Chapter Twelve – Aston
Seeing her with another guy – no matter how innocent, how friendly it was – put a part of my brain into overdrive that’s only ever roared to life for me. The need to grab her arm, drag her out of that diner, and pin her against the wall while I kissed her senseless almost took over. The need to protect her from every other ass in this town, hell, in the state, was almost our undoing.
It’s something no one would understand. For the first time in my life I’ve started to let someone in, let them be there, all while taking what they have to offer. And that’s the problem. I’m taking from Megs but I’m not giving back to her – I’m not giving her what she deserves, yet, somehow, she knows exactly what I seem to need. All the time.
For the first time in my life I’ve let myself feel something other than the things that f*ck up my mind. I’ve let her in. The one girl I knew could undo me with a simple smile or one glance into those little blue eyes – and she does. Every single time, she undoes me like she’s tugging on a loose string of a hand-knitted blanket, and all I can do is unravel in front of her.
The craziest thing is that I want to unravel. I want to tell her everything she wants to know. I want to tell her why I’m a f*cked up mix of hot and cold towards her, why I pull her into me and then push her away. But telling her… Telling her might just push it over the edge.
Telling her could push her away and make me permanently cold.
Telling her would mean accepting. Reliving. Remembering. Feeling.
Apart from Gramps, she is the only person I’ve ever felt something for. She’s the only person I’ve wanted to feel for, and what I feel is spiraling out of my control. It’s growing along with my need for her, which is way stronger than it should be, way more addicting that it should be.
Because that’s what she is. She’s addicting. The vanilla smell of her hair, the light in her eyes, the brightness of her smile, the soft skin of her hand; every part of her is addicting to me.
And even more than that… She sees me. She doesn’t see the jackass who f*cks everything with a pulse, or the cocky, arrogant bastard who cares about no one other than himself. Or maybe she does see that – she just sees what’s under it, too. She sees the real me, the one that no one else ever bothered to see.
She sees the broken. She sees the mismatched. She sees the f*cked up.
And pretty soon, she’s gonna grab hold of that f*cked up and pull it out of me in a gut wrenching conversation.
~
“It’s not working,” Megan’s voice echoes down the hall. “Make her stop with her stupid dates.”
“There’s nothing I can do,” Maddie replies. “You know what she’s like. She thinks she’s damn cupid or something.”
“One success – a third of success – with you and Braden doesn’t make her cupid! Has she ever thought maybe I’m happy as I am?”
“You’ll have to ask her. I just yes or no the guys, Megs. Seriously, you should see some of the dicks she had lined up. It would have been like walking into a strip club – just without the sexy.”
“Ughghghghgh.” Megan bangs her head on the table as I walk into the kitchen, grinning.
“What’s up? Being forced onto dates such a hard life?” I smirk as she lifts her head.
“How would you know?” she throws back at me. “I wasn’t even aware you got your “date’s” name before you ripped her panties off her.”
“Touché,” Maddie mutters.
“Oh, I do, sometimes. But that’s usually all I get.” I shrug and lean against the counter. “Better to be nameless and get f*cked than forced onto dates with a bunch of pretty boys.”
“Oh, because you’re not counted in the pretty boy category? How long did it take you to do your hair this morning?” She raises an eyebrow. “Probably longer than it took half my dorm combined, Mr. Maybelline.”
“I could probably make you come quicker than I could do my hair,” I respond, watching her cheeks flush slightly. “But that doesn’t mean I’m a f*cking pretty boy.”
“Let me guess – it makes you a sexy boy?”
I grin. “I’m glad you think so.”
“I never said I thought so, a*shole. It was a question, not a statement. Still learning the difference?”
I move to the table, leaning across it towards her. “No, but with your sass, it looks like you could do with a lesson learning the difference between a slapped ass and a spanked ass. Want a teacher, Megs?”
Her mouth drops open, and I fight the urge to lean even closer to her and make her close it. I see Maddie smirk, amused, out the corner of my eye, and let my own lips curve into a smirk.
“If I ever feel the need to be taught a slightly kinky side of sex,” Megan says in a lower voice and leans forward slightly, pushing her boobs together. She’s pushing this right to the f*cking limit. “Then I’d find a teacher who could play my body like a guitar, strumming all the right strings at the right times, not a horny college boy just looking to get off.”
