NINETEEN
Jared
Cold slipped through my veins. Pictures of her face slammed me as if she were locked in time. One by one, they struck me, battered and beat my mind, like an everlasting penalty sent to taunt my spirit.
Laughing.
Smiling.
She was always that way – smiling, laughing, loving.
She’d been beautiful.
Good.
And I’d stamped out that light. A rose trampled underfoot.
A shuddered breath burned as I drew it in, my lungs pressing against my ribs. Fire clashed with the cold, and pain pelted my insides as needles prickled along my skin. I was always ruining the good.
Now Aly’s mother, Karen Moore, clung to me as if she’d just witnessed a resurrection of the dead. All I could do was stand there wishing for a way to disappear.
I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to block all of it out.
What it was about Karen Moore that was such a stark reminder of her, I didn’t know. Maybe it was because they had been such good friends. Maybe because she had been the other mother in my life when I was growing up. Maybe it was because she was in so many of the memories that haunted my nights, laughing and smiling, too.
As if the girl owned me by some force of attraction, my eyes sought out Aly. She still stood near the door, worry creasing every line on her face. She was wearing that expression that said she got me, that she really f*cking understood.
The good.
Maybe it was her. Maybe it was the way she’d managed to strip me bare and shred me thin.
F*ck.
Two warm hands pressed into my cheeks. I hated the way they felt, like welcome and forgiveness and all this bullshit that could never be, like maybe she understood, too, and it was about all I could do not to knock them away. I gritted my teeth, doing my best not to lose my shit. I was teetering right on the edge of that f*cking cliff, and when I fell, I knew I’d be taking the people I cared about down with me.
“Oh my God, Jared, where have you been? How long have you been here? Why didn’t you let me know?” Questions tumbled from Karen’s mouth just as quickly as tears streaked down her face. Her attention jumped around the apartment, hunting for clues, before she turned her gentle brown eyes back on me, eyes that reminded me of too many things.
Guilt spun, stoking the agitation that was working its way free. Anxiety buzzed through my consciousness, clenching my jaw, fisting my hands. My head f*cking pounded. That warning system was sounding off louder than it ever had, screaming at me to bolt. This time I was apparently in full agreement because all I wanted to do was grab my shit and go.
Christopher scratched at the back of his head, the same way he always did when he was put on the spot. “Uh, yeah, Mom, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I ran into Jared a few nights ago and I invited him to hang out here while he’s passing through town.”
Passing through.
The lie bled so easily from him, quick to cover that I’d actually been staying with them for close to three months. He cautioned me with a glance that said it was okay to correct him, but he was giving me an out. I could take it either way. The guy always had my back while I continually fed him lies night after night.
I almost spat the words. “Yep… just passing through.”
Aly’s face crumpled, like I might as well have kicked her in the stomach when I didn’t dispute Christopher’s claim. Shame pressed down on me from all sides, sucking every f*cking last drop of air from the room.
“Oh?” Karen kind of frowned. “Well, I’m just glad you’re here.” Smoothing herself out, she took a step back, like maybe she’d just clued in on the fact that I was about to snap. She wiped under her eyes to rid herself of the evidence of her tears. A strained smile pushed to her trembling lips. “It’s been far too long. How long are you staying?”
Helpless, I could do nothing but cast a furtive glance in Aly’s direction. Of course, I got stuck there. She filled up my line of sight like a buoy bobbing in the water, just out of reach, while I slowly drowned.
I could barely speak through the f*cking rock lodged in my throat. “Not long,” I said, and somehow I knew it was the truth, because I could feel it building. The destruction.
I don’t get to have this.
Because I owed my life.
I sat in the empty lot behind the same deserted building I’d found myself in almost three months ago the night after I’d first confronted Aly in the kitchen. I was slumped back against the coarse stucco wall, my head lolling from side to side. Alcohol soaked my senses, dampened them into a suffocating heaviness, like maybe I was being buried alive. But it did nothing to lessen the images, the pictures that had spun through my mind on an unending reel since the second Karen Moore had stepped foot through the door.
I rammed the heels of my hands to my eyes, desperate to blot it out. Colors flickered, visions streaming in this unbearably vivid light. I roared into the silence.
Motherf*cking trigger.
Both of them.
Clutching the back of my head in my hands, I buried my face between my knees as I gasped for breath. “F*ck” scraped from my raw throat.
