Come to Me Quietly (Closer to You)

by Jackson, A. L.

  The shower squealed as it was shut off.

  Mom paused. She turned her attention inside, her eyebrows drawn tight as she looked down the hall of our apartment toward the bathroom.

  Someone using our shower in itself wasn’t really such a big deal. But it was like this awareness seeped over her and she suddenly sensed the unease that radiated out from Christopher and me.

  “Who’s here?” she asked, stepping into our apartment.

  “Mom – ”

  Jared opened the door and came out into the hall wearing only a pair of jeans, rubbing a towel over his wet head, oblivious of what he was stepping into.

  The second his eyes met with Mom’s, he stopped dead.

  Mom just stood there, as if lost, thrown back in time. Then a strangled sob tore from her throat and her hands flew up to cover her mouth. “Jared. Oh my God, Jared, is that you?”

  Tears leaked down her face. It took a few seconds to pass before she seemed to snap back. Then she shot across the room, throwing her arms around him, hugging him, while he remained limp under her touch. She pulled back, frantic, as she searched his face, her hands pressing into his cheeks as if she were making sure he was really there. “It’s you… oh my God… it’s you. I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.”

  And Mom was crying, holding on to him as if he might disappear.

  From across the room, I caught the expression on his face.

  And I was sure he would.

  NINETEEN

  Jared

  Cold slipped through my veins. Pictures of her face slammed me as if she were locked in time. One by one, they struck me, battered and beat my mind, like an everlasting penalty sent to taunt my spirit.

  Laughing.

  Smiling.

  She was always that way – smiling, laughing, loving.

  She’d been beautiful.

  Good.

  And I’d stamped out that light. A rose trampled underfoot.

  A shuddered breath burned as I drew it in, my lungs pressing against my ribs. Fire clashed with the cold, and pain pelted my insides as needles prickled along my skin. I was always ruining the good.

  Now Aly’s mother, Karen Moore, clung to me as if she’d just witnessed a resurrection of the dead. All I could do was stand there wishing for a way to disappear.

  I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to block all of it out.

  What it was about Karen Moore that was such a stark reminder of her, I didn’t know. Maybe it was because they had been such good friends. Maybe because she had been the other mother in my life when I was growing up. Maybe it was because she was in so many of the memories that haunted my nights, laughing and smiling, too.

  As if the girl owned me by some force of attraction, my eyes sought out Aly. She still stood near the door, worry creasing every line on her face. She was wearing that expression that said she got me, that she really fucking understood.

  The good.

  Maybe it was her. Maybe it was the way she’d managed to strip me bare and shred me thin.

  Fuck.

  Two warm hands pressed into my cheeks. I hated the way they felt, like welcome and forgiveness and all this bullshit that could never be, like maybe she understood, too, and it was about all I could do not to knock them away. I gritted my teeth, doing my best not to lose my shit. I was teetering right on the edge of that fucking cliff, and when I fell, I knew I’d be taking the people I cared about down with me.

  “Oh my God, Jared, where have you been? How long have you been here? Why didn’t you let me know?” Questions tumbled from Karen’s mouth just as quickly as tears streaked down her face. Her attention jumped around the apartment, hunting for clues, before she turned her gentle brown eyes back on me, eyes that reminded me of too many things.

  Guilt spun, stoking the agitation that was working its way free. Anxiety buzzed through my consciousness, clenching my jaw, fisting my hands. My head fucking pounded. That warning system was sounding off louder than it ever had, screaming at me to bolt. This time I was apparently in full agreement because all I wanted to do was grab my shit and go.

  Christopher scratched at the back of his head, the same way he always did when he was put on the spot. “Uh, yeah, Mom, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I ran into Jared a few nights ago and I invited him to hang out here while he’s passing through town.”

  Passing through.

  The lie bled so easily from him, quick to cover that I’d actually been staying with them for close to three months. He cautioned me with a glance that said it was okay to correct him, but he was giving me an out. I could take it either way. The guy always had my back while I continually fed him lies night after night.

  I almost spat the words. “Yep… just passing through.”

  Aly’s face crumpled, like I might as well have kicked her in the stomach when I didn’t dispute Christopher’s claim. Shame pressed down on me from all sides, sucking every fucking last drop of air from the room.

  “Oh?” Karen kind of frowned. “Well, I’m just glad you’re here.” Smoothing herself out, she took a step back, like maybe she’d just clued in on the fact that I was about to snap. She wiped under her eyes to rid herself of the evidence of her tears. A strained smile pushed to her trembling lips. “It’s been far too long. How long are you staying?”

  Helpless, I could do nothing but cast a furtive glance in Aly’s direction. Of course, I got stuck there. She filled up my line of sight like a buoy bobbing in the water, just out of reach, while I slowly drowned.

