I let out a groan as I cracked my eyes open. I was in a dark, unfamiliar room. Judging by the steady pounding in my head and the twisting of my stomach, I had gotten pretty drunk last night.

I realized that I was in Jack's room. Jack himself was slumped against his dresser, fast asleep.

There was a blanket draped over his windows to block out any sunlight, so I had no idea what time it was. My shirt was off on the floor, but my pants were still on, so I was assuming I hadn't had sex last night.

I slowly sat up, rubbing my head as if that would make my headache go away. My stomach threatened mutiny, but I took a few deep, slow breaths to ease away the nausea.

There was a water bottle on the nightstand that was half empty and two full ones next to it. I grabbed the half empty one and slowly drank it, easing the thirst screaming in my throat.

How the hell had I ended up in Jack's room last night? I tried to think back on everything that had happened, fuzzy details slowly clearing.

Alexis. The guys had called Alexis in to come talk to me. He had told me I was becoming my father, then I'd stolen the money and gone to the bar. I remembered ordering drink after drink at the bar, but I couldn't remember leaving the bar. I had no idea what I'd done to end up lying shirtless in Jack's bed. Had he found me at the bar? Had I walked here on my own? And where the hell was Delaney?

"Ace?"

Jack's voice was coated thick in sleep. His eyes were partially open and he stretched a little, yawning.

"You're up," he mumbled, rubbing at his eyes. "Shit, man, what time is it?"

"I don't know," I said, lying back down and pinching the bridge of my nose. "I need something for my headache."

"I'm not a damn nurse," he said. He ran a hand through his red mane. "Top drawer."

I pulled open the top drawer of his nightstand, where there was an assortment of various medicines. I grabbed one for my headache and took the pills with some water, putting them back and shutting the drawer.

"Lot of medication," I said.

"I have a shitty immune system." He stretched again and stood up. "Alright, you're awake. Now you can leave my room."

"How did I end up in your room?" I asked.

He raised an eyebrow. "You don't remember last night?"

"My pants are still on, so it couldn't have been that exciting," I said.

"I have more dignity than to sleep with you," he said. "You literally showed up at my house and fell into my arms last night."

"I've been told I'm very romantic," I said.

"Oh yea, nothing makes me swoon more than a guy stumbling into my arms reeking of alcohol," Jack said. "Can you get out of my bed now? You're lucky you didn't throw up. I would've punched you so hard that your great-great grandchildren would've felt it." He eyed me. "What do you remember?"

"I remember going to the bar and nothing after that. I don't know how I ended up here," I said, rubbing my head again. The pills had quieted my headache from a roaring pain to a dull growl.

"You told me you stole money," he said.

"Did I?" I said. "What else did I tell you?"

"Just that," he said with a shrug. "Not that you stealing money really surprises me."

I grinned at Jack. "Well, I guess you aren't the only person after me now."

"We can start a club with T-shirts and a chant along the lines of 'punch Ace in the face'," he said.

"I'm offended, Jackass," I said.

"I slept on the floor for you and this is how you repay me," he said.

"I think we have a beautiful friendship blooming," I said.

"I think I should've suffocated you with a pillow in your sleep," Jack said.

"You'd miss me," I said.

Still, my thoughts were racing. What was I supposed to do about the stolen money? They were going to kill me the second they found me. Shit. I had really done it this time.

Jack pulled his hat on. He bent down and picked my shirt up, throwing it at me. I put it back on, raking my hands through my hair.

"Come on. I'm tired and I want coffee. But you're not staying here," he said, leaving his bedroom.

I got out of his bed, wobbling a little and waiting for my stomach to settle. I followed him out of his room and downstairs to the kitchen.

Jack was sitting on the counter, his eyes closed. I sat at their table, slapping my pockets and frowning.

"My wallet," I said.

"Your wallet and phone are on my floor," Jack said, not opening his eyes. "Not that it matters. If you had lost your wallet, you could just steal more money."

I folded my hands behind my head and kicked my feet up. Stealing wasn't my thing. That was Ike's thing. The only time before last night that I had ever stolen money was when I ran away and I took every damn dollar I could find in my house.

After a few minutes, Jack sat across from me at the table, sliding me a cut of coffee. I sipped on it, wincing as it burned my tongue. But I was exhausted and I needed to wake up. Shit, I had work tonight, too. I felt like shit.

"Why did you steal money?" Jack asked.

"Because I'm impulsive," I said.

I would have to go home and get my stuff. I'd have to face the others at some point. If not, they would just hunt me down anyways. They knew where I worked, after all.

It didn't matter anymore, anyways. We weren't a family without Alexis. We pretended that we could keep going without him, but we couldn't fool ourselves forever.

