Hard to Resist

by Shanora Williams

  “What, so I can get Sara’s claws in my back while I sleep?” he quips. “Don’t think so. Come in, Nat. We won’t bite . . . but Sara might.”

  I groan but at the same time I’m debating. If this wasn’t so serious I would say fuck it and bounce. But it’s serious to me and I need to talk. It almost feels mandatory. “Fine.” Mark steps back and I step past him.

  As soon as I’m in, I spot a few bodies lying on the carpet. Red cups and glass bottles that I’m sure were once filled with alcohol are spread around the hardwood floorboards. Clips of marijuana blunts and joints are lying in ash trays of every table along with butts of cigarettes. It must have been one hell of a party last night.

  “Ignore the mess,” Mark says as he steps past me. “Follow me.” He turns to lead the way up the stairs and I follow him, but suddenly I’m not so sure about this plan anymore. Suddenly, I feel like I’m being led toward a dungeon full of dragons. I know for a fact that Sara is lying in the same bed as Bryson and at the thought of it I shudder because if he hadn’t fucked up, that would be me lying in his arms.

  Dragging my way behind Mark, he continues up another flight of steps and trails down the hall until he stops in front of the last bedroom on the left.

  “Oh, fuck yeah, Bryson!”

  My eyes widen immediately as I come to a screeching halt in the middle of the hall. Was that Sara? Is he seriously fucking her right now? Just thinking about them two together rips me in half.

  “Shit,” Mark hisses beneath his breath. I begin to turn around, planning on rushing down the stairs, slamming my car door behind me, and speeding home with tears blinding me but Mark stops me before I can reach the stairs.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” I growl. “Let me go.”

  “Bryson! Oh, God! Go faster!” Sara screams.

  Listening to her seriously makes me want to throw up while crying at the same time. I try to shove Mark out of my way but he barely stumbles. His hand remains tight around my arm as I scratch and claw for him to let go.

  “Mark, get off of me!” Tears sting my eyes but I force myself to keep my eyes focused on Mark’s large hand that is still clasped around me.

  “Nat, chill! I’m not letting you go out like that. You have to get over it. You have to get over him! It’s been two months!”

  I scowl at Mark’s hand. Although he’s right, it’s easier said than done. I want to forget about Bryson so damn bad. I want to toss all feelings aside and just stand up to him like a real woman should. I want to face my fears by talking with him privately, but I can’t. I hate the fact that another girl is touching him because not too long ago, he was mine. Not too long ago, we were together and we were happy . . . or so I thought.

  Mark pulls me in and holds onto my tightly. I’m still mad that he came onto me two days ago at the beach but I decide to fall against him because he is my only option of remaining sane at the moment. The tears spill as Mark coos and shushes me. “Nat, it’s alright. You want me to drag him out?”

  “No!” I yell almost immediately as I pull away. “No, Mark. You really think I want to talk to him after he’s just been fucking her? Hell no!”

  “Either way you would have been talking to him, Nat. He’s been fucking Sara since he’s gotten here. You knew that way before you came. Don’t be dramatic.”

  My eyebrows stitch as I bore holes through Mark. He shrugs but that’s when I realize that Sara has stopped her screaming and moaning. A door unlocks and my heart leaps to my throat quickly. I want to back away and clamber down the stairs but as I spot Bryson with his shirt off, revealing his healthy abs that come along with a sheen of sweat, somehow I can’t. His green eyes are wide as they meet mine and as he spots Mark, he rakes a hand through his spiky dark hair. He shuts the door behind him quickly before meeting up to us.

  “Nat, what are you doing here?” Bryson asks in a whisper. “Are you crying?” His eyes narrow.

  “No point in whispering,” Mark sighs as I swipe the tears from my eyes. “You and Sara have practically woken up the whole house.”

  Bryson gives Mark an edgy look but Mark just shrugs as he turns for the stairs. Right now I wish I was doing what he was doing. Leaving. Now it just feels hard to talk, to speak, to breathe. While I’m standing in front of Bryson, I still can’t believe that I went through with this. I honestly feel like I’m dreaming and need to be pinched extremely hard to know how stupid this decision was.