“How do you know I’m not the guitar player?”
“How do you know you are?” she challenges, sitting back and letting her mouth curve upwards.
“It takes me ten minutes to do my hair. I could make you come in half that,” I threaten and promise her, my eyes still fixed on hers. “If you can find a damn guitar player that can do that, then I’ll salute you, Miss Harper. Until then, you can imagine my fingers plucking your body like the strings of a guitar.”
I scoop an apple up from the bowl in between us and take a bite, winking at her as I leave the kitchen.
“Pig!” she yells after me. I hear Maddie’s quiet laughter, and grin to myself. Sometimes, being known as an a*shole who likes to get into girls’ pants is a good thing – and in a situation like that when she’s turning me the f*ck on, it’s definitely a good thing.
I rest against the wall outside the frat house, finish the apple, and throw the core in the bin. I spy Braden stretching round the side of the house and jog over to him.
“Ready to run, dick?”
He looks up, grabbing two water bottles. “I thought your lazy ass was still in bed.”
“Yeah, it was, but pissing Megan off was so much more fun.” I shrug, grin, and take off with him behind me.
“I dunno why you do it, man. One of these days she will hand your balls to you.” He shakes his head.
“She’s too irrational for that. She gets pissed off way too easily to even consider ripping my balls off.”
“Yeah – but you’ve heard Kay’s revenge methods, right? I heard her last week seething to Maddie that she wanted to “take a butter knife to the underside of that f*cking asshat’s balls and put them on the school menu as a special with a side of fish to represent the whore he thought he could f*ck right before her.”” He takes a deep breath, and I flinch a little.
“Ouch. Who pissed her off?”
“Dude, I don’t know, and I don’t think I f*cking want to.”
“Wait,” I muse. “I thought she was a lesbian?”
“Bisexual,” he corrects me. “She likes both.”
“Oh, man. So none of us are safe from her loud-mouth ass?” I shake my head. “Damn.”
“Right?” he agrees. “So, me and the guys were thinking of heading into San Fran tomorrow night for the weekend. Maddie and Lila are coming – not sure about Megan, though.”
My muscles instantly tighten, my stomach clenching at the mention of my home city. It’s so close to Berkeley, yet so far away. The six year old Aston that left San Francisco is a completely different person to the nineteen year old Aston living in Berkeley, but that doesn’t mean it’s a place I can even consider going.
“Don’t think so,” I reply, trying to keep my shaking voice even. “I gotta see my Gramps on Sunday. Old coot nearly whacked me with his f*cking stick for not showing up that weekend we went to Vegas.”
Braden laughs, taking me at my – very true – word. “All right, all right. You stay back here like a good little dickhead and f*ck some other poor girl.”
“That’s the plan.”
Or it’s not. But he doesn’t need to know the real one.
We stop for a second to drink and catch our breath, and I take my cell from my pocket.
Are you going to SF? I send to Megan.
She replies instantly. I don’t know. Are you?
No. Don’t go.
Okay. I won’t.
I slip it back into my pocket, looking up into Braden’s curious face. “What?”
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you text anyone. Girl finally get your number out of you?”
I snort. “Don’t be so f*cking stupid. If I did that, between them and you and Ryan, I’d never get any damn peace.”
“True that.” Braden nods and we start running back in the direction of the frat house to get ready for class.
We change quickly, meeting back outside to head into the main building for English. Maddie and Megan are waiting for us when we get downstairs, Megan tapping her foot impatiently.
“Are you girls ready? Some of us actually want to pass this year,” she says sarcastically.
“Oh, Meggy,” Braden mutters, taking Maddie’s hand. “You could pass this class in a f*cking coma. You’ve probably read everything on the semester plan already.”
She slaps the back of his head, and he curses.
“The f*ck was that for?”
Maddie slaps his chest with her books. “Language!”
“You sound like my mom,” he mutters.
Megan grins at Maddie, her eyes flicking to Braden. “Just because you’re right about the reading thing, doesn’t mean I have to like it. Maybe if you paid a bit more attention to the class you’d pass without looking over my shoulder when we have work due in.”