Taking another sip of the coffee, I stared down at the table. Winters were the hardest to get through when you didn't have a home. I needed to find a shitty, cheap apartment fast. Being back on the streets wasn't something I was looking forward to.

"Hey!" Jack snapped me out of my thoughts and I looked up at him. He gestured at me. "You smell like booze. Go shower."

"You just want me to undress," I said.

"I wish murder was legal," he said with a sigh.

I downed the rest of the coffee and stood up. It was probably best if I showered here, since I wouldn't be able to shower at the house.

"Bathroom is over there," he said, pointing. "Use one of the purple towels since they're mine. And hurry up. I want you out of my apartment."

I went into the bathroom, shutting the door and stripping. I turned on the shower, stepping under the warm water and closing my eyes.

This is why you never relied on other people. This is why you could never love or care for other people. No matter how unbreakable you thought you were, if you loved someone, you had an Achilles' heel, and it wouldn't be long before the poisonous arrow hit it.

After a few minutes, I turned the water off and stepped out, grabbing a purple towel and drying myself with it. I pulled my clothes back on, attempting to fix my hair with my hands.

Leaving the bathroom, I went back to the kitchen. Sure enough, Jack was still sitting there, his coffee finished and a glass of water in front of him.

He tossed my wallet and phone to me. "Have fun on your walk of shame."

"Walk of shame is only if you slept with someone," I said, grinning. "Unless there's something you'd like to tell me about last night."

"Good luck not dying, thief," he said, pulling out his phone and beginning to text.

A flash of rage shot through me and I smacked his phone out of his hand, watching it hit the ground. Jack looked up, no change in his expression.

"This is why I have a good phone case," he said.

"I'm not a thief," I said, grin turning dangerous, eyes flashing.

"You stole money," he said. "That's theft."

I thought back to five years ago, the desperation as I searched through the drawers in the house, grabbing any money I could possibly find and stuffing it into my backpack. The terror of knowing that my father was asleep upstairs and that he would punish me if he caught me. Knowing that if I got caught before I got away, he would dig his claws into my shoulders and never let me escape.

"I do what I have to do," I said. That was it. I stole the money last night because they had called Alexis in. It was their own faults that it had happened. They could kick me out all they wanted, but they had no one to blame but themselves.

Jack cocked his head to the side curiously. "Huh, for a second I thought I saw guilt in your expression. Now you just look arrogant. Man, I hope you get knocked off your high horse."

The danger dissolved from my face. "Thanks for the coffee." I winked before turning and leaving the house.

Outside, it was just starting to get light. I shivered a little in the early morning chill, stuffing my hands in my pockets after checking my phone. I had no new texts or calls.

After walking for a little, the house came into my sights. I used to look at it as a safe haven, but now I knew it would just be another haunting memory.

Taking a deep breath and steeling myself, I pushed the front door open and went inside. I looked up as Jer appeared at the top of the stairs, anger on his face.

"Goddamn Ace, how many times do we have to tell you to quit going out?" he snapped, storming down and shoving me against the front door roughly. "Jesus Christ, you smell like you fucking bathed in liquor last night."

I felt myself tense up, ready for a fight, ready for him to strike out at me. I could picture myself as a defenseless kid, my Aunt towering over me, her fists flying at me as she screamed at me for being such a bad boy. Jer was a lot stronger than her, but I wasn't defenseless anymore.

"You better not have spent any money," he snarled.

I stared at him in confusion. Was he kidding? Was he hoping that I had just taken the money and not spent it?

He backed off of me, surprising me even more. "We're broke enough without you wasting your damn money on booze. Christ, Ike better fucking be awake. I'm not being late to work." He turned and went back up the stairs, pounding his fist on Ike's bedroom door.

I watched him for a few seconds before moving into the kitchen. I knelt down and pulled out the money jar. I furrowed my brow.

There was no money missing from it. I leafed through the bills, mentally counting them and realizing that it perfectly matched the amount that had been in it when I stole the money last night.

"What the hell are you doing?"

I looked up at Ike. He pointed at the money jar, looking tired and irritated.

"Put that back before Jer sees you. You better not be stealing money, Ace. You know we count the money in there," he said.

I looked down at it before putting it back. "We're out of milk," I lied.

"It's in the back of the fridge. We just went shopping the other day," he said, sitting down and twisting in the chair to crack his back. "You better go to work tonight."

I stood up and grabbed a plastic cup off of the counter, throwing it at Ike's head. "Next time, leave Alexis out of my life. He walked out and I want him to stay out."

Ike stared at the cup as it rolled a little on the ground and came to a stop. "I am way too exhausted to deal with this right now. I'm just going to let you think you're right for now."

