimmy’s house, her face in her hands, crying. As I get closer, I realize it’s Wendy.

Lighting up a cigarette, I saunter over to her. “Whatsa matter, Wendy? Karma biting your ass?” I slur.

“Fuck off, Tyler,” she lashes out, wiping away the snot that’s running from her nose. Three years ago, I thought she was one of the prettiest girls in school. Somewhere along the line she lost her glow, and a dull version of my first crush stands sniveling in her place.

Cradling her chin in my palm, I lift her face toward the streetlight to see the purple and blue discoloration on her cheek and the beginnings of a black eye.

“Don’t touch me.” She jerks her face out of my hand and looks down at the ground between us. “Get away from me.”

“You still can’t look at me, can you Wendy?” I ask, leaning closer to her, my body inches from hers. “Do I make you that sick?”

She lifts her head, and her cold gaze flits from my eyes to the mottled flesh that runs across half my forehead and down the side of my face. Gulping, she closes her eyes and turns her head away.

“You’re drunk and probably high, Ty. That makes me sick.”

“Then look at me.” I rest one hand on the car door next to her. “Look at me like you used to.”

Still looking away, she tries to melt into the car door in an effort to put more distance between us. “I can’t, okay?” She says defiantly. “It skeeves me out. Are you happy now?”

I take a long drag off my cigarette and blow the smoke in her face. “Yeah, Wendy, I am. ’Cuz it looks like you’re getting exactly what you fucking deserve.”

I leave her standing there, wondering what kind of future she thinks she’s going to have when, at nineteen years old, she’s decided that a good-looking guy who hits her is more appealing than one who’s scarred up but treated her like gold.

My emotions are broiling when I get behind the wheel of my old pickup truck. Three years later, and Wendy still has the ability to twist the knife—reminding me that, even after seeing her every single day for three hundred and eighty-six days—I never realized her shitty-ass version of teen love came with a condition, and that condition was looks. Everything I did for her was forgotten in an instant once I wasn’t good looking enough for her anymore.

I’d never pinned her for the shallow type. I was wrong. Just like I was wrong about a lot of things and a lot of people. I was served a crash course in reality after I was pushed into that fire, and it still eats at me like acid because this isn’t supposed to be my life and I don’t know how the hell to change it.

I shouldn’t be driving, drunk and underage with a bag of drugs in my pants, but I drive home in a rage anyway, not giving two fucks if I get pulled over and thrown in jail.

By the time I get home, it’s after 2:00 a.m., and my father is in the dark living room, dozing on the couch with a horror movie playing on the television. My parents always go to bed together, so I can only assume he stayed up to wait for me. I creep by him on my way to my room, but I trip over a dog toy in the middle of the floor and then bang into the coffee table, which I could’ve sworn was two feet to the right.

“Shit,” I mutter, rubbing my shin.

My father stirs and sits up, squinting in my direction against the glare of the television. “Ty? That you?”

“Go to bed,” I reply, swaying.

Instead, he stands and flicks on the lamp next to the couch, narrowing his eyes at me.

“You look like shit.”

“Thanks, Pop.”

“I can smell the alcohol on you from here. You been drinking again?”

Obviously. I lean against the wall to keep from falling on my ass. “Don’t start, okay? I’ve had enough shit for one day.”

He steps closer and grabs my shoulder, pulling me off the wall. His six-foot-four muscular frame looms over me. My father was a bad ass back in the day, and he’s still tough enough to kick my ass if he wanted to.