The boy I told her about, the one that saw his one shot at redemption in her eyes needs to face the girl down again and earn it a second time.
Earn it for the last time.
“What do you mean you did it?”
Lowering my head, averting my eyes away from hers, the guilt already taking hold and drowning me, I say the words that I know will change everything. The ones that are gonna make her hate me for sure.
“I hit you. I’m the reason you fell.”
Her hand goes rigid under mine, which makes me lift my head again and what I’m met with, the look on her face, it rips me apart.
Her eyes go wide and then she flinches, the pain she’s experiencing in her head obviously too much for her. It was hard enough knowing that I’m the reason this happened, but to cause her even more pain after I swore again that I wouldn’t, it destroys me.
“You—hit me?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t understand.” Her hand relaxes and I tighten my hold the minute it happens, a feeling of relief washing over me. It’s not much, but her not being tense, it’s enough for me right now. It’s a whole lot more than I deserve.
“I figured that. Belle, I want to tell you everything, but I’m scared.”
“Why?”
“Because when I tell you what happened, I think you’re going to leave me and even though you probably should for the things I said and did, I don’t know how I’m gonna handle it if it happens.”
“I’m never leaving you, Kay.”
God damnit. I want to believe in those words so fucking bad right now. I want them to be true, but just with the things I accused her of before I went after her friend, I can’t trust in it.
“I don’t think you’ll feel the same after I explain.”
“Kay,” she whispers before closing her eyes and leaning back on the bed, her hand sliding out from under mine and making the pain in my chest even worse. Gripping onto her hand again, she pulls on it but speaks at the same time. “I want to sit up, that’s all.”
Standing, I lean over and grip her body with my hands, pulling her up until she’s comfortable before sitting back down and finding my way back to her hand again.
It’s time for me to explain everything and hope to god that what Dillon told me a few days ago is right and I haven’t completely blown this to shit.
“I got my transfer early. I wanted to surprise you. I was going to wait for you at the house, jump you when you walked through the door, but Dillon said it would be epic if I showed up at school instead. He was right, even though I know you hate surprises. I was so fucking excited to see you.”
“You’re back for good?” she interrupts happily. This is the way I want her to stay even though I know it’s impossible.
“Yeah. We were waiting for you to get out of class. Dillon saw you first, pointed you out to me even though he didn’t need to. I saw you, but then I saw Isaac too. You dropped your bag on the ground and you hugged him.”
“I remember that. Randy and Bryan hurt him, and he was breaking down. I wanted to make him feel better since it was my fault.”
This is all stuff I know now. What I didn’t already figure out when she was yelling at me to stop, everyone else filled in for me later, but being reminded that she was trying to do right by this guy and I took it so badly, turns me inside out. My reaction makes me sick.
“I overreacted. Dillon tried explaining that it was nothing, but all I could see was his hands on your back rubbing you. I was so mad, Belle. I stopped seeing what you were doing, and all I saw was him stealing you away from me.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Everyone fucking leaves. My dad took off, my mom split, Dean fucking beat the hell out of me and then got thrown away for it. You were the only one that didn’t. When I saw him hugging you, holding on to you the way I’ve done before, all I could see was you leaving too.”
“I won’t ever leave you.”
There it is again, her words from earlier repeated. The statement so final. She believes in it. I just wish I could too.
“I bailed out of the car until I reached the two of you. I accused you of things, called you names and went after Isaac. Defending himself, he came back at me, but you stepped in the middle. You weren’t supposed to step in the middle, but you did and instead of hitting Isaac, I hit you.”
The ache in my chest, the agony reliving every single second of what happened on campus, it’s too much for me and I feel the wetness on my cheeks, the strangled sound of my words hitting all at once. It’s coming now. She’s gonna hate me.
“You stumbled backward and tripped over your backpack. Isaac moved at the same time as me but we weren’t quick enough. You hit the ground too fast.”
She opens her eyes again and seeing what I can only assume is distress all over my face, along with the tears running down, she tightens the grip of her hand in mine and squeezes.
“I tripped?”
“Y-yeah.”
“You hit me, I tripped and that’s how I hurt my head?”
I can’t say it again. With the visual I have so vivid, I can’t get it out so I just nod weakly.
The silence is deafening. I want her to say something now. Anything. She could completely shut down on me, yell, scream or cry and I would welcome it more than the silence. I don’t care what it is, I just want her to react before the silence drags me under.
After what feels like hours of just the sound of our breathing, she finally exhales and when I look up again, readying myself for whatever is waiting behind her eyes, she speaks and stops me cold.
“I remember.”
Belle
Before Kayden even started explaining, I started having these flashes, like mini movies in my head.
I see the shadow of a body over me while I held Isaac first. When he started going into detail about what happened, more visions came. Small pieces of the bigger picture he was creating for me with his words and then it all came flooding back.
