Come to Me Quietly (Closer to You)

by Jackson, A. L.

  She’d stopped long enough to pull on a pair of pajama pants. Now she ran barefoot down the stairs, that perfect face splotchy and red. Anguished.

  Shit.

  How was I supposed to deal with this? With her? With what I’d done?

  Slowly, I turned, my arms held out at my sides in resignation as Aly closed the space between us. I continued to walk backward, because there was nothing else I could do.

  She’d been the only one who managed to move me, a touch of joy in the unbearable dark.

  Hot air gusted through the parking lot, and I was pretty sure it was fucking impossible to breathe. I never should have come here. Never should have touched her. Never should have taken what could never be mine.

  “Jared.” Aly was panting when she threw herself in my arms. Lifting her off the ground, I held her close, took comfort in her warmth one more time. I buried my nose in her hair, in the coconut and the sweet and the good and the girl who had for a few moments injected something more than pain into my shattered world.

  Her voice came soft at my ear. “Stay.”

  Pain knocked at my ribs, pressed and pulsed while I held her near. Slowly, I lowered her to the ground. My hands shook as I brought them up to hold her face. My thumbs ran just under her eyes, brushing away her tears. She was staring up at me, her green eyes swimming with light, with affection, with the admission that had struck me like a stone that had been cast from her mouth.

  I kissed her softly, savored the last taste of her as I breathed her in. Aly held me at the wrists, kissing me back, a soft groan from her mouth whispering so many things. She inundated all my senses, her comfort only amplifying the pain.

  I drew back and swallowed around the ache. My hold tightened to emphasize my words, my voice strained with the promise of them. “I’m going to walk away and I’m going to forget about you, Aly. And you’re going to do the same.” I squeezed her, my hands pressed into her cheeks soaked with tears. “You’re going to forget about me and find happiness. You’re going to find someone who can love you exactly the way you deserve to be loved.” I lowered myself so I could directly meet her face. “Do you hear me?”

  Aly frantically shook her head. “No.”

  I blinked hard as I stepped back. “You will, Aly. I promise… it’ll be okay.”

  “No, Jared, no.”

  I backed away.

  Aly clutched her stomach, bent over at the middle.

  I turned around, my hands shoved in my pockets as I headed for my bike.

  And I could fucking hear her crying, begging me to stay. “Jared, no. Please don’t do this. Don’t leave me. I love you.”

  I hopped on my bike and kicked it over. The engine rumbled loud, covering up her cries, blocking her out. I let my bike roll back from the parking spot, and I turned it around. From across the lot, I met the broken face of the girl who was screaming my name, imploring me through her tears. Christopher was holding her from behind, refusing to let her go.

  She kicked her legs, struggling to break free. I could see her screaming it again and again.

  Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me.

  I revved the engine to drown her out.

  I’d thought it was impossible to hate myself more than I already did. But I realized now, I hadn’t even begun.

  Nailed to the spot, I got lost in the torment that I’d inflicted on this girl, wishing for some kind of miracle that could erase it. That I could take it back.

  Mocking laughter burned on my tongue. I was always wishing I could take it back.

  In hesitation, my feet rocked on the ground, my hand gripping the throttle.

  Christopher met my gaze, looking at me like he knew exactly what I was thinking, like he was offering some kind of fucked-up trade. He would take care of her if I would just go.

  Aly continued to fight and beg and cry. One last time, I let my eyes lock on her. The engine garbled then roared when I teased at the throttle. Aly screamed as she wept, “Jared… no!”

  And I was going to remember her just like that, fucking broken, the spoil of my ruin.

  Because this was what I did.

  I ruined everything I touched.

  TWENTY

  Aleena

  “Jared, no!”

  As if I were detached, the words echoed in my ears. As if they weren’t mine. As if this voice couldn’t possibly belong to me.

  Because this voice hurt too much.

  I watched his taillight disappear as he rounded the corner, the thunder of his bike bleeding into the night.

  Devastation crushed me. Every hope I had splintered, fragmenting as they were torn away.

  “Jared, no.”

  This time it was a whimper, an utterance of the heart Jared had taken with him when he turned his back on me.

  Once I’d promised that I’d take him any way I could have him. That I would take any piece he offered. Willingly, I’d submitted to the risk. Somewhere inside me, I’d always known I would lose him.

  I just wasn’t prepared for what that would really feel like.

  “Jared… ,” I whispered again.

  Steadfast, Christopher held me from behind.

  I gave up my fight and buckled, clutching my stomach as I tried to hold myself up.

  But Christopher already was.

  His mouth was urgent against the back of my head as he supported all of my weight. “Shh… Aly… come on, please stop crying,” he begged.

