"Don't you look down on me. Like you're better than me when I made you. A better man would take care of his mother. A better man wouldn't cut ties with his family. Don't come crawling back to me when you end up like your brother, like your father, like every damn man I've ever known."

"Last chance." He lifts his phone in warning, but he sounds tired. So tired. "I don't want to call the cops on you, but I will."

"You ungrateful-"

"Goodbye, Mother."

When he starts dialing, she walks away cursing. He stands there in the yard until she starts her car and pulls away.

I wait for him to come back up to the house, but he doesn't. He stays, rigid and still. And even though he's a full-grown man, tall and broad, he looks so small to me then. Like a boy. A boy who had to grow up entirely too fast.

I go to him. And when I place my hand on his back, he tenses and jerks away from my touch. He turns, and he looks similar to the night we first met. He's not bruised or bleeding, but he's locked up tight. Angry.

"You should go."

Then he takes off, striding toward the door fast enough that I have to jog to catch him.

"Silas, wait!"

He jerks to a stop at the top of the porch stairs, and spins around to look down at me.

"You want to know what I'm afraid of? That's what I'm afraid of. That's what's waiting for me if I can't make football work."

"No, it's not-"

"Yes, it is. I can clean up, play nice with you at animal shelters and construction projects, but that's just me pretending. I'm always going to be the guy who wears jeans to fancy parties and who gets in screaming fights on his front lawn. My first inclination will always be to work things out with my fists. I might do my damnedest to hold it back, but it will always be in me. And I don't fit in your world. You couldn't even introduce me to your parents tonight, and that was before all this."

"I thought-I thought I was doing you a favor. I thought it would freak you out to meet my parents. You don't do relationships, and that-"

"You're right. I don't. I thought maybe I could, but it would only have been a matter of time before I was the one suffocating in your world. Let's face it . . . you and I, we don't match. Never have. Never will."

This is all spiraling out of control faster than I can keep up with. And I feel the urge to grab him, to hold on tight because I'm losing him, but it feels like I'm losing so much more. Something too big to name.

"Silas, I'm sorry. I didn't mean for any of it to come across like this. I'm sorry."

He gives me a smile that doesn't reach his eyes, and there's this racket in my chest called a heartbeat and it's so wild, so frantic I can barely hear over the sound.

"Still so damn polite."

Then he crosses to his front door, walks inside, and closes the door with a quiet, calm click.

Shutting me out.

And I don't know if breakup is the right word but it feels like that. Bigger than that actually. This time isn't like Henry. I don't feel relieved.

I feel sliced open and short of breath and . . . sorry. So very sorry.

Chapter 25.

Silas First day of school is shit. Complete and utter shit.

Everybody knows about the suspension, and they all want to talk about it, want to know what happened, and how it's going to affect the first game.

They all expect me to be riled up about it . . . to want to talk. But it's not the suspension that's got my head all twisted up. It's Dylan.

I couldn't sleep last night because my bed still smells like her. Can't take a fucking shower without imagining the look on her face when she came apart around my fingers that first night in that room. Even my goddamn truck belongs to her now.

All of it. She's in everything.

I realize when I show up for my first class why Dylan's name seemed familiar the night we met. The Brenner-Gibson building. Her family has a fucking building named after them, and I'm tempted to drop the class just for that reason.

I stick to the back rows during my classes, dressed in sweatpants and a T-shirt because I've got less than zero fucks to give about first-day-of-school bullshit. I'm in the mood to be pissed, and the world seems all too happy to give me plenty of reasons.

I head to the athletic complex to join the 11 A.M. workout, and Coach Gallt is the coach on duty. Keyon is there, too. So of course, I deal with an hour of having my nose rubbed into the fact that I'm not playing this Saturday. Or the next one.

And to make things worse . . . Dylan ends up being in my one o'clock history class. Her hair is down and straightened, and it keeps drawing my eye all through class. She's about four rows down directly in front of me, and she keeps finding reasons to look back. She stretches. Then she drops her pencil. Then she checks the clock at the back of the lecture hall. And those looks have me so on edge, I don't know whether I want to walk out or take her with me or yell at her or kiss her. I just know I can't take those eyes on me.

I managed to avoid talking to her at the beginning of class because I came in at the last minute, hair still wet from my shower after the midday workout, but she catches up to me on the way out.

The look she gives me . . . cautious and shy . . . it fucking kills me.

"Hey," she says.

I return the greeting, but keep right on walking. My next class is in the building next door, so I'm not in any hurry, but I act like I am.

"Silas, wait." She grabs my elbow and pulls me to a stop in the stairwell. I could refuse. Could pull away and keep right on walking. "Can we talk?"

I don't want to. I do. I don't fucking know.

I know she had it rough growing up, too. I get that, but she's different. She got taken away from that, and her foster homes were at least consistent. She was taken care of, provided for. She's normal.

I'm not. Never will be.

All I know is I'm fucking exhausted, and I don't have the energy for this. But even now . . . I don't know how to tell her no.

"Go ahead."

"I just . . . I thought we left things bad yesterday. And I wanted to talk."

"So talk."

