Destructive King

by Rachel Van Dyken

  “Yeah, I know exactly what you want. The answer is no. You don’t get to have her, ever!”

  “You aren’t her dad!” he shouted.

  “She’s under my protection!” I jabbed my thumb into my chest. “Mine.”

  “Oh? And how’s that going for her so far? What with a bomb getting sent to your house, her getting sent away to Italy for a year, or how about the constant bullying on social media. You can’t do shit unless you’re using your fists or your words, and I’m tired, we’re all fucking tired, Ash!”

  His words hit home.

  Too close.

  Too close until midnight.

  Too close until the dirt.

  Too close.

  My vision tunneled as I screamed, “Fine! You want Sunday school pussy wrapped around your cock, be my guest!”

  The sound of something crashing against the floor semi-jolted me out of my angry stupor, the haze lifting slowly, painfully.

  And there she was. Just standing there. Eyes wide, popcorn all over the floor, hands shaking. Staring.

  It was empty, that stare.

  Like I’d taken the last pieces of her that were good and swallowed them up into my bad, taken them away because how dare she be happy when she was still here?

  And Claire wasn’t.

  How dare I still want her? When I knew what she’d done.

  How dare she make me think back on all the times I’d doubted Claire only to come up with several reasons we’d been struggling.

  It was all there.

  In her stare.

  It was there every time she smiled at me. Every time she rolled her eyes and fought back, it was there. Every time I woke up in a cold sweat only to rush to Annie’s room to make sure she was okay, still alive, breathing.

  And now it was gone.

  Replaced with a chilling emptiness that made me want to crash to my knees and crawl toward her, beg the universe to give them back.

  God, give it back!

  “Go,” Annie said. Her voice didn’t waver. Tears didn’t fill her eyes. There was no reaction other than emptiness.

  “I’m lonely!” she’d screamed at me, her pain palpable.

  And I’d wanted to scream back so desperately, “Me too! God, me too!

  Instead, I’d offered her what? A place to watch TV?

  Snacks?

  My own cousins, so she didn’t feel so alone when I knew it didn’t do shit when you were hurting and surrounded by people, that if anything, it made it worse.

  “Annie.” My voice cracked. “I was upset. I didn’t mean—”

  “What else is new?” she said in a hollow voice. “Ash Abandonato upset again. You’d think I’d be used to it by now.” She lifted her shoulder like it didn’t matter anymore.

  Like I didn’t matter.

  I may as well be invisible.

  “Claire—” I stopped myself.

  Holy fuck.

  Annie’s head whipped up. “What the hell did you just call me?”

  “It slipped, I’m sorry. I didn’t—I’m sorry... Fuck!” I ran my hands through my hair and moved toward her.

  “I’m not her,” Annie whispered. “I’m sorry, Ash, but I’ll never be her.”

  She sidestepped me and walked right into Tank’s arms.

  And I let her.

  I let her because he was what she needed.

  I let her because it would be selfish to demand her attention, to force her heart when everything in my soul bubbled to the surface then crashed like a wave over me, damaging, destroying, killing.

  I didn’t look back.

  I didn’t want to see the look of anger on Tank’s face or the one of horror on hers. I walked away.

  And I kept walking.

  To my car.

  Then from my car to my house.

  Then to my mom’s greenhouse, to the flowers I’d planted the day of Claire’s death.

  I mindlessly dug through the dirt.

  Then I cut.

  And cut some more.

  I didn’t wipe off my hands as I gripped the flowers and laid them in the bucket.

  And then I went back to get some more.

  Losing myself in the mindless feel of the soil beneath my fingertips and the stems of the flowers as I collected.

  Maybe this was my life now.

  There was no in between the grief and the healing.

  There was only this empty feeling in my soul and sickness in my chest.

  All that was left of me.

  Were the pieces nobody wanted.

  And the ones I desperately needed someone to put back together because I no longer knew how to do it on my own.