There was a point when he was talking that I wanted to stop and tell him, but I stayed silent. He needed to do this almost as badly as I needed him to and stopping him, I was afraid the memories would stop too and I’d never be able to remember what happened to me.
Now that he’s done and I’ve admitted that I remember, it’s not visuals I see anymore. It’s audio and none of it is good. It’s all so bad that it hurts my heart even more than the pain in my head. The things Kayden said, I never would have expected him to say to me, especially after everything we’ve shared.
After our anniversary.
“Get your hands off my girlfriend.”
“Just what the fuck is your game, man? Get the girl alone, make her feel bad for you because you can’t fucking speak and then get her to fall for you?”
“Shut up, Belle.”
His words are like knives to my chest, but it’s none of those that break me completely. It’s what he said before he told me to shut up that does it and it’s those words that make me look at him in a completely different way.
Even saying that I should have been aborted last year didn’t hurt as badly as this.
“How long have you been fucking Isaac behind my back? Was last weekend even your first time?”
Kayden has always been the only person in the world that knows me as well as I do myself. Eric knows parts of me, Dillon too now that we’re friends, but no one other than maybe my mom knows me the way Kayden Walker does. For him to accuse me of being with Isaac, believing even for a second that what we shared at the beach was anything other than my first time, is wrong.
Very, very wrong.
If my head wasn’t hurting so badly, I would move from the bed right now and hit him. The gift I thought I was giving him on our anniversary, it’s not a gift anymore, it’s been turned into something else.
Something gross and wrong and it’s all his fault. I can’t believe how stupid I’ve been.
I want to think about this rationally, remember
his words about his state of mind, but I can’t. All I can hear on repeat are his words playing over the vision of our night together, twisting it until the only thing left is the urge to vomit.
The tears rise and fall, but there’s no sound the way I expect. It’s all deathly silent and as the grip of his hand over mine lessens, so does the silence.
“Belle—fuck, you’re crying!”
He leans over me and I twist my head away even though it pains me more than just physically to do it. I can’t look at him anymore. I can’t see whatever is behind his eyes. It hurts too much.
“Baby, please say something. What are you remembering? What are you seeing that’s making you cry?”
He’s pleading with me now and just like before, him and his use of the word please threatens to break my resolve. My heart is fighting with my head to just look at him. Something I can’t let happen, not with what I can still hear on a loop in my head. What he believed about me even though I didn’t do anything to earn it.
I loved Kayden so much that I waited for him. With the way my life is, how closed off I was, I can’t say for sure that I would have ever been with anyone that way, but if I was going to be with anyone, I knew I wanted it to be Kayden. Now I wish I’d never waited for him at all.
“Was last weekend even your first time?” I whisper, the sound of them coming from my own lips making me wanna throw up again. Saying them out loud, it’s giving them power, making it more real.
“Shit,” The word rolls off his lips and he moves his body completely up and out of the chair until he’s forcing himself onto the bed with me, his arms coming around, attempting to pull me into him. Another thing I can’t allow. “I’m so fucking sorry. I never should have said that. I didn’t mean it.”
I hear his words but it doesn’t change anything. Hearing Kayden apologize should make me feel better, I should believe in it, but I don’t. I can’t.
Pushing back against his body and crying out in pain the minute I do, my hands instantly find their way to my head, desperate now for the pain to alleviate.
Feeling his weight lift off the bed, I turn slowly and before he can back away completely, I do what I should have done when he first said the words. My hand moves from my head in a quick fluid motion and I feel the sting as it makes contact with his face. The sting of my hand and the pain in my head secondary now to the pleasure I get from reacting.
Loud noises, anger and violence, I don’t like any of it, but slapping him the way I did, it’s the only way for me to make him see what his words have done. What I feel.
“It was only supposed to be you, Kayden. No one else. Just you.”
I have no idea where the words are coming from, but he needs to hear them. I don’t care if he was lost in a sea of rage or not, he needs to know what he should have known from the moment we got together. That it’s only ever been him and any thought otherwise is disgusting.
“I know.”
“Then why? Why did you accuse me of being with Isaac?”
Wiping at my eyes, hating the fact that I’m still breaking, I look at him at the exact second his eyes start to lower and it makes me sick.
“Look at me if you’re gonna answer.”
His head raises, his eyes lock on mine and his expression, the sagging I saw on his face earlier is even worse, but he doesn’t look away or try to hide it.
“Because I’m a fucking idiot!”
“Yes, you are.” Shifting in the bed, I lean over until my hand, the one I used to slap him is gripping tightly onto his shirt, the tears falling even faster now, but my need to get this out stronger than all of it.
I will not break. Not yet. Not until I’ve used his own words to me back at him. Given him the truth in the only way he’ll understand.
“You were right last year. You fucked this up. I didn’t deserve what you said and neither did Isaac. I love you Kayden, but what you said, its worse then what you did.”
I’m still gripping on to him, making no move to release the hold and he’s frozen in place, his eyes still locked on mine. He’s taking it all. Every bit of the aching pain I feel inside.
