by Marie James
The blood drains from my face before a burning rage licks over my nerve-endings. I told her my story last year, admitted things to her in confidence, never once anticipating she’d turn it against me.
“How dare you!” I seethe, taking a step closer. My hands clench into fists to keep from slapping her across the face. The unfamiliar rage I haven’t felt since the night of that party fills my body soul-deep. That night, my world was ripped apart because of one man’s manipulation and the wrong choice on my part. Tonight, the woman I considered my best friend is doing it all over again with her insufferable jealousy.
“Truth hurts, doesn’t it?” she taunts, unwavering in her accusation.
“This is nothing like that night.” I step closer again, but she still doesn’t back down.
“It is. You chose another guy over your best friend.”
“Best friend?” I huff. “Acting this way over a missed food delivery when I just explained that Blaze’s mother passed away isn’t how a true best friend would act.”
True to form, her spine stiffens rather than seeing how upset I am and how ridiculous her reaction is. It’s the same way her passive aggressive, snide comments about the women he’s been with and how he’s going to get bored with me turned venomous the last couple days when I didn’t hear from him.
“I told you he’d just fuck you and leave you. Your stupid ass didn’t listen and look at you now.”
The last part was grumbled under her breath, so I just pretended I didn’t hear it and let myself believe he’d done exactly that, minus the actual sex part.
I ignored them then, but there’s no chance I can ignore her any longer.
“I chose him over Chinese food, Charity. His mother fucking died! Am I telling you what he’s going through is more important than your food? Fuck yeah, I am!”
Her face doesn’t even change, though I’m not sure why I expected her to backpedal and apologize for acting like such a bitch in the face of such news. For the first time, I see her—all of her. This one act of selfishness opens my eyes to every petty thing she’s ever done that I looked past. How in the world could I have ever been friends with someone like her?
I make to walk past her, but stop when we’re shoulder to shoulder. Leaning in closer, I speak right into her ear so she doesn’t have the opportunity to confuse my position. “Don’t ever fucking bring up Monique again. You’re not human enough for her name to be in your mouth.”
I brush my shoulder against hers, the light nudge only a fraction of the violence strumming through my veins.
Chapter 12
Blaze
Lucidity comes in slow waves like the smooth cresting and retreat of the ocean on a calm day. When a body shifts beside me and a small hand kneads the fabric of my shirt, my mind goes wild. My memory, hazy after the bottle of bourbon, isn’t one hundred percent, and my mind races to the horrible things I could’ve done last night—the transgressions I could’ve committed that would ensure Fallyn would never speak to me again.
Her beautiful face is all I can recall.
Opening my eyes to face the shit storm I’ve created, I breathe a sigh of relief when I find my beautiful girl against my chest and not some random chick. Words come crashing back—words I spoke out of turn. I said things to her I would normally never say sober, but in the soft glow of the morning light, I realize just how much I meant them—still mean them.
“Any regrets?” she mumbles against my chest when I shift my body, an attempt to ease the pain in my back from lying in the same position for so long.
I wonder if she’s referring to my confession, but it’s not something I can address right now when my mouth tastes like an unwashed jock strap. You can’t admit your love to a woman for the first time and not expect to kiss her perfect lips and sink inside her amazing body.
“The second half of that bottle was probably poor judgement,” I tell her as she pulls back so I can sit up.
She chuckles. “I’d say so.”
The slam of the front door echoes through the apartment and I clutch my head as it bangs around in there as well.
“The fuck is her problem?” I rasp, clenching my eyes closed.
“I’ll tell you, if you really want to know.” The softness of her tone has me looking over at her. I find her sitting cross-legged, twisting her hands in her lap. “I mean, you should know, I guess. Especially after everything you told me last night.”
Fuck, she’s going to say something about love and our future, and I have a feeling it’s not going to go in the direction I want it to. Dread sinks into my already twisting gut. Her rejecting me is not something I can handle. In just a handful of hours, I’ll bury my mother. Losing Fallyn would send me over the deep end. I know my limitations, and she’s the only thing keeping the last delicate thread from snapping.
“She’s mad at me because I was in here with you when her Chinese food was delivered last night,” she says.
I huff an incredulous laugh. “That’s a lot of anger over some missed broccoli and rice. Women are so fucking strange.”
“That’s not all,” she says with a quick shake of her head. “She was angry and said some things she had no business saying.”
“You guys will move past it,” I say, figuring it’s what she needs to hear. I hate that her friend is skeezy, but I don’t want her hurting.
“She brought up something from my past…a bad decision I made in high school. One that had dire consequences.”
I watch her throat work with a rough swallow, instinct telling me this isn’t going to be a story about two girls fighting over some teenage boy. I don’t know whether it’s her slouched posture or the memory making her eyes heavy, but I know this girl has suffered some serious pain. Realizing she could be as damaged as me makes me sick to my stomach, but the twisted part inside me glows knowing she hasn’t led a charmed life. The girl who’s been my light the last month has darkness inside her too. That knowledge makes me love her even more.
I reach for her hand and she offers it freely, trembles and all.
