by C. R. Jane
Surely helping him recover would make up for stealing a girl he’d called the love of his life.
Or at least, that was another of the lies I told myself.
Because one thing was for sure. I loved my brother more than I loved myself.
But I loved Everly James even more.
CHAPTER THREE
Everly
Heartbreak was a sickness. It took over your entire body, and if you were lucky enough to recover from it, you were no longer the same person that you were before.
Just like my body wasn’t recognizable after my crash that night with his brother, the ending of whatever had been between Jackson and I transformed my soul into something I no longer recognized.
I was a stranger in my own body. And it was all my fault.
It’s been three months since I last really saw him.
I saw glimpses of him—the back of his head, the side profile of his face. I’d hear the sound of his voice…but then he was gone again, and I was left in this strange vortex where I was in love with a ghost.
I’d tried to rebuild my life.
But it was hard when he’d shown me colors I couldn’t see with anyone else.
It would have been hard enough just to lose Jackson.
But the news that Caiden had woken up? That was the nail in the coffin.
Every day was a waiting game. I looked for two people everywhere I went nowadays, Jackson…and Caiden.
Caiden waking up should have been freeing, the weight of my guilt lessened by his miraculous recovery.
I hadn’t anticipated the nightmares it would bring to have him once again walking among the living. I thought I’d come to peace with the horror of that night, that I’d successfully pushed it away into a little box that I no longer thought about.
But hearing that he woke up brought it all back.
“You made me do this. This is your fault. You knew I wouldn’t let you break up with me. You knew it.”
The venom in his voice, the strength in his fist, the madness of the moment…it echoed around me on repeat.
It felt a little bit like I was going mad.
“Hey, sweetheart.” Landry smiled as he sidled up next to me and put his arm around my waist.
That was another thing that had changed since I’d finally broken it off with Jackson. Landry and I were dating.
If you asked Landry, he would probably tell you that we were getting serious.
I wasn’t sure what I would say if asked that question.
As a boyfriend, Landry was the stuff dreams were made of. He was kind and patient, always wanted to see me, complimented me constantly, was gorgeous, and he could make me laugh.
I should have been over the moon to be dating someone like him.
He went out of his way to make me happy.
I should have been happy.
But the sickness Jackson had given me, the heartbreak that wouldn’t let me go…it was an infection that didn’t go away.
As he brushed a kiss against my face, I tried not to cringe. “How was class?”
I plastered a smile on my face and looked up at him. He was beautiful, there was no getting around it. His emerald eyes combined with that russet colored hair and a killer smile were hard to beat. I should have been proud to walk on his arm around campus.
I noticed Lane frowning as she looked at me. She’d just recently put bright pink streaks in her hair as part of a “self-enlightenment” stage she claimed to be going through, and I was digging it. Not everyone could pull off walking around with rainbow colored hair on a campus as conservative and uptight as this one, but she rocked it. Lane also rocked at seeing right through me.
I hadn’t told her the details of what happened that last night in the library with Jackson. And she didn’t know that the fact that Caiden Parker had woken up was making me wake up in a cold sweat every night.
She would comment on the circles under my eyes, but I would blame them on Melanie, who was in fact contributing to my lack of sleep.
Melanie was a demon, to be blunt. The kind that made you sleep with one eye open. I’d gone to administration to request a room change, but they’d told me that there were none available. What they should have said was that there were none available for a scholarship student because, that would have been far closer to the truth.
Things frequently disappeared from my room. I’d had to start storing things in Lane’s room, which I hated to do since she was low on space to begin with, but it was necessary. Melanie had “accidently” poured soda all over me the other day while I was sitting doing my homework, and she’d stolen my clothes from inside my shower stall. She always denied that all the little things that happened were because of her, but come on, I’d literally watched her paint her nails the same color blue as the hand that had reached into the stall right in front of me.
Melanie’s actions seemed to be escalating, and I didn’t know why. I’d come to no rational answer for why she did the things that she did. I still hadn’t found out who had performed all those nasty tricks on me those first couple of months, but now that Jackson and I weren’t speaking and hadn’t seen each other, nothing major had happened.
I tried to convince myself it couldn’t possibly have been Jackson. I really did.
Needless to say, most of my life was not going well.
“Does that sound good, babe?” Landry asked as he stroked the skin in between my jeans and my shirt that had pulled up while I was walking. I counted to three in my head before shifting so he had to move his arm, hoping that the extra time made it less obvious I just didn’t want him to touch me.
“Does what sound good?” I asked, blushing as Lane and Landry both frowned at the fact that I hadn’t been paying attention.
“The hockey team’s having a party after the championship game whether we win or lose. I told you about this,” Landry answered, frustration leaking into his voice.
I studied him, admiring the way his shirt fit tightly across his broad shoulders and chest. I tried to will myself to feel more, to be healthy mentally for once in my life.
It was a losing battle.