“Why did I never think of that?” I look at Braden.
“Because you’re apparently a f*cking genius in your own right,” he grumbles. “Am I the only stupid one here?”
“Oh, you’re not stupid,” Maddie soothes him. “You’re just a little bit slower than us.”
“You know what, Angel? It’s a really good job I love you.”
“I think so, too.” She smiles. “It means I can say exactly what everyone else is thinking.”
He gives her a look that says she’ll get it later, and she smiles wider.
“Hold up,” Megan pauses, staring at Braden. “Did you just call Aston a genius?”
“I did.”
“They’re not words I’d ever expect to hear in the same sentence.”
“F*ck off.” I tug on her hair, and she swats at me.
“I’m not jokin’, Meggy. This kid graduated with a f*cking 3.8 GPA.”
Megan looks at me now, her eyebrows raised and surprise in her eyes. “You did?”
I shrug. “One of us a*sholes has to be smart.”
“No, really? You did?”
I don’t know whether or not to be pissed she doesn’t believe me. “Yeah.”
“I can’t believe you have the same GPA as me. You don’t look that smart.” She smirks wickedly and I know it’s for Braden and Maddie’s benefit.
I hold the class door open for her, looking down as she pauses in front of me, my hand brushing her hip. “Not everyone is what they seem, Megan. You should know that by now.”
She looks up at me, her startling blue eyes full of questions I know I have to answer.
“I know that. I just wish those people could trust in the people that care a little.” She sweeps past me to our desk. I bite the inside of my lip, following after her.
“Maybe it’s not that they don’t trust,” I say. “Maybe it’s that they’ve forgotten how to.”
She straightens her books on the desk, slowly turning her face to me as I sit next to me. “Then maybe they should open their eyes and see that the person they need to trust is right in front of them. Maybe they should open up and share so they don’t have to bear the burden alone.”
“Not everything is made to be shared. Not every scar is on the physical body. Some scars are on the mind. Some scars can’t be seen. They’re inside, burned in so deeply that they’ll never be healed.”
Her eyes are earnest and soft. “Just because a scar can’t be healed doesn’t mean it can’t be soothed,” she whispers.
I take a deep breath, making a decision I know I’ll regret. Making a decision that will change everything.
A decision that will change me.
“Sometimes the dark truth is too much for some people,” I warn her.
A decision that will change her.
“Sometimes a light dusting of the truth isn’t enough,” she responds.
A decision that will change us.
“Is the dark really better than the light?”
She nods. “Sometimes. Sometimes you need to get lost in the dark to truly appreciate the light.”
“This weekend,” I drop my voice so it’s barely audible. “I can’t promise everything. I can only promise what is there to give.”
She blinks once, her hand twitching. She clenches her fist and puts it in her lap. “I’ve only ever had half of you. I’m sure I can wait a little longer for all of you.”
~
A night of fitful sleep, recurring nightmares and horror flashbacks aren’t how I wanted to start my day. Now, with the guys off to San Fran, Megan can get in and out of the house fairly unbothered. If anyone asks, she has a spare key to Braden’s room and left some books there. If anyone asks why she’s in my room, I borrowed one of the books. It’s hardly foolproof, but then again, no one here will care that much.
They all secretly want in her pants.
“You really wanna know?” I ask her, looking at her across the room.
Her light blue eyes are wide and earnest as she meets my weary gaze. She pulls her knees to her chest and bites her thumbnail, nodding slowly. I sink onto the bed opposite her, the springs creaking under the heaviness of my body, and gaze out of the window.
“I want to be there for you,” she says softly, shifting a little closer to me. “But I can’t be there if I don’t understand, not really. And I want to, Aston – I want to understand. I want to know all of you.”
“I have no idea who my father is. My mom got herself knocked up at seventeen to a guy whose name she didn’t even know.” My voice is hard, bitterness coating every word thickly. “She palmed me off on my Gramps whenever she could. She wasn’t cut out to be a mom – at least at seventeen. Gramps insists she suffered from post-partum depression, but she didn’t care. Not really. If she did she would have seen a doctor instead of medicating herself with alcohol and the cheapest drug she could get ahold of.
