Cherry Popper

by River Laurent

  I was a coward the next morning. I sneaked out while Jesse was still asleep.

  Part of me felt shocked and devastated to be leaving like a thief in the night. My heart felt as if I should stay and tell him the truth. That I wasn’t coming to lunch…. I was leaving for the city and not coming back for a very, very long time. There was no point in staying, as we were never going to work out since it seemed like he would never tell me who he was, or let me into his life the way I needed.

  Besides, I could never forget how I had seen him out in the backyard of the club smoking a cigarette with those people where he seemed far more at home and relaxed than he’d ever been the whole time he had spent with me.

  That no matter how hot the sex was, no matter how deep our history ran, there was nothing I could do to bridge that gap between us. Especially, if he wouldn’t help. I learned my lesson with Mark. I wouldn’t be the one to do all the legwork again. Either someone meets me halfway, or I was walking away. He had his life—I had mine.

  We had fun, but now it was over because I couldn’t go along anymore with his idea of a relationship without any obligations, ties or real sharing. I thought I could do it, but I couldn’t. That was just not me. I want it all or nothing. And it looked like it would be nothing—because he didn’t really want me.

  He’d said it himself. He would have jumped in to save whomever it was who was being touched against their will. It wasn’t because it was me and that he wanted to keep me safe; it was because it triggered some primal response in him that he couldn’t swerve.

  I threw myself at the town’s womanizer, what did I expect?

  I went to pick up my car and grab my stuff from my parents’ place before they woke up. Last thing I needed was to have to deal with them after what had happened. I told the housekeeper to tell my parents I would call them when I got to the city, then I packed everything into my car, but as I was about to turn the ignition, my father came running out toward me.

  “Damn,” I cursed and deliberately didn’t turn off the engine.

  “Mia, were you going without telling us?”

  “Hey Dad. I told Agnes to tell you.”

  He leaned into the window. “Can you turn the engine off for a second? I want to talk to you.”

  I sighed, but turned it off, and turned toward him.

  “Look, I’m really sorry about last night.”

  “It’s not your fault,” I muttered.

  He looked sad and suddenly older. Maybe because he hadn’t shaved and his stubble had turned white. “It was my fault, honey. I should have stopped Mark. He had no right to do that to you.”

  “It’s okay, Dad. Don’t worry about it. It’s over now. I’m leaving so it doesn’t matter. I’m just sorry that you and Mom will have to put up with all the gossip.”

  “I don’t give a monkey’s ass what those old birds talk about while they secretly swig their gin at ten in the morning.”

  I smiled weakly. “I think Mom does.”

  “Your mother will survive. It’ll do her good to see what it feels like when the shoe is on the other foot.”

  I stared at my father astonished. I’d never heard him speak like this.

  “Now, where are you going to stay?” he asked crisply.

  “I thought of asking Cindy if I could crash on her couch while I get a place of my own.”

  “You can stay at our apartment. It’s empty. Here are the keys.” He held out a ring with bunch of keys on it.

  Something inside me felt like it was breaking. I had held on to my tears all this while, but my father’s kindness was making it impossible to hold it in anymore. My chin began to tremble.

  “Oh honey,” my dad said. He came around, opened my car door, and held his arms open.

  I got out and fell into his embrace. I could feel the tears running down my face. “No man wants me, Dad,” I bawled.

  “Stop that nonsense, right now. You know you’re beautiful.”

  “You have to say that. You’re my dad.” I sniffled.

  “I’m saying that because it’s the truth. Mark doesn’t deserve you. And that other man? Jesse, was it?”

  I nodded against his chest.

  “It was a lot for him to take in last night, wasn’t it? Why don’t you give him another chance?”

  I pulled away from his embrace. “You don’t understand, Dad. It wasn’t about last night. For him, it was just a fun thing. You know, no strings attached.”

  Dad frowned. “Yeah, I know. Don’t say anymore, or I’ll have to go down to his stupid garage and punch his lights out.”