  But I could do nothing but weep for the man who had just wrecked something so true, for the man who held so much hatred for himself he couldn’t see what we really had.

  “Come here.” Christopher slowly twisted me around in his arms and pulled me against the safety of his chest. My arms were pinned between us, my hands clutching his shirt. “It’s okay,” he promised.

  I cried a little harder.

  Christopher went rigid, one arm holding me tight around the back as he pointed somewhere behind me. “Why don’t you all go back inside and mind your own damned business? There isn’t anything out here for you to see.”

  Christopher mumbled close to me ear, “Come on, Aly, we need to get you upstairs. I think we woke up the entire complex, and neither of us needs to deal with this shit right now.”

  I was barely able to force a nod.

  Christopher wrapped his arm around my waist and led me toward the staircase. I held on to the railing, listing to the side, trying to stand under the pain forcing me down. My feet dragged as I staggered up the stairs.

  Christopher held me a little closer. “It’s okay, Aly… Come on, you can make it.”

  Inside, the apartment was too quiet, echoing with what I’d lost.

  Every part of me hurt, an ache so deep I felt it in places I didn’t know existed.

  He was gone.

  Nausea turned my stomach. “I think I’m going to be sick.” I ran to the bathroom and fell to my knees, purging the riot tearing through my insides.

  Ravaging.

  Pillaging.

  Ruining.

  He’d promised me he would.

  I dropped my head, crying toward the floor, the hard floor digging into my knees.

  I knew he would.

  Christopher followed me in and latched the door behind him. He dug through the bottom cabinet for a washcloth and turned on the faucet, getting it damp.

  Then he kneeled down at my side. “Here.” He wiped my mouth and the sweat drenching my forehead. His face was a mess of sympathy and anger and the remnants of Jared’s violence. Blood had dried in smeared streaks where he’d wiped it. One side of his mouth had already begun to swell, and a bruise was forming on the outside of his right eye.

  He got up and rinsed it and then handed the cool cloth back to me.

  “Thank you,” I mumbled quietly. On my side, I slumped all the way to the hard floor.

  Christopher sank down across the cramped room, slouching up against the closed door with his legs lying limp out in front of him, staring at me, his body just as beaten as
my heart.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered, clutching the cloth to my mouth, searching for comfort where none could be found.

  He dropped his gaze and shook his head, then raised it again, his gaze pinning me with a portion of the anger that had spurred his intrusion into my room fifteen minutes before. “How long was it going on, Aly?”

  I swam in my shame. Not of the fact of Jared and me, but for keeping it from my brother. Yeah, I was twenty, and Christopher had no right to tell me I couldn’t. But the way we’d gone about it was wrong. “A month… ”

  The answer couldn’t even penetrate the thick air because I think both Christopher and I knew it wasn’t true.

  “Longer, I guess,” I finally said, my fingers wringing the washcloth as if it would give me courage to speak. “He started coming to my room a couple of weeks after he got here… but at first we would just talk.” This slow sadness seeped through my veins. “Over time I think we both became something neither of us could live without.”

  And I had no idea how I would live without him now.

  Christopher drew up his knees, propped his forearms on them. “Why didn’t you just tell me? You don’t think I would have understood?”

  I frowned. “Would you have? Because it didn’t seem that way tonight.”

  Groaning, he released a heavy breath toward the ceiling. “I don’t know, Aly… Maybe I wouldn’t have. Maybe I would have flipped out like I did tonight.” He looked straight at me. “Either way, keeping it from me was wrong. I heard the two of you fighting when I was walking down the hall… and shit… I knew something was going on between the two of you. I mean, I fucking point-blank asked him, Aly, and he swore that you were just friends, said he only cared about you and was looking out for you. And here I invite the asshole into our apartment, and he’s the one taking advantage of you.”

  “He wasn’t taking advantage of me, Christopher.” My voice strengthened as I denied Christopher’s assertion. “I love him.”

  I loved him so much.

  And he was gone.

  A sharp pain stabbed me in my gut, deep, deeper than any place I’d ever felt before. I shuddered and wheezed.

  “Yeah, well, you made that abundantly clear tonight.” Sarcasm wound its way through the words, before he blinked, and his expression filled with sympathy. “You always have, haven’t you?” It wasn’t a question, just a realization that finally latched on to his consciousness. As if disillusioned, Christopher rubbed his battered face, a choked sound forced from his throat. “Shit… I’m such an idiot.”

  Remorse seemed to hit him, and he wrenched both hands through his hair and spoke toward the floor. “God, Aly, I can’t believe I hurt you like that. I really am sorry. I had no right to react like I did. I just… lost it.”

  “None of us were thinking straight,” I whispered.

