Find Me (Truthful Lies Trilogy - Book Two)

by Rachel Dunning

  The way the sex ran later in the bedroom—blowjobs with tremendous amounts of bobbing the head and slurping sounds—either Gina Moretti watched a lot of porn, or she had one hell of a closet sex life.

  We did it— (“OK, Deck, I think I get it now. Next,” Blaze says.)

  Gina started wearing darker clothes—not the down-in-the-dumps Gothic look. More like the Kate Beckinsale in Underworld look—confident, bad. Sexy.

  She got popular at school. She was the teacher’s pet because of her grades, and the High School queen because of her attitude. And now also because of her boyfriend.

  There is one thing you must believe in all this, because it’s key. In all this time, I had a few thoughts in my mind constantly: Mom. Drugs. A close third was football.

  I really didn’t notice the changes in Gina. I noticed very little about her actually. When we went out, we dropped. Simple as that. I didn’t notice that she started dropping more often. I didn’t notice that two Es became four, six, ten!

  I didn’t notice the speed. The lines of Big C.

  But I did notice the A. Who couldn’t?

  She dropped it without telling me. She’d told me many times she’d wanted to try it, mostly during soaring moments of sextasy. I knew little about A. All I knew is it wasn’t something I was ever gonna do. It’s not a drug to escape with.

  I needed my escapes.

  I told her this. I told her we could have a good time with E, with speed. With good ol’ Columbian Herb. I told her that hallucinogenics weren’t my thing. I never done shrooms and I ain’t never gonna do A. I told her that sex on A would be weird.

  “I don’t want it for the sex!” she said. “I want it for the experience!”

  By now, she was sourcing her own goods. She didn’t need me for that anymore.

  She took a dot. A fucking dot for her first trip! They only took dots on their first trips in the seventies! And they were fucking lunatics back then!

  She never came down from it.

  She dropped it at ten P.M., was peaking by three. Paranoid by four (saying things like “You’re a devil, aren’t you, Deck? In his body and here to take me to into the sewers with you, right?”) I called Trev at six A.M. to try and help me calm her down.

  By seven, she was screaming. We called nine-one-one. They tranquilized her, strapped her down.

  None of it worked.

  In essence, she lost her mind. And she’s never found it since...

  -12-

  “She’s in an institution?”

  I nod. “Pretty much. Not your typical one. It’s holistic or something. But, yeah, institutionalized.” If only I’d taken it a bit more seriously. If only I’d taken her more seriously! What did she feel? Was she in love with me? Playing me? Ma was gonna die anyway. Should I not have focused on the living?

  Should we have spoken more than screwed? Because that’s all we did: Screwed. Not make love. All we did was have hot sex for chemical satisfaction.

  True-blue addicts. If it wasn’t the Molly, it was the endorphins of a good lay.

  “So,” Blaze says, thinking out loud, “this Dino guy, her brother, went after you then.”

  “A few days later. Once it had sunk in that there was nothing else that could be done for her.”

  “And now he’s coming for you again.”

  “So it seems.”

  “Why now?”

  “Clarissa—remember her? The waitress at Tom’s?”

  “Yeah, the Kat Dennings double.”

  “Yeah. Well, she and Gina were friends. And she hangs out with a lot of the old crowd from school. She told me Gina was ‘getting worse’ or whatever that means. So, I dunno, maybe her brother figured it was time for a renewal of suffering on my part.”

  “If it even was him.”

  “Yeah. ’Cause maybe it wasn’t.”

  “But you don’t believe that, do you?”

  I hold my coffee tighter. “Sadly, no. Not after what happened to pops. It’s almost like you’re too good for me to have.”

  “Me? Bullshit. You know my shit—”

  “Yeah, and now you know mine. And then we find each other and it almost feels like it’s a sick joke on us, carried out by the universe itself. Just to tease us. Just to let us know what we can’t have because we’ve done too many wrong things in our lives or something. Because, being with you, it’s perfect. I don’t need to lie to you. I don’t need to pretend I’m someone else. You sure as fuck don’t need to lie to me, Blaze. I love you for who you are. Your past, your present, all of it. You can— Blaze?”

