by Kaia Bennett
She screamed again at a particularly hard strike so close to her head that her ears were ringing with it, and her head bounced against the door. Their door.
She covered her face and slid to the floor, cowering in a ball as she waited for his anger to turn from the door to her face, her traitorous body. She wished he would hit her. She wished she could stop hearing him scream around the sobs that were caught in his throat. Instead, he stepped away from her, gripping his hair as if it were the only way to stop his hands from increasing the scope of their destructive urges. He might tear out the strands if he grabbed them any harder.
"I'm sorry, Travis! I swear, I tried to stop it!"
In a strange twisted moment, his wrath paused. He looked down at her with a deliriousness that she realized was false hope.
"Did he force you? Is that what you mean?"
The ice in his voice scared her as he came forward. God... what would he have done to Gabriel if he had forced her...
"N-no. He didn't do..." she swallowed and looked away from him, shaking her head. "He didn't do anything I didn't let... happen..."
He charged forward and she covered her face with her arms. Her mouth screamed, "Don't!!"
But nothing happened. She gasped for breath and shook under the cover of her arms. After the longest moment of her life she peeked out from under her arms and found him kneeling in front of her, still crying but trying desperately to control it, by clamping down on his jaw and blinking away the tears.
If a look could be a mixture of torment and amusement, Travis' face was the embodiment of it.
"You selfish, ungrateful, heartless bitch. You have the nerve to sit here and act like you're afraid of me?" He blinked away another river of tears that were cropping up. "When have I ever hurt you? When have I ever done anything but love you as much as I could?" The words wavered and shook with his voice.
She'd never seen him so angry, so hurt. She'd seen the beginnings of it when he begged her to end things with Gabriel and let him go. She saw it when he’d said, “I love you” and waited patiently for her to say it back day after day. She saw all the time he put into their future turn into a wisp of wasted energy before it floated away, a gray plume of smoke rising into clouds overhead. He'd believed in her as much as his heart could stand, all while his logical mind continued to question whether he was making a mistake. He'd loved her when she was broken, and all she'd done was break him in the end.
She had no choice but to look into his eyes now, to stare down what she'd done, the monster she'd created with grief and betrayal.
"I just love the irony of it all, Nikki. You get to sit there and cry, and pretend you're some sort of victim," he whispered venomously, chuckling softly as he wiped his face clean. "And yet the only one who got hurt tonight was me." He stood then and turned on his heel headed towards the hallway. She didn't even have a chance to tell him he was wrong. He wasn't the only good man who had gotten hurt tonight.
Her heart was hammering in her chest and things weren't making sense. Where was he going? Should she follow him? Try to explain?
Her thoughts were interrupted by the furious crash coming from the bedroom. Their bedroom. That's what it used to be. But after tonight she would never be able to say that again. For someone who threw this all away for a moment of bliss with Gabriel, she was oddly devastated at the prospect. She was walking fearful and ashamed towards a room where she'd laughed and sighed and cuddled beside Travis while they talked around a future she'd so casually thrown away.
She knew almost before she reached the door what she would see.
The box and all of its contents, all of her secret heartache and longing strewn across the floor while he tore through the closet, emptying her contribution to their apartment onto whatever surface it landed on.
Her eyes were glued to that spilled box, though...
The old Led Zeppelin t-shirt, the one that used to smell like Gabriel when he couldn't be with her. The one he'd covered her eyes with when he made her submit to him in her old apartment...
Concert tickets, club posters with Fool the World as the featured band. Hotel receipts from following him on the road. And pictures. So many pictures. Concerts past, days out at the park, at venues and restaurants. Her and all the guys on New Year's Eve, smiling in the city streets as streamers and confetti rained down from the night sky. The promise of spending the next year with him, a promise sealed with a kiss at the stroke of midnight...
The nightgown from her last night with Gabriel in her sister's apartment, when he'd unbraided her hair and she'd ridden him gently, slowly in the quiet hours of the early morning, promising she was okay with just a piece of him when she'd always wanted it all...