"I'm sorry about the party." Her eyes drop to my mouth when she apologizes, and I clench my fists against the need to pull her against me. This girl . . . however she may make me feel . . . she's bad news for me. I'll never be able to live up to her standards, and I'll drive myself fucking crazy trying. Because I've figured it out . . . The shit with Levi and Keyon and everything else . . . that's because I was trying to be something I'm not, and if that party with Dylan is any indication, I've been wasting my time.

I won't go back to the Old Silas. I've got to keep my head on straight, keep my scholarship, but I'm also not changing or hiding who I am. Not for Rusk. Not for Dylan. No one. I've just got to stop being fucking ashamed of where I come from because other people will do that enough for me.

I shrug in answer to her apology. "It's fine. You did me a favor anyway. Not really my scene."

"I know it's not. But that doesn't mean I should have acted like you didn't belong. It was wrong, and not true in the slightest."

"It is true, though, Dylan. And I'm okay with that. I don't need or want to belong at places like that. With people like that."

She swallows and her eyes look hurt, and I figure she thinks I mean her. I don't . . . well, not completely. But I let her think that. It's easier that way.

"Okay then. Well, I guess that's all then. That's all I wanted to say."

But she doesn't move. And she's tangling her fingers together nervously in front of her chest.

"No, it's not. Come on, Dylan. What else do you want to say? Get it all out and then let's be done with it."

She takes a deep breath and squares her shoulders. "Your mom?"

I scowl. "What about her?"

"When was the last time you saw her?"

I feel sick at the thought of talking to her about this, like my insides are all twisted up. But no more shame. I need to own this. Have to.

"I don't know. Eight years, give or take."

I can hear her shock in the silence, and her body is so still, so rigid I can't read her. "You were thirteen?"

"Yeah. First time I got arrested was about a year after that. Also for fighting."

I'm trying to scare her off, end this conversation now, and by the alarmed look she tries to hide, I figure it's working.

"You were arrested before?"

"Twice before you. The second time they were wrong, though. They thought I stole shit, but that was all my brother. My brother who's still stealing, apparently." She sighs, and I can't help running my mouth. "This is what you wanted to know, right? How messed up I am? Go ahead. Ask your questions. I know you've got them."

She slides a little closer to me and lays her hand on my arm. I should shrug her off but I don't.

"I think you need to talk about it."

"No. I really don't. It's in the back of my mind all the time. Every day. It sticks to me like a shadow that's right at my heels no matter where I go or what I do. I don't need to talk about it, too."

"Maybe talking about it will help. You're so angry, Silas."

I do shrug her off then. I drag a hand over my face and laugh darkly. "Yeah. I am. But talking won't change that."

"How do you know? It might."

"Damn it, Dylan. I don't need you to fix me. I'm dealing with this shit just fine now. But my family . . . my past . . . there's no fixing that. "

"So you're just fine now?"

"I had to stop fooling myself. I've done that. Now I'm good. I don't need to be your charity case anymore."

"Don't. I care about you. And I'm worried for you and-"

"Don't be. I said I'm fine. And now I need to get to my next class."

She takes hold of my arm and tries to tug me toward her, but I don't budge.

"You asked me to help. You asked me to keep things simple. I don't know why you're punishing me now for trying to do just that."

Because I was stupid enough to think we were on the same page. Stupid enough to think that even though our mouths said simple, she could see that we were anything but that.

"You just wanna fuck? Is that it?"

I give in to the arm trying to tug me toward her and crowd her back against the wall. She swallows hard and her eyes drop to my lips, and fuck it. I push away my thoughts and give in to the dark want in my gut.

I crush our lips together, and this kiss is not soft, not sweet. Our teeth clash, and I grip her to pull her closer to me. I pour all my frustration into her, my desperation, my fear. I want to push all those things out and pull her in instead.

She kisses me for a few long moments, but then she turns her head away, breaking contact. I kiss her cheek, her jaw, drag my teeth down her neck. She plants her hands on my chest and pushes me away a few inches. "No. That doesn't solve anything."

"So you don't want simple?" God, I can hear the cruelty in my voice, and I know I'm being a jackass, but it makes me feel better. Makes everything not hurt so damn much.

"I don't want you to use sex to ignore your problems. You have to talk about this. It's not healthy."

"I don't have anything more to say. Just give it up already."

"No. I won't give up on you. I don't give up on . . ."

She trails off and instead of continuing, she slides out from between me and the wall and takes a few steps back.

"You don't give up on what? A cause? I knew it. I fucking knew it."

"No, that's not it." But she takes another step back.

"Jesus, just go, Dylan. I'm done talking about this. This is one cause you're just going to have to let pass you by."

"You don't mean that."

"I do. I may have anger issues, and I might not make the best decisions, but at least I know my own fucking mind. You're too caught up in who you think you're supposed to be and how you're supposed to act that you're like a fucking shell. You might as well go back to Henry. I'm sure he'll be happy to make up your mind for you."

Hurt flashes across her face, and I know I've stepped over a line, but I clench my fists and tell myself it's for the best. I've saved myself from getting in any deeper than I already was. Because a few weeks with her pretty much rearranged my life, how I think, the way my heart fucking beats. If things go any further, if I give her any more time, there will be no coming back from that.

And if she stops and thinks about it, I'm sure she'll realize I saved her, too.

Saved her the trouble.