He’s taking what he deserves.
“I know.”
“You told me weeks ago that I needed to stop letting you get away with stuff. Your anger, the way you react, I needed to let you own it. So own it.”
“I do own it.” He cries. “You’re right. I fucked this up just like I said I would, but I want—no. I need to make it right. Please let me make it right.”
There it is again, the please and this time it’s hitting its mark. I’m softening. What he said to me, the ugliness of it all, it still hurts, kills even, but despite it, I’m still reacting to him the way I always do because I love him.
“I never stopped you or got upset when you were mad because it always had something to do with your need to protect me. Keeping me safe and the way you love me, but Kay, this, what you said, it wasn’t about any of that. It was something else.”
“It was about not being good enough for you.”
Shaking my head, releasing the hold I’ve got on his shirt, lifting my hand until it’s resting comfortably on his face, I say the only thing left to say.
The truth.
“You’re more than good enough for me, Kay. You’re just not good enough for you.”
“No.”
“Yes. You’re the only one that thinks you’re not good enough.”
“I hurt you, Belle. I said,” he pauses, wiping at his own eyes. “I said unforgiveable things. Things you should hate me for. Things you probably do hate me for and ones I can never take back.”
“Kay—” I start but he puts his finger to my lips, stopping me.
“Not yet, okay? Let me get this out.” When I nod he brings his fingers back down until they’re resting on my leg and he continues.
“You don’t hate me. You should, but the way you’re touching me, you don’t. The way I think you should be, you never are. You’re always something different and I should know that by now. I was so fucking scared, Belle. Scared of losing yet another person I allowed myself to love. Scared of what my mom being back would mean. What I would turn back into…shit. You’re right.”
“Right about what?”
“I don’t think I’m good enough. It’s all me. My fear, my insecurities. My shit.”
We’ve all got fears. Things that can shake us to our core that we never want to face. I’ve had the same ones with Kayden before that he has with me now. The way I would question when he would stop hanging out with me before we got together, waiting for him to go back to his friends and the way things had always been before that day in the parking lot. I’ve been insecure with him. The difference between us is that he made me feel like enough. He took the fear away. I only made his worse because I had no idea he even had them.
I didn’t believe Kayden could be afraid of anything.
“Please tell me that I didn’t ruin us. I need to be able to fix it. Belle,” reaching out around my own hand, he places both of his on my face, pulling me even closer. Leveling his eyes dead center on mine, so close that I can see my tears and pain reflected back at me, they soften and he speaks again. “Don’t leave me.”
Kayden’s biggest fear. The reason no one could connect with him before and the reason he’s never loved anyone since his mom. He’s afraid of losing them.
He’s afraid of losing me.
We’re damaged, but we’re not broken. I meant what I said earlier, I won’t ever leave him, not when the reason I’m here and strong enough to stand up to him and the things he said is because of his impact on my life. The way he’s made it better than it was a year ago.
The way he loved me and taught me how to love him in return.
“I energy you, Kay. I’m not leaving.”
I hear his breath catch and before I can ask why, he beats me to it.
“What happens if I screw up again? Push you away or hurt you?”
“I can’t promise you
things will be perfect or that we won’t be broken, but Kay, even when you push me away, I won’t ever leave.”
Pulling my hand away from his face and bringing it over to rest on top of his, I grab ahold of it and pull it down until it’s resting on my heart.
“Do you feel the way it beats? The movement of each beat? I love you Kayden and as long as I have that beat, I always will.”
Kayden
So much has changed. The way she responds to me, giving my heart everything it needs right now to keep going, it’s the way she’s always been, but the strength it takes to do it, that’s different.
Belle isn’t the same person she was a year ago. She’s not even the same person she was months ago when I left for Toronto. She’s stronger, better somehow even though I didn’t think it was possible for her to be any more than she already was.
She’s everything.
It’s not the right time to remember, but just like the night outside her house when I asked her to be mine, my mind again floods with my mom’s words.
“You were my light.”
That’s what Belle is to me. I’ve called her a life preserver before, but that’s not right. She’s more than that. She’s the light. The only person able to break through the hazy dark mess I’ve become.
She’s my sunshine.
“You’re my sunshine.”
“What is it with that word?”
“What word?”
“Sunshine. You said it earlier and I swear, you’ve never called me that before but it was so familiar.”
I can’t help myself. When she admits how familiar the word is, I smile bigger then I think I ever have before. She’s right. I’ve never called her that before, but I did sit here and sing it to her and it’s that memory triggering her response now. She was asleep, but just like I thought, her heart heard me.
“Why are you smiling? What aren’t you telling me?”
Breaking our connection just long enough to pull my phone from my pants, I unlock it and go straight into the music. I could easily sit here and explain it all to her in drawn out detail, but I have a feeling this will go a lot easier.
All My Heart (Count On Me Book 4) Page 26
