by Skyla Madi
“What do you want from me, Sam?” I whisper. Fear warps my voice as it leaves my body and circles around him.
He laughs, and it makes me feel gross. “You know what I want from you.”
“You can go to hell if you think you’re getting that from me.” I grit my teeth and plant my feet on the ground firmly. If he thinks that I’m going to let him attack me without a fight, he clearly doesn’t know me like he thinks he does. A stranger in my home is one thing, but for Sam—someone I know and have despised since the day I met—defending myself isn’t going to be the issue here. “You better let me pass, Sam. Let me get into the car and I won’t tell anyone that you’re threatening me.”
He laughs loudly, his eyes darting around the parking lot as if he’s seen movement. “You have quite an imagination, Liv. Come here or you won’t like what happens to you if I have to chase you.”
“What’s going to happen to her?” Brant says, placing his hand in mine from behind. I want to cry; my entire body is shaking so badly that I’m finding it hard to stand and support my weight. “You know, I’ve seen you harassing her for weeks here, and it stops now. I’ve already called the cops, so I guess you have two choices: either you can get into your car and leave her the hell alone, or you can go to jail when I hand over the security videos of each altercation you two have had at her place of employment. My advice? I would run.”
Sam snorts and lunges toward me, trying to push Brant away. They get their arms tangled, and Brant pins him onto the ground with a few quick wrestling moves. Once the police cars zoom into the parking lot, Brant and I talk to them, and they take Sam into custody. He volunteers to take me home, and I realize that once again, I let someone save me.
“Thanks for taking me home, Brant.” My voice is weak. “Jake isn’t going to like what happened. Maybe we should just keep it a secret for now.”
“Is he your boyfriend?” Brant’s voice thickens. “I mean, seriously, is he?”
I shake my head, but he doesn’t look over at me. “No, he’s not.”
“Then why do you care what he thinks?”
I don’t answer him, and I think about what I could say without lying to myself the next time someone asks me this question. I can’t explain it to anyone without looking completely insane, but Jake and I just…belong.
“I think you should tell him. Don’t keep secrets,” he says as we pull into the driveway of my parents’ house and the curtains in my bedroom sway with force. “Plus, he’ll wonder where your car is and why I’m dropping you off.”
“Yeah, I didn’t think of that.”
“Hey, can I tell you something?” he asks before I can open the door and escape. He doesn’t wait for me to answer. “I just think you should know, you’re a great person too. I mean, you deserve the best, and I just want you to make good choices for yourself, you know?”
I chuckle. “Fortune cookie?”
He sadly shakes his head. “No, I just don’t want you to forget yourself in the process of trying to find someone else.”
I hear Brant’s words ring through my head as I watch him drive away.
I can’t forget myself if I don’t know who I am.
No matter how fun it is to pretend for a little while.
Chapter Fourteen
What if…
I hear Jake’s rapid breathing as I step into the bedroom; he pretends to be asleep, but I heard his feet shuffling around the room on my way up the stairs. After a few minutes, he stretches and yawns, flashing a fake wake-up smile.
“That’s a pretty amazing image to wake up to.” The boyish charm he tucked into his pocket is making its way back. “How was work?”
Brant told me I shouldn’t keep secrets, but I didn’t agree to that. “Uneventful…pretty boring, actually.”
Jake isn’t buying it. “Then why did that kid drop you off? Where’s your car?” His voice strains as I curse Brant under my breath for being right about how Jake would react. “Did your car break down? I knew I should’ve offered you to drive mine.”
I hold my hands up to stop him. “Calm down. Nothing happened.”
“Something happened,” he growls, and his intense eyes lock with mine. “You can’t lie to me. I know when you’re lying.”
“How?” I sigh and sit down next to him on the bed. “Fine, but before I do, you have to promise me two things. First, that you won’t get angry.” His eyebrows raise, and I quickly continue. “Second, after we talk about it, we move on and go back to finding out the truth about me.”
The wheels turn inside his head while he listens to my demands. The angst that he has toward me is like being burned by a match. When he slowly closes his eyes and holds them shut for a few moments, I know he’s silently agreeing with my stipulations.
“Okay, remember Sam? He sort of…attacked me at work today.”
The fire in Jake’s eyes drills into my soul. “Tell me you aren’t serious.”
“He came in this morning and started shooting off his mouth. I lost my cool and slapped him across the face. He was waiting for me after I left work and tried to attack me, but Brant sort of showed up and saved me. I wasn’t in a safe state to drive, so he brought me home in his car.”
The redness of Jake’s face extends to his neck, and his eyeballs become bloodshot the moment when he gets a really good idea about what I’m saying. I half-expect him to blow up with rage, but his hand finds mine instead and squeezes it. His eyes are misty as he tries to hide his gaze from me.
“Are you okay?” I ask, but he doesn’t make eye contact with me as I lift my gaze to find his. “Jake?”
“Are you okay?” The raspiness in his voice makes me squirm a little as he holds my hand tightly in his. I find myself falling into wonder inside my mind. I wonder what he’s like when he’s alone…I wonder what he likes to do with his free time, and I’m still wondering why he wasn’t sleeping before he started staying here.