CDs and the books he'd loaned her, the music and words she'd fallen in love with right along with Gabriel. And at the center of all of those was the book that carried the most value, the one she’d opened on the plane after the week that changed everything.
Make sure you return it. Soon…
She'd kept it, a silent reminder that she would always give him an excuse, however flimsy, to come searching for her again...
And the skirt that started it all. Checkered blue and white, short and made for sex, made for awakenings. Even now, even in this moment of crisis and chaos, her pussy flexed at the memories that piece of fabric incited. One embarrassing moment had dominated her life, her dreams, even her writing, for years. Like him. One embarrassing moment had sealed a lifetime worth of mistakes and heartache. The proof that she couldn't let go was staring up at her from the floor of her former home.
She didn't realize how much she would miss this place, miss Travis, until right now.
There wasn't a box of things with Travis. There weren't benchmarks in time linked to trinkets. But there were places. There was the pizza place they went to. There was his motorcycle. There was her old job, when he'd visit her at work for lunch, something Gabriel had never been able to do because of his schedule. There was this apartment, their bed, the couch, and the kitchen where they'd cooked together like a couple that would do so for years to come. There was every corner of this place where he'd invited her in the way he'd invited her into his heart and into his life. There were late nights talking over beers, late nights sighing between sheets. It had been enough once. For a little while, it had been everything she needed, everything that Gabriel's nomadic presence in her life couldn't be. Steady, firm. Her life with Travis was made of foundations, places that stayed put. And yet she'd pitted him up against a box.
Hadn't she?
She winced at her instinct to protect those worn treasures when Travis stepped on them to get to the dresser, where he could start dumping her clothes on the floor. He paused in his assault to stare at a picture of them, him and the girl he thought he could trust. His 'darling Nikki', who was kissing him on the cheek while he smiled down at his birthday cake. It was goofy and sweet, warm and safe. A direct contrast to her pictures with Gabriel, where they could often be caught smiling at each other with the promise of carnal pleasure, where every subtle touch or hug was infused with lust and familiarity. A comfort that would always carry that extra spark.
Travis picked up that picture and hurled it against the opposite wall. It shattered, and Nicole flinched and gasped. She closed her eyes and stepped backwards into the darkness of the hallway, back down the hall, and into the living room. She sat limply on the couch and listened for the next half hour with knots in her stomach and numbness in her soul, as he tore apart their home and purged it of her possessions. She could tell from the sound of things that he didn't care if she ever found it all when it came time to pack...
God... she would have to pack... and then where would she go?
Tears were as anticlimactic as her buzzing thoughts about how she'd ruined everything. She didn't even bother to wipe them away now. She sniffed her running nose now only out of habit, barely having the energy to wipe at it or blow it. She was almost lulled into a hypnotic state until the banging,
crashing, and thunking sounds came to an abrupt halt.
Slowly, the sound of booted footsteps came down the hallway, a jacket zipped into place.
When she saw him she almost laughed and burst into tears simultaneously. As it all began, so it would end. The last time Travis walked away it had been in a motorcycle jacket, with the truth about his place in her life shimmering in his sad blue eyes. He carried his helmet under one arm, and walked to the table by the door to get his keys.
"Start packing up your stuff. I want you out of here as soon as possible," was all he said. Then he headed for the door.
Her mind and body finally started to sync up again. Fear set in. She didn't want him to leave like this, with the fear of something happening to him resting squarely on her shoulders. She pictured him angry and speeding through the city streets, daring an accident to claim him. She stood and walked to him, reaching out before she remembered his uncustomary display of rage.
"Travis, I'm—"
"Get your fucking hands off me."
She didn't think she could hurt any worse than she did until he said that to her. This man used to love her just as she was. She could do no real wrong. And now he couldn't stand the idea of her touching him.