  As Mark trails down the stairs, I turn to meet Bryson’s confused gaze again. “I think I’ll just come some other time,” I mutter before turning. As I turn, Bryson catches my hand.

  “Natalie.” My eyes meet his again and now they’re pleading. “Don’t leave. Please. I didn’t know you were coming.”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  He swallows before pulling his hand away. “What’d you come for then?”

  I shake my head because by his tone, I know that he’s trying to get under my skin. He’s trying to get me to feel guilty for showing up. “I wanted to talk to you about us and how our relationship was before.”

  “You want to date again? Nat, I’ve wanted to talk to you about—”

  “No, Bryson.” I shake my head, cutting his sentence short. “That’s not what I came to talk about. I don’t want you back. And I never will.” Moments after the words have flown out, that’s when I realize how harsh they actually sounded.

  Bryson’s green eyes become glossy as he stares at me. Raking his fingers through his hair, he presses his lips heavily. “So what did you want to talk about then?”

  I pause as I look from him to the door of the room that he stepped out of just seconds ago. “I don’t want to talk here. I’ll give you three minutes to get ready and to meet me in my car.” I spin around and clutch my keys before taking a step down. I glance over my shoulder only to spot Bryson still staring in my direction with his mouth slightly ajar. “Hurry,” I demand before completely disappearing out of his sight.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  The clinking sound of dishes rattles in my ears along with the whooshing sound of my blood. Gripping my strawberries and cream Frappuccino, my eyes meet Bryson’s slowly. Of course he is already staring at me but his face is unreadable. I can’t tell what he’s thinking because every feature on his face is lacking with emotion.

  “So should I start talking or what?” he asks.

  “No,” I shake my head. “Just finding the right words to say.”

  “I’m sure you already have what you want to say at the tip of your tongue, Nat. You never were the one to hold off on telling it like it is.”

  My lips press around my straw as I gulp slowly. Ice trickles down my throat before fading into smooth heat. “Okay,” I say while placing my cup down on the two-top table. “Why did you do it?”

  He raises an eyebrow.

  “Better yet,” I say to correct myself. “What was wrong with me?”

  “Nothing was wrong with you,” he says quickly. “I promise, Nat, I didn’t know what to do. You know how it is for me. People look up to me. I was the star quarterback of West Ashley. Every school was riding my dick just to get me to sign to them.”

  “That has nothing to do with why you cheated, Bryson,” I mutter through partially clenched teeth.

  “Nat—” He breaks off as his green eyes drift from mine. He stares around the coffee shop before turning to look out of the window as a few pedestrians pass by. “Okay. You wanna know the truth?”

  I fold my arms. “Please.”

  “There was nothing wrong with you, Natalie. It was all me. I know it sounds cliché, but it was me. And that’s the truth. I love you but things were flipping upside down. My mom was barely there for me to talk to and all of those house parties got to me. I cheated on you with Sara on the night of that first house party that we threw. I was heading upstairs to find you but I couldn’t. When I checked my mom’s room, Sara was laying on her bed half naked. She was completely fucked up. I tried to get her out of the room because
it was off limits but she threw herself at me—damn it, I’m a guy, Natalie. If a girl just so happens to pull our pants down and suck our dicks, we’re not gonna stop it.”

  His green eyes flicker as I cringe. I tear my gaze away from his almost immediately to stare at my Frappuccino. That night, I noticed that he was acting off. I asked him what was wrong and if he wanted to end the party early but he said no. He told me to chill with Grace while he acted as the host. But I should have been worrying. Now I feel like it’s my fault because he couldn’t find me. Instead he found Sara and fucked her. That was our Junior year.

  “I just don’t understand, Bryson. You swore that you loved me but you fucked her constantly behind my back?”

  “Natalie, I’m sorry. I promise that I tried to stop.” He reaches across the table for my hand and surprisingly I don’t pull away. “Nat, what I did was wrong. And I know that you’re thinking that since I’m with her, I didn’t care for you much but I fucking loved you. I loved you from the bottom of my heart. As an athlete, it’s hard to focus on one girl. It’s hard to be faithful when women just throw themselves at you. Do you think it’s easy to walk around town and have every woman know my name? You were more than enough for me, but I was a fucking idiot. Every day, I think about you. And every day I know that I fucked up. I miss you, Nat. I want you back so damn bad.”