  Even I had to laugh at that. The thought of my straight-laced, prim and proper dad punching Jesse’s lights out was the most hilarious thing I’d heard since I witnessed Mark’s little dick inside another woman.

  Dad started to laugh too.

  I wiped away my tears. “Thanks for the use of the apartment. I really appreciate it.”

  “Don’t be silly. Do you need money?”

  “No.”

  “I’ll put some money into your account anyway.”

  I frowned. “Don’t do that, Dad.”

  “I don’t understand you. Why are you so damn independent? I am your Dad. That’s what Dads are for.”

  “Thanks Dad, but I don’t need it. I have some savings.”

  “Fine, but you stay at the apartment for as long as you want, all right?”

  I nodded.

  “All right. Drive carefully and text me when you get to the city, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Get in the car then.”

  I leaned forward and kissed his cheek. “Thanks, Dad.”

  Chapter 27

  Mia

  I made my way back to the city. All the while, I tried not to think about Jesse waking up all by himself, or how good it might have felt to be there with him as he opened his eyes and smiled that magic smile at me. We could have begun the day together. I felt as though my heart was still lying there in that bed with him. Then with every mile I drove, the strings between me and it were tugged tighter and tighter, making me ache.

  I arrived back in the city and drove straight to my parents’ apartment. It was the height of luxury with tall windows and Italian marble floors, but it didn’t feel like mine. No, I wanted a little studio. Small but cozy, and all mine. Something that would support me and my small life.

  I knew I had to build from the ground up, and work hard to piece together everything that had fallen apart in the last week. Sitting on the big bed in the guest room, I couldn’t believe so much had changed in just a matter of a few days from the moment I had arrived in the apartment with a cake for Mark. It seemed crazy now to think that my entire life had been laid out before me, ready to go ‒ an appropriate marriage, a good job, and a traditional life ‒ that I would have been miserable in for the rest of my years.

  But now that was over. I didn’t have my own place or a fiancé and my heart was back in my hometown with a guy I knew I could never have.

  To my surprise, life moved on. At a snail’s pace, though. Every time the phone rang, my heart stopped. Then I would look at the screen and feel almost tearful with disappointment. I went to the apartment three days later while Mark was at work. The cake had left an oil stain on the carpet and it made me remember how I felt that day.

  I knew I never wanted to feel that way again in my life. It also made me realize that no matter how painful it was short term, long term I had made the right decision to leave Jesse.

  Quickly I gathered all my stuff, and put the key into the letter box.

  The next day, I went back to work and was glad to fall back into the comfortable old routine. Mark called incessantly at my office until I told the receptionist not to put his calls through. He waited for me outside work so I coolly told him I had found someone else and if he harassed me anymore, I would take restraining order out on him.

  His face! It was my tiny revenge.

  He backed off after that and I focused on getting the pieces
of my life to make sense once more. First of all, I needed my own place, so I let the task of rushing around and finding a new apartment distract me. In less than a week, I found a tiny place. It was cute, close to work and it made me feel I’d taken the first step toward my new life. I filled it with all my own stuff and it started to feel a bit like home, but the evenings were the worst. I began to go out with my old friends again, but even then, when they left to give me the space I insisted I needed, I would stare into space and invariably think about Jesse.

  I guess I still couldn’t believe what happened between us.

  I had gone into it being so sure that all I wanted was a little fun, a rebound with someone hot, smart, and renowned for being a great lover. I definitely hadn’t expected to have all these feelings stirred up, like sediment on the bottom of a lake. Something so deep and secret that I’d tried to hide it from everyone, even myself.

  I still wanted him.

  Hell, I needed him.

  He filled out the parts of me I didn’t realize I had been missing, the parts that hated the shallow performance of the lifestyle my parents led. Clearly, he didn’t feel the same way about me. One night I got drunk and nearly drunk-dialed Jesse, but fortunately, I was so drunk I managed to delete his number instead of calling it.

