Without Scars by Ayla Jones Read Free Book Online

multiple surgeries, year plus of physical therapy, and treatment for depression.
    I didn’t speak again right away, not until I was sure my tears weren’t much of a threat anymore. The guilt was always hanging over my head, but in this house it seeped into me. I never seemed to be able to find the right words. Everything sounded generic when I had to face my mistakes. “You’ll be beating Ty on your own in no time.” It was the best I could do.
    I stayed anxious and distracted until Lea sent me a text to say she was on her way to get me. When her car pulled up, it felt like a jailbreak. I used my mom’s keys one last time to transfer the alcohol from her trunk to Lea’s. I hated that Charlie saw the bottles earlier. If there was anyone’s judgment about my perceived alcohol consumption that shamed me the most, it was usually a stranger’s.
    “You look like you really need this,” Lea said, sticking her curly red-haired head out the driver-side window.
    “I do. I really, really do,” I said, getting in. Instead of going to my apartment, we went to a part of Miami that any reasonable person would’ve warned us to stay out of after dark: a crumbling neighborhood lost to foreclosure and general neglect. We parked near a brick wall covered in fading graffiti and popped the trunk. This place was a restaurant once. I threw a bottle of vodka at it. That one was for my dad, like always.
    Lea passed me another bottle as I told her about his improvements and my new unexpected job. Each time one of the bottles smashed, my guilt eased. I loved the sound of the glass shattering. And the way the liquid darkened the brick. Because I really fucking hated alcohol. Here I imagined killing it, destroying it the way I had let it destroy me. This was my therapy, pushing myself to the limit by handling my weakness but staying completely in control.
    “How’s your dad?” I asked. She shrugged. There was always more when Lea shrugged, and I already knew what it was. “Oh, no, don’t choose me.”
    “I’m not choosing you over him. I’m just getting tired of him making me feel like I have to make a choice. He’s stuck on two years ago, so he’d rather you not be someone who is passionate about dance, who goes to see Cami every other Saturday because you want to, and who is leading a better life. And certainly not his socially awkward daughter’s only friend. He wants you to be a soulless person in a dirty trench coat with a scar on your face, and an evil laugh, who doesn’t care about what she did—a monster. Hell, I wanted you to be that once, but we all worked through that…or I thought we did.”
    “I don’t blame him, though.” I never thought I’d be defending a man who couldn’t stand the sight of me, but objectively I didn’t know how I could forgive the person who had caused the worst night of my family’s life, either.
    And my own father’s.
    I remembered feeling the car drifting across the double yellow lines and how much my eyes were hurting. Probably from the splash of oncoming headlights. Thankfully, the Andersons all lived when I slammed into their van. But the collision sent my Civic into a tailspin. I careened into a tree that nearly split my car in half. My dad’s side took on the brunt of the crash.
    ****
    There was a swirl of citrus tobacco scent in the air from the hookah tables outside of Coco’s when Denise, her boyfriend, John, and I got there. After the comedy show, they insisted on tagging along just for a while to make sure I wasn’t being recruited into a sex cult—Denise’s words. Looking inside Coco’s, I could tell it was just a few bodies short of shoulder-to-shoulder on the nightclub side.
    “Nikki!” Charlie waved at me. I’d nearly walked right by him.
    “Okay, you didn’t say anything about this ,” Denise whispered, her gaze roaming all over Charlie. Then she plowed her elbow into my ribs so hard I bit my tongue . I almost didn’t recognize him. I tried not to gawk