  And I lacked the heart and energy to even fucking try.

  If I was really being honest, I’d admit the only person brave enough had been the one I’d just accidentally called my dead girlfriend.

  And now, she was lost to me too.

  It was better for her.

  Better for everyone.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Grief is not a disorder, sign, a disease, or sign of weakness; it is an emotional, physical, and spiritual entity, the price you pay for love, the only cure for love, is to grieve.” —Earl Grollman

  Annie

  I was livid.

  So hurt that I was done.

  And I burned to tell him exactly that.

  So when Tank had dropped me off after offering to shoot him in the face, I’d slammed the door and marched toward the pool house.

  Because how dare he!

  The bastard called me by her name!

  And it brought back everything he didn’t even know.

  How I thought I was trying to save him, give him the closure he needed—the love he needed!

  “So stupid,” I muttered to myself.

  I was seriously an idiot.

  Ash was never going to change.

  Sure, he looked perfectly fine to most of his family, but deep down, he was dark, rotten, cursed. And I wanted no part of it because already he was bringing me down with him.

  God, and I’d basically begged him to be my friend that night!

  So. Stupid.

  I wanted to smack myself as I marched into the guest house, throwing open the door, ready to wage a war against him.

  I nearly tripped over a lamp in the dark.

  And then I noticed the dirt on the floor, dirty footsteps?

  What the heck?

  The footsteps led around a throw pillow that had seen better days if the dagger sticking into its center was any indication. I kept following the steps into the dark kitchen. The only light was the one above the cooktop, and even that was faint.

  Ash was sitting in front of it, a bottle of whiskey in his dirty hands. God, it looked like he’d dug up a grave.

  My stomach clenched.

  He wouldn’t, right?

  His eyes were clear.

  The bottle was full.

  But he looked—so lost I didn’t know what to do.

  “Go,” he rasped. “It’s better this way.”

  Why? Why did he always make my heart twist like I was abandoning him when he was never mine to begin with?

  I chewed my bottom lip.

  Cursed him to hell about a million times, then promised myself this was it. I’d sit next to him. I’d refrain from strangling him to death. And I’d at the very least be another body in that sad, depressing kitchen, as he sat covered in dirt.

  “I think—” My knees cracked as I sat down next to him, careful not to sit in a pile of dirt, and curious why he was clutching flowers in his right hand with a death grip while he had whiskey in the other. “—that the Sunday school teacher better stay since clearly, her unruly student can’t even keep his hands out of the dirt.”

  He visibly tensed. “I’m sorry.”

  “You’re always sorry,” I fired back.

  “It’s a habit.”

  “A really, really shitty one,” I pointed out.

  “That, we can agree on,” he answere
d.

  Silence blanketed us, and then I just had to know. “Were you burying a body or digging one up?”

  His head lolled forward a bit in what I could only guess was extreme exhaustion as he blew out a breath and whispered, “Neither, actually.”

  I frowned. “Then why all the dirt?”

  “I was digging up flowers, with my bare hands, mind you, no time for tools, I had to feel the soil—it’s what I do every time—I have to feel the life slip between my fingertips, I have to let it remind me, you know?”

  My heart sunk. “Ash… why were you doing that? Is this a new hobby?”

  He frowned. “Real shitty hobby for a hitman, am I right?”

  “No. Maybe it grounds you. Get it? Ground? Dirt?” I elbowed him.

  He sighed. “You shouldn’t be here; I just hurt you. I know that. You know that. Eventually, the world will know that, because I can’t stop, Annie. I can’t fucking stop.”

  “Maybe it’s because you need someone to hate. And…” I couldn’t believe the words coming out of my mouth, but I said them anyway. “Maybe I’m that person. Maybe I’m the one you need to hate to get through this. I’m not saying I enjoy my role in your life, but if it helps, I can do it. I’m strong enough. I know that now.”