“Chase was a guy I met at a party.” She gives me a weak smirk and I frown. “He was popular, gorgeous…I thought he only had eyes for me, and I guess he did, for a few weeks. Any idea he had was a great one in my mind. He lavished me with attention, forced me to test the boundaries I’d set for myself, to obliterate the rules and restrictions my parents had placed on me.”
“He was a bad boy,” I add.
“In more ways than one,” she says when I expect her to laugh at me.
Her fingers play with mine, eyes on our joined hands.
“He convinced me to leave a party with him. My best friend, Monique, and I were there. We had one rule: arrive together, leave together. He told me she was having a good time, and I’d seen her finally talking to a guy who had caught her eye at a party a few weeks before, so I believed him. I also knew she’d been slamming back drinks to gain the confidence she needed to approach him, but that wasn’t unusual. We partied hard all the time.”
Her chin trembles and I want to tilt it up and stop her words, if only to halt the torment of her story, but she needs this, and I’m going to let her get the entire thing out in the open.
“Chase lured me away from the party so his friends could swoop in on her. He knew I’d never let bad things happen to her if I was there,” she continues. “While I was losing my virginity to a guy I thought I loved, Monique was losing hers in a brutal gang rape in the basement of the party house.”
“Fuck,” rushes out of my mouth as her fingers clamp down on mine.
Tears rush past her closed eyelids as her hands begin to tremble harder. I turn so she’s resting her back to my front and hold her as pain and regret forces violent shudders from her body. The near silent crying is more heartbreaking than if she wailed. The self-crimination stifles the air around us.
“You couldn’t have known, Fallyn. What happened wasn’t your fault,” I whisper, praying she’ll believe me while knowing she won
’t if she hasn’t accepted it this long after.
“Everything that happened that night was a direct result of my choices. I introduced her to those guys. I was the one who brought the lamb into the lion’s den.” Her words sound like an echo of ones she’d heard many times over and I want to strangle whoever made her feel this way.
I hold her tighter, knowing she’s not going to listen to anything I say. There’s no amount of assurance I can give to make the regret and pain of that night dissipate even a fraction, and I know the shame all too well. I know what it’s like to internalize situations well beyond anyone’s control. I carry the burden of a thousand sins on my back.
She continues. “Charity brought that up last night. Threw the fact that I’d chosen you over her in my face. She had the nerve to compare what happened to Monique to me missing the fucking delivery guy.”
Her muscles tense, and I cling to that. Anger is better than self-loathing and shame.
“No offense, but your friend is a total cunt,” I say, the grinding of my teeth almost audible.
She chuckles and nods in agreement. “Believe me, I know that now. I didn’t see just how vile she could be until last night.”
“She came onto me the night of the celebration party—the night I showed up here.” I grin, remembering the sting of the slap against my cheek when I barged in and kissed her without asking. “She knew I was looking for you, and it didn’t deter her.”
She looks over her shoulder, mild disbelief in her eyes. “Seriously?”
I nod and lay the rest of it out like I should’ve done weeks ago. “She came onto me again that night I came over and we went to the theater. Offered herself as a replacement because you were in the shower.”
Her jaw clenches. “I knew something was off with her that night. Things have been weird since we started seeing each other. I think she feels like she’d be a better match for you. She’s always wanted to land a man who’s going places after college.”
I sweep her hair off her forehead, and her misplaced chuckle forces my brow to furrow in confusion.
“Charity,” she mutters. “Seems her name is a lot like yours. Her parents named her that because they were grateful to get pregnant after years and years of trying. She was a gift, they thought. She admitted that one night after we shared a bottle of wine. Even then, I thought it was more likely they knew she’d grow up to give herself to just about anybody who flashed her a smile. I felt like shit for even thinking that, being the age of no slut-shaming and all. I hate that she wants you.”
“She doesn’t stand a chance.” I turn her face so she can’t second-guess the truth in my words. “Girls come onto me all the time. I can’t stop it, being so sexy and all.”
She smirks and I grin before sobering again.
“Their eyes follow me wherever I go, they tell me how much they want me, but you’re the only one I see. I only have eyes for you, Fallyn. I need you to know that. I need you to believe you’re the only one I want—the only one I need in my life.”
Her smile softens, the mirth at my chauvinistic words turning into something akin to the love I feel for her. “I’m the same with you, and from where I’m sitting, it’s a pretty awesome sight.”
I kiss her forehead, hating how I have to ruin this moment with my own needs.
“I want you with me today.” My eyes plead with her, hoping she understands the importance of me asking.
“I’ll spend every day of my life with you,” she replies, something akin to love marking her beautiful face.
“I want you to go with me to my mother’s funeral.”
“Of course,” she agrees, nodding as if she’d have it no other way.
“I need you not to leave me when you meet my family. No matter what they say or how they act when we bury her, I need you to know they are not me. I have fought so hard to be better than where I came from, but I have to close this last chapter in my life before I can move on.”
She nods against my chest. “Anything you need, Blaze. I’m here for you. Always.”
