TAT Box Set

by Emjay Soren

  Jenny

  For so long I have held in my feelings. I have suffered in silence hoping he would see me... so for him to show up here all frazzled and possessive?

  Nope.

  Not tonight.

  I chased him out the door, my feet instantly feeling the cold cement as I charged the parking lot looking for his Jeep. He was almost to it and the beep beep signaling he had unarmed the alarm had me in a full fledge run. I grabbed a hold of his jacket and screamed his name so he would hear me over the rain that was belting the tin roof of my parking lot.

  He mistook the fire in my eyes for sexual heat and pins me to the back end of his Jeep, his mouth on mine again.

  The kiss was aggressive and full of everything that I ever wanted from him, but I was too mad and it fueled my anger.

  I push him off me, feeling the loss of his lips and for a split second I almost caved. I wanted this man. Every breath, moan and word he had for me. I wanted it all, but I wanted it on my terms for once.

  "Stop it!" I yell and push him from me.

  He spins back from me and roars into the night before he looks at me, that anger a live wire as it mixed with the sexual frustration we both felt. He slams me harder against his Jeep again, lifting me and coming at my mouth with a ferocious intent.

  I can barely move or think straight. Fuck, I just want it over. I want to be one without the history and the anger, I want him to love me.

  The thought is like being choked and I feel my tears burn my eyes and fall. I fight him, his very hold on me like a brand. "Stop, Cal!" I scream and he shakes his head no and grips my chin in his hand forcing me to look at him.

  "No, Jen I am done fighting this. This shit is eating me up." He slants his mouth to mine again and every instinct I have says to just calm down, go slack and don’t fight. I have been here before and the minute his hand grabbed my jaw I checked out.

  Thoughts were a rush through my mind as I fought them, trying to be still. I had pushed him to this hadn’t I? Had he pushed me to twist him up like this? I couldn’t explain to him my suffering in it all. I couldn’t hear his suffering either. We both wanted a past erased that we never would be able to delete.

  Instead he has become a savage and I a victim.

  As if the knowledge hits him with the force of a heavy weight boxer, he pulls back, dropping me from his arms and steps back, looking at me with a horrified truth. I was comforted by that look for simple fact that he knew he went too far.

  We are both staring one another down, breathless- but not from passion. We were both terrified of how far it just went. "I can’t do this Jenny." He looks at his hands, they are shaking and I know he hates himself right now.

  Good.

  He spins from me and roars again and I watch as my neighbors flip on balcony lights and peer through their blinds. "Calm down!" I yell and make the first move to go to him. Not to comfort him, but in hopes I could calm him.

  Cal wasn’t violent or a bully and I know, without knowing, that this was a culmination of the twenty plus years between us coming to a head.

  We both caused it and though he went too far, I will accept that I did push him to it. It does not make it okay and I won’t excuse it. There is no need for forgiveness because we have officially destroyed anything positive between us.

  This was a true end and my heart broke for Axe. He would soon pay the price for the fact his father and I couldn’t even be in the same room any longer. We both failed him in letting our shit fester. "That." He yells and points toward the Jeep he had just pinned me against. "Should never have happened. None of this should! Don’t you fuckin get that?" He is yelling and I am crying and this is going nowhere, but I want to fight. I need this fight.

  I deserve a life outside of Cal Dorian and the Thick as Thieves and the world I left behind. I just wanted a simple life and the love of my son. The rest had too steep a price.

  "I get it!" I yell through chattering teeth and wipe the rain and tears from my face. "But you came hoping to force a reaction and I can’t give you the one you want."

  He steps close to me and I flinch. I see him pause when I do and I see the look of shock on his face. "I would never hurt you Jen. I can’t explain or excuse the aggression that hit me when I saw you coming after me. I took the wrong signal."

  He takes his coat off and hands it to me.

  "I know you won’t hurt me. It's why I went limp in your arms." I try to reason and calm my racing heart as more tears fall.