What had I expected, coming here? This was what I wanted, wasn’t it? To punish myself a little bit more? There was no other explanation for the f*cking impossible draw I’d had to return to this place.
Unbidden, Aly’s face lit up like a flare that struck behind my lids. My lids were mashed together tight, but the image hung on like it didn’t want to give way to the ones that destroyed me. The girl was like a second’s relief amid the insufferable penance I served.
God, I wanted it to be her. It skirted along the brink of my reality, the idea that maybe there was more, because, damn it… maybe I really did want there to be.
I let my head rock against the wall and lifted my face to the haze of the night sky.
But that was just a fantasy – and not the fairy-tale kind.
I didn’t get the happily ever after.
Still I didn’t want to let the idea go. I needed to feel her. Just for a few more minutes I wanted to let her touch take the pain away.
I stumbled to my feet and made my way back toward the apartment.
It was late. The city slept, the dense silence only broken by the drone of semitrucks echoing from the freeway and the random car speeding down the road.
The hour Karen and Augustyn stayed at the apartment had been complete hell. Aly had suggested we all stay in to catch up instead of going out, so I’d sat down at the kitchen table with them all. I’d done my best at forcing smiles and tossing out bullshit answers to all the inane questions Karen asked. Clearly, she’d been tiptoeing around the questions she really wanted to ask. The entire time, I sat there itching to run. If I’d stayed in the confines of those walls for one more second, no question, I would finally have hit the edge.
It only made me feel worse that the entire time Aly had again offered me that comfort she so freely gave. Though this time, it wasn’t in her arms, but in the way her eyes constantly washed over me, and in the one gentle brush of her hand she’d hazarded under the table. Like maybe she was telling me it was okay and she understood the misery her mother brought with her when she walked through the door.
But like the a*shole I was, I left the second Karen and Augustyn finally said their good-byes.
I knew Aly was dying to talk to me, but Christopher had been there, and there was little she could do, little she could say, although her plea radiated from every cell in her body.
Stay.
She should already have known I couldn’t.
Now, with my shoulders hunched, I stuffed my hands in my pockets and strode toward the apartment that was just a block away. The humid night clung thick to my skin. Lights from the city glowed against the blackened sky, dragging the heavens too close to the surface of my f*cked-up world.
Before I’d ended up behind the vacant building, I’d spent the entire afternoon and most of the night at the Vine. Once again, I’d been foolish enough to think there was some way I could drown the past out. But it didn’t matter what I did. I could never outrun it. Could never hide from it. I could fight it all I wanted, but it’d never change who I was or what I’d done.
Incredulous laughter rocked from my hoarse throat. All these nights I’d been lying to Christopher, telling him that I’d been unwinding at the Vine, when really I’d been locked away in Aly’s room, lost in her comfort and her touch and everything I wished was real. If I just had stayed at the bar that first night, none of this would have happened. If I just had told Christopher no.
I never should have come. Not to this city. Not to their apartment.
And most definitely, I should never have come to her.
Now she was the only thing in this miserable life I wanted. The one thing I could never really have.
No doubt, it was time to leave. For good. But I’d never claimed not to be a fool, and I just wanted to take a little bit more.
Hoisting myself up, I scaled the towering apartment wall, swung my legs over, and jumped to the other side. I grunted when I landed too hard. Nearly the entire complex lay dormant, and I lifted my face to the muggy air and sucked in a rattled breath as I crossed the apartment parking lot.
I could sense it, the disturbance filling the air, a dark energy that covered me, demanding that I bleed back into nothingness where I belonged.
But I didn’t f*cking want to.
Upstairs, I let myself into the silent apartment. Christopher’s bedroom door sat wide open. No question, he was on the hunt, doing what the guy did best.
Quieting my feet, I crept across the room. At her door, I paused and tried to make sense of what I really felt.
When I first came here, anger was all I knew.
Tonight, I just felt f*cking sad.
And I knew it was her.
It was her.
I turned the knob and stole inside her room.
Night seeped between the slats at her window, shadows playing their secrets out across her walls. Aly lay sprawled out on top of her bed, her body twisted slightly to the side. She wore these little lace panties and a matching white camisole. The dark mass of her thick hair was bunched up high over her head, the long strands spilling down all around her.
And her face…
I rubbed at my chest.
