He purposely explains it this way so I won’t keep worrying. I let out a long relieved breath, and smile at Alayna. Her grin widens and she puts her hand in front of Seth’s face.
“Pay up, buddy,” she says, laughing. Seth shakes his head and shoves her hand away.
“I’ll take it off your bill,” he says with an easy laugh. He turns his head toward me and kisses the side of my head. I’m so confused, but I don’t know if I even want to understand. Alayna must notice my confused expression because she explains what they’re talking about.
“Your boy here swore he wasn’t going to mention that I have no interest in men, just so he could see you sweat, but I bet him he wouldn’t make it ten minutes. And he didn’t,” she says, humor in her tone. They must know each other, because they seem very comfortable.
“He’s not my anything… so it doesn’t matter,” I grumble, unsure of why I say that even as the words leave my mouth. I see Seth’s jaw tick in frustration and he removes him arm from around me. The emptiness takes over again and I feel cold instantly.
Why am I always hurting him?
Chapter 14
Seth
“Put your hand here.” I point to the thick headboard that has a silk rope tie on one end. I wrap her wrist in it, and then look at her again. “Okay… and put your other hand on your throat.” I chuckle when she instantly clutches her hand against it.
“Try not to knock yourself out, Alayna… like this,” I instruct, placing her hand subtly on her neck. “Perfect.”
I pull up my camera and take some shots of her face up close. Then I move to each of her hands and capture the subtle sexiness of one being tied to the bed and the other touching her own skin. Once I get the close ups finished, I climb to the top of the bed frame. I capture her pale skin against the dark frame and the dark sheets, and it looks good... really good.
I met Alayna and Jess in London when I went out to a pub, and they were nice company. Nothing sexual, just some girls to talk to that I wasn’t trying to fuck. They were taking a vacation before Jess was set to be deployed, and London was their vacation of choice. I found out that they lived only about 3 hours away from where I lived in the U.S., so I told them to hit me up if they ever wanted pictures done.
She looks up at me when she notices I’m finished with the pictures. “Did I say something wrong?” she whispers when I go to untie her hand, nodding in the direction of where I know Josie is.
I feel Josie’s eyes piercing into me as she watches. She thinks I don’t notice the way she looks at me when I ask her to come, but I notice. I feel everything about her. I knew as soon as she walked in, because the energy inside of me was screaming to connect with her.
“No. She’s just trying to push me away,” I answer, notes of frustration evident as I speak.
“I don’t get it,” she whispers introspectively.
“She’s been playing this game for the last three months. I’m used to it but it doesn’t make it any less hurtful,” I say, sitting on the bed next to her as she puts on her robe. “It pisses me off. I keep thinking she’s starting to open up, and then she says shit like that. She doesn’t need to rub it in my face that she doesn’t want me.”
“I just don’t get it,” she mutters again. “It’s like she’s trying to punish herself or something.” That’s exactly what she’s doing. I shrug and get off the bed. I don’t need to rehash the nightmares that haunt Josie.
Every morning I wake up without her next to me is another reminder of how I couldn’t get her to open up. We’ve done the friends thing. She’s my best friend, so of course that works for us. What doesn’t work is knowing what we could be together if she just let me in, because I know she feels something. I watch her every day as she tortures herself, burdening her conscience with guilt that she shouldn’t have.
Fucking Blake. He put his claws in her at that party and broke her, ripped her heart and soul to shreds. I see the haunted look in her eyes deepen every day that she doesn’t let me help. She’s guilty about what she did, and she feels like she doesn’t deserve a speck of happiness. She feels like she’s meant to be alone.
I get it.
I get it because I know how that feels. I understand not being good enough and feeling undeserving. I couldn’t save her, and protect her against the most horrid thing that could ever happen to someone. But just because I don’t deserve her, doesn’t mean I won’t try every day for the rest of my life to show her I can be good enough.
Finding out that she was having nightmares every night since the night Blake hurt her, drove me insane. The need to murder him raged in me again at the revelation, furious that he got away fairly unscathed with torturing her though humiliation and then snaking his way into her brain. It wouldn’t matter anyway, because Brandon’s been going out of his way to make sure I never make contact with Blake. I want to take away the images that haunt her dreams, but I’ve been through this with her before, so I know that it’ll take a while before she gets over it.
I would take her place if I could, but until then, I hold her in my arms and cherish the small piece of her that admits she might still need me.
“You looked amazing, Alayna. Jess is going to love them,” I tell Alayna, trying to shake the dark places my emotions are running toward. She beams at me and claps her hands.
“Ahhh, I’m so excited. I can’t wait ‘til you edit them!” I smile genuinely at her enthusiasm. She’s beautiful, not as gorgeous as Josie, but definitely stunning, Jess is a lucky woman.
“Shouldn’t be more than a week.” I walk her to the back room where she kept her clothes, and when she goes in to change, I take a deep breath and run my hands through my hair, thinking about the way Josie acted unaffected and callous as she sat on her phone for the rest of the shoot.
