The gif to the side is Scar looking as sexy as ever -->

So don't wipe your eyes

Tears remind you you're alive

Chapter 05 ~ Even My Dad Does Sometimes

    Scar Patterson

Stepping into my house and being greeted by my mother passed out on the couch with an empty bottle of Bourbon clutched tightly in her hands was something I should have anticipated beforehand. Especially since it was the third time it happened this month.

I sputtered a string of profanities under my breath before throwing my backpack to the floor and rushing to her side. I hovered over her mouth and wasn't the least bit surprised to not hear her breathing. "Come on," I muttered as I scooped my hands under my mother's fragile body. "Amy!"

Only seconds after my call, I heard Amy's heavy steps descend the staircase until she was at my side, shaking her head in disblief at the sight of our unconcious mother. "Again?"

I hoisted our mother up from her sprawled-out position and carefully laid her on the floor. Brushing her stray strands of brown hair away from her pale face, I rested the heel of my hands on her breastbone and covered it with my other hand. "Get the towel," I told Amy.

She hastily ran into the kitchen and turned on the faucet, placing a kitchen towel under the running water.

I looked over to Jamie who still stood into the doorway with his eyes widened in pure shock. "Call 911. Tell them to bring an ambulance," I instructed.

His eyes lingered on my mother for a while before he fumbled for his cell phone which he pressed to his ear.

Amy came running back into the living room with the wet towel in hand and placed it onto our mother's sweaty forehead as I began to do chest compressions. Amy and I have done this enough times to know she would be alright, but I always had doubts every time.

Mom's body convulsed as she began to spurt out the induced alcohol, coughing as she did so. She sucked in large intakes of air while she attempted to sit up straight. "Baby," she managed to say between breaths as her sweaty hands grasped onto my face. "You saved me." Her ocean blue eyes burned into mine with such delight.

Amy sighed in relief and plopped down on the floor, burying her head in her hands.

"An ambulance is on its way," I told my mom, even though I doubted that she understood. Turning to face Amy, I said, "I'm taking a shower and then I'm out of here. Stay with Mom to make sure she's alright."

She lifted her head and her full lips twisted into a slight pout. "Why do I always have to stay with her? Why can't you stay?"

My eyes burned deep into her pale gray ones. "It's not like you have anything better to do besides down a whole load of ice cream. Seriously, the ice cream can't last a day in this house with you around," I retorted with a silly smirk which succeeded in making Amy's mouth fall open.

"It's not my fault," she snapped back.

"How?" I bit harder. "How is it not your fault?"

"I don't want to be this way," she admitted as the tears welled in her eyes. "But ever since-"

"Since what?" I questioned with a deadly glare, daring her to spit it out. "Since Dad died? Don't you fucking blame Dad for your weight gain. You're a fat pig because you want to be, not because of him."

Amy fell silent, gazing back at me with watery eyes. She wanted to cry, but she was holding back the tears in an attempt to show me that she wasn't affected by my words, but I knew she was.

I glanced over to Jamie and let out a little laugh when I realized that he was still standing in the doorway with a glazed over look on his face. I shook my head in disbelief and returned my attention to my now-responsive mother. "You ok, Mom?"

She smiled sloppily. "Don't worry about me, Scar. I feel perfect."

I laughed quietly to myself. Every time she made a comeback from her unconscious states, she always smiled and made silly remarks. It was the only time I got to see her happy again.

Standing to my full height and sending a nod of reassurance to my mother, I moved toward the foot of the stairs and allowed Jamie to trail behind. We didn't even get to my bedroom yet when questions started to pour out of his mouth.

"Is this like a normal thing? I swear, she was dead like two seconds ago and you weren't even bothered by it. Is she even okay?"

Laughing and smirking to myself, I ran a hand through my messy hair and made my way into my room. "Yes, she's okay. They'll pump the alcohol out of her system and she'll be good."

He folded his arms against his lean chest and let his eyes roam around the room. "And what about your sister? What the hell was that?"

I padded across the room to my dresser and tugged out a white t-shirt from inside. I scratched the back of my head in search for an explanation that wouldn't seem so mean, but couldn't think of any. "Nothing," I mumbled under my breath.