  Well, that was that.

  Fate had taken care of that temptation for me. I cried a little then went to sleep. But when I woke up in the morning, I felt such sorrow and loss it was as if someone had died. I consoled myself with the knowledge that I could always call the garage if I really needed to speak to him. One day after I got over him, I would call him again. Maybe we could be friends. He was a nice guy at the end of the day. The little pep-talk didn’t cheer me up, but it allowed me to get out of bed and go to work.

  My mother tried to reach out to me, but I ignored her, I wasn’t ready to talk to her yet. Julie called too, but I didn’t pick up. She left a message asking why I didn’t go to her wedding. I knew it was a jerk move, not turning up to her wedding, but I couldn’t face her, or any of them. I couldn’t face that town again, not after the emotional mess my last visit had left me in. Julie sent a few more crowing texts about her honeymoon, but I didn’t rise to the bait. But the funny thing about it all was she didn’t sound pissed at all that I didn’t come to her wedding or answer her. In fact, she sounded rather pleased. I guess it made her happy that I had broken up with Jesse and left town.

  Nearly ten days had passed as I tried to build my life up once again, but I still found myself craving Jesse as strongly as I had the first day I drove back alone. If I were honest with myself, I yearned for everything about him. His body, his touch, his scent, the sound of his voice, his laugh.

  I told myself over and over not to be so silly, that it was nothing more than a rebound, but it was clear to my heart that it’d been more than that. I had turned him down all those years ago in high school, but there had always been a depth of connection there. It had even scared me a little.

  But he did not feel it. He had said it himself. Besides, if he had felt anything at all he would have called at least once to see if I was okay. He didn’t. So…that should have been the end of the affair. Until…I was coming home with groceries, and I found a familiar figure sitting on the stoop of my apartment building.

  My heart jumped and I stopped dead in my tracks.

  There was no way that he could actually be here. I must have magicked him up, an illusion created from my quiet desperation. He looked up, but I still found myself expecting him to blink right out of existence in front of me. I took a few steps close and he still didn’t.

  “Jesse?” I spoke his name softly, as though he might vanish if I was too loud.

  Chapter 28

  Mia

  Jesse got to his feet and held his hand out to me. “Let me take those,” he offered.

  Blankly, I handed him the bags I was holding. They didn’t just crash to the ground, so that meant he had to be here—this had to be real.

  He looked at me expectantly.

  I tried my voice. “You want to come upstairs?”

  He nodded.

  I unlocked the door and let him into my apartment. My mind felt as though it had gone totally numb. A million thoughts were racing around my head at once, but I couldn’t focus on a single one of them. My head felt as if it might burst as I watched Jesse step past me and walk into my apartment.

  He put the groceries down on the kitchen table and stood next to the fridge. I carefully closed the door behind us and leaned against the wood. He was wearing a black t-shirt and jeans, and had a smattering of stubble on his face. His hair was shorter though, and his face looked slightly leaner.

  “How did you find this place?” I blurted out at last.

  He flashed a wry smile. “I asked your father.”

  My eyebrows shot up. “And he gave it to you?”

  “Yeah, but let me tell you, that was about the worst conversation of my entire fucking life. It was worse than being called to Mr. Steadman’s office. If I hadn’t been so desperate…” He shook his head.

  I couldn’t help but splutter with laughter at the thought of my father being compared to the principal of our old school.

  The bedroom door was open and he glanced over to the bed. It was just a single and not exactly built for entertaining.

  I pressed my fingertips together, trying to ground myself in the moment and remind myself that this was real, that he was really here in front of me.

  He shifted awkwardly from one foot to the other. “I guess I should explain what the hell I’m doing here,” he said, and he looked up at me with something close to—wow, fear in his eyes.