I know she was jealous. I could see it in her eyes when she looked at me, and I could feel it from across the room when she didn’t think I knew she was there. It’s such a contradiction with the cold heart that she’s had toward me recently. There have been so many times that I’ve wondered if she really did just want me as a friend, because of her steely bitchiness.
Man could she be vicious, too, and every time she is, it’s a motherfucking stab to my heart. It makes me question what the hell I’m doing.
I’m not going to force her to be with me.
But then there are those other moments. The flash of affection in her eyes. The way she leans into a touch without thinking. The way she holds her breath and closes her eyes in an attempt to compose herself. Or the way she moans when she doesn’t think I hear.
Those things keep me moving and trying.
Josie comes up next to me and leans against the wall. She sighs and turns her head toward me.
“I’m sorry, Seth. I don’t know why I said that,” she says quietly and sincerely. My hand goes to my hair again, and I grip it briefly before letting go.
“No worries, Josie. It’s the truth…,” I pull away from the wall and walk backwards, hands extended. “And I know how much you like hurting me, so I should have expected it.”
I turn back around so I don’t have to see her expression after I say it. It’s meant to hurt, but I feel like it’s true anyway. I hear her small feet pattering behind me as she tries to catch up to me.
“Hey. That’s not really fair,” she calls to me. I whip around and face her. My fists clench as I try to control the anger that’s consuming me. Not even the cute sundress and flats make her look innocent to me right now. I’m so fucking done with her and her attitude.
“You know what’s not fair, Josie?” I ask stalking in her direction. I back her into the wall and place my hands beside her head. She raises her chin and gives me a challenging look.
“What?” she asks, bitchily. It takes more willpower than I thought I had to not pull her dress up and fuck the bitch out of her.
“It’s not fucking fair of you to keep pretending like you feel nothing. It’s not fair that you get to keep hurting me and gettin
g away with it. It’s not goddamn fair that you’re making me suffer for something someone else did to you!”
“You don’t understand!” she says loudly, narrowing her eyes.
“That’s because you won’t fucking let me!” I say, raising my voice. My face is heated in fury and my veins are bulging in my arms.
“I’m not trying to hurt you!” I bring my face down so my eyes are level with hers. I see her hurt too, but I’m too fed up with what she’s doing to us.
“You are hurting me. Every goddamn day you hurt me. Every time you run away when I touch you. Every time you say something bitchy when I’m trying to show you I love you, you hurt me. You’re ruining me. You’re pushing me away, Josie, and it’s fucking working.”
“What do you mean?” she asks quietly.
“I mean, that I left once because you hurt me. You blocked your feelings then too, and I left. I’ll do it again. I can’t go every fucking day watching the woman I love destroy herself and continue to run away from the one person who loves her.”
“Are you threatening me?” she chokes out.
“Yes,” I answer getting closer to her. “And I’m promising that if you let me in I’ll change your world. I’ll be everything you need. I’ll make the pain go away, I promise.”
“I can’t believe you would threaten to leave me,” she whimpers, turning her face away so I can see a single tear running down her face. My heart is breaking in my chest, but I need her to wake up. I need her to hurt so she can be vulnerable for one minute.
“What would I be walking away from right now, Josie?” I ask exasperated. “Because it feels like I’d only be walking away from a girl who has made it her mission to hurt me and who has no feelings for me. What did you say? That I’m nothing to you… it doesn’t matter… What kind of fucking life is that for me?”
I won’t leave. I love her too much to leave, but I need her to be honest with me, to show me she does care. It’s not working, though. I see her jaw harden as she locks in her emotion.
“You’re right. You should leave.”
I slam my fist next to her head. I don’t care about the fucking pain. The fleshly pain in my hand is better than the pain she’s making me feel in my soul.
“Fuck, Josie! For one fucking minute can you be honest with me?!” I raise my voice, but she doesn’t flinch. She turns her face to me, raises her chin, and exhibits her cold unfeeling look.
“I am being honest, Seth,” she says in a fake voice, shrugging her shoulder. “There’s no reason for you to stay here anymore. At least with me.” She tries to walk out of the barricade I made, but I’m not moving my arms.
“You would rather lie to me and let me walk away than tell me the truth and let me love you? Is it that scary and awful of a thought that I could love you?”
“It’s not a lie. I don’t want you,” she says turning her steely blue eyes on me. Her words hit me so hard, I can’t breathe. My hand drops from the wall as a painful numbness washes over me. I don’t even see her walk away, because my vision is too blurry.
I slide my back against the wall, and pull my knees into my chest. I keep my hands in my hair, fisting it until it hurts my scalp. I need the pain of something else to help placate the heart-wrenching agony of being stabbed by her words.
“That was rough to watch,” Alayna says, sliding down next to me. She pats my back, unsure how to react to my shocked state. “Come on, let’s go out. You look like you could use a drink.”
I really could use a drink, but I don’t think there’s any amount of alcohol that can take away the agony I’m in.
“I should go check on her…”
“Yeah you should. After you have a drink.”
What the hell… It’s better than being rejected again by the girl I’m crazy about.
Chapter 16
Josie
I have no idea how I got home without getting into a wreck.