  He lifted his head and turned it, his blue eyes flashing with something other than anger; he leaned in, setting the whiskey down, he touched my face with a dirty finger. “That’s the saddest thing I think I’ve ever heard.”

  “I’ve heard sadder.” I gulped.

  He shook his head. “It shouldn’t be you. It’s like butchering the perfect white lamb when there’s a shitty tiger close by.”

  “Who’s the tiger, then?” I asked.

  “Tank. I’ll kill him.” He shrugged, and then a ghost of a smile appeared across his face. “I’m kidding, you know.”

  “Glad you clarified.” My voice cracked.

  He dropped his hand. “You should come.”

  “Come?” I shook my head and then looked around. “Are you planning a scavenger hunt or something?”

  His laugh was full of pain, but it was still a laugh. “God, I wish. That sounds so much better.” Slowly, he moved to his feet then offered me his hand. “Come on.”

  I didn’t want to trust him.

  But something in his eyes said I was the only one who could go wherever he was going and that this moment would pass by and if I didn’t take his hand, regardless of all the times he’s hurt me—I would regret it for the rest of my life.

  So I trusted.

  Again.

  I put my heart in his hands.

  Again.

  My safety.

  My sanity.

  Our palms touched. He didn’t let go. He squeezed my hand, and then we were walking out of the kitchen, out of the back yard across his property.

  “You own all this?” I asked.

  It was pitch black, nearly impossible to see. He still clutched the flowers in his right hand and walked as if he knew the path by heart as we made our way across a well-kept field and then into a small, wooded area that seemed magical, possibly man-made.

  We passed an old white chapel.

  “I was going to marry her there.”

  I let out a gasp, tears welling in my eyes as a path appeared; it was lit with lights as if planned.

  “She wanted to get married at night with jars of lightning bugs; I thought it was complete bullshit. I mean, a man can only go so far, but she begged me. We didn’t have a church outside the city…” We finally passed the church, and I noticed a plaque in front of it. “Claire’s Chapel.”

  My breath caught as a tear slid down my cheek. “You dedicated it to her?”

  He stopped and stared up at it. “Nah.” He sighed. “I built it.”

  Had I been walking, I would have tripped. “You? Like with your hands?”

  “No, with my big toe and gusto.” He cracked a sad smile toward the chapel like it held memories too sacred for me to ask about. “Yeah me.”

  “I didn’t even know.” Embarrassingly, my voice caught. “I mean, I had no clue you even knew how to use a hammer!”

  I suppressed an eye-roll. Seriously? That was what I went with?

  “I know how to screw too,” he snapped quickly and then sobered. “Sorry, I’m not sure where that came from.”

  I elbowed him playfully. “Maybe the old Ash is tired of being sad and needed to get a good one-liner in there.”

  His lips twitched. “Yeah.” He hung his head. “Maybe.” He sighed like the old Ash was never coming back, twisting my heart in his grip. “Come on.”

  We kept walking in silence.

  I noticed little jars lining the pathway; they were a bit dirty, worn, as if they were set out for something… for someone.

  “I stopped lighting them when you left for Italy,” he whispered almost under his breath. “I said goodbye to her then, or so I thought, you know?” He frowned as if wondering why he was telling me all of this. “I’m not crazy, I felt her, I just needed the closure, and then I realized that there was so much more I hadn’t dealt with, memories I had chosen to forget because it made her death less holy, less… just less. When someone dies, you want to remember the good, only the good, because the bad just tarnishes the memory, and that seems like such a fucking cruel way to remember a person you loved, by even once focusing on the fact that they were human—she was, though, very human.”

  “Aren’t we all?”

  He chewed his bottom lip and glanced over at me. “Honestly? Sometimes I think you’re more angel.”

  My lips parted on a gasp. “Wh-what?”

  He shrugged. “I think it’s what I both hate and love the most about you. Your ability to be good even when things are so fucking bad. I used to think I hated you—now I think all this time, I’ve just been jealous.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that. I stared at him as a wave of emotions crossed his handsome face, and then we were walking again.