  I could barely speak through the fucking rock lodged in my throat. “Not long,” I said, and somehow I knew it was the truth, because I could feel it building. The destruction.

  I don’t get to have this.

  Because I owed my life.

  I sat in the empty lot behind the same deserted building I’d found myself in almost three months ago the night after I’d first confronted Aly in the kitchen. I was slumped back against the coarse stucco wall, my head lolling from side to side. Alcohol soaked my senses, dampened them into a suffocating heaviness, like maybe I was being buried alive. But it did nothing to lessen the images, the pictures that had spun through my mind on an unending reel since the second Karen Moore had stepped foot through the door.

  I rammed the heels of my hands to my eyes, desperate to blot it out. Colors flickered, visions streaming in this unbearably vivid light. I roared into the silence.

  Motherfucking trigger.

  Both of them.

  Clutching the back of my head in my hands, I buried my face between my knees as I gasped for breath. “Fuck” scraped from my raw throat.

  What had I expected, coming here? This was what I wanted, wasn’t it? To punish myself a little bit more? There was no other explanation for the fucking impossible draw I’d had to return to this place.

  Unbidden, Aly’s face lit up like a flare that struck behind my lids. My lids were mashed together tight, but the image hung on like it didn’t want to give way to the ones that destroyed me. The girl was like a second’s relief amid the insufferable penance I served.

  God, I wanted it to be her. It skirted along the brink of my reality, the idea that maybe there was more, because, damn it… maybe I really did want there to be.

  I let my head rock against the wall and lifted my face to the haze of the night sky.

  But that was just a fantasy – and not the fairy-tale kind.

  I didn’t get the happily ever after.

  Still I didn’t want to let the idea go. I needed to feel her. Just for a few more minutes I wanted to let her touch take the pain away.

  I stumbled to my feet and made my way back toward the apartment.

  It was late. The city slept, the dense silence only broken by the drone of semitrucks echoing from the freeway and the random car speeding down the road.

  The hour Karen and Augustyn stayed at the apartment had been complete hell. Aly had suggested we all stay in to catch up instead of going out, so I’d sat down at the ki
tchen table with them all. I’d done my best at forcing smiles and tossing out bullshit answers to all the inane questions Karen asked. Clearly, she’d been tiptoeing around the questions she really wanted to ask. The entire time, I sat there itching to run. If I’d stayed in the confines of those walls for one more second, no question, I would finally have hit the edge.

  It only made me feel worse that the entire time Aly had again offered me that comfort she so freely gave. Though this time, it wasn’t in her arms, but in the way her eyes constantly washed over me, and in the one gentle brush of her hand she’d hazarded under the table. Like maybe she was telling me it was okay and she understood the misery her mother brought with her when she walked through the door.

  But like the asshole I was, I left the second Karen and Augustyn finally said their good-byes.

  I knew Aly was dying to talk to me, but Christopher had been there, and there was little she could do, little she could say, although her plea radiated from every cell in her body.

  Stay.

  She should already have known I couldn’t.

  Now, with my shoulders hunched, I stuffed my hands in my pockets and strode toward the apartment that was just a block away. The humid night clung thick to my skin. Lights from the city glowed against the blackened sky, dragging the heavens too close to the surface of my fucked-up world.

  Before I’d ended up behind the vacant building, I’d spent the entire afternoon and most of the night at the Vine. Once again, I’d been foolish enough to think there was some way I could drown the past out. But it didn’t matter what I did. I could never outrun it. Could never hide from it. I could fight it all I wanted, but it’d never change who I was or what I’d done.

  Incredulous laughter rocked from my hoarse throat. All these nights I’d been lying to Christopher, telling him that I’d been unwinding at the Vine, when really I’d been locked away in Aly’s room, lost in her comfort and her touch and everything I wished was real. If I just had stayed at the bar that first night, none of this would have happened. If I just had told Christopher no.

  I never should have come. Not to this city. Not to their apartment.

  And most definitely, I should never have come to her.

  Now she was the only thing in this miserable life I wanted. The one thing I could never really have.

  No doubt, it was time to leave. For good. But I’d never claimed not to be a fool, and I just wanted to take a little bit more.

  Hoisting myself up, I scaled the towering apartment wall, swung my legs over, and jumped to the other side. I grunted when I landed too hard. Nearly the entire complex lay dormant, and I lifted my face to the muggy air and sucked in a rattled breath as I crossed the apartment parking lot.

  I could sense it, the disturbance filling the air, a dark energy that covered me, demanding that I bleed back into nothingness where I belonged.

  But I didn’t fucking want to.