"Nothing?" Jamie repeated as he took a daring step closer to me. "You made her feel worthless. Why would you do something like that? Are you that much of a jerk?"

I turned around to face him with my jaw clenched tight. "I don't like fat people."

A puzzled look quickly took over his facial expression. "How trivial of you," he responded. "Fat or not, she's still your sister and believe it or not ... She looks up to you. She wants to be accepted by you and you keep tearing her down."

I instantly regretted my decision to bring him to my house. "And how would you know that?"

"I have a sister, too. We hated each other for a long time, but now we've moved past it and I can't imagine living life without her."

"And why did you hate each other?"

It seemed as though he wasn't expecting my question because he blinked in astonishment, furrowed his brows and glanced down at the carpet.

After a few brief moments of silence, I decided he wasn't going to make an effort to explain. So I slid my current shirt up over my head and tossed it to the floor, exposing my bare chest, then wrapped my new shirt around my arm.

Jamie broke away from his entranced state once his eyes landed on me. His ice blue eyes grew wide and one corner of his lips twitched into the faintest of smirks. He must've been having plenty of fun in his mind and it grossed me out to even think about what he could possibly be thinking about. "I'm gonna shower," I told him as I headed to the adjoining bathroom. "And don't do anything weird."

He scoffed. "Why would I do something weird?"

"Just don't, okay?" I disappeared into the bathroom and shut the door behind me, making sure to lock it before stripping away the rest of my clothing and stepping into the shower.

As I let the warm water pelt on my skin, I felt my mind slip back to the day it all happened. The day my life changed for the worst.

It was a rainy Tuesday, and it wasn't the good kind of rainy either. It was that sticky, wet, blinding rain that accompanied dark skies and sometimes fog. It was the treacherous kind of rain, the rain that had no mercy for anyone.

Dad was driving us home from baseball practice. The forecast called for a little rain, but I practically begged Dad to take me anyway. Halfway through practice, we got rained on and therefore, practice was cancelled.

He shouldn't have been driving, now that I thought about it. He had turned on the radio and though it was very in and out, I was able to hear the lady say that a tropical storm was coming our way and it'd be best to stay indoors.

Dad had said it was too late to turn around and the only way we'd be safe was to keep going. I believed him, of course, because he never gave me a reason not to.

He was the best dad, ever. I knew that everyone said that about their dads, but I truly believed my dad rose above the rest. He could do anything. If Mom was too tired too cook, he would - sometimes even better. If Amy was crying about how a girl stole her crayons, he would buy her the most expensive box of crayons and have her name imprinted on the labels. If I was struggling with homework, he would make me understand better than any teacher could.

I loved him a lot. Not only was he a father, he was a friend. He was my friend.

We were traveling down a winding road in the middle of the woods when it happened. I didn't remember how it happened or why it had to happen to us, but I remembered the car spinning for hours on end and the car treading through the trees and jolting uncontrollably. The sudden impact had made Dad hit the gas harder, and the further into the woods we went.

The car finally came to a stop but not before hitting a tall, sturdy tree and completely flipping the car over. Everything went black after that and the next thing I knew, I was in the hospital hooked up to some stupid machine.

The nurses greeted me with fake smiles and told me how lucky I was, but they wouldn't tell me where Dad was. I had asked countless times, but they insisted that I get some rest.

I found out eventually, though. Apparently I was lucky because I had survived the crash and my Dad didn't, but I never understood because I didn't feel so lucky.

I'd like to think that I was mostly affected by Dad's death, considering that I was the one who insisted we go to practice. If it hadn't been for me, we wouldn't have been on that winding road. And hadn't it been for me, Dad would still be here.

Mom and Amy were devastated too. So much so that Amy turned to eating more, and Mom turned to the bottle for comfort. Dad was a central part of our lives and with his loss, we all had to find different ways to cope.

After I finished showering, I stepped out of the glass case and wrapped my towel low around my waist. I caught sight of the sink mirror and saw that my eyes were bloodshot red from crying in the shower. In addition to that, I had a hard time trying to get rid of my runny nose.

I didn't want Jamie to know I had been crying, or to know that I even cry at all. Certainly he would use it to his advantage in order to blackmail me again and I couldn't have that happen.