  “Uh huh?”

  “Your mouth is gaping and getting wider by the second.”

  She closes it. “You just”—she swallows—“told me you love me.”

  Holy damn, that I did. I raise my eyebrows, think about it a second. “They say the first thing out of your mouth is what you’re really thinking.”

  -13-

  Society.

  It bears commenting upon: That the things we see and the emotions we feel are determined by the rules and regulations imposed upon us by television, politicians, and, worst of all, Broken Hearts.

  Imposed on us by Has-Been Dreamers.

  And Once-Upon Hopefuls.

  Grabbing onto that hope is like lifting an aircraft carrier off your back while simultaneously being crushed by a thousand feet of water above you. And then, when your hand comes out and sees the light of day after being buried in shit for a hundred years, under the soil of loss and pain and hopelessness, someone stands on it. With cleats.

  And who, you ask, is it that would stand on such a thing?

  And I say to you, Who the fuck wouldn’t?

  The Hope-Stomper Phrases:

  “There are other fish in the sea.”

  “It’s better to have loved and lost.”

  And, my favorite, “Oh, it’s merely the naivety of youth. Because such things only happen in the movies.”

  Fuck. That. Shit!

  Now, let us say, hypothetically, that we take a politely deferential finger, and stick it to these here people—to these Things With No Name—that tell us, “No, it’s bullshit. DON’T dream! DON’T believe in the spark! That nervousness you feel in your chest when you’re with her is just a neurotic tendency. We can solve it. We can medicate it. We can make it go away, son. Because, my boy—now listen to me, because I’m older, I know better. I’ve loved and lost and been there and done that. And I’ve failed, so, it follows reason, you must also fail. Because it’s logic. If one man fails, so must another. We’re all the same after all. So, listen to me, little boy, little girl, little children of this meaningless world. Listen when I tell you that there is no such thing as mad, over-the-rafters, in-your-face, fuck-the-world-and-everyone-in-it, passionate love! Two follows one just as three follows two. Mathematics. Science. If A and B are fact, then so is C. And if I failed, why shouldn’t you?”

  Math and Logic have no place in the highest states of the mind and emotion where love is a song sung by a voice so heavenly that only an idiot would ever claim its non-existence. And even if it doesn’t exist, only an assassin would tell the world the truth of it—someone who wanted nations to bomb each other and start wars and kill everyone in them. Because what are we all living for at the end of the day?

  I believe, that we live for the song of love. That piece of heaven right here on earth.

  The only heaven there is.

  My Heaven: Blaze’s touch on my hand. Her green eyes in a dark world. Her tentative smile appearing from behind the blackened smoke of life’s bloody battlefield. It’s her whimper, her breast on my lips. It’s the music she makes, her bare leg under my hand. My fingers inside her. Me inside her. My lips to hers. The flutter in my heart as she caresses my back.

  None of that follows any logic...

  Like I said, I was never very smart, I got Ds at school. And right now, sitting with Blaze at this café, wondering what I did to deserve the feeling I’m experiencing now, I’ve never been so glad
for it.

  Here’s to us dumbasses who believe there’s more to life than just the Failures and the Sadnesses.

  To The Romantics.

  To The Lovers.

  -14-

  “I love you, Blaze.”

  “I love you too, Deck.”

  And suddenly, just like that, everything’s OK.

  Isn’t it?

  -15-

  I text Trev.

  Deck: Dino Moretti came after me today. Threw a Molotov into Blaze’s building. I’m hanging with her tonight. But tomorrow, wanna go hunting?

  Trev: Name the time.

  Deck: I’ll call. Ask Skate if he’ll watch Blaze. Lots happening around her. Makes me nervous.

  Minutes later.

  Skate: No probs. Pity I’ll miss the hunt. Leave a piece for me.

  “Your secret girlfriend?” Blaze asks as we get to my car.

  “Nah, just updating Trev on what happened.”

  “And what did he say?”

  So I don’t tell the whole truth. Does that count as a lie? “He’s pissed.”