  There was a small clearing.

  And then.

  Just feet from where they were to be married.

  Claire’s grave.

  I swiped at my cheeks, and before I could stop myself, I fell to my knees on the dirt in front of it.

  Her grave marker was huge.

  In the shape of an angel.

  Immaculate in its glory as it towered over us mere mortals. He’d literally immortalized her, made her a goddess with the gorgeous headstone and the words encrypted on the rock.

  “Until the sky falls,” I whispered. Using the right phrase, the one they used to use, not the one he’d said to me, the one that I kept as ours. The one I’d take to my grave too

  I had no idea how much I missed her until that moment.

  Until I burst into gut-wrenching sobs, the headstone a blur as I pressed my hands against the grass, almost bowing in reverence.

  “She’d been my friend,” I cried. “My protector.” Another sob. “She said she’d save me!”

  Ash’s arms were there before I could stop him, pulling me against him as we both collapsed against the grass. He braced me.

  He held me.

  And he let me be weak.

  Something I didn’t realize I’d needed, not just in that moment… but since her death.

  I never got to mourn, did I?

  I was too worried about Ash.

  Too terrified of the bruises on my arms and returning to the life that had given them to me.

  Petrified of my own shadow.

  Trusting no one but myself and Tank.

  I couldn’t stop the tears. “I hope you’re at rest, Claire.” My voice shook. “I’m so sorry you felt you had to protect me from my family, that you took the car that day when it should have been me. Oh, God.” I covered my face with my hands, my fingertips wet from the tears. “It would have been better had it been me.”

  “No,” Ash said firmly behind me. “No, Annie.”

  “Yes! I ruined everything. I ruined—”

&nb
sp; He turned me in his arms and pulled my hands from my face, the dirt from his fingertips mixing with my tears. “Annie, look at me.”

  He pried my hands down, and I stared into crystal blue eyes, eyes I could drown in. Eyes that could hate. Eyes that could love.

  His smile was sad as his voice cracked. “It was an accident. It was not your fault, do you hear me? It wasn’t your fault.” He shook his head. “If anything, it’s mine, for using you as a way to grieve, for being weak when I should have been strong enough. You didn’t do this. The fucked up world did this. You don’t get to take credit for something so sinister.”

  “But I—”

  He covered my mouth with a dirty hand. “Everyone lets go in their own way. Don’t walk down my path—it’s a lonely one, full of sadness and selfishness. Take the fork in the road, the one that’s harder—the one that ends in closure, in forgiveness.”

  I shuddered. “And what about you?”

  His smile was sad. “I’m a guy. It might take me longer.”

  “Because you’re slower?” I asked in confusion.

  He pushed my hair out of my face. “More like stubborn… and stupid, thinking that by sheer will I can fix this when I’ve known I was damned all along.”

  He had set the flowers down on the ground.

  Wordlessly he reached for them and then, as if having second thoughts, handed them to me. “Go ahead.”

  “What?”

  His smile was sad. “It would have been her birthday tomorrow. She died weeks before. I planted flowers in the greenhouse, nurtured them, watered them, taking perfect care of them for this moment only to realize it’s not mine. Maybe it never was.”

  “Are you sure?” I sniffled.

  “Now?” He nodded. “I’m positive.”

  With shaking hands, I took the beautiful daisies and laid them to rest on her gravestone. They looked so bright and alive against the dark colors, so wrong for someone so young.

  “It reminds me of a song…” I sighed. “If I die young…” I sighed. “I don’t have a bed of roses or satin, but…” I reached for the clasp of my ever-present pearls and very carefully took them off. “My mom gave these to me before she was mur— before she died…” I slowly laid them to rest next to the flowers. “Better than satin?”

  Ash’s throat bobbed as he nodded, his voice hoarse. “Better than the way they used to bury the kings and queens of old…”

  “She’s happy, right?” I sniffled.