  My eyes widen and sting with tears but I force myself to bite my lip and look down at my lap to prevent them from falling. Pulling my hand away slowly, I twist my head to my right to get a look outside. A few bodies pass by but it’s honestly a blur. Right now, I’m not thinking. Right now, I don’t know how to feel. I loved Bryson, but I know for a fact that we will never happen again. I know for a fact that he’s going to continue what he’s doing. He’s not going to change.

  I sigh as I look at him again. “I forgive you,” I say. His face lifts as he reaches a hand towards me again but I pull away while holding it in front of me, signaling for him to stop right where he is. “I forgive you, but we’re not getting back together, Bryson. I will always have love for you, but you tore me apart. You pretty much killed me inside. You made me feel lower than shit.”

  “Nat, I’m sorry,” he pleads.

  “Don’t apologize.”

  His mouth seals as his hand recoils.

  “You know, I wanted to always remember the good in you. I always wanted you to be the highlight of my days—and you were—but now that we’re apart, I realize how fucking stupid I was. I realize that you didn’t love me like how you do now. The only reason that you love me so much now is because you can no longer get me back. I seriously didn’t know what to do with myself. At times, I would just beg to sleep forever. But now that I’m without you, I know for a fact that what we had wasn’t love, Bryson. You manipulated me millions of times and I didn’t even realize it.”

  “What?” His face twists. “Manipulated you? I did nothing wrong.”

  “Yes you did!” My voice raises a notch and a few people whip their heads in our direction. My mouth clamps before I meet eyes with Bryson again. “Yes you did,” I whisper in a hiss. “I was practically your bitch. You’d say you love me and then fuck me. You’d look me in the eye and say it. That’s why I thought it was real.”

  Bryson sighs as he folds his arms and looks away. “That’s a fucking lie,” he growls.

  “Is it?” I snap. “Why are you getting upset about it then? If I’m lying, why are you getting so defensive?”

  “Because you’re fucking lying!” he roars. This time the entire coffee shop looks at us, even the employees. “I never did shit to you, Natalie! I fucking loved you! I fucked up one time and you’re gonna shove that into my face?”

  Bryson’s chair pushes from the table as it scrapes against the floor. “I seriously don’t even know why the fuck I came here with you. I knew you were just going to blame me for everything. You know I fucking loved you so don’t feed me that bullshit.” He storms around me and before I know it, the bell above the door rings, letting me know that he is out of the coffee shop.

  My mouth gapes into a half-circle as I stare down at my drink. I can’t believe he’s trying to flip this on me. But now that I realize it, he’s always done this. Whenever I would confront him, he would always run from the fight or make me feel like it was my fault. All of this time, I’ve been blinded. But from what? His dick? Was I really that lost in lust that I couldn’t see what was happening clearly? It was right in my face the entire time but I didn’t even realize it.

  Spotting Bryson make a turn around the corner of a building, my heart clutches and my palms become clammy. It honestly kills me to know that what we had wasn’t real. Now I just feel stupid. The only reason that he’s so upset is because he knows that it’s the truth. He knows what he did to me for four years was wrong.

  But instead of sitting around, I push away from the table and storm out of the coffee shop. I rush around the corner of the building that Bryson turned on until I spot him marching down the alley to make his way toward the beach.

  “Bryson! We aren’t done talking!”

  He spins around quickly with his fists clenched. “What the fuck do you want from me, Natalie?”

  “For you to tell me the truth!” I rush toward him until I am only a few inches away. His emerald eyes are blazing with intensity. His jaw ticks rapidly as he glowers down at me. “I want to know if you were really in love with me. At least if you tell me I know that I won’t have to linger on it.”

  Raking his hand through his dark hair, he huffs while taking a step back. I allow my eyes to plead for me because I really do want an answer. I need to know if what we had was just a benefit of counterfeit. “There was a point in our relationship where I was in love with you, Natalie. But as we got older and I started to get noticed, it faded.” My stomach clenches because hearing it is worse than actually thinking about it.

