Aflame (Fall Away #4)

by Penelope Douglas

Kids are crazy. Batshit, certifiably, without-a-brain-in-their-head crazy. If you’re not explaining something to them, then you’re reexplaining it, because they didn’t listen the first time, and as soon as you explain it, they ask the same damn question you just spent twenty minutes explaining the answer to! And the questions. Holy fuck, the questions. Some of these kids talked more in one day than I have in my entire life, and you can’t get away from it, because they follow you.

“Are you okay?” he asked, loading his bread with mustard. I shook my head. “No.” I glanced at him, ready to do something I’d never done before, and confide in him. I wanted him to tell me she was okay. That I was good for her, and that I was everything she needed. But his scared blue eyes were focused downward, and he inched back.

“Yeah, well,” he said warily, “your dick is hard, dude, and it’s kind of freaking me out. We’ll talk later.” And he abruptly grabbed his plate and can of soda, getting up and leaving the kitchen. I looked down to see, indeed, I was still completely jacked up from the episode outside. My chest shook with laughter. “You don’t like it?” I called after him. “Freud said everyone was bisexual, right?” “Yeah, fuck you,” he shot back. I let my head fall back, laughing my ass off.

I exist as I am, that is enough.