Before I know it, his full lips find mine, and he presses them together. It takes a few moments before I latch onto his mouth and deepen the kiss he’s started. I should be thinking about the effect this kiss will have on his feelings for me instead of how soft and exciting his lips are against mine. Even his tongue tastes like cinnamon as it ribbons around mine like a symphony, and his hands travel along my jawline and on the small of my back where they rest like they’re home.
Like he knows the road map of my skin.
I let Jake kiss me because it feels good to have someone want you—even if you indulge in their emotions a little too deeply. It isn’t like I find him unappealing; in fact, it’s quite the opposite. I’ve been fantasizing about him since the moment I met him, and to say that the dreams are wild would be a serious understatement.
I slide my hands up his long torso, over his hard chest, and rest my nails softly in the hot skin of his thick neck when his body completely freezes and he pulls his lips from mine in frustration.
“I can’t.” He lowers his head. “I’m sorry.” The lump in my throat swells when he looks back into my eyes. I literally feel his pain through his chest.
“Jake,” I breathe his name, and my fingers find his face. “I thought you wanted this?”
“You have no idea how badly I fucking want this.” He feels his lips with his fingers; they hover over the same spots where I sucked his lips into mine. “I just don’t want you to lose focus on your quest to find the truth. I know how much it means to you.”
From the moment our lips touched, I felt something shift inside of me, and it grows larger and larger like a bubble in my stomach.
“I won’t.” I blink a few times and think hard. “How is it that you know me so well?”
Jake sighs and brushes hair out of my eyes. “What if I told you that I’ve known you for most of your life?” The words that he paints in front of my eyes captivate me enough to follow along with his illusion. “What if I told you this isn’t the first time we’ve kissed or held hands…would you believe it?”
�
��I’ve dreamed about you.”
His eyebrows rise. “Like a memory dream?”
“It was right after you told me about the tree tattoo, on the beach. I dreamed about a conversation we had about the tree after we…”
Jake’s eyes flash with curiosity. “After we…what? Had sex?”
“Something like that. I know it’s from talking about it before I fell asleep. That memory wasn’t mine…that memory wasn’t real.”
The frustration leaks from Jake’s skin and wraps me inside of it. It’s suffocating me as steam rises from his ears. “What if it was real? Why are you so adamant that your other dream memories are yours but not this one?” His voice booms through the bedroom as his breath hitches. “Why isn’t being who you are now enough?”
“Because I don’t feel like myself!” I scream at him, and my eyes widen. “I haven’t felt like myself in a long time…I don’t expect you to understand.” I lower my voice and fold my hands in my lap. I want the fight to be over with. “It’s like I’m a stranger in my own skin, with shattered memories of someone else’s life.”
The air between us is tense now. He raises his hand and places it on my shoulder in comfort. “I think you need to rest,” he says in his deep voice, laying my body down next to his without any protest from me. “You need to talk to your parents,” he breathes into my hair. “Make a list of everything you want to know and ask them.”
I let myself get lost in his warmth as sleep finds me and carries me off somewhere far, far away where no one else can hurt me.
***
“Happy Birthday, Lacey.” Dad’s gray eyes flicker from the dancing flame of the solitary candle shoved into the chocolate cupcake in front of him. “How does it feel to be fifteen?”
“The same as fourteen, I guess. I still can’t drive or do anything sixteen-year-olds can do.”
Dad laughs and pats my leg. “Don’t wish your life away, sweetheart.” The accent Dad carries with him has lessened since we moved to Seattle, but it’s still there. It’s British—just like Miss Claudine’s—but I’ve never asked him where he’s from, and he’s never given me any indication he wants me to know. Our relationship is strictly on a need-to-know basis, and he’s been pretty hands off the last few years.
Since Mom disappeared.
I think that maybe he’s starting to hate me like she did, too.
“I’m headed out for a business dinner.” He notices my eyes when I look at the clock on the wall that reads nine p.m. “Can you take care of yourself and not open the door for any strangers?”
“I’m fifteen, Dad.”
He rummages through his wallet and slaps a few hundreds on the counter. “I might be gone a few days, so make sure you get to school on time and don’t step out of line. I’ll have someone drop in and check on you. If you need more, use your credit cards.”
“Where are you going? I thought it was a business dinner?”
I hate when he does this. Every time he walks out the door like this, it makes me afraid that he’ll never come back.
“It’s a business dinner in Boston, honey. I’ll be back in a few days.”
He smiles, and then he’s gone.
I’m alone in this big house again.
A loud knock at the door scares me out of my skin. Just after Dad told me not to open the door to strangers, then a stranger comes to the door. I grab my phone and, despite my heart nearly beating from my chest, walk to the front door.
Looking through the side window first, my heart jumps.
“What are you doing here?” I open the door and see his face. He hasn’t spoken to me since I tried to bring him home, but I made sure he knew I was still thinking about him—even if he wasn’t thinking about me.