  Upstairs, I let myself into the silent apartment. Christopher’s bedroom door sat wide open. No question, he was on the hunt, doing what the guy did best.

  Quieting my feet, I crept across the room. At her door, I paused and tried to make sense of what I really felt.

  When I first came here, anger was all I knew.

  Tonight, I just felt fucking sad.

  And I knew it was her.

  It was her.

  I turned the knob and stole inside her room.

  Night seeped between the slats at her window, shadows playing their secrets out across her walls. Aly lay sprawled out on top of her bed, her body twisted slightly to the side. She wore these little lace panties and a matching white camisole. The dark mass of her thick hair was bunched up high over her head, the long strands spilling down all around her.

  And her face…

  I rubbed at my chest.

  She was so beautiful it hurt to look at her. So fucking sexy and perfect and good. Like this light that shone into the blackness, lit up something in me that had been dead for so long.

  Locking the door behind me, I quietly crossed the room, careful not to wake her. I just watched over her as I slowly undressed down to my underwear.

  I needed to feel her.

  God.

  I needed to feel her.

  The bed dipped as I eased down beside her and took her in my arms. Relief broke over me in waves, like maybe for a few seconds I could come up for air.

  A contented sigh murmured from her lips, and her cheek found its way to my chest. “Jared,” she exhaled, the word trickling out in her own relief. Gentle fingers crawled across my rib cage before they affixed to my opposite side.

  I inhaled deeply, memorizing it all, the perfection I held in my arms. She consumed me in ways I never should have let her. The last month had been like a fucking dream I somehow had been given the chance to live.

  I crushed her to me and buried my nose in her hair.

  But it was just that.

  A dream.

  I don’t get to have this.

  Aly shifted to her elbow, and sincere green eyes opened to me. “I was worried about you.” Her voice was all scratchy as she searched my face in the dimness of her room. “I tried to call you.”

  I blinked hard, trying to shun it all, this pain I didn’t know how to deal with. “I hate that you worry about me.” I stared up at her, knowing it was both a lie and God’s honest truth.

  Aly snuggled back in the crook of my arm. It was impossible not to find comfort in her warmth. For a few seconds she held me close, soft fingers playing along my bare chest. She seemed to waver before she slowly climbed to her hands and knees, caging me. She just hovered there, looking down at me like maybe I meant too much, like when she looked at me she saw things she shouldn’t see.

  I mean, fuck, to her, I knew she did. I knew it. I knew she saw things that really weren’t there.

  Her eyes stayed fixed on mine as she gradually leaned down, her lips gentle as she pressed them to the rose at the center of my chest. “You miss her,” she whispered.

  I wheezed for the air her words knocked from my lungs. My heart squeezed so fucking tight, and I struggled to breathe under the pain crushing my chest. The memories I’d fought to block out all day came flooding through, unrepressed. Aly had destroyed all the barriers I fought so hard to keep in place, leveled them with the touch of her hand.

  A trigger I was powerless against.

  And I thought maybe I should be pissed off at her, saying something so ridiculously obvious. But I wasn’t. Because in her words was everything I kept concealed. It wasn’t pity or some fucking lame attempt at sympathy that I didn’t even begin to want.

  Aly understood.

  Locking her to me, I fisted my hands in her hair and drew her face close to mine because I needed to see her.

  I needed her. Every fucking second of every fucking day.

  Fear lifted in a flurry of nerves. My mouth was so dry, but the words that had festered for years sought release from my tongue. I couldn’t stop myself from talking, from telling Aly because I just needed someone to know. “I have no right to, Aly, but I do. I miss her so much. I would do anything… give anything… to take it back.”

  Sadness swept across her features, and I hated that I put it there. How many times had I warned her that she didn’t need my shit? That I had nothing to give and everything to take? I fucking took and took and took.

  And here I was again, ruining the good.

  When would I ever stop?

  Emotions rushed, guilt and anger and fear.

  Aly dipped down and kissed the rose again. I gritted my teeth, my hands like vises in her hair as she caressed over the imprint of my sin, covered it wholly with her nose and her mouth and her breath, showering me in everything I’d never deserve.

  She rose up, and unshed tears glistened in her eyes. “I’m here for you, Jared. You know that, don’t you? You can talk to me. You can tell me,” she murmured almost urgently. “Please talk to me.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut. Visions
flashed.

  Aly took me by the face, forcing me to look at her. “It’s okay… You can trust me.”

  I couldn’t look away from the eyes that watched me so earnestly, like she really believed it would be.

  Because it wasn’t fucking okay.

  That was the problem with Aly. With her, I was always pretending it was. Pretending that it was okay to feel this way, pretending it was okay to care about her so much. Pretending that maybe someday all of this really might be okay.