She was so beautiful it hurt to look at her. So f*cking sexy and perfect and good. Like this light that shone into the blackness, lit up something in me that had been dead for so long.
Locking the door behind me, I quietly crossed the room, careful not to wake her. I just watched over her as I slowly undressed down to my underwear.
I needed to feel her.
God.
I needed to feel her.
The bed dipped as I eased down beside her and took her in my arms. Relief broke over me in waves, like maybe for a few seconds I could come up for air.
A contented sigh murmured from her lips, and her cheek found its way to my chest. “Jared,” she exhaled, the word trickling out in her own relief. Gentle fingers crawled across my rib cage before they affixed to my opposite side.
I inhaled deeply, memorizing it all, the perfection I held in my arms. She consumed me in ways I never should have let her. The last month had been like a f*cking dream I somehow had been given the chance to live.
I crushed her to me and buried my nose in her hair.
But it was just that.
A dream.
I don’t get to have this.
Aly shifted to her elbow, and sincere green eyes opened to me. “I was worried about you.” Her voice was all scratchy as she searched my face in the dimness of her room. “I tried to call you.”
I blinked hard, trying to shun it all, this pain I didn’t know how to deal with. “I hate that you worry about me.” I stared up at her, knowing it was both a lie and God’s honest truth.
Aly snuggled back in the crook of my arm. It was impossible not to find comfort in her warmth. For a few seconds she held me close, soft fingers playing along my bare chest. She seemed to waver before she slowly climbed to her hands and knees, caging me. She just hovered there, looking down at me like maybe I meant too much, like when she looked at me she saw things she shouldn’t see.
I mean, f*ck, to her, I knew she did. I knew it. I knew she saw things that really weren’t there.
Her eyes stayed fixed on mine as she gradually leaned down, her lips gentle as she pressed them to the rose at the center of my chest. “You miss her,” she whispered.
I wheezed for the air her words knocked from my lungs. My heart squeezed so f*cking tight, and I struggled to breathe under the pain crushing my chest. The memories I’d fought to block out all day came flooding through, unrepressed. Aly had destroyed all the barriers I fought so hard to keep in place, leveled them with the touch of her hand.
A trigger I was powerless against.
And I thought maybe I should be pissed off at her, saying something so ridiculously obvious. But I wasn’t. Because in her words was everything I kept concealed. It wasn’t pity or some f*cking lame attempt at sympathy that I didn’t even begin to want.
Aly understood.
Locking her to me, I fisted my hands in her hair and drew her face close to mine because I needed to see her.
I needed her. Every f*cking second of every f*cking day.
Fear lifted in a flurry of nerves. My mouth was so dry, but the words that had festered for years sought release from my tongue. I couldn’t stop myself from talking, from telling Aly because I just needed someone to know. “I have no right to, Aly, but I do. I miss her so much. I would do anything… give anything… to take it back.”
Sadness swept across her features, and I hated that I put it there. How many times had I warned her that she didn’t need my shit? That I had nothing to give and everything to take? I f*cking took and took and took.
And here I was again, ruining the good.
When would I ever stop?
Emotions rushed, guilt and anger and fear.
Aly dipped down and kissed the rose again. I gritted my teeth, my hands like vises in her hair as she caressed over the imprint of my sin, covered it wholly with her nose and her mouth and her breath, showering me in everything I’d never deserve.
She rose up, and unshed tears glistened in her eyes. “I’m here for you, Jared. You know that, don’t you? You can talk to me. You can tell me,” she murmured almost urgently. “Please talk to me.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. Visions flashed.
Aly took me by the face, forcing me to look at her. “It’s okay… You can trust me.”
I couldn’t look away from the eyes that watched me so earnestly, like she really believed it would be.
Because it wasn’t f*cking okay.
That was the problem with Aly. With her, I was always pretending it was. Pretending that it was okay to feel this way, pretending it was okay to care about her so much. Pretending that maybe someday all of this really might be okay.
And I couldn’t f*cking stop.
She swept her lips across mine. “Talk to me… please, Jared… I’m here.”
I clung to her a little harder, my tongue darting out to wet my lips, my voice ragged. “I was so reckless, Aly… so f*cking reckless. Just a stupid punk kid.”
Just like the a*sholes I constantly beat down in juvie, ungrateful for everything they’d been given.
Mindless.
Shameful.
Unforgivable.
That hatred flared, thrashed as it clamored through my spirit.