“That sounds great,” I told him, even though the prospect of going to a school party gave me hives. Things may have been quiet, but I was still wary of any school functions. They hadn’t exactly been good experiences for me.
Landry checked his watch. “Shit, five minutes to the bell and my class is across campus.” He grabbed my face suddenly, leveling me with a passionate kiss that should have knocked my socks off or had me dragging him to the nearest supply closet.
Instead, I felt nothing.
“Bye,” I told him half-heartedly, wondering how long I could keep this up.
“See you after class, sweetheart.” He strode off to class, garnering stares from both guys and girls alike as he went.
“What is wrong with you, woman?” Lane hissed as soon as he was out of earshot.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’m talking about the fact that you have that boy absolutely tied up in knots, and I get the feeling you couldn’t care less.”
I sighed as we began to walk to the building that housed my next class with Professor Brady, a class that Jackson had evidently transferred out of, since I hadn’t seen him. “Is it that obvious?”
“Evidently not, since he’s gone for you. But hell, you could at least smile at the guy. You could do far worse.”
What if the guy who was far worse was what I craved with every cell of my being? What was I supposed to do then?
Lane grabbed my shoulder and stopped me. “Look, I know you’ve held out on me with what happened with Jackson—”
I opened my mouth to deny, deny, deny, but she wasn’t having it.
She shook her head. “I’m not an idiot. There were literal sparks shooting between the two of you, even if you were across the green from each other. You were insane there for a couple of months…and then all of a sudden, he’s a ghost on campus
and you start to act totally different.” She sniffed. “I understand why you didn’t tell me at first, but your refusal to still talk about it is a little hurtful.”
I was sick with shame. Lane had been nothing but a loyal, ride-or-die friend since I’d met her, even when the easier path would have been to shun me like Melanie and her cohorts.
The bell sounded from the building in front of us. Hopefully, Professor Brady would take it easy on me since this would be my first tardy. The professors here were a little nuts about timeliness…as Lane had warned me that first day.
I brushed hair out of my face as I turned to face Lane. “Everyone that I’ve ever cared about in my life has let me down, Lane. And not just let me down, but demolished me into a million pieces along the way. I don’t know how to trust anymore. I think it’s been erased from my DNA.”
Lane’s lower lip trembled in something that unfortunately looked a lot like pity. But then she surprised me by hooking her arm with mine and dragging me off to my building. “Oh, lady, we’ll work on your trust issues, and soon enough, you’ll be telling me just how big Jackson’s dick really is.”
A laugh barked out of me, and she hooted. “I knew it! You have slept with him.”
I didn’t confirm or deny, and she stomped her foot. “I’ll get it out of you one way or another. My dad once wrote a book all about certain torture methods they use in the CIA, so I know things.”
She was like a little chihuahua, and I threw back my head and laughed, garnering an unimpressed look from Professor Brady through the open door of his class that we were standing in front of.
She rolled her eyes and pushed me towards the door, and I blew her a kiss.
Maybe despite everything, there were still people to trust in the world.
Maybe I should try it again.
CHAPTER FOUR
It was a day like all the rest.
Until it wasn’t.
I was in the hallway in front of English literature. Landry had just leaned down to kiss me…when I felt it. An energy so blatant and intense…it was paralyzing.
I froze under Landry’s touch, and he pulled back, looking at me questioningly to see what had happened.
But I couldn’t drag my attention away from who’d just walked into the building.
It was Jackson.
His eyes were penetrating, narrowed slightly and slowly raking over me, pausing here and there in their perusal…especially where Landry was still touching me.
It had just been a few months, but I’d already been forgetting how beautiful he was. His hair was longer than it had been that night. But it looked even better this length. That gold hair of his fell into his Caribbean blue eyes. My gaze danced from his sculpted cheekbones, to his heart-shaped pout, to the light stubble which accentuated his chiseled face. He was the epitome of primal, raw masculinity.
His expression was fierce…his energy impossible to ignore. Magnetic. Pulling me in.
Landry let out a soft huff of exasperation when he saw Jackson, pulling me closer to him in an act of possession that I wish he’d known was hopeless.
Jackson’s body combined with his sculpted face was overkill as it was. But add that to the fact that I knew how that body felt moving inside of me, the fact that just hearing his voice set me on fire, the fact that his soul, although as black as night, called to me the way no one else’s ever had?
Landry never had a chance, because my heart couldn’t seem to forget that someone else owned it.
Finally, Jackson pulled his gaze from me, leaving me empty inside. I would swear there was a halo of light behind him, accentuating every delectable feature as he walked down the hall. He…laughed at something his football teammate said.
And then he walked right by me, pausing in his stride only once to level me with his focus once more.
His gaze was predatory, and something low inside of me tightened in response. Goosebumps ran along my flesh as he made sure to make contact with me as he passed by. The heat from his body caressed mine.