When I walked out of the bathroom, Jamie was sitting on the edge of my bed and rubbing his hands against his thighs while simultaneously looking around aimlessly. As soon as he realized I was standing right in front of him, a grin curved his lips. "You kill me with that, Scar."

My brows knitted together in confusion. "What are you talking about?"

"You're wearing nothing but a towel, and in case you didn't notice, I'm kind of gay. And the water dripping down your beautiful abs is succeeding in turning me on."

My eyes went wide and I took several steps back. "Whoa dude, I didn't mean to, like," I stammered, "you know." I rushed to tug my new shirt over my head and began to walk back into the bathroom to change my pants.

"Hey, you can still change in front of me. I mean, it's not like I haven't seen a dick before. FYI, I have one." His words were followed by yet another creepy smile.

I tried to hide my disgust, but it failed. "Can you stop being so gay?"

He raised a brow. "Would you rather me be 'so straight?'"

"Yes, actually. I'd love that."

He smiled at me with an amused look on his face. "Yeah? Well I'd love Zac Efron to give me a blowjob but we all can't get what we want now can we, Patterson?" He was now on his feet, closing the gap between us with every step he took.

I grimaced. "That's disgusting."

He didn't stop advancing toward me until he was just inches away, enough for me to see his clear blue eyes twinkle with excitement. His smile seemed to be plastered on his face and I couldn't express in words how much I hated that smile. It made me nervous and uncomfortable.

Before I had the time to register it, Jamie's hand reached out and grabbed onto my towel, pulling me closer to him. "Come on. Let me have one little taste," he said in a low whisper.

I could practically feel the bile rising in my throat and everything about this situation made me uneasy. He was bold, I guess I'd give him that.

Balling my hands into fists, I clocked him straight in the nose, sending him backwards until he hit the dresser and fell into the floor. He rolled on the soft carpet, whimpering in agony while holding onto his nose which had started to bleed. "What the hell?"

"Don't make moves on me," I said in a stern voice.

Jamie clutched his nose tighter. "Awesome. Got it." He turned onto his side and gazed at the framed photograph beside him, which had fallen off the dresser when he collided with it. He snatched it from the floor and studied it for a moment before saying, "You play piano?"

I pressed my lips together in a thin line and stared at him with a blank expression. "I did." My voice fell flat as I hooked my hand around my towel to keep it from falling down.

"What made you stop?" He pressed just as he was making his way to his feet again.

He was looking at me with genuine curiosity, but I couldn't bring myself to tell him what actually happened. I swore to keep that part of my life a secret - not even Trey knew about it. And I certainly wasn't going to tell a skinny, gay, blond kid.

When he realized I wasn't going to respond, he continued, "It looks like you really enjoyed it."

I forced myself to look at him. "We don't want to be late for the carnival," I said, changing the subject. "Meet me downstairs." Without waiting for a response, I stepped back into the bathroom and slammed the door shut behind me.

**

A/N: Hello my lovely, lovely readers. I'm back with another chapter! In case you didn't realize, most of the chapters will be alternating POVs between Scar and Jamie. It will never go into another character's POV or change in the middle of the chapter. Just to give you a heads up.

So I've been thinking of naming each chapter after an Ed Sheeran song, because ... why not? So don't be surprised when you see that. Lol.

So ... are you the least bit sympathetic for Scar? Does his backstory act as an excuse for his jerk tendencies?

I probably won't be able to update during the week because I want to work on my other stories to make sure I don't fall behind. So, if everything is good and it works out perfectly, then you should expect another chapter of Kissing Booth on the weekend. But don't hold me to that because things can happen.

Anyway, in case you still haven't realized, I dedicate every chapter to someone who comments. So, if you comment then you have a better chance at getting a chapter dedicated to you than soemone who doesn't. Just sayin'.

AND THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for reading this and voting and commenting and liking and all that great stuff! Thanks to you guys, Kissing Booth is now #741 in Romance and #850 in Teen Fiction. Hopefully, we can finally get a boyxboy story on the high charts. But that's way in the future, but right now, I just want to say thanks. Like you guys are beyond awesome.

oh and hey, what do you think of the new cover?

Until next time,

~lara <3