  “Freshman, sophomore, and the beginning of junior year, I knew I was in love. But during the middle of junior year through senior year, shit started to get tough between me, my family, football, and even faithfulness. I just couldn’t be faithful to you anymore. It’s not that you were a terrible girl—you were amazing and still are—I just knew that I didn’t deserve you. I knew that I wasn’t the one for you. I could never figure out the right things to say to you so I tried to stay distant. I tried to just go with the motions. I wanted something to happen so you could leave me. I couldn’t hold it in anymore. I didn’t want a relationship with anyone. But now I regret it. Nat, I’ve lost my scholarship.”

  I blink rapidly before my eyebrows stitch. “What? How?”

  “Sara and I went binge drinking while driving. We got arrested but my mom bailed us out. Good thing she’s a lawyer, huh?” He sighs as his eyes travel up to look over my shoulder. “I fucked up, Natalie. And I’m sorry. I miss you like hell, but even now I know that you don’t need me. I’m sorry for wasting your time. I’m sorry for being a complete asshole to you. I loved you, but not in the way that you loved me. I was in love but it faded. Afterwards, I only had love for you.”

  As he lets the words flow, my heart skips a beat. I choke on a gasp and my next breath as he reaches for my hand. “I’m sorry, Natalie. I never meant to hurt you.”

  Continuing my stare at him, that’s when I realize that my sight has grown blurry. Everything is fuzzy and for a moment, I feel completely and utterly useless. Tears trickle and crawl along my cheeks as I finally find the will to take a step back and heave in a deep breath.

  “I understand, Bryson,” I murmur.

  He nods as he watches me swipe at my eyes. “None of it was intentional. Life and reality just got in my way. I know you’ll never see me the same, but I’m sorry. I screwed everything up. Losing you will be the main thing that I regret in life.” Bryson then does the unexpected. Pulling me in by my waist, he wraps his arms around me. He squeezes me against his chest and, just like that, I am bawling again. I’ve missed his hugs. I’ve missed his touch. I’ve missed eve
rything about him. But I can’t continue to hold on. At least I got the answers that I’d been thinking about constantly. At least now I won’t have to lie to myself about what his problem may have been.

  I always thought I was the problem but I was completely wrong. He was his own problem. Every day I wanted to kick him in his balls, knee him in the gut, and smack his face. Every day I wished bad upon him because I’d always felt like I was worthless to him. I’d felt like nothing since he’d cheated on me with a bitch that had nothing on me.

  “I promise I will always love you, Nat. Letting go will be hard for the both of us but I want you to forget about me and start over with someone worth you and your time. I’m not worth the heartache.”

  I nod against his chest and thoughts of Nolan immediately come to mind. My eyelids fly open as I pull away from him, swipe the tears from my eyes, and clutch my keys. “I have to go,” I mumble. “There’s something that I have to do.”

  “Sure. I’ll call Mark and tell him to pick me up,” he says as I begin to take gradual steps back. I nod then dash off to get back to the parking lot.

  ****

  Slamming my car door behind me, I rush for the wooden stairs. I clamber up until I am in front of apartment C. I knock heavily, allowing my fists to pound out of adrenaline. Right now, I’m not thinking. Right now, I’m just doing what feels . . . natural.

  The door unlocks and as soon as it swings open, I step in. Nolan’s eyes broaden as I shut the door and hook my arms around his neck. I crush my lips against his and pour all that I have into him. At the moment, I just want him.

  Now that I think about it, not once has Nolan fucked up. Not once has he made me feel like I couldn’t be myself. He wants to be loved, just as I do. I was just so afraid, so terrified, and so worried that he would be worse than Bryson. But with love, there comes a price. Either it’s worth it, or it’s not. I just hope that Nolan is worth way more than all that I’ve been through.

  Nolan finally pulls his lips away but his hands cup around my jawline tightly as he strokes the pad of my cheek with his thumb. “Natalie, what’s wrong? Why are you crying?”