  "No excuse for it." He laughs without humor as he says it. He opens the door to the Jeep and slides behind the driver’s seat.

  I nod in agreement and go to the door and try to find words to explain. "I feel like we need this Cal. We need this fight." I say, but my words come out wrong and I know it when I see the look on his face.

  "Are you fucking mental? I just had my hands all over you. Without. Your. Permission!" He spoke through his teeth as he said it and all I can do is nod again. I have so much to say, but I am too overwhelmed to form the right words.

  He steps from the Jeep, but stays in front of the door. "You told me, you made it clear that I am not what you need, so tell me why you came after me? Why the fuck am I here if I'm not wanted?"

  He waits for my response, but I stumble over my thoughts. He laughs humorlessly again and shakes his head no. He gets back in the Jeep and slams the door. I watch as he beats his fists on his steering wheel three times wicked fast and all I want is to fix this and come clean.

  I start yelling into the loud night whether he hears me or not, but the minute my lips move he opens the door.

  "What?" He barks and I flinch. I take a deep breath and close my eyes.

  "I have wanted you in some capacity for over half my life. You asked me to tell you the truth and I did. I cannot look you in the eye and tell you I feel nothing Cal. I feel more than I can explain, but it doesn’t mean I want to be your hookup for the night."

  He goes to interrupt me and I hold my hand up cutting him off as I yell over him.

  "I have always been a tool in your arsenal. I was never a person or valuable. I was always a disposable fangirl and when you finally did see me, all you saw was the consequence of too many fucking thrills. I was never anything to you. You never saw me as anything but trash until I gave you Axe." I choke on the last words. "And even then, you didn’t see me..."

  My words trail off because I cannot contain my grief. For the first time in our lives I am facing a true end to whatever the fuck Cal and I are.

  I watch him close as he scrubs his face with his hands. "Jen, I have wanted you. I remember who we were, the things we shared as kids and how we supported each other. I wanted you then and I want you now. I made it clear that night."

  He is referring to that Christmas night the year she left him and like a broken reel I see us together in mindless passion. I see his sorrow and my compassion. I see it with blinding clarity and I hate that he uses it.

  "That night was the start of this bullshit between us!" I yell and start crying again. I hate showing weakness. I am from the ghetto, born and raised and we don’t make it here without masking everything. It is all the proof he needs to know he has destroyed me, yet he knows nothing about me. "I watched your face every time she was around. I could see the desire and how bad you missed her. It was something I could not stomach seeing anymore. I had to move on Cal..." I scrub at my eyes and hate the tears as they continue to fall unwanted. "I deserve to be with someone who loves all of me, past and present and it isn’t you." I look at him and see his fear and want to fall to my knees and forget my needs. Forget what I deserve and just be whatever he needs.

  It is a toxic, toxic love that has you believing you can be what he needs even if he isn’t what you deserve.

  "It isn’t you..." I say again, but my anger is gone and all that is left is this shattered girl from the wrong side of the bridge. You can’t wash that type of dirt off, it stays with you forever.

  I stare at the ground, knowing that
I cannot look at him... knowing if I do he will break me and I will cave to be with him.

  I feel his hands, gentle this time as he forces me to look at him. "Listen to me Jen. You can’t possibly know or even have an idea of what I did, what I changed to prove myself to Tay. I bet everything on us and I lost. I cannot be that guy again. It made losing her so much worse. Call your buddy Noah, ask him how deep I went looking to please her. Research the lengths I went and then ask me to forget it all and be with you. You will see that it is exactly what I did tonight. I put everything on the line and asked you to pick me and I never did that for Tayla. I kissed her ass I groveled and apologized endlessly like a fucking whipped pussy."

  His voice is hoarse and I don’t know if it is from the yelling or the emotion, but it kills me.

  "If I would have known that someone else would make me feel the way I do right now, I never would have tried to win her." He lets my face go and steps back from me. "You didn’t pick me Red, so tell me why the fuck I am still here?"