"Please, don't go. I'm so sorry. I didn't do this to hurt you, I didn't want this to happen—"
"Shut up," he said pulling away with a pained laugh. "I'm so over you and your bullshit. Everything out of your mouth is a fucking lie."
She grabbed hold again. She couldn't let him go. It was more than just wanting to make sure he was safe. Maybe it was just too much for her. Maybe she was just too weak to lose everything in one night, when she deserved nothing less than just that.
"You have to believe me. I was weak and I was... it was so hard for me to let go and I did something stupid."
He laughed, a sinister croak that was less and less easy to believe. Whatever he was, Travis wasn't seasoned at being cruel. But he was giving it his best effort when he said, "Oh, so that's what the kids are calling cheating these days? 'Something stupid'? I'll remember that in case my next girlfriend has a problem keeping her fucking legs closed."
She choked on those words, and sobbed them back out, but it didn't help. She had already swallowed the worst of it, and now his thoughts about her were lodged in her gut. He didn't have to say anything else. Just the subtle implication that she was some slut not to be trusted, that it was over, that she was the fuck-up who had ruined it all, was enough.
"Where are you going?!"
He opened the splintered door.
“Please, don't leave like this," she called, grasping his hand this time, not the sleeve of his jacket. "I'll go, I'll leave right now. Just please don't leave like this! If anything h-happened to you..." She could barely talk through her sobs.
"Get off, Nicole."
"P-please, don't go!" she whispered through her tears. She was on her knees before she knew it. "D-don't leave me."
She wouldn't let go. She leaned her head against his hand and sobbed, and begged him not to leave in words that didn't connect sensibly any longer.
His other hand was balled into a fist, and he was trying to pull away. But the fight was dying in him. He was stock-still and vibrating with rage. He paused at the desperation in her voice, at the sheer intensity of her tears. She had no right to cry like this. She should have just let him go, let him be better off without her.
And she shouldn't be thinking of Gabriel even now as she begged Travis not to go. But she couldn't help it. She thought of her first love, the man who was done with her now because she didn't have the strength of her convictions. She couldn't let him go, or wait for him. She thought of him and she wept while holding onto her boyfriend's hand, the losses of the day too great to be contained any longer, the greatest one of all being the loss of faith in herself.
Travis was all she had left, and now even he knew she was a mess. It wasn't just a phase. It was a condition. It wasn't just heartache; it was a broken and bruised heart.
She held onto him, waiting for him to stay or leave, the seconds ticking down, the time pulling her away from the past. Until Travis finally pulled his hand away from hers and quietly closed the door.
He didn't leave her, though she knew he wanted to. He didn't throw her out, though she deserved it. Instead he slid down to the floor across from her, leaned his back against the door and fell into a deep silence. Only the occasional sniffle gave away his tears, the sound mingling with her sobs.
The happy façade was over. They were bound together by the truth now, and a looming sense of failure that threatened to undo them both.
Chapter Fifteen
This was going to become a bad habit, if he didn't get a hold of himself. Drinking himself numb was never his balm of choice in the past. Maybe that was because before he'd held out hope. However small, however wispy, it had been there a week and a half ago.
Gone now. All gone. Like the sixth shot he'd downed in a row.
And, unfortunately, he was no longer a fun drunk.
He wasn't sure what happened exactly. Something about his phone, how he kept checking it and how Jonny kept teasing him for being pussy-whipped over Nicole. After all this time, nothing had changed. Jonny, tactless as he was, didn't realize how hard he was pushing Gabriel's big red button.
He found out when Gabriel grabbed him by the collar and spun him around until his back was thrust hard up against the bar. Glasses clanked and crashed, Gabriel's head whirled, people jumped out of the way. He'd gone from zero to sixty in the time it took Jonny to wipe the stupid, drunken grin off his face. He pulled Jonny towards him and slammed him back against the bar again, driving home a point he couldn't quite comprehend in his drunken state.
"What the fuck is wrong with you, man?!" Jonny yelled, pushing Gabriel back and wincing in pain. "Get him the FUCK off of me!!"
