“Joseph West.” Joseph holds his hand out for me as I rise. We shake hands, and he clarifies, “But you can call me Joe.”
Teller nods his head to Joe. “He transferred here from New York last year.”
“Two years ago.” Joe drops my hand to scratch the back of his neck in a nervous why-the-hell-is-this-guy-staring-at-me-like-he-wants-to-eat-my-throat kind of way.
I get it. Teller is extreme.
“Whatever,” Teller mumbles.
It’s apparent Teller doesn’t pay attention to anything outside of his lessons … and me. Future Dr. Reddy isn’t your typical med geek. He’s rash. He’s impulsive. He’s distracted and tattooed, and he chain-smokes on a bad day. Tell doesn’t notice anyone, but everyone notices a person like that.
He’s a lot to juggle, but where would I be today if it were not for him?
A sudden flash of appreciation releases butterflies in my stomach, and I miss the weight of his arm around my neck. Joe’s swanky accent will never make me full-body weak like Teller does. The twist of his smile, or anyone else’s for that matter, won’t come close to captivating me like the smirk responsible for bringing me back to life.
Boundaries are key, but we’re keyless and wandering unnavigated.
Teller reintroduced me to the world after tragedy, and the bastard drilled holes into my bones and filled them with himself. There’s no getting rid of him, and he’s never letting me out of his sight. We need to relearn how to know each other, someday.
“Buy me something to drink?” I squeeze Teller’s fingers, instantly grounded.
“Sure, baby,” he responds. Returning his cigarette to his ear, Teller points over his shoulder and says, “I need to move my car out of the fucking fire lane. Be right back.”
Joe and I watch him jog away, holding his pants up as he goes. It’s amazing to me that I can be so obsessed with someone who drives me so incredibly crazy, but here I am, fixated.
“Are you guys a thing?” Joseph interrupts my inner struggle.
“What?” I pretend to be shocked by his assumption. His not entirely incorrect assumption. “No, we’re friends. That’s it.”
His eyebrows lift in surprise. “Does he know that?”
“We’re just friends,” I repeat. The words taste like a betrayal on my tongue, but maybe if I say them enough, they’ll come true.
Joe nods his head, pressing his lips together before he says, “So, ’bout that number?”
“Who are you texting?” Teller asks. He stretches his neck to look at my phone, but I pull it out of reach.
“No one,” I say playfully. “Mind your own business.”
“You are my business, Ella.” The late morning sun showcases the freckles speckled across his nose and cheeks. I wish I could take a pen out of my backpack and connect the dots like constellations. “Is it Joseph West?”
Scrambling for something to say, I drop my phone into my bag and map out an escape route. He’s dropping me off at the hospital for another day of clinicals before he heads to school, but this is Los Angeles, and there’s always traffic. At this speed, I can jump out and walk away with nothing but skinned knees. If I manage to outsmart him, I’ll color my hair and assume a new identity.
It’s the only way.
“He talks about you,” Teller says. His hand tightens around the steering wheel, and he clenches his jaw. “It’s hard not to knock his head off his fucking shoulders.”
“He’s harmless,” I whisper. Two weeks have passed since I literally ran into Joe’s path. Unbeknownst to Teller, but for his benefit, I tiptoe behind his back for a daily dose of normal, New York style.
Nothing but conversation has happened between Joe and me. I convince myself I slink around so Joe can keep his head, but the truth is, I don’t want to hurt Tell. And more than that, I like Joe. We don’t talk about anything too personal. I think it’s the solace I appreciate most. To have a normal discussion with a person of the opposite sex with no strings attached is fascinating.
“He’s cool,” Teller says. He pulls his car into the hospital parking lot.
Teller puts his BMW into park and kills the engine, but neither one of us wants to be the first to move. Tension pours into the car, filling it from the floor up. I should have jumped when I had the chance. Skinned knees and bruises would hurt less than witnessing my first friend battle his troubles. Our effort to be friends progresses, but our strings are permanently tangled. I have a feeling our regard for each other will never fade.
It’s better this way, I remind myself.
“Do you like him?” he asks.
“I don’t know,” I answer honestly. “It’s not like that, Tell.”
He scoffs, patting his pockets for the cigarette pack he can never seem to find. “Not yet.”
I can deny it. For Teller’s sake. For mine. He and I are messy together, but the years spent walking the line between devotion and loathing made an impact. He’s the most important person in my life; it’s a blessing and a curse.
“He’s a friend,” I say.
Teller drops his head to the steering wheel, gripping it until his knuckles turn white. The veins in his hands and neck protrude, and his back rises and falls as air fills his lungs. “This is what you want?”