Jake looks like he’s been crying; his eyes are swollen and red. “I’m sorry.”
“For…?”
His long arms stretch across the open doorframe. “I’m sorry for being a jerk. I’m sorry for being someone you couldn’t count on. I promised I’d always be here for you, and I haven’t been, Lacey.” He steps into the door, and the same feelings he’s given me all these years come rushing back tenfold. “It’s you.”
I back away. “What’s me?”
“You’re my soulmate. You’re the one for me.”
I reach out and feel Jake’s forehead. “Are you feeling okay?”
Jake takes my hand and pulls me close to him. The heat radiating from his skin wraps around me; his left hand slides around my waist while his right hand caresses the side of my cheek. My stomach is doing summersaults as Jake eases his lips down to mine and presses them together.
This is everything I’ve ever wanted.
He presses his forehead against mine. “You are everything to me, and I’m sorry it took so long to see it. I’m sorry for who I’ve been this past year, and I’m sorry I haven’t been the person you need me to be.”
“Jake, there’s no way my dad will let me be with you.”
He scoffs. “We don’t need his permission.”
“I’m only fifteen—we do need his permission.”
“It’s not like he’s ever here. I just saw him come back and leave you alone again.” He kisses me again, and it sends electric sparks down my spine. “You shouldn’t have to be alone.”
“I’m used to it.”
“That’s the problem.” He brushes hair from my face. With his left hand, he pulls my right hand to his chest and presses it against his heart. “Can you feel that?”
“Your heartbeat?”
He nods. “You’ve made me see that I don’t have to be that fucked-up person anymore, Bug. You’re my best friend and the only person that truly matters to me. I’ll wait for you, if that’s what it takes. I know we’re young, but…”
He tips my chin up to look deep into my eyes.
“I’m in love with you, Lacey Bug. I always have been…and I always will be.”
Chapter Fifteen
Secrets
Jake
Fuck!
Where the fuck is she?
She told me she’d go home with him and then sneak out so we could run away like I’ve been trying to get her to do for two years. This time it’s different; this time he wants her to change her name and identity so she can break ties with the fucked-up shit he’s done and live a better life. He expects her to go live with a sister she’s never met, her husband, and their daughter—all of whom she’s never…fucking…met.
Not to mention he wants her to leave me.
I’m not letting that fucking happen.
“I love you, Jake Redding,” she said to me before he pulled her out of my house. “When I come back, we’ll run far, far away.” She pressed her forehead against mine and forced back her tears. “It’s you, Jake. It’s always been you.”
That was hours ago.
My phone rings, but it’s not her. “Noah, fuck off. I don’t have time—”
“—Lacey’s been in an accident. Your plan didn’t work. They cut his brake lines, and she was still in the car, Jake.”
I sit in an armchair in the living room before I collapse. “What the fuck are you talking about? She was supposed to call them after he left! They weren’t supposed to cut his fucking brake lines!”
“I don’t know what happened—maybe they changed their minds. She’s hurt pretty bad…you better get to Seattle Grace.”
Noah knows everything about everyone. If something happens in this city, he’s the first person to go to for any details, so I know he’s not lying. I hang up on him and grab my motorcycle helmet, shove it on my head, and squeal the tires of the Harley out of the garage.
All I can fucking think about is her.
I wasn’t on board with her plan, but she’d had enough of her father trying to control her.
And I fucking love her. I’ll do anything for her.
I hardly care about parking in an actual spot when I get to the hospital; the emergency room is full of people bleeding, peeing, and throwing up everywhere. The
overweight nurse behind the check-in counter ignores me when I rush up and knock on the counter three times.
“I’m here to see Lacey Cervase.”
She rolls her eyes. “Are you family?”
“Yes.”
The woman checks the book in front of her. “Name?”
“Jake Redding.”
“You’re not on the list.”
Fuck this.
I look down at her book through the window and see Lacey’s name in room ER12. Not giving a fuck who’ll try to stop me, I reach in and push the button to open the ER doors and let myself in. The nurse screams from her box, but I’m already searching for Lacey’s room.
ER12.
Two police officers are standing outside, guarding her door.
“My girlfriend is in there—I need to see her.” I start to open the door in between them.
“Only family allowed, kid.” The officer on the left pushes my hand away. “And you’re not.”
“Lacey!” I start calling for her. “Lacey! Get the fuck off of me!”
The door opens, and a man comes out—a man I’ve never seen before. As the door slowly closes—and I see the love of my life wrapped in tubes and machines on a hospital bed—it never even occurs to me that it’ll be the last time I see her.
***
There’s nothing I’ll be able to say to her when she finds out that I’m a fucking liar like everyone else in her life. For now, she’s sleeps on my chest and dreams about a life that she thinks is better than what she’s got now, but she doesn’t remember the bad parts.
I make sure that I don’t move my body so she won’t wake up. This is the first time she’s allowed me to get this close to her. It’s been hell getting her to even trust me and not make the mistake of falling for someone else. She’s mine, and no one else gets to know what her love feels like if I can help it.
