Buried Castles

by Monica Alexander

  “Jen?” I asked, surprised to see her and even more surprised at how far her belly was sticking out. She was really pregnant.

  It had been months since I’d seen her, and the difference was incredible. I also couldn’t help but notice that her eyes were red and puffy, her cheeks tear-streaked. She fell into my arms before I could ask her what was wrong.

  “He blaoubfmet,” she sobbed, her words getting lost in my shirt, as I pulled her into the house.

  “What?” I asked, as I steered her over to the couch so she could sit.

  She wasn’t wearing a coat, and her clothes carried the frigid cold with them. I sat her down, draped an afghan my mother had made around her shoulders and handed her a roll of paper towels. We didn’t have tissues, and the tears were running down her face in that moment. She was sobbing hysterically.

  It was strange. I’d only ever seen her like this one other time, and it was when she found out her childhood dog, Grizzly, had to be put down because he’d gotten a brain tumor. Jen was normally so strong, so fierce. She wasn’t a crier.

  Once her tears subsided, she looked up at me with the saddest look I’ve possibly ever seen, as she wiped her eyes and blew her nose on the crumpled up paper towel she’d been fisting in her hand.

  “Where’s my brother?” she asked, sounding congested as she looked around the living room, as if expecting Derrick to appear.

  “He’s out with Whitney.”

  “Who?” she asked, looking confused and a little annoyed.

  “Girl of the week,” I said, needing to explain no more. Derrick changed girls more than he changed his underwear, and Jen knew it. She also blasted him for it whenever she got the chance.

  Of course I wasn’t exactly in a position to talk, since the only reason I was alone at that moment was because . . . Layla? Yeah, Layla. That was her name. She’d had a test in the morning and had to go home to study. I’d met her after our show the night before, and she and her friend, whose name I’d forgotten because she’d left shortly after two in the morning, had come over to hang out. Layla, however, had stayed all night and throughout the day. She and Jen had actually just missed each other by about ten minutes which was probably a good thing. Jen despised her brother’s ‘man-whore ways’ as she called them, and I didn’t feel like having her judge me the same way. She was my ex after all. I didn’t need her to be aware of my recreational habits.

  Jen slumped back against the couch. “I’ll just wait for him in his room if that’s okay,” she said, sounding despondent.

  “No, you won’t,” I said, knowing that as much as I didn’t want to hear all about her guy problems, because she’d definitely said ‘he’ when she was trying to explain what brought her to our house at eleven o’clock on a Tuesday night, I knew I couldn’t let her sit alone in Derrick’s room and cry. Besides, he probably wasn’t coming home that night anyway. I owed it to her to be a friend with the history we had. “Tell me what’s wrong?”

  We both looked over at the coffee table, distracted as my phone vibrated with a text. It was from Candace, and I wasn’t sure who Candace was, but she was asking me if I was alone. Very tempting.

  “Do you need to get that?” Jen asked, inadvertently stroking her round stomach.

  I shook my head as my eyes drifted to her hand. I still couldn’t believe she was going to be a mother. True, she’d always wanted kids, but I hadn’t expected her to have them so soon. Of course, I was pretty sure she hadn’t planned to get pregnant right before starting grad school, so I had to assume the news had taken her by surprise, as well.

  “I know,” she said, sighing. “I’m fat and disgusting. You can say it.”

  I looked up at her in alarm. “I wasn’t thinking that, Jen,” I said, shaking my head. “Regardless of what you think, I’m not a complete dick.”

  She shrugged but didn’t respond right away. “No, I’m fat and swollen, and Jay no longer finds me fuckable, so there you have it.”

  “What?” I asked, thoroughly confused.

  “He left me,” she said, as a fresh sob emerged, and I found myself pulling her into my arms again which felt completely foreign.

  I wondered if she felt the same way because she pulled back quickly.

  “He left?” I asked, as reality hit me square in the stomach. Jen was six months pregnant, and her fiancé had broken up with her? That was bullshit. Derrick was going to kick Jay’s ass.