Deep inside, that warning system was blaring, a merciless siren that could never be silenced. It was shouting at me to shut my mouth before it was too late. Before I couldn’t take it back.
But with Aly, it was already far too late.
My eyes dropped closed, and I grated out the words “I was so excited that morning.” My body jerked as I completely freed the memories I’d suppressed for so long. It was kind of shocking how I could still remember exactly the way I felt. But after so many years, it was there, like this glaring reminder that promised I had no chance. “I thought I was on top of the world.”
I tucked my chin to take in Aly’s expectant eyes. They just watched me, comprehending too much. With a shaky hand, I reached out and fused myself to her, winding a lock of her hair around my finger. I turned my attention to the motion, fixed on it, as if holding Aly this way could somehow keep her from slipping away.
“I remember her coming up behind me while I stood at the mirror getting ready for school that morning. She’d wrapped her arms around my waist and told me it didn’t matter how old I got, I would always be her baby. The whole week before I turned sixteen, whenever I walked into the room, she’d stop what she was doing to take me in. Her gaze would drift over me like she saw something fading away. She just kept saying she couldn’t believe how quickly time had passed.”
And I’d never suspected time was getting ready to end.
My tone hardened. “She picked me up after school in that f*cking car my dad had promised me as long as I got good grades and stayed out of trouble.”
Saliva pooled in the back of my throat. I swallowed hard, lines denting my brow as I got lost in that day.
“She drove me there, telling me stories the entire way.” I flinched, remembering how soft, how sweet, her voice had always been. “She kept peering out the windshield up at the sky. She had this look on her face, Aly… almost like she was a little bit sad. She told me that day felt almost exactly the same as the day I’d been born. That the sky was blue and the air was cool.”
I remembered it so clearly.
“I was so anxious for you to come,” she said, her somber eyes brimming with affection. “I kept thinking you were going to be born early because I was huge.” She laughed, slanting a knowing smile over at me. “But your grandma told me not to worry, I’d know when it was time. Your dad and I were sitting outside when I felt you, and I knew I was going to meet you that day. It feels just like yesterday.”
A ragged breath wheezed into my lungs. Aly’s fingers trembled along my jaw, her touch overwhelming amid the sickness clawing at my spirit, surging up, pressing down.
“She took me to my driver’s test. Afterward I walked out of that building with my license thinking I was the coolest f*cking thing in the world.”
Revulsion boiled under the surface of my skin. Searing. Burning. Blackening.
“She tossed the keys at me, and she said, ‘I think these belong to you.’” I almost sneered. I’d never forget the pride that had filled her voice.
Aly exhaled, shaky and hard, her attention jumping all over my face like she had no idea where to look, and still I continued. “When we got in the car, she said she wanted to take me out to eat… to celebrate… just the two of us. But all I cared about was myself, Aly. All I cared about was the party your brother had planned for me and the f*cking girl I was supposed to meet up with there. I lied to her… ” The word cracked, and my finger twisted tighter in her hair.
If I’d just slowed down… if I had taken one goddamned hour and given it to her, then I wouldn’t have taken it all.
“I told her I had a big project that was due on Monday and I had to go to this girl’s house to work on it when I knew I was going to be spending the night partying with my friends.”
I could so clearly feel it, the way my chest had felt so full. Like I was in control. Like nothing could touch me. Indestructible.
I’d never thought of myself as a bad kid. I mean, I was no angel, but I’d always hated when I disappointed my mom and dad.
But I’d been wrong. I’d been selfish. The worst kind of fool.
“I was in such a hurry, and she kept telling me to slow down. We were almost home. I knew I should stop… that the truck was too close… but I just gunned the engine and turned left across the intersection.”
A tremor rolled down the length of Aly’s body, and silent tears dripped unchecked down her face. Gripping her face between my hands, I forced her to look at me.
“She was screaming, Aly, f*cking screaming at me to stop and I went anyway because all I wanted to do was get home so I could go back out.” My throat felt like gravel, and beneath the girl, I shook, the horror of that moment so clear, so vivid. Just like every night, it was like I could reach out and stop it. But I could never change what I’d done.
“That truck hit us so hard,” I said, my voice low and rough. “Everything was so loud… God, Aly, it was so loud.”
I could still hear it – piercing – the sound of metal shearing as my entire world was ripped apart.