  "Because I deserved to have a voice in it. I have reasons too Cal."

  "Yeah? What are they? What means more than what I offer?"

  "You haven’t offered me anything God dammit!" I scream and make white knuckle fists to release some of the roaring anger in me.

  He comes at me, backing me once again against his Jeep, but he is only invading my space. His hands are nowhere near me, he simply wants my undivided attention.

  He has it.

  "When I say pick me, I mean pick me. Love me, use me, destroy me, hate me. I don’t fucking care anymore, just pick me. Me, be mine and that’s it. Don’t make it complex or dramatize it. In or out? The rest we can hash out, but pick. In or out Red?"

  "It is complex Cal, there is so much you don’t know." I say and I picture all the secrets I have and how my fear keeps them secure inside of me. How, if he knew... it would soil everything between us.

  "Is this about CD?" He asks and looks at me, his arrogant bullshit dripping from every word. "Because if it is, then come here and let me remove any thought of that British blue fuck from your mind."

  "It's not that simple. It isn’t so much CD, but it is the idea of him. You and I live in different worlds and when everything with Tayla happened, I thought I could fit in that world. I don’t though. I can’t change who I am or what it means to be me, but I can’t be the other option because your bed is cold. I deserve CD, I don’t deserve you."

  There it was. I said it all and didn’t flinch, but I knew I would regret it later. I knew I would be haunted by the look on his face for the rest of my life.

  "When you look back on this, and I know you will." He smirks at me cruelly and goes on. "Remember that I wanted you. All of you and you told me no. Know that I won’t pine for you or ask again. I will fuck every red head I meet to force you from my system until you are nothing but our son’s mom and my kindness to you begins and ends there."

  Tears fall at the absolute hate he speaks to me with. I am instantly in the throes of regret and this is not what I wanted.

  "Until then watch close and pay attention Jen. This shit is seriously going to fuckin hurt."

  Chapter two

  Jen

  I have ignored Noah's calls for a day until he sent the message just now, I knew my time was up.

  Noah: If I don’t hear back from you, knowing you are off work today then I will be hanging on your doorstep. Whatever’s up, don’t lose sight of who I am.

  I respond once I get coffee and can deal with the shit storm that is Noah on a tear. I understood his concern, to a degree. It was one day and yes, we talk a million times every day, but isn’t a girl allowed to lick her wounds before she cries to the bestie?

  I mean...

  This is unjust.

  Me: Yeah, sorry I was licking my wounds from a really awful fight with Cal. Can I come by?

  His response is immediate.

  Noah: Yeah, I need you to help me with something.

  I contemplate what that could mean and the list is endless. I will probably help him mate socks or something just so he has a pretense to ask me what crawled up my ass.

  I throw my hair in a messy bun and dress in my workout clothes knowing I will hit the gym on my way home.

  I stop and get an Iced coffee for both of us and pull in to his drive about twenty minutes later.

  The garage is open and boxes everywhere and I feel the dread come on scared he has asked me to help clean shit out to prepare for even more of Raleigh’s shit.

  "What exactly is going on?" I ask and hand him his drink and take in the various boxes with instructions on them.

  "Are you moving?" I ask, and there is some serious sadness because this place had so much meaning to him and what he accomplished after moving to Gig Harbor ten years ago. I met Noah after we had graduated from high school and he started hanging out with Chad and eventually joined TAT.

  He cringes when he takes a drink and hands me his, taking mine and I realize I handed him the wrong one and he hates sweet anything. "What the hell is the point of coffee if you taste no coffee?" He looks at me and shakes his head but laughs. "Bright does the same thing, fucking disgusting."

  I laugh and sit on the bumper of the covered car. He has a serious car addiction and built a four thousand square foot garage in the back for them, but this one must be the choice for the day.

  Weirdo.

  "And yes, I am moving. This place is too small for us all." He lifts a box that says Candey on it and gently places it with a few others that have her name on them.

  I say nothing as I try to take in what he is saying, but point to the boxes with her name on them in question.