“CPS kept in contact with us until I was sixteen and considered “stable” by them. I stole my file once and read it. It says that “Mom” moved us into a stingy little apartment when I was two, and although there were complaints from neighbors about hearing a child screaming and being left alone, whenever they visited everything was perfect. I was clean, the apartment was clean, and she was clean. They couldn’t do anything without proof.” The view from my room is a far cry from the dirty alleys of The Tenderloin district in San Francisco. “Despite the area we lived in, whenever they showed up, she always managed to make it seem like we lived somewhere else.
“I didn’t need to read much further. I have memories from when I was about four, spanning the next two years. “Stepdads” that came and went repeatedly. All the same. All big, tattooed, and more stuck on drugs and alcohol than even she was. They all hated me with a passion.”
Dirty little son of a bitch. F*ckin’ runt. You piece of shit.
“They showed it whenever she went out to earn money – when she went to sell her body to some rich prick to fund the drug habit for herself and whichever poor bastard she was f*cking at the time. That’s when it would start.”
“Mommy,” I had whimpered, cowering in the corner of the kitchen and hugging the smelly rabbit to my body. He leaned over me – I didn’t know his name. I never knew their names. They were never there long enough for me to know them.
“Your mommy can’t hear you,” he mocked. “She’s busy being a whore to get me the good shit. She’s good at that.”
“I want my mommy.” I pushed back further into the corner, the cable jack cutting into the bare skin on my back. Tears began to form in my eyes and I curled up tighter, scared of the big man in front of me. The smell of alcohol on his breath fell over me and I covered my nose, hiding my face.
It was pointless. I knew, even then, that he wouldn’t touch my face. They never did.
“Face hits were too obvious. A bruise on the back? On the legs? Even the stomach. They were safer for them. They weren’t questioned, and when they were, it was the same answer.”
“Oh, that?” Mom had gently stroked my back, her eyes steady on the social worker’s. “We went to the park a few days ago and the silly boy thought he could swing off the big monkey bars. I turned away for a second – a friend called me over – then he was on his back on the floor. He’s got no sense of danger. I’ve tried to explain, but he is only four. We came home and cleaned it up good, though. Didn’t we, little dude?”
Her blue-gray eyes found mine, a spark of fear in them. I nodded.
“Mommy made it all better.”
“I fell off the table. I tripped on a crack on the sidewalk. I slipped on the stairs outside the apartment. There was always an excuse. Never a hospital visit. Always my fault. Never theirs.”
The glass had hit the wall hard enough that it shattered. I screamed, slipping on a wet patch on the floor as I tried to escape to my room for an extra second of relief. I fell to my knees, fear pulsing through my body. I sobbed, cried, whimpered. I gulped desperately at air, my throat tight. I pulled myself along the floor, scrambling to escape the angry shadow approaching me.
The glass cut right through my palm, and I screamed again. Blood mixed with the clear alcohol on the floor, swirling in patterns, and someone banged on the door.
“F*cking nosey bastards,” the man grumbled, picking me up. I fought against his hold, and he lowered his mouth to my ear. “Don’t f*ckin’ fight me, rat, or you’ll have my belt across your back.” I stilled. “Good boy.”
The door opened and the old woman across the hall was there with a worried look. “I heard a smash and a scream – is everything okay?”
“Fine. The boy knocked my glass off the side while I wasn’t in the room and tried cleaning it up – cut his hand a couple times. If you don’t mind, I need to clean him up.” He shut the door on his lies.
“Every time. She knew. She never cared enough. All she cared about was sticking another ounce of shit into her bloodstream or snorting another gram. All she gave a f*ck about was what was in the bottom of her glass.”
One day, maybe you’ll be useful and we can send you out to earn the money instead of your whore of a mother.
A fist. Another bruise.
That’s all she’s good for. F*cking. It’s all you’ll be good for one day.
A kick to the back.
No-one is ever gonna want you. Not when they find out how much of a f*cking slut your mother is.
A bang of the head on a chair leg.
You’re only good for what she is. No-one will ever care about you.
“Stop,” a soft, pained voice whispers. Hands press tenderly against my cheeks, lips brush my forehead. “You can stop now.”