The anguish tormenting and picking at my heart is too much. My tears block my vision, making it unsafe to drive, but somehow I make it home. In a daze, I stumble up the stairs, needing the solace of my bathroom. As soon as I walk in the apartment, I run to the shower and turn it on as hot as it goes.
I don’t even take off my clothes as I get in. I sink to the floor and let the sobs overtake me. He’s going to leave me. He wants to leave me.
Because I’m hurting him. To hear him tell me over and over again that I’m hurting him, shattered everything in me. I want to explain it. I want to explain that I’m no good for him. That I’m not deserving of his love, but I can’t even get those words out. Instead, I chose to hurt him some more.
The devastated look in his eyes when I told him I didn’t want him is an image I will never get out of my head. I’ve never seen him look so broken. Even two years ago when I told him I was in love with Blake, I didn’t see the hurt like today.
I rock back and forth, trying to seek comfort that will never come. One person offered me comfort. One person offered me the love I need, and I turned him away.
I lay on the bottom of my shower until my sobs fade and I’m left there feeling numb and empty. This is what I deserve. I took away my unborn child’s life. I deserve to be on the bottom of my shower.
Miserable and alone.
* * *
I wake up with a pounding headache and naked in my bed.
The beating in my head is in rhythm with the banging that’s happening at my front door. I groan and look at the clock on my side table. Judging from the darkness out my window, I can only assume it means that it’s 7:45 at night and not the morning.
I put on my black robe and look through the peep hole.
Fuck!
I slam my palm into my forehead, feeling stupid for forgetting about my plans with Brooke and Brandon. I open the door sheepishly and peek through the crack. I give her an apologetic smile as she takes in my appearance. She turns around and talks to someone behind her.
“We’ll be down in a minute.” She walks into my home without even asking and gives me an annoyed look.
“Why aren’t you dressed? I reminded you ten times this week!” I sigh, knowing she won’t like my explanation.
“Something happened,” I groan and walk to my bedroom. Brooke immediately goes to my closet and starts picking things out.
She’s six months pregnant now and looks incredible. I never realized she would be so cute pregnant, but she is the exact picture of how we all want to look when we’re expecting. Her blonde hair is pulled into a high ponytail and she’s wearing cute blue jeans with a tight, pink long sleeved shirt. Her boobs are peaking through the top, and her growing stomach reaches out further than her boobs now. She looks so cute.
“What happened?” she calls from the closet. I hear her murmuring to herself as she slides hangers across the bar.
“I hurt him again.” She knows exactly what I’m talking about, and I hear a groan that portrays her dismay.
After the engagement party it took Brooke a while to talk to me again. She was upset that her party was ruined, but most of all she was mad at me. I finally convinced her to meet me for coffee so we could talk. The look of disdain on her face made my hopes for making things better disintegrate.
“I can’t believe you,” she whispered, looking away from me. She held her stomach as if to protect me from her baby.
“Please, Brooke. I know it’s hard to understand, especially since you’re pregnant, but I felt like it was my only option.”
“It wasn’t. I’m not saying that the way Blake has handled it is right, but he’s right to be hurt,” she says looking at me finally. “We’ve known him for years and we all know how badly he wanted kids. He’s always talked about having a ton of kids with you.”
“I know.” That’s not really true. He used to talk about wanting kids and a family, but he never, not once, said he wanted it to be with me. He hinted, but he never said the words to me, instead alleging that it would be with the right girl by his side.
&n
bsp; “And you. Of all people. He could have probably handled it better if it had been someone else, but it’s you. He’s only ever wanted you.” Again, questionable. We loved each other, but we never made any promises about eternal love or being together forever.
“I know, Brooke,” I said getting frustrated. “Trust me, I know. I don’t want to talk about him, he hurt me, too.” Her eyes softened as she looked at me, and reached across the table to touch my hand.
“Okay. Just… I’m madder that you never told me.” She started crying, and I was shocked. Brooke doesn’t cry. “I thought I was your best friend, and you never told me! I’m always the last to know what’s going on with you.”
That’s where the problem was. It was that I didn’t confide in her about my struggles.
“I’m so sorry, Brooke. I just felt like it was my own burden to carry. I didn’t want anyone to know.” She nodded her head and wiped away her tears. I hoped she could understand that I wanted discretion. Seth was gone, Blake hurt me, and I was depressed. I felt like talking about it would only hurt some more.
“Sorry… pregnancy hormones have me crying every twenty minutes. Yesterday I cried watching a coffee commercial.” I laughed lightly and scooted my chair next to her, pulling her into a hug.
“I won’t do it again. I’ll tell you everything. I’m so sorry.”
“Good,” she said sniffling. “We’re like peanut butter and pickle sandwiches, you know?”
“Um… peanut butter and jelly?”
“No… I mean peanut butter and pickle sandwiches… I didn’t say it wrong. Had one before I came over here.”
And just like that, things were back to normal between us. I told her everything about Seth. How I feel about him, and how I feel like I deserve to be alone because of the abortion. She doesn’t agree with my choice to get an abortion, but she doesn’t think I should keep myself from happiness because of it. She’s the one I run to when my feelings for Seth become too much. I can’t tell him how I feel, so I tell her.
That's a Lie Page 14