  "Well, I can’t very well keep her stuff where she left them like I had been doing." He looks at me softly and leans back against a treadmill. "Bright headed to Cali with Ral to sign on the lease for her apartment above The Brew that she is renting to the new manager of the Yorba Linda store." He looks at me and shrugs before drinking is bitter cold coffee, ew.

  "I figured I would need some privacy to go through it all. I moved most everything in the spare bedroom, but it still felt like a shrine. I won’t delete her from my life, and have all her art at the studio and the special and valuable stuff on display." He shrugs again and dashes inside quickly before coming back with another box and a Trucker Hat on his head. He sets the box in front of me and I see my name and roll my eyes because I know what’s in it.

  I know he needed to stop talking. Not because I was judging him, but because he didn’t need to explain why he wanted to do it alone. Even happy, in love and healthy he would miss her because he loved her. More importantly, Bright respects it and the love he had for her.

  I open the box and start laughing and fold it back up. "So that’s where all my travel mugs and work out water bottles are."

  He laughs and takes the box to my Escalade, or his that he gave me almost two years ago before he met Bright.

  I stand from the bumper of the car and lift the cover and stop short. "Did you buy another car Noah?" I ask and lift the cover higher, but he stops me and shakes his head no.

  "Let me uncover it please." He says and his tone is reverent and I roll my eyes because he is seriously too obsessed... My thoughts trail off when I see the state the car is in. The entire drivers side of the car is caved in and damaged as is the roof, front end and even the back end. I look to the passenger side and though it isn’t caved in as bad as the other side, you can tell this car was impacted on the driver’s side, rolled; and skidded on the right before stopping.

  It hits me that this is his car, his first muscle car and it was the one that delivered the fatal blow to Candey and put Noah on the path of wreckage.

  I look at him with such sadness now. "Noah why would you keep it?" I want so bad to understand why he would want another reminder of his loss.

  "I was going to have it fixed at first, then I don’t know... At first when I came home from the hospital I would sit in the back seat and scream. Th
en it felt too morbid to sit in it anymore, but I don’t know it became something I needed to hold on too."

  I try so hard to be understanding, but with this I couldn’t support it. Keeping this was toxic. "Noah, you need to sell it or junk it or something. This isn’t healthy."

  He nods and looks to the driveway where Carrie pulls in with Noelle and the newest to the bunch Bowden (Bowie) Harvard Blake. Now, Chad made it a point to name him something cool since according to him I started the trend with Axe and he tells me often how badass I did. He actually tried to convince Carrie that because he was a Rockstar he could be respected for naming Bowie, Slash.

  Carrie denied the request and settled happily on Bowie after months of debate.

  She pales the minute she sees the car and I swoop Bowie from her arms and Noelle jumps into Noah’s. The first time I held Noelle she looked terrified like I would taint her, but these days I have formed a good relationship with her and am honored when I am referred to as Auntie Jen.

  "Noah, why the hell do you have this car in here? I thought you sold it?" She asks and gives me a half hug, her shock and mortification still on her face.

  "I did, it's why it’s in here."

  I finally sigh in relief hearing that and Carrie calms down immediately hearing him confirm it.

  "It creeps me out Bub, its way to morbid." She says and covers it back up, her eyes lingering on the back seat through the shattered windows and shivers.

  "Bright doesn’t know I have it, that I have had it here in the big garage, but I don’t want her to know feel me?" He asks us and Carrie and I both agree. "Fell you." She says and I laugh uncomfortably. "Yeah I definitely feel you. Some things are okay as secrets."

  Carrie rests her hand on the hood of the car for a brief moment and looks at Noah. "I remember when you picked me up that day from the hospital after Cody attacked me and forced me to lay down in the back and shut me up with 'Down in a hole'."

  He nods remembering. "Be glad I did I was ready to wring your neck that day."

  Noah explains that he and Chad had a huge blow out over Carrie breaking up with him in the hospital and that Carrie was being a pussy.