Sliding my hand across the back of his head, I bend my fingers into his hair until jealous green eyes light me on fire. He smells like tobacco, soap, and ginger—familiar and gut-wrenching all at once. I take his face in my hands and brush my thumbs under his lower lashes, wiping away tears.
“Why are you crying, Tell?” I ask. My voice cracks. My heart cracks.
He rests his forehead against mine, holding me behind the neck with one hand while the other grips my wrist. “How do you expect me to sit back while you love someone else? How am I supposed to fucking accept that?”
I press my lips between his brows, below his ear, and at the corner of his mouth. I run my fingers through his waves, along the stubble growing on his jaw, and I finally rest my palm on his pulse. It reaches for me, push, push, pushing against my hand.
“We did this together,” I remind him. “We couldn’t figure it out. We couldn’t get it right.”
Teller pushes away, shoving me off when I dig my fingers into his shirt. He stumbles to get the keys out of the ignition and grabs his hat from the dashboard to help cover the mess I made of his hair and the redness in his eyes from crying.
“I won’t date him if you don’t want me to,” I cry out, grabbing the back of his shirt as he exits the car. It stretches and frees from my fingers, stronger than my integrity. “Do you think this is what I want?”
He slams the door, locking me inside alone. Rage and remorse bite my insides, chewing on my heartstrings and consuming every ounce of giving a shit I have left. No one—not my mom, not my dad, and not my brother—has ever maddened me like Teller can. It’s a fiery bitterness that leaves me silly and irrational. It launches my foot into the door, kicking it over and over until the alarm sounds. It’s a lifetime of resentment coming from me in hot tears and frantic screams.
It’s why we can’t be together.
He’s going to get me kicked out of school.
Teller opens the door and snatches me from the passenger seat.
“Is everything okay over here?” a passerby asks. Through my outrageousness, I see the do-gooder standing back awkwardly, looking for someone else to take it from here. “Do you need help?”
Without a second glance, I look away from my would-be savior and claw my nails into Teller’s stupid, gorgeous face.
“Does it look like she’s being attacked?” Teller says, holding my arms away. “Get the fuck out of here.”
Falling back into what makes us horrible is so easy and so fulfilling. Our strong attachment—this patchwork of sane and insensible—is the best kind of euphoria and the worst dose of reality. It forces me to look in the mirror and ask, What kind of person am I? Is it Teller making me react this way, or is he just a faucet to my bottled-
up self?
“I get it, Ella,” Teller says. His tone is calm, and he’s lost the psychotic blaze in his eyes. “Okay? I know why … why you can’t be mine.”
“I’m crazy,” I say, heaving for a decent breath.
The right side of his mouth tilts up, and Teller pulls me closer, wrapping my arms around his waist. “That makes two of us, Smella.”
I close my eyes as he rests his lips on the top of my head, dousing me with the scent of Marlboros and spicy cologne. His closeness stitches the fragmented parts of me together, irregularly, but I’m not falling apart anymore. There’s such comfort in Teller, like a towel right out of the dryer on a cold day. In another life where he isn’t jealous, and I’m not defensive, maybe it could work for us.
With my ear pressed against his chest, I hold tighter and hear the rumble of his laugh.
“Don’t leave me, Tell,” I say selfishly.
His arms circle me, closing the embrace to the outside. We fit like this, tucked up and pinned together with no room to let light through. I want to slip under his shirt to breathe in his spirit and hide from everything that makes us wrong for each other.
But there’s no hiding from it.
Like most relationships in my life, this one is condemned. My goal is to fix it before he leaves like my mother did, or dies like my father.
“You’re stuck with me, babe,” Teller says. “I’ll take you any way I can.”
Now
“What about this one?” Maby holds out a nude pleated dress over her arm so I can admire its length.
I run my hand across the delicate fabric and ask, “Is this what you want me to wear?”
She exhales and hangs the dress back on the rack, moving on to the next style. Trailing behind her, I think the fluorescent lights are giving me a migraine, and at this point, I’m willing to wear a clown suit if it’ll get us out of this god-forsaken shopping mall. It’s been two days since I left Teller in a tent in my backyard, and twenty-four of those hours have been spent back in Los Angeles. I’m already exhausted by the traffic, the sun, and the pushy salespeople spraying perfume in my face.
“It isn’t about what I want, Ella,” Maby says, showing me a black mini. I scrunch my nose and shake my head. “But I asked you to get a dress a month ago. The wedding’s tomorrow, so your options are slim.”
I gaze at the designer dresses made of lace and satin, brushing my bangs out of my eyes. I was so wrapped up in my own failing love life, I disregarded Maby’s flourishing one.
I am a dick.