  There was no justification for anything that had happened tonight, but I knew he’d never purposely harm me, and it hurt too much to be angry with my brother. I’d already been stripped bare, every place in me left raw. I couldn’t deal with Christopher now. I was too consumed by this unbearable void suddenly prominent in the middle of me.

  He sighed and focused on me. “I know you care about him, and I care about him, too, but he’s messed up, Aly. Dangerous. It’s best that he’s gone.” He shook his head. “I heard what you said… what he said, and you deserve better than that.”

  My body shook, recoiled at the words.

  I’d known I shouldn’t say it, that the love I held for Jared should only be shown and never spoken. But listening to him talk about his mom was one of the hardest things I’d ever done, hearing the hatred that had poured from his mouth, feeling the blame he harbored so close. Worse was knowing how the guilt had destroyed him ever since that day. I wanted to take it away, show him he was worthy of being loved – that I loved him and I always would. I didn’t even know how to regret saying it. Even with him gone, I still needed him to know. To take that piece of me with him that I could never give to anyone else, because I would always belong to him.

  “He’s really gone, isn’t he?” I whispered.

  Grief gripped me by the heart.

  “Yeah, Aly, he’s really gone.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  February 3, 2006

  Aly crossed her arms over her chest and lifted her face to the cool winter sky. Evening approached. Pinks were strewn across the deepening blue, twilight casting a striking chill in the air. Aly tugged her sweatshirt a little tighter to keep herself warm. After school, she’d gone to Rebecca’s house to hang out, one of her best friends who lived in the next neighborhood over. But she was supposed be home before it got dark.

  Her backpack bounced on her shoulders as she hurried. Turning right on the street where her family lived, Aly jogged across the street and up the sidewalk to the front door. She opened it, rushing in, the announcement of her arrival poised on her tongue.

  Then she stumbled to a stop.

  Her hand shot to the wall for support, and a chill so much different than the one she’d felt outside trickled down her spine like a rush of frigid ice. She shook and crept forward, canting her ear to the sounds coming from her mother in the living room.

  She was crying.

  No.

  Not just crying.

  Aly had only heard her mother sound like this once before – the day Aly’s grandma died.

  She was weeping.

  The cries slithered along the floor, crawled up the walls, pierced Aly’s ears. Fear and panic struck her heart. It pounded hard. She felt along the wall, her back pressed to it and her eyes pinched shut as if it would protect her from whatever had done this to her mother. She stopped at the archway to the living room, holding her breath as she risked peeking inside the room.

  Her mom was on the floor, on her knees. Her dad kneeled over her, rubbing her back, trying to calm her. But her mother sobbed toward the floor, completely inconsolable.

  “Shh, Karen… I’m right here… I’m right here.”

  “Dave… ” She said his name as if maybe he could take away whatever was hurting her.

  In some sort of daze, Aly wandered out into the middle of the room and stood there gaping at her mom falling apart. The ball of dread sitting like a rock in her stomach promised her something was very, very wrong.

  Her dad caught sight of her. “Aly, sweetheart,” he said, his voice instantly on edge, protective, as if he wanted to shield his daughter from whatever was happening, but was unwilling to leave his wife’s side.

  With a short gasp, her mom jerked her head up. “Aly, baby.” She struggled to climb to her feet, though her shoulders stayed slumped and her back bowed.

  For two seconds they just stared at each other, and then Karen rushed toward Aly and took her in her arms, lapsing back into tears that she expelled in the crook of Aly’s neck. “Oh my God, my baby… my baby… ”

  “Mom, what’s wrong?” Aly begged. Right then, she just needed her mom to tell her that everything was going to be okay, the way she always had done when Aly had been a little girl. In just the assurance of her words, she made everything better.

  Karen edged back and took her face in her hands. Her head tilted to the side, her brown eyes so sad.

  Aly knew this time whatever her mother was getting ready to say wouldn’t be bringing her any comfort. She shuffled her feet, and that rock in her stomach took it all the way to the floor.

  “Baby… there was an accident… Helene… ” She trailed off, seemingly unable to complete the thought, her expression steeped in sorrow.

  Aly shook her head, trying to make sense of the stream of turmoil coming from her mother’s mouth.

  Karen’s lips quivered. “Helene… she’s gone. Baby, she’s gone.”

  “What?” Confusion flooded through Aly’s consciousness. She was unwilling to believe the meaning of her mother’s words. “What do you mean?”

  Her mom winced and grimly drew together her lips.

  Aly shook her h
ead.

  No.

  Helene was dead?

  “Jared was driving them back from getting his license… they said he pulled out in front of a truck.”

  And Aly could feel her mom’s heartbreak, could feel it quivering in her touch. But in that moment, Aly was numb with disbelief. It seemed impossible.