  -16-

  The Belieber party is exactly what you’d expect it to be: A bunch of rich teenagers (barely out of their tweens actually) partying it up with OJ in their hands and braces on their teeth. Two adult chaperones mill about looking like Hogwarts disciplinarians.

  Regardless, I can’t help being amazed by a few incredible things—incredible to me. Because I suppose they’re pretty normal actually. Or so I’ve heard...

  One. The kids are happy. Truly and wonderfully happy. No booze, no drugs, and nothing even close to sex near them. (Well, except for the heated discussion at point two, below.)

  Two. There aren’t any drugs anywhere. Nowhere. Not even a spiked punch. The most exciting thing at the party is a heated discussion (within earshot of the DJ box) of where to play Spin the Bottle and whether or not they’re willing to do first base “with tongue.” (Which is quickly vetoed away by our birthday girl, Alanna Shrewsbury, with the revealing statement: “There isn’t a freaking chance in hell I’m letting Brayden Worthington kiss that skank Rebecca with his tongue if the bottle lands on them!”)

  And, Three: Blaze is happy. Despite Bieber’s Somebody to Love playing in the background (which sounds like the smashing windows and the screeching tires of a jackknifing truck on black ice to me), she’s happy. Not a care in the world. Just a bunch of people dancing away to the beats she produces. Beats which they enjoy. Not me, not her. The crowd.

  I figure she’d be able to play to a crowd of spiked-collar metal-heads if she had to. She can read the crowd, and play to them.

  And make them happy.

  Don’t we deserve the same happiness? Or are we so far past Alanna Shrewsbury’s frizzy hair and braces, so far beyond that level of innocence, to deserve the same kind of joy?

  I fucking hope not. Because that shit would just be too damned depressing.

  TWENTY-TWO

  GIRLFRIENDS

  -1-

  Blaze Ryleigh

  In Declan’s truck, we joke like a pair of lovebirds driving across Route 66 with the top down, desert sun blazing, hair in our ears and Thelma and Louise shades on our eyes. It doesn’t matter that there’s trash on the streets and that it’s two in the morning—when I’m with Declan, the sun’s always shining.

  “Hunter Hayes? Blaze, tell me again, who the fuck is Hunter Hayes!?”

  “C&W singer. Looks not even old enough to have sex, never mind drink. But he’s legally allowed to do both. In any state.”

  “And you know about him, how?”

  “It’s my job.”

  “Those kids went freaking wild when you put his shit on.”

  “I knew they would. He sings some pretty romantic stuff, and it appeals to that crowd.”

  “And how would you define ‘that crowd’?”

  “Dunno, care-free. Still believing in Happily Ever Afters.”

  “You don’t believe in Happily Ever Afters?”

  I look out the window. “I’d rather not comment on that.”

  He puts his hand on my jeans, rubs up and down. “You’re incredible, Blaze.”

  I put my hand over his, and say nothing.

  We arrive at his apartment block at the corner of Bushwick and Bed-Stuy. A nondescript brick building with stairs leading up to the entrance that conjure up images for me of people sitting outside and reading a newspaper with a mug of coffee in the morning.

  He opens the door to his apartment, flicks on a light. All I see is a blue football jersey with a huge 56 on it, on the wall, before his lips are on mine. And then I don’t see shit. My fingers loosen around the grip of the my rucksack and it falls next to my feet.

  Now I’m thinking about a whole new type of music. One that doesn’t come with any instruments, and where Deck and I are the only band members; playing in a crowded house without any air conditioning.

  ’Cause I’m sweating now...

  -2-

  In between tasty kisses, I say, “No tour of your place?”

  “Later.”

  He starts taking off my top. I fight with his own. I feel the heat in my chest like a shot of tequila. I have him to the back of his two-seater couch—56 jersey behind me now. I open my eyes briefly and see a TV so huge I actually laugh.

  “What?”

  “TV.” We’re not sharing many words, because our lips are both occupied. “Movie fan?”

  “Football fan.”

  “Figured.”