I glanced at the cupboard the money jar was in. We were always desperate for money. Four guys went through a lot of things in a week, like food, toiletries, and gas. We had bills to pay, we needed to put money away in case of desperate times, we had to save money for grocery shopping. Ike had recently started saving money to help his little brother pay for college next year. Christian sent money to his grandfather, as well as using it to help himself pay for online college classes. Jer sometimes slipped money to his parents to help them out of a tight spot. We had to buy clothing and shoes when ours fell apart. Walking everywhere tended to work a number on your shoes. The car needed maintenance and repairs. When it got too hot, we needed air conditioning, and heat when it got too cold.

Christian was the only one of us who was in college. The rest of us had high school level education. Our jobs didn't pay fantastically. My salary was embarrassingly low and relied almost entirely on tip money. Ike made the lowest amount now that Alexis was gone, though Jer barely made more than him. Christian made the most amount of money, but he had to divide it between our bills, his schooling, his grandfather, his savings, and our groceries.

Money was always tight. It always had been for us and it always would be. Stealing it was nothing we could forgive, no matter what the reason. And I couldn't remember much about last night, but I knew that I'd grabbed a pretty big amount of cash.

Alexis.

I walked upstairs and went into my bedroom, shutting the door. I went over and picked my beanie up off my bed, staring at it.

I could feel my body shiver at the memory of the cold winter so many years ago. The way Alexis had showed up one day and given me a scarf, a jacket, and this beanie. He'd barely been able to afford warm clothing for himself, but he'd bought it for me.

"You need it more than me. I have a house. You don't," he'd said.

I'd outgrown the jacket. I'd had the scarf stolen from me. But the beanie, I'd kept all these years. I wore it constantly. It was the first time someone had done something that nice for me since I'd run away from home.

I gripped the beanie tightly, suddenly furious and confused, my headache pushing through the barrier of medication. Why did people do nice things for other people? Why did people contradict themselves?

Alexis had abandoned me, yet put money in the money jar so that no one would ever know I'd stolen from it. Jack threatened my job, yet took me in and took care of me when I was blackout drunk.

I didn't understand people. I'd never understood people. My mom had always said I was her boy, yet she'd left me without a glance back. Why? Why, why, why? Why were people so goddamn contradicting?

I gripped my phone and went over, plugging it into the cheap speakers I'd gotten for Christmas from Alexis one year. I put my music on, cranking the volume, not caring if it bothered the others. They'd be gone soon anyways and I wasn't ready to deal with a silent house.

Silence meant thought. Thought wasn't something I wanted to get trapped in right now. Not when Alexis's words were slowly closing in on me, threatening to suffocate me with their force. He was wrong. He had to be wrong. I would never be my father.

"Watch me burn, 'til the future is no more. Watch me burn, I'm the killer and the cure. So hate me, I killed your god. Watch me burn." I turned the music up even louder, so loud that my room shook with it.

My bedroom door banged open and Jer glared at me. But he looked into my eyes and tensed up, snarling something at me that was drowned out by the music. He slammed my door, leaving me alone.

My headache was screaming along with the beat of the music, a blinding pain, welcome as it seemed to split my thoughts in half.

Why had Jack...Why had Alexis...

Why did anyone even bother? I wasn't going to thank Jack. I wasn't going to repay Alexis. So why did they bother? Why did anyone bother? I was a ship with a hole in it; you could rescue me as much as you wanted, but the second I hit water, I'd just start drowning again.

I grabbed my wallet, opening it up. I was grateful for the distraction right now, but at work, I'd need this headache gone. I didn't know if we had anything in our house so I might have to buy something for the pain.

My eyes narrowed a little and I slowly leafed through my cash. There was no way I'd had this much money in my wallet before. No goddamn way I'd stolen money, went to the bar, and still had this much leftover.

I typically only carried about $30 on me when I went out with no plans to buy anything. Just enough money to save me in a pinch or get some food with. Not a devastating loss if my wallet got lost or stolen, but enough that I wouldn't be helpless if I found myself needing cash.

But the amount in my wallet right now was certainly more than I usually carried. I knew I'd racked up quite a bill at the bar last night as I bought drinks, so there was no way I'd have this much left over from what I'd stolen.

I closed my wallet, throwing it against the wall. I leaned over and cranked the volume until it couldn't go any louder, my head begging for silence.

I wouldn't understand people. I wouldn't understand why my mom walked out on me. I wouldn't understand why Alexis had covered up the fact that I'd stolen money. I wouldn't understand why Jack had slipped money into my wallet.

I would never understand why people did the things that they did. I closed my eyes and surrendered myself to a throbbing headache and the distraction of music. It was easier than thinking.