My heart was beating so wildly, I was afraid that I was going to faint right there. I tried to control my breathing, especially because Landry was still holding me, aware that my heaving chest might be a little too obvious.
I felt exposed, vulnerable…out of control.
What the fuck was wrong with me?
The whole scene only lasted a couple of seconds.
But it was enough to ruin me.
Just like all the other times before.
I wanted to rip my heart out and get a transplant.
Jackson disappeared around the corner, but not before turning his head and giving me a wink that rattled me to my core.
The trouble with time was that it had the unfortunate effect of dulling the edges of the truth you once thought you knew.
I was finally able to turn my attention back to Landry, but the damage had been done. Landry looked furious, his fingers were digging into my waist…and for a second, I was frightened.
A flip seemed to switch in him, the anger fading away until all that was visible was the friendly, devoted, congenial Landry that I’d grown to know so well these past few months.
The rapid change made me churn with unease. “Everything okay, sweetheart?” he asked, and there was no trace in his tone of the venom I’d seen in his face.
“Fine,” I responded halfheartedly before trying to step back. His hands tightened even more, and then he released me.
“See you after class, Ev.” He strode away without a backwards glance, leaving me even more off kilter with his seemingly blasé reaction to what had happened.
Was my desire for Jackson not written across my face in the way that I thought it was?
I didn’t understand.
I couldn’t concentrate in class. Jackson’s reappearance had shaken me, scared the crap out of me in fact. Was I destined to repeat my same mistakes over and over again, until I was finally burned enough that I was nothing but a pile of ashes?
It seemed that way.
And then there was Landry…that look in his eyes. I’d always had trouble recognizing when the darkness in someone was such that my only choice should be to run.
But that look. It was yelling at me to do just that.
I finally asked to use the restroom and practically ran out of the room, barreling straight into a hard chest.
Looking up, my heart froze.
It was the other face that haunted my dreams. It was Caiden.
I guessed all the monsters that hid under my bed were coming out to play today. I wasn’t sure why I hadn’t connected it in my head that if Jackson was back in class…then Caiden would be as well. Maybe in an effort to protect myself, my psyche had imagined that even awake, he would be in that hospital room, prevented from ever getting to me.
But here he stood.
If you hadn’t known him before, you would never have been able to tell that Caiden had been in a coma. He’d only been awake for around three months, but his physical therapists had done well.
Although slimmer than he had been at the height of his football playing days in high school, he was still a specimen to behold.
A lovely demon I hated with all my being.
Standing here, I thought I would have more guilt.
But honestly, all I could feel was terror.
His hair was longer, shaggier than he’d worn it in high school as well. But it looked intentional, since I could tell that he’d had it freshly cut. He had a ball cap in his hand that he placed carefully on his head, not taking his eyes away from me as he did so. He pulled the cap low over his eyes, shadowing his chiseled face. He looked…older. And bleaker. And just as devastating to my soul.
But not in the way that he used to.
I backed away as he walked towards me tentatively. “LyLy?” he asked, his voice gruffer than I’d remembered it being. Maybe from disuse?
“Get away from me.” The words crawled out of my mouth, limping as memories from that night crashed into
my skull.
How could he stand there, looking at me somehow like I was everything, after that night?
I’d ruined his life, and he’d ruined mine right back.
“LyLy, what’s wrong?” he asked, his voice heavy with confusion. “Why are you acting like this? And why didn’t you come visit me in the hospital? I tried to call you a thousand times since I woke up.”
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” I hissed, the nonsense coming out of his mouth stopping my retreat as indignation took the place of my fear. “In what world would I ever come see you after what you did to me?”
Of course, I didn’t mention all the times I did go see him while he was sleeping.
“What night? The accident? I don’t remember any of it.” His words came out pleading as he got close to me. I’d forgotten just how much he could express with those dark eyes of his. I’d forgotten the regal slope of his nose, the fullness of his lips. Caiden was beautiful, but it was the kind of beautiful of a poisonous flower you knew would kill you if you touched it.
And I wasn’t about to forget that the beauty I was seeing in front of me was in fact poisonous. Poisonous in a way that I’d never encountered before.
“You don’t remember it?” I repeated numbly as the words seeped into my skin.
How convenient. I stared at his eyes, looking for a trace of deception, anything to tell me this was an act.
“I’ve been told you were in the car with me, that I was going too fast. I know you were injured really bad.” Tears filled his gaze as he reached out towards me, and I quickly took a few steps back, convinced that I would burst into ash and desolate ruin if his skin touched mine.
His face filled with hurt at my actions. “I’m so sorry, so fucking sorry. But I feel like me being in a fucking coma for two years should be some kind of penance.” The words came out bitter and tired.
And maybe with a rational person that wasn’t able to relive every moment of that night…it would have been some kind of penance. But between my memories and my guilt of the damage I’d done to the two people I’d loved most in the world…there wasn’t a chance that I could ever let him in again.