I open my eyes that must have closed while I was lost in my head. Megan’s blue eyes are brimming with tears.
“You can stop,” she repeats. “You’re safe here. You’re safe with me.” She strokes my cheek as a tear rolls down hers. “You’re safe.”
The fog begins to clear, the memories pushing back, and I see her clearly. The pain etched on her face is something I never want to see again. It’s something I put there. This is why I never wanted to tell her. This is why I never wanted to get this close to her.
“Don’t cry for me, baby.” I brush my thumb under her eye. “I’m not worth your tears.”
She nods. “You are. You’re worth every last tear in my body.”
“I’m not,” I argue, moving away from her. I shove off the bed and begin to pace the floor, the old words reopening the scars and reinforcing everything I’ve tried to push back. Reminding me of what I am. Reminding me of the worth of my life, of my body. “I’m not worth you. Don’t you get it? They were f*cking right, Megs. I’m not worth anything. I’m too f*cked up. Everything they ever said – every time they told me I wasn’t worth shit, every time they told me no-one would ever want me-”
“They were wrong,” she says in a small but strong voice. “They were wrong. All of it. It was all lies.”
I shake my head and lean my hands flat against the wall, dropping my head down and clenching my jaw. “Nah. They were right. Every f*cking one of them. I’m f*cked up. I’m broken, a bunch of mismatched pieces stuck together in a shit attempt at being fixed.”
The bed springs squeak and the floorboards creak. A soft hand touches my back, another wrapping around my tightened bicep.
“They weren’t right. They were far from being right.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes I do.” She moves closer to me, taking her hand from my back and wrapping it round my arm. She tightens her grip, resting the side of her face against my shoulder. “They were wrong, because I want you. I want all of you – even the broken parts and the mismatched parts.”
I turn my head slightly, finding her eyes. “Why? Why? I can’t give you what you really want. I can’t give you sunshine and f*cking rainbows. I can’t give you puppies and fluffy bunnies. I can’t give you the perfect you deserve.”
“I don’t want perfect, and if I want sunshine and rainbows, I’ll go to the local elementary school and visit the kindergarten class.”
I push off from the wall, her hands falling away. “It’ll always end up as sex. There’s nothing inside, baby. I’m f*cking empty.”
“You’re lying, and you know it.”
“Am I?” I turn, pinning her with my gaze. I am lying – but its better this way. “Am I lying? You think I feel anything when I take some girl back on a Saturday night? You think I feel anything other than sex?”
Silence stretches, and I f*cking hate myself for this. I hate myself for pushing away the one person I want to pull into me.
“I know you don’t feel anything other than sex when you take a girl back to your room on a Saturday night.”
That’s more painful that the physical kicks to the stomach I used to get. “So why are you still here?”
“Because I’m not just any girl,” she says with certainty, her eyes boring into mine. “Do you think I’m dumb, Aston? You just bared your soul to me – the deepest, darkest parts of it – and now you’re trying to push me away. Who are you really trying to protect, huh? Is it me or is it you? Do you feel nothing for me when you call me “baby?” Do you feel nothing when you hold me against you? Do you honestly feel nothing when we’re together? Go on. Tell me! Tell me that right now, with me looking into your eyes that you feel nothing. Tell me you don’t care.”
I can’t.
“Tell me!”
And she knows it.
“Go on!”
“I can’t!” I yell. “I can’t f*cking tell you that! And that’s the problem. You have to go. You have to walk away, because I can’t. You have to protect yourself from me, because I can’t walk away from you.”
“I don’t want you to!” She storms across the room. “I don’t want you to walk away from me!” She stops in front of me, her chest heaving, and continues in a quieter voice, “I don’t want you to walk away.”
No one will ever want you. No one will care. You’re worth shit. Son of a bitch. Useless prick.
I grab her and pull her against me, burying my face in her hair. I’m shaking as I hold her. I need her – I don’t know what it is, but I need her more than I’ve ever needed anything. She’s all I can feel. She makes me want to rip apart the mismatched pieces of myself and put them back in the right places. She awakens something in me, a will to live, a will to love. With her arms wrapped around my waist, her hands spread against my back, and her head tucked into my neck, it feels like home to me.
Megan feels like home to me.