  I allow myself a moment to appreciate his body. The sinewy feel of it, the hardness, his eight-pack. It makes me smile widely, and I feel the flush on my cheeks like an embarrassed schoolgirl.

  He doesn’t notice. His hands are all over my A-cup bra, trying to take it off.

  “Wait.” I smile coyly, push him back. “I wanna look at you.”

  “And I wanna put my lips all over you, all over your breasts, between your legs...”

  It takes me a moment to realize I haven’t just been hit by a train, because it feels like I have. And dunked in water. Warm water. Down below...

  “This is the first time...” I bite my lip, savoring his beauty slowly with my eyes. “...It’s the first time I’m not so ‘overwhelmed’ by...us. And I wanna enjoy it.”

  Not willing to wait anymore, he pulls me toward him.

  He’s hard and ready. My crotch presses against his. It takes all the will I have to not fall on him and have him take me.

  “You’ve been ‘overwhelmed’?”

  “A little. I’ve never been with a guy like I’ve been with you. And I’m not talking about sex only. Because I’ve done plenty stuff that was like sex. All the times we’ve made love”—I clear my throat—“it’s been a little like holding on while waves take over me. I’ve felt a little ‘taken for a ride’—and I don’t mean that in some sick sort of pun!”

  “No, I get you. It’s been that way for me a little as well. Not completely, but, I get you. It’s almost like the emotion of it was such an unbelievable rush that I got ripped along with its current.”

  I feel that current now. Whitewater-rafting strong. I put my hands to my breasts and fall on him, rest my forehead on his collarbone, let him hold me. “That’s exactly what it’s been like.”

  “For me too, babe. For me too.” His voice is soft. Warm, soapy water on my skin.

  “Well, I had plans of stepping back, perving over your masculine body a little; riding the wave instead of having it ride me. But I’m losing. I love you so much, Declan Cox.”

  “You sing to me, Blaze Kablowsky.”

  I laugh. “Kieliszewski!”

  “Doesn’t matter. You still sing to me.” He kisses me on my ear, then on the tatted stars on my neck. And what strikes me strongest is that his eyes are closed tighter than a virgin’s— Let’s not go there.

  He says, “You’re my music.”

  Which is when the music begins: Hard, drumming breaths and moist, slapping licks while the wave blasts over me and I take h
im over the top of the couch with me. I rip his pants off. Then my own.

  And I put him inside me.

  -3-

  By now, I think you know me pretty well. So you’ll know that I’ve never done it on a couch. It’s a little uncomfortable, let me tell you that. Where to put the leg, where to put the other leg, the foot. Then his ass falls slightly off the side...

  But these problems don’t last long. Because Deck is thrusting into me so forcefully and passionately that the momentary cramp I feel on my left leg (the one squished between his magnificent ass and the back of the couch) gives way to the plummeting sensation I feel in the bottom of my stomach as the orgasm teases me with every potent upward thrust of his into me.

  I’m bouncing. And it’s like I feel his cock all the way up into my eyes as he rams it into—

  He roars! And it’s the most glorious fucking sound I’ve heard on any goddamned album ever made by anyone in any country and in any studio. Anywhere.

  And with that roar comes a spasming thrum of his cock inside me as it collides and explodes and shoots—

  “Oh, baby....urgh...I’m also coming. Oh, god, oh, honey! Deck, baby...”

  The wave is a ferocious backhand to my head.

  I land on his chest.

  And I grip for dear life as we come together.

  -4-

  Have you heard that duet with Ashley Monroe and Hunter Hayes? What you Gonna Do. That’s what it’s called. Starts off with a single piano key, one-note-at-a-time tune. Then a funky, groovy acoustic guitar. And his voice. It’s like milk on honey. A single beat appears—bass drum.

  Then she comes in. Mellifluous silver... Still slow.

  And so it goes. His voice, hers. A few more beats. Then the electric guitar. But none of it’s heavy. None of it’s hard. There’s no build-up like in Hard House—you know, where all the instruments get cut except for a tick-tick-tick-tick tinny beat, and then a SLAM-BOOM-EXPLODE top-of-the-mountain bass beat after that.