Commotion ensued. Nuke, Chase, and Q were all doing their damnedest to hold Gabriel back before he launched his full-on assault on Jonny. They pried him away, literally unwrapped his fingers one at a time from Jonny's collar and pulled his hardened face away from Jonny's. He shook his shaggy blond head of hair, blue eyes dazed, and backed away as if Gabriel had grown another head, genuinely afraid of his friend-turned-enemy.
"Got anything else you want to say?" Gabe roared, all of his focus on getting to Jonny. Somewhere in the distance he knew he would regret this. He didn't really want to hurt Jonny. He just wanted to hurt someone other than himself. Still, it took the guys dragging him all the way to the exit before he finally calmed down and shoved them off.
"What the fuck's gotten into you?" Nuke shouted over the dimming sound of thumping music and the small crowed outside the club. "Huh?!"
Gabe paced the sidewalk like a caged animal, though not in a straight line. It had been a long time since he'd been this hammered. He laughed at that before clumsily leaning against a parking streetlight on the corner.
"Cuervo. That's what got into me," he said with another chuckle. A wavering glance allowed him to take in the guys. Q was staring at him with his arms crossed, shaking his head. Nuke was talking to the girl he'd been hanging out with lately. He caught a flash of purple streaked hair as she checked to see if Nuke was okay. Chase was the only one who seemed unperturbed as he took a drag off his cigarette.
"Since when’d you start wailing on your friends, man?" Q asked, obviously the most upset at the spectacle. As if bound by the code of biological siblings, the only person allowed to beat on Jonny was Q.
"He needs to learn how to keep his fucking mouth shut and mind his own damn—”
"You need to learn how to let it go," Chase said. "That's the real fucking problem here."
Everyone stood stock-still, looking at Chase as he blew smoke out of his nose and tossed his cigarette. One nod from him and the other guys backed off.
"Walk with me," Chase said, then turned on his heel and headed away from the crowded bar.
Gabe contemplated saying, “fuck you” and
then going in the opposite direction. But Chase very rarely made edicts or observations about anyone, least of all Gabriel. Curiosity alone made him take one step, then another, until he was in step with Chase's shorter, stockier frame.
The city smelled like aggression, sweat, garbage, and potential for craziness if he could just figure out how to tap into it. Restlessness had taken hold of him. He thought he could scratch this itch by making love to her. He thought that once he did she would stay. Instead, he was left with his blood boiling, his body aching to batter something with the weight of his losses.
It wasn't fucking fair. She used to live for him. She used to breathe him. One look, one lick of his lips, one command, and she would be on her knees with his cock in her mouth. She matched him stroke for stroke, barely able to protest. He'd seen her drag her weary limbs from bed a thousand times, only to come back later that night more insatiable than before.
The floodgates had been opened, and she didn't have a right to close them with her doubts and her fucking conscience. Not when he needed her so badly he was in danger of beating the shit out of what had become his surrogate brother, just to relieve the stress.
"Where are we going?" Gabriel finally asked after a pause that stretched down one block and onto the next.
"Nowhere."
Gabriel allowed for a few more pointless steps then stopped. "If there's a point to this little stroll, spill it."
Chase turned around, hands in his jacket pockets. "You fucked her, didn't you?"
Gabriel wasn't so drunk that he didn't feel the slap of the truth masquerading as a random gust of wind. "What?"
"Trish says Nicole's been distant and depressed for just about as long as you've been a raging dick," Chase said with a shrug. "Doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that shit out, Gabe. Just a semi-observant guitarist."
What could he say? The wind was taken out of his sails now that he couldn't hide the truth. He slumped against the brick wall to his right, half stumbling on his way there. Funny. He didn't feel that drunk. Maybe it was like having a broken heart. You didn't realize how bad it really was until you tried to put one steady foot in front of the other. Until you had a witness smirking at your inability to deny it anymore.