“Look, Maby.” I glance at her from under my lashes, seeing my messy existence compared to my friend’s togetherness. She’s scheduled to marry Husher tomorrow, and for some reason, she wants me included in that monumental moment. At this point, I need more than a dress. My hair is a disaster, I chewed my nails off, and I’m overcome with paralyzing anxiety at the thought of seeing Teller tonight at the rehearsal. “I haven’t been myself lately, and I’m sorry for not being here for you. The last thing you need from me is more stress.”
She takes my face in her perfectly manicured hands and smiles. “We’ve been through a lot together, Ella. We’re best friends, and absolutely nothing will ever change that, okay? Wear what you have on to the wedding. I don’t care. The only thing that matters to me is that you’re by my side tomorrow.”
I laugh out loud, catching the attention of our fellow shoppers. I’m wearing cut-off jean shorts and one of Teller’s old white shirts that still smells like him despite how many times I’ve washed it.
“You don’t mean any of that,” I say, kissing the inside of her palm.
“You’re absolutely right.” She smiles the same exact way her brother does, crooked and utterly devastating. “I don’t know where you got those things you’re calling shorts, but they’re hideous. And your nails are gross. You’re gross. We need to fix you.”
Lighter on my feet, I follow her around as she strides from rack to rack, holding dresses up to me as we maneuver through the maze. Maby hoards the ones she likes and scoffs at the ones she hates. By the time we make it to the dressing rooms, she has a pile of dresses waiting for me to try on.
I’m in ballroom gown hell.
“I’ve gained too much weight to wear most of these, Maby,” I complain as she pushes me into the family-sized room.
She trails in behind me, locking the door. “Don’t be ridiculous. Your body has never looked better.”
“Stop lying,” I say. My bra is crazy-cat-woman beige, and my underwear is just-gave-birth big. I have no cats or children, and I have no excuses when Maby takes one look at me and hisses.
She shakes her head, passing me the first dress. “I don’t get it. I mean, is that paint on your bra?”
Yanking the pale pink garment from her hands, I turn away, only to have her hiss at me again.
Like a snake.
Like she’s a literal snake.
“Everyone knows you have a lot on your plate, Ella. The extra crap with my brother probably doesn’t help the situation, but I’ve never seen an uglier pair of underwear in my entire life. They go halfway up your back. You should be ashamed of yourself.” Peeking over my shoulder, I look in time to see Maby cringe.
I roll my eyes and drop the dress to the floor and then drop my bra to the floor. “I’d like to see you refurbish a house in a thong.”
“No one wears thongs anymore, dumbass.” Maby throws my bra over the changing room door. “I feel boring just by touching that.”
“Hey!” I protest. “I need that, Maby. Am I supposed to run around braless all day?”
She crosses her arms over her chest and smiles. “Trust me, babe. It’s better this way. You don’t need that kind of negativity in your life.”
The first dress I’m forced to model for the bride-to-be won’t zip in the back, and the second dress is so tight it’ll break a rib or two if left on for too long. The third dress, a pastel yellow gown, looks terrible against my complexion, and the fourth, a white cap sleeve lace ensemble, transforms me into the Pillsbury Doughboy.
Dropping my head back, I laugh at what a disaster this is turning out to be. “A brown paper sack would look better than these dresses.”
“No kidding,” Maby mumbles, unbuttoning mishap number four. “But I have a good feeling about the next one. Don’t give up yet.”
Maby slips dress number five over my head, a floor-length lavender chiffon evening gown. Harps play, and angels sing, and it only takes one look in the mirror to know this is the one. Delicate fabric and flawless stitching hide the parts of me I don’t like and show off the parts I love.
Turning from side-to-side, allowing the skirt to sway, it’s amazing how a form-fitting dress can change the way I feel about myself in an instant. If I’d known that a beautiful gown was the answer to my miserable existence, I would have painted the walls and sanded the cabinets in a prom dress.
“Hair up or down?” Maby asks, gathering my locks into her hand to lift it off my shoulders.
“Up,” I say.
Bright green eyes meet mine in the mirror. “That’s what I was thinking, too.”
“Oh, honey,” Chaz, Maby’s hair artist, wipes his hands on his apron after running his fingers through my hair. “You are too young to have so much gray hair. And split ends. And—”
“I get it. Thanks.” I roll my eyes and scoff. Bridezilla forbid me from wearing the dress out of the store, so I’m back to feeling like my dingy self—braless and paint-speckled. “Can you fix it?”
Chaz bites his bottom lip in contemplation.
“You have my permission to do whatever you need, Chaz,” Maby says from one station over. She’s having her makeup done before the rehearsal dinner tonight. “Ella’s had a rough couple of months.”