  I wanted to make that strange, unfamiliar look he wore vanish, to just push him backwards onto my narrow bed, hold him tight and tell him without words just how much I’d missed him, but I held back. I wouldn’t let another man do to me what Mark did. If he was here just for a bit of fun, then I wasn’t going to let him. I needed healing, not getting my heart broken all over again. “I guess you should,” I replied, and crossed my arms over my chest, feeling the wild beat of my heart as I watched him.

  He took a deep breath, looked away from me, and then spoke, “I want you to ask me anything.”

  I stared at him, surprised. Did he really come all this way to just say that? “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, I should have told you everything back when you were at my place.” He shook his head, his face painted with regret. “When I woke up and you weren’t there, I went crazy. I knew that you had gone. Fuck, I even turned up at Julie’s wedding reception, just to see if you would come.”

  “Bet she loved that.”

  “Yeah, they kicked me out as soon as I turned up,” he admitted. “But I deserved that.” He fell silent again and looked at me steadily, nervousness and excitement raced across in his face in equal measure. “So, what do you want to know about me?” he asked quietly.

  I walked over to the bedroom, sat down on the bed, and patted the spot next to me.

  He came over, sat beside me, and stared at the ground.

  My mind was racing. What did I want to know? “Where were you before you came to Cold Creek?” I began.

  He took a deep breath, and for a second, he looked as if he suddenly regretted coming to me, but then he swallowed and spoke, “Gaistend. That’s where I grew up. Well, we moved around a lot, but that town…that’s where we stayed.”

  “And why did you move?”

  “My father…” he trailed off, and then shook his head, as though rewinding something in his head. “Okay, I think I need to start from there.”

  “Please do.”

  He looked me dead in the eye, and I could see he was struggling to spit it out, so I took his hand and squeezed it, a silent promise that no matter what the hell had happened to him all those years ago, I would be here. I loved him and wanted him and I wasn’t going to be frightened away by anything that happened in his past.

  Chapter 29


  Mia

  “My mom died when I was about ten,” he began. “Cancer. It was just…yeah, she was gone, but the funny thing was when she died, I was relieved for her.”

  My eyes widened.

  “My dad used to beat her up all the time and she was always black and blue. The neighbors knew, everyone knew, but no one could do anything.”

  “I’m so sorry, Jesse.”

  “Yeah, it causes me to react badly whenever men are rough with women. I can’t bear it. It makes me remember how helpless I was as a child.”

  Suddenly, his fury at the two times when men had tried to manhandle me made sense.

  He fell silent again for a long moment, and I was about to open my mouth to prompt more out of him, but then he began speaking again, this time faster, like the words were cascading out from some place he’d worked so hard to keep them all locked up in all these years. “Anyway,” he went on, “Me and my brother, Wayne, did our best after mom died. There’d never been a lot of money in the family since Dad spent it all on booze and drugs. The two of us went out to work, and did all the jobs we could to keep the house together as we got older. But Dad was becoming worse. He was a mean drunk and made us give him money. We could barely get by. We got bullied in school because we never had nice clothes or the right books, so it became, like me and Wayne against the world. And especially against Dad. And then he started getting more and more violent. It was okay for a while, because we both knew his hot buttons and we stayed clear until he was so plastered he passed out on the couch, but then he started going after Wayne. Once he even pulled a knife on him. I think he was a little scared of Wayne and wanted him to remember his place, you know? So they started fighting all the time and I just tried to keep out of their way, stay at school, or at work as long as I could.”

  I took a deep breath and squeezed his hand while shaking inside as Jesse paused.

  “But then, one night, when Wayne was at work, Dad came after me. I had just turned sixteen and I guess he thought I was a fair target now that I was big enough to fight back. He really went for me. Came from the back and whacked me hard around the head. Out of nowhere like that, he just completely caught me off-guard. He pulled out his gun and aimed it at me. He was cursing, swearing and mouthing off about how useless I was, and I thought he was going to kill me, I really did.” Jesse stopped speaking and gulped air.