Chapter 13
Fallyn
My nose runs, in part from the blistering cold whipping around us, but mostly from the restrained tears wanting to fall at the bravery Blaze is showing in the face of such a tragedy. I know his childhood was rough, horrific even, but losing a parent is unimaginable to me. I would have to be scraped off the floor if one of my parents died. Even with our strained relationship and the blame they still carry for my poor decisions, I’d be devastated at the loss.
I wonder what kind of life he had to struggle through as he points out his father, a man fighting to stay on his feet. The minister reads from a script tucked inside his open bible, complete with stammering and corrective language as he flubs through the paragraphs. It’s clear even the preacher may be a little intoxicated. That knowledge has me clutching his hand harder in reassurance.
The gathering is incredibly small, leaning more toward vagrants than the church-going, religious lot you’d expect. I questioned him earlier when he said jeans and a sweater would be okay, and instead chose a wool dress and knee high boots—a decision I regret as we stand side by side at the graveside with nothing but each other to block the wind.
I shiver and Blaze pulls me tighter to his side. I look up to see him looking past the joke of a minister, his gaze settling on the desert in the distance. He hasn’t said much since we arrived, not one word to his father or any of the other attendees. He pulled me away from the older woman dressed in nice clothes when she tried to approach us, muttering that his grandmother was the devil in mothball smelling clothes.
The preacher makes the sign of the cross, messing up the ashes to ashes and dust to dust.
“Ridiculous,” Blaze mutters. “We’re not even fucking Catholic.”
I watch in horror as his father walks up to the simple casket and pours golden liquid on the tiny spray of flowers. His grandmother gasps when he pulls what looks like a burnt spoon and hypodermic needle from his pocket and lays them both on top. It’s the only emotion she’s shown since the service started.
Blaze tenses against me, but doesn’t make a move toward his father. I stare in horror as his father falls to his knees and wails about losing the love of his life. His sunken cheeks and hollow eyes don’t even dampen with tears as he howls to no one in particular, shouting that his world has come to an end.
“He’s probably the one who loaded the syringe that ended her life,” Blaze spits out, his body coiled with such rage, I’m afraid he’s going to attack his grieving dad.
I gasp, not knowing whether to keep looking on or pull him away from the cemetery. It’s the first time he’s confided exactly how she died. I wanted to ask, if only to help find a way to alleviate the pain somehow, but didn’t want to press the issue.
“We should go,” he mutters, reading my mind.
I nod and start toward his truck, unable to formulate words. He begged me not to judge him when I met his family, and I now understand why he felt the need to warn me against what I was going to see. But I don’t want to run from him. In fact, I want to hold on to him tighter than ever before. I know the last thing he wants is the pity I can’t help but feel for him, so I keep my mouth closed, only stopping our trek to the truck to scrape a clump of mud that lodged itself on the heel of my boot.
“Thomas!” a voice rings out behind us.
Thomas?
“Fuck,” he mutters, the tension multiplying in his body.
I turn with him, refusing to release his hand. He doesn’t say a word, just stands still as his grandmother closes the distance between us.
Her distaste and disapproval of me is apparent in the way she looks me up and down, her nose scrunching like she smells something fowl. I want to curl inside myself, but Blaze releases my hand and wraps his arm around my shoulder in defiance.
“The church is hosting a lunch at my house,” she says.
“I didn’t think I’d be invited,” he says, no emotion in his voice.
“You’re not,” she agrees. “I wanted to make sure you knew you weren’t welcome in my home.”
He nods in acknowledgement, already expecting this from her.
“Or any point in the future,” she presses. “Your mother’s burial is the final tie that connects us.”
“The fuck?” I mutter before I can stop myself.
“Classy,” she mumbles before walking away.
I stare at her back, aghast at her words, behavior, and lack of grief during such a horrific time.
“I can’t believe—”
“Not now,” he pleads, turning us back to the truck.
He holds the door open for me, but doesn’t say another word as he climbs in to the driver’s side and drives out of the cemetery. Halfway back to campus, he reaches for me, pulling me into the side of his body. I begin to cry, but hang my head in shame because there are no tears marring his beautiful face. I don’t want him to read my emotions as misplaced, but I can’t hold them back any longer.
Sobs wrack my body as I lean my head against his chest, tears dripping and staining his khaki pants as we drive through town. He swallows roughly several times, but doesn’t give a voice to his own pain. They fell in a torrent last night, but I know the liquor allowed the pain to escape, and he’s too ashamed to let that happen again. I hate that he can’t grieve around me without the aid of alcohol. I don’t want to think about the pain he’ll go through—the bad decisions he’ll make when his emotions take over again and he’s alone with nothing but a bottle of Maker’s Mark to ease his discomfort.
I wipe my eyes with the sleeve of my jacket as he pulls the truck into the empty parking lot of a popular chain restaurant.
“You hungry?” He doesn’t make eye contact with me, probably ashamed of how I’m acting, mistaking my tears for grief at his loss rather than my own inevitable loss of him.
I shake my head, unable to face anyone right now. I must look like a hobo after crying so hard for the last twenty minutes. My face sticky from my tears, I know I’ve wiped all my makeup away.