“It was like I was weightless or something, but everything was heavy at the same time. Then we were jolted into this suffocating standstill. It was so quiet… too quiet.” I sucked in a breath through my gritted teeth, reliving the pain of that moment. “I hurt everywhere, and I couldn’t even make sense of why. Then I heard her moan.” I forced the words out over the panic that bubbled up in my throat. “But it was my name, Aly… she was f*cking saying my name, f*cking crying for me.”
My heart thundered, and my hands constricted on Aly’s face. Her tears seeped into the webs of my fingers. She placed her hand over one of mine, holding me close. “It’s okay,” she murmured. Drawing my hand back, she kissed across my knuckles. “It’s okay.”
And I could feel it, the tears locked up inside that could never be shed, the ball of unspent sorrow that had burdened me for all of this condemned life. Agitation curled with it and sent a rush of anger surging through my veins. “When I looked at her… ” My voice shook. “She was staring at me with this shocked horror, like she didn’t know what’d happened any more than I did.” I drew in a faltered breath. “But then I saw the blood. It was running down one side of her head and cutting across her face… but her shirt… it was soaked. God, I wanted to reach for her so bad, to help her, but I couldn’t move my arms. I could hear the sirens… they were coming… but she was breathing all funny. I was so scared, Aly… and I wanted to cry but I couldn’t… .”
I could never forget it, could never outrun it, the way she’d struggled to speak, my name ragged on her lips.
“Jared… ” She shuddered as she tried to smile, her face so sad when she promised me, “It’ll be okay.”
“It’ll be okay,” Aly whispered frantically, breaking free to kiss the rose at my chest, her fingers digging into my skin, promising again, “It’ll be okay.”
I grasped her by the outside of her shoulders. “It’s not okay, Aly. Don’t you get that? It’s never gonna be okay. I killed my mom. I sat there and watched her die.”
“No, Jared – ”
Anger raged. I shook her. “Don’t.”
I knew she’d do this. I knew she’d try to convince me of things that weren’t true. “What do you want from me, Aly? I keep telling you I don’t have anything for you. I can’t be what you want me to be.”
Aly shook her head. Wetness soaked her face, pieces of her hair sticking to her cheeks, her green eyes desperate. “You are what I want, Jared. You’re everything. Don’t you understand that?”
My fingers dug into her arms. “No.”
She started crying harder, little choked sounds hiccuping from her throat. She clung to me, hot tears dripping onto my chest as she battled to get closer while I pushed her away.
“I love you, Jared.”
And there it was.
What I could never give and what I could never receive. The reason I should have f*cking run that first night when I’d opened my eyes to find her green ones starting back at me. Because I’d felt it then, the shift in my wasted world.
I took my mom’s life and now I owed mine. A penance. My payment.
I don’t get to have this.
My hands clenched, fingertips burrowing into her soft flesh. “No, you don’t, Aly. You feel something that’s not real. You and I have both been hanging on to something that isn’t really there.”
I knew I’d do this. I knew I’d f*cking take and ruin and destroy. I could see it clearly on her face.
“No, Jared, no… can’t you feel this?” She wrestled to free my hand and pressed it over her heart. Erratic, her heart thundered under my palm. “You feel it. I know you do.”
“Just stop, Aly.” The words raked from my throat as a plea. “Just stop.”
I did it.
I ruined the good.
“Yes… I do… I love you,” Aly choked over the words again, forcing my hand closer to her heart. “I know you can feel it.” She stared down at me, begging, “Tell me you love me, too.”
“No.” I ripped my hand away and grabbed her by both wrists, restraining her. “No, Aly. You’re wrong. I warned you. I f*cking warned you.”
Aly thrashed, jerking free. Determined, she forced my arms down, her mouth back at my chest as she begged through her whisper, “You don’t understand… I love you, Jared. Oh my God, I love you so much… Please tell me you love me. Please.”
And I let her… I let her pin me down as she sobbed. The sound of it constricted every f*cking cell in my body, as if each cell were compressed so tight there was nothing they could do but implode. My back arched as Aly covered me whole.
Because I wanted to. I wanted to love her. But that was impossible.
I don’t get to have this.
“Stop,” I cried, taking her back by the shoulders. I shook her hard. “Just f*cking stop,” I shouted. The words fell as a vicious plea from my mouth because I couldn’t handle one more second of this torture.
The crash at Aly’s door came without warning. The entire room shook, the impact vibrating along the walls. It took little for the thin wood to begin to splinter and crack.
Aly gasped, and her eyes widened with fear.
With the second kick, it busted open, flying back where it banged against the wall.
I was still clutching her, pinned under her body with the two of us wearing nothing but our underwear, when Christopher appeared in the doorway, vibrating with hostility. He pointed at me. “You’re dead, you sick bastard.”
He launched across the room, his face contorted in rage.
Aly screamed, lying over me like shield. “Christopher, don’t!”
Her voice didn’t penetrate his wrath. He was screaming his insults, maligning my name – as if there’d been anything left to malign. Every word he spoke was the truth. “You really think you’d ever be good enough for her? For my little sister?” I saw it all written there, the disgust lining his face. The hatred that I’d already known he would feel.
I destroyed everything I touched.
And I welcomed it, willed his assault because I deserved whatever beating he could give.
What I wasn’t prepared for was Christopher yanking Aly off me and shoving her aside. He threw her back so f*cking hard, his attack unwarranted and fierce as he directed some of the hatred I’d earned at her. Like he somehow didn’t know how perfect she was, this girl that was the only good thing I knew.
Aly flew off her bed. The crack of her skull against the bookshelf reverberated through the room. She cried out, clutching the back of her head in her hands.
“Are you f*cking stupid, Aly?” He spat the words at her like she was garbage while she lay curled on her side, crying. “You’re really sleeping with this piece of shit?”
Aly whimpered, “Please, Christopher, you don’t understand.” Her voice was rough, tortured. Her hand fluttered out toward Christopher, a silent entreaty.
The tips of her fingers were covered with blood.
Fury rose in me like a tempest. Red colored my vision. I was blinded by it. The only thing I could see was what he had done.
He hurt her.
Jerking up, I dove for him, ramming him in the stomach with my shoulder. He grunted and stumbled back. Aly’s cries rose from where she lay, an unwilling participant in all this shit, her cries taunting my ears.
He hurt her.
Christopher sneered. “Come on, you piece of shit.”
My fist collided with soft flesh. The blow resonated around the room as pain exploded in my hand. Blood spurted from his nose and streaked in webbed lines down over his mouth.
The walls closed in and the red glowed.
So much blood… so much f*cking blood. I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t stop it. The girl cried.
My fists landed again and again, ragged breaths ripped from my lungs, skin tearing under the rage leaking from my hands.
He f*cking hurt her.
He hurt her.
I hurt her.
“Jared, oh my God, please stop.” She’d jumped on my back, begging, trying to haul me away from her brother, who lay crumpled on the floor, his arms shielding his face while the blows continued to land with incoherent violence against his stomach and arms and sides, any f*cking flesh I could find.
“Stop!” she was screaming, and screaming, and finally her pleas broke through. “You’re hurting him… stop.” The last she begged in my ear in a muted whisper. Her breath rushed across my face, invaded my senses, took me over.
In horror, I staggered back with my hands fisted in my hair.
And everything hurt. My hands. My heart. This blackened soul.
Aly slowly slid down my back, never let go as she found footing on the floor and wrapped herself around my waist. She buried her face in the small of my back. Pleading hands locked to my stomach, clinging to me as if I were something other than the piece of shit her brother knew I was. As if I were something more than ruin.
But this was the only thing I knew.
I stared down at my oldest friend as he climbed to his hands and knees, his head hanging. Blood dripped steadily from his face onto the floor. He pulled up his shirt and wiped his face, his back heaving as he tried to catch his breath. He cocked his head up.
He no longer appeared angry. He just looked like he felt sorry for me. “Just go, Jared. Get out and don’t come back.”
I began to back away, raising my hands in surrender. Because I was already gone.
From behind, Aly’s arms tightened. “No.”
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled into the disordered air spinning through the room. I didn’t even f*cking know who I was apologizing to. I guessed both of them. No doubt, I’d done both of them wrong.
“Nnnnn… no. Jared, no. Please stay.” Aly fought to hold on to me, but I wrestled away from the desperate hands clinging to my hips. I turned around to face the girl who’d become my refuge. A moment’s respite in the life that had become my death sentence. Everything I’d never wanted to see shone up at me… love and heartbreak and belief in what could never be.
“I’m sorry,” I said again. Because I really f*cking was. I bunched her hands together and pressed them tightly between mine because I didn’t want to let go. Then I gently nudged her back. “I’m so sorry, Aly, but you know I can’t stay here.”
Leaving her standing there, I ran out into main room and pulled on a pair of jeans, a tee, and my boots. It both crushed and relieved me that she didn’t follow.
It took me all of five seconds to pack my things.
The only things that mattered I was leaving behind.
I slung my bag over my shoulder and hit the door. My feet pounded on the concrete stairs.
I was halfway across the lot when Aly’s fractured voice pelted me from behind. “Jared, don’t leave. Please… don’t leave me.”
The sound broke against my ears, pain lacerating me deep. I f*cking couldn’t stand listening to her cry, especially knowing I’d caused it. Tentatively, I chanced glancing behind me to find the girl who’d shaken something loose inside me. I really had been a fool to think she wouldn’t follow.
She’d stopped long enough to pull on a pair of pajama pants. Now she ran barefoot down the stairs, that perfect face splotchy and red. Anguished.
Shit.
How was I supposed to deal with this? With her? With what I’d done?
Slowly, I turned, my arms held out at my sides in resignation as Aly closed the space between us. I continued to walk backward, because there was nothing else I could do.
She’d been the only one who managed to move me, a touch of joy in the unbearable dark.
Hot air gusted through the parking lot, and I was pretty sure it was f*cking impossible to breathe. I never should have come here. Never should have touched her. Never should have taken what could never be mine.
“Jared.” Aly was panting when she threw herself in my arms. Lifting her off the ground, I held her close, took comfort in her warmth one more time. I buried my nose in her hair, in the coconut and the sweet and the good and the girl who had for a few moments injected something more than pain into my shattered world.
Her voice came soft at my ear. “Stay.”
Pain knocked at my ribs, pressed and pulsed while I held her near. Slowly, I lowered her to the ground. My hands shook as I brought them up to hold her face. My thumbs ran just under her eyes, brushing away her tears. She was staring up at me, her green eyes swimming with light, with affection, with the admission that had struck me like a stone that had been cast from her mouth.
I kissed her softly, savored the last taste of her as I breathed her in. Aly held me at the wrists, kissing me back, a soft groan from her mouth whispering so many things. She inundated all my senses, her comfort only amplifying the pain.
I drew back and swallowed around the ache. My hold tightened to emphasize my words, my voice strained with the promise of them. “I’m going to walk away and I’m going to forget about you, Aly. And you’re going to do the same.” I squeezed her, my hands pressed into her cheeks soaked with tears. “You’re going to forget about me and find happiness. You’re going to find someone who can love you exactly the way you deserve to be loved.” I lowered myself so I could directly meet her face. “Do you hear me?”
Aly frantically shook her head. “No.”
I blinked hard as I stepped back. “You will, Aly. I promise… it’ll be okay.”
“No, Jared, no.”
I backed away.
Aly clutched her stomach, bent over at the middle.
I turned around, my hands shoved in my pockets as I headed for my bike.
And I could f*cking hear her crying, begging me to stay. “Jared, no. Please don’t do this. Don’t leave me. I love you.”
I hopped on my bike and kicked it over. The engine rumbled loud, covering up her cries, blocking her out. I let my bike roll back from the parking spot, and I turned it around. From across the lot, I met the broken face of the girl who was screaming my name, imploring me through her tears. Christopher was holding her from behind, refusing to let her go.
She kicked her legs, struggling to break free. I could see her screaming it again and again.
Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me.
I revved the engine to drown her out.
I’d thought it was impossible to hate myself more than I already did. But I realized now, I hadn’t even begun.
Nailed to the spot, I got lost in the torment that I’d inflicted on this girl, wishing for some kind of miracle that could erase it. That I could take it back.
Mocking laughter burned on my tongue. I was always wishing I could take it back.
In hesitation, my feet rocked on the ground, my hand gripping the throttle.
Christopher met my gaze, looking at me like he knew exactly what I was thinking, like he was offering some kind of f*cked-up trade. He would take care of her if I would just go.
Aly continued to fight and beg and cry. One last time, I let my eyes lock on her. The engine garbled then roared when I teased at the throttle. Aly screamed as she wept, “Jared… no!”
And I was going to remember her just like that, f*cking broken, the spoil of my ruin.
Because this was what I did.
I ruined everything I touched.