More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Moments before the pain in my lungs exploded and everything went dark, I saw it. A halo of light. An orb of pure sunshine. Her. I saw her. And that’s when I knew. That’s when I knew…
“You’re my favorite person in the whole wide world, and I would swap everyone for you. Even Hugh.”
“When they said someone had been saved from the water. I prayed for it to be you.”
“But your hugs feel like sunshine.” “Like sunshine?” I frowned in confusion. “How?” “Because you are sunshine, silly,”
“I mean it,” he urged, turning to look at me now. “I can’t lose another person I love.” “You love me?” He nodded sadly as another tear trickled down his cheek. “I love you most of all.”
“I don’t see anyone.” His lips tipped up in the smallest of smiles before he added, “Except for you.”
Death would be better than this. It hurts. I was already dying on the inside. Make it stop. My insides were already ruined.
Claire Biggs had a lot of things. My back. My attention. My heart. My soul. Yeah, she had all of me and that wasn’t an exaggeration.
If I could sew this girl to my skin without causing her an ounce of harm, then I would do it in a heartbeat. That’s how vital she was to my life. How essential she was to my existence. If drugs were to Joey Lynch what Claire Biggs was to me, then there was no amount of rehab that could sway me to kick the habit. Because she was the habit of my lifetime.
I knew her favorite song every year since August 7, 1989. I knew her secrets, her little habits, and traits that nobody else noticed. I wanted to waste my time on her. All of my time. All of the time.
From as far back as I could remember, my mind had always been very clear about three things. One: Hugh was my brother. Two: Bethany was my sister. Three: Claire was mine.
The girl was everything to me, and that wasn’t me being dramatic. It was a fact. The thought of letting her down made me feel physically sick. The thought of any form of harm coming to her, be it emotional or physical, made me feel homicidal.
Because once we crossed that line, things would never be the same again. We couldn’t come back from it. And I needed the guarantee that I wouldn’t wreck it. That I wouldn’t be reckless with her heart. That I could love her the right way. Because I loved this girl. With every fiber of my being. With every beat of my poor defective heart. I loved her fiercely, solely, wholeheartedly. I had so many physical urges directed solely toward her, but there were no guarantees in life, and I couldn’t risk it.
Claire meant it when she told me that she loved me. That was the first of two things in life I was sure of, and I meant it right back. That was the second thing I was sure of. If I knew nothing else in this world, then I knew that I loved Claire Biggs. More than she could ever know. More than one lousy four-letter word could ever depict.
And from my own limited experience, I was under no illusion as to how messy loving a person could be. Because love hurt. It burned like hell. I got that. I accepted the pain. The self-inflicted flesh wounds it took to love another human. I wasn’t afraid of that. Of being hurt. Of anything for myself. My fear rested in my inability to love her the right way. In the potential I had to hurt her beyond repair or recourse.
I had trouble being alone with myself. It didn’t feel good to be on my own. In company was when I worked best. Being alone fucked with my head worse than anything else. Because being alone meant that I had to think. And I fucking hated thinking. I had a chaotic thought process that had been given a formal diagnosis from doctors but no reprieve.
Fucked in the head and getting progressively worse by the day. “You know me, Johnny lad, I’m always grand,”
The sky was blue outside. The birds were out. The sun was shining. It was another blissful morning. And I wanted to scream.
One touch and I was okay again. I could breathe again. For a little while, at least.
“Fucking with feelings,” he said proudly. “It’s centrifugal motion.” “Now, where in the name of Jesus did you hear that word?” Patrick asked. “I know words,” Gerard huffed, tone defensive.
Not in my eyes, at least. Because this boy had always been my favorite boy. My favorite friend, person, human, everything.
he was the one who told my mother that he had never met another student as uncommon as me in all his years of teaching. I liked to think of that as a compliment.
“You’re good with words,” I offered. “When you use them.” “I use them,” he replied. “Not everyone listens.”
“I feel like I’m wrong on the inside.” A shudder racked through me. “Like I’m infected.”
I couldn’t get my body, heart, or mind to comply and work together. The three most dominant parts of me were in raging wars against each other, all pulling me in three different directions.
A full-body shiver racked through my body as his lips destroyed me for every other boy to come. Please don’t let there be more to come. I just want him, God. Let me keep him.
Because this boy. If there was pain to experience, I wanted it to be at his hands.
He was beyond broken and I couldn’t break through the wall he had erected. Break through the lies he had invented to hide the truth. Like ivy on a house hiding the walls beneath, hiding the true colors and the cracks in the cement. He had cracks in him that I couldn’t repair because he refused to acknowledge they were there in the first place.
Numb, I felt the life leave my body, fading quicker every time he rammed his privates into mine, as the pain grew worse, and my mind started to wander away…
“I’m okay, Cap,” I mumbled against his shoulder as he held me in his arms. “I’m always okay.”
“All the things he did to my body.” Feeling lifeless, I stared blankly ahead, feeling the tears trickling down my cheek. “I didn’t want any of it, Johnny.”
“Because I didn’t want him to see the ugly in me and turn and run.”
What she was feeling now was what I had felt every time the clock struck bedtime.
Trouble was brewing between our friends. I could feel it. I could taste it. But the lines had been drawn. And I would forever stand with this boy. After all, taming 7 had been the adventure of my lifetime.