  She nodded, the tears running down her cheeks. “He said he wasn’t ready to be a father, and he needed some time, and he doesn’t think we should live together anymore.” My eyes got wide with indignation. Maybe I would kick Jay’s ass before Derrick could even get to him. “He said he’ll give me money for when the baby comes, but he doesn’t want to be a part of her life. Zack, I don’t have anywhere to live!” she gasped, and her head fell into her hands.

  Ever practical, Jen was focused on her immediate needs, and I immediately started thinking about where we would put all the crap that we kept in our spare room. Without even thinking about what it would mean and without consulting Derrick, I made the decision that Jen would move in with us. Regardless of my feelings toward her and our history, it was the only option I’d be able to live with. I wasn’t about to send a pregnant woman out on her own, and who knew when Derrick had last changed his sheets. She wasn’t going to stay in his room until she figured out another solution.

  “You can stay with us,” I said, taking her hand and squeezing it.

  I was amazed that I didn’t feel anything toward her. For months after we’d broken up, I’d still get that urge to kiss her when I’d see her out at Leo’s bar or walking on campus. We’d even had that ridiculously hot night together back in May when she’d walked into my room drunk and wearing nothing but her graduation cap, having consumed way too much champagne at dinner with her parents. Jay had been out of town, and she’d come looking for some fun. I’d been more than happy oblige.

  But it was right after that night that I realized my lingering feelings for the girl I’d dated for three years had gone away. We didn’t see each other that much, but when we did, she was just Derrick’s sister. A friend. I no longer saw her as the first, and only, girl I’d ever loved, and it was a nice change.

  Jen looked up at me in surprise before she threw her arms around me. “Thank you, Zack! You’re the best. I promise it’ll only be for a night or two. I’ll look for my own place tomorrow. I’ll be out of your hair as soon as I can.”

  I shook my head. I was well-aware of Jen’s financial situation. She was using student loans to pay for grad school and didn’t make a lot of money at her job as an assistant at an accounting firm. According to Derrick, she hadn’t been paying rent at Jay’s place. He was a trust fund baby, and his parents were covering his bills while he was in law school. Jen had scored a sweet deal when they’d moved in together almost a year before, and I didn’t think she’d taken the time to add up just how much money she’d need to survive by herself, let alone when the baby came.

  “Forget it,” I said, and Jen looked up at me in surprise, her mouth a tiny ‘o’. “I’ll move all of our stuff from the spare room into the garage. We’ll make that your room.”

  I smiled to let her know I wasn’t kidding, and she cocked her head to the side. “Seriously?”

  I nodded. “Yeah. You’re not exactly in a position where you should live alone anyway. It’ll be better for you to have people around.”

  “What about when the baby comes?” she asked, covering her bases and thinking ahead. Jen was a planner.

  “She’ll live here too,” I said, wondering how on earth Derrick and I would be able to maintain our lifestyles with a baby living under our roof, but in that moment, it was the least of my concerns.

  I knew Derrick would want his sister and his niece living with him, especially since their parents had move to California the year before. As wacked out as Derrick could be, he was weird about family, but in a good way. He adored his older sister and would do anyt
hing for her.

  “Zack, are you serious?” I knew she was skeptical of this suggestion, but I didn’t care.

  I nodded. “We’re here for you, okay?”

  Jen sniffed and wiped her nose. “Thank you.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Emily

  Lifting my beer mug from the table, my eyes glanced to the inside of my right wrist, to my flower tattoo. I’d had it for nearly a month, but I still loved to stare at it. The flower was so pretty, but I also loved the words I’d decided to ink around it at the last minute. Whenever I looked at then, I found new resolve.

  All You Can Do Is Jump

  They were Zack’s lyrics, but in the aftermath of what I’d been through with him, they held a lot of meaning for me, as well. There was only one thing I could do to deal with how I still felt about him, and those words reminded me of it. I needed to jump. No matter how bad I felt, I couldn’t let the past hold me back, because after all that time, after nearly two months, I still thought about him every day, and I missed him like crazy. If I wasn’t careful, I would drown in the feelings I still held for him. Jumping was the only option.

  Before I realized it, the overwhelming urge to cry hit me, and I wasn’t sure why. I hadn’t cried over Zack in almost a month. I looked up at Taryn and Rachel who were engaged in a conversation I couldn’t hear. They didn’t notice me slowly starting to lose it. Then I realized what the trigger was as the familiar lyrics started resonating in my brain, and that night on the beach came back to me at full speed. I knew I needed to get out of the bar.

  Use Somebody by Kings of Leon was playing on the jukebox. I rose from the table and pushed my way to the door. It was crowded for a Thursday night, and no one seemed to notice me elbowing my way outside, dangerously close to breaking down in the middle of a public place. I was having a hard time fighting back the flood of emotions that had hit me all at once.

  As soon as I got outside, I broke away around the side of the building and leaned against the wall, taking a moment to light a clove cigarette. As soon as the cigarette was at my lips, I inhaled deeply, the smell that reminded me only of Zack, and let the tears flow. I could still hear the faint chords of the song I’d run from playing over the din of people talking and laughing, and I shut my eyes in an effort to block it out altogether.

  Thank God Liar’s Edge had never made it big. It was one thing to get emotional over a song that Zack had played for me, but it wasn’t like it was his voice emanating from that juke box. Had it been, I would have been a puddle on the floor under the table. I hadn’t heard him sing in months, simply because his voice held more power over me than anything else. It was what I’d fallen in love with before I’d fallen in love with him.

  I took another long drag as the song thankfully came to a close and was replaced by a pop song I didn’t know. Holding the smoke in my lungs, I looked up at the cloudy night sky wishing I hadn’t gone out, but Rachel and Taryn had insisted. They said I’d been holed up in my apartment for too long and they were taking me out for a girl’s night. I begrudgingly got dressed and left with them, all the while knowing it was a bad idea. Well, consider me psychic, because I was right.

  Wrapping my arms around myself, I closed my eyes and leaned my head against the brick wall behind me. I took a few calming breaths and one last drag off of my cigarette before I flicked it away. I gritted my teeth and kicked the wall behind me with the heel of my motorcycle boot. Shaking my head in frustration, I slid down to the ground and lit another cigarette.

  I hadn’t actually intended to start smoking, but it had sort of just happened. Back in September, after I’d gotten my tattoo, Rachel and I had gone outside so she could smoke. Chase’s tattoo was going to take a lot longer, so we had time to kill. But she was out of cigarettes, so we walked to the nearby bodega where I spotted a pack of clove cigarettes. I bought a pack and sat on the bench outside the tattoo parlor with Rachel and inhaled the sweet scent of the burning cloves wafting from the cigarette while we waited for Chase, and for the first time in weeks, I actually felt close to Zack.

  The familiar smell I had inhaled so many times over the summer was literally between my fingers, and I knew I had to replicate it. It became like a drug, and I found myself doing it again and again whenever I missed Zack, which was pretty often. I loved how the smell would take me back to all the happy times we had, and it became like an addiction. I just wanted to feel like I was near him again.

  Unfortunately, I’d start to miss him most when I was out at night and drinking, and it looked a little strange when I sat there sniffing a cigarette in public, so I’d started actually smoking. After a month, I was decently addicted. I was also well aware that it was a horrible habit to have, and I told myself I could stop any time, but I never did. Just like the music that made me think of him, the familiar scent of the cloves took me right back to his spot, and I could almost feel his arms around me as we sat on the beach, backs against the rocks, looking up at the stars.

  “Are you okay?” a familiar voice asked, and I opened my eyes to see Ben standing over me, appraising me with a concerned look on his face.

  He had apparently seen me leave the bar, and even though I knew he hated the smell of cigarette smoke since he told me every chance he got, he sat down next to me so we were shoulder to shoulder. We hadn’t really touched since the time he’d hugged me at Starbucks after he’d asked if we could be friends, and our friendship was awkward at best, but for some reason, that night, when I was feeling lower than I had in weeks, I welcomed his presence.

  I rolled my head so I could look at him. “I’m fine,” I said, as I took another long drag off my rapidly dwindling cigarette. I looked away, blowing the smoke up into the night sky.

  “I know you better than that, Em. Come on. I told you I wanted to be friends, and I’d say right about now, you need a friend.”

  He was being so sweet, and the weight of what I was feeling was making my head ache. So I welcomed his words and his broad shoulder and his familiar warmth. It had been months since I’d let anyone hold me, and suddenly, it didn’t matter what had happened between Ben and me over the summer. He was being sweet and kind, and I suddenly missed what we used to have together.

  “You don’t want to know,” I said, letting my head drop onto his shoulder. Ben responded just how I thought he would and put his arm around me, pulling me against him.

  He sighed, long and loud. “Em, I know you don’t want us to be together. I get it, but let me be your friend. Please. Don’t push me away anymore.”

  I needed a friend in that moment, and when I glanced up at him and saw the sincerity in his eyes, I sighed heavily and started talking, telling Ben, the one person I knew didn’t want to hear it, our whole story. Worse, I cried as I talked, wishing I could shut up, but the words and tears just kept coming. Ben held me tight and listened. He didn’t say anything, especially when I got to the part about sleeping with Zack for the first time. I knew it hurt him to hear that, but he didn’t say a word. Afterward he continued to hold me as I cried. I hoped the tears would provide some sort of relief, but they just didn’t.

  “I’m so sorry he hurt you, Em,” Ben said, causing me to look up at him in surprise. “He’s a jerk.”

  I just nodded, but at the same time I knew Zack wasn’t a jerk. He was incredible and sweet and devoted to his family. Yes, he’d hurt me, but it hadn’t been his intention. That much I knew. He’d done the right thing when he’d chosen his mom over me, but it still hurt that he hadn’t ever bothered to call. He’d just cut ties completely, and that was what killed me.

  It made me believe that what we had was just a casual summer fling after all. I’d fallen head over heels in love with him, and I thought he’d been falling right along with me, but I was wrong. I remembered his words from the last time we spoke, wishing I could forget them.

  I’m not good for you.

  You deserve so much more than a guy who can’t get his shit together.

  I didn’t want someone to
fall in love with me.

  You don’t even know me.

  You don’t know half of the shit that I’m dealing with right now.

  I’m fucking broken, and you can’t fix it.

  My heart ached just thinking about him sitting next to me on the porch steps as he broke my heart over and over again, severing any far-fetched ideas that we’d have something long term. It was never going to happen. He’d been so cold, so detached, so different from how he’d been all summer, and I knew something had triggered it – something more than his mother’s illness. That had been part of it, but there was something else.

  “I would never hurt you, Emily,” Ben said then, looking down at me, and I could see the love he still felt for me, even after I’d cheated on him.

  In that moment, I looked up into his deep blue eyes, taking in the familiarity and comfort that they held. I knew he was right. He was a nice guy, and he’d never intentionally hurt me. He loved me. In the end, he hadn’t done anything to deserve what I’d done to him. I had vilified him in my mind, but he was never in the wrong. I was the one who was screwed up by looking for something more than he could give. I was the one who’d fallen out of love with him. Sure, he’d called me some pretty shitty names when we’d broken up, but I could overlook that. I’d done a pretty shitty thing to him by cheating.

  “No, you wouldn’t,” I said, shaking my head sadly.

  Ben held me against his side. “Em, I know I won’t quite ever understand where your head was at this summer or what you needed from that Zack guy, but he’s not here. I am, and I love you. I miss you so much, baby. I think we were really good together. I just wish you’d give me another chance. Please.”

  “I don’t know, Ben,” I said, looking up at him and reading the plea on his face.

  He was in as much pain as I was. Only I was responsible for causing his pain, which meant I could also take it away, and at the same time, maybe ease some of mine. Without really thinking, I leaned up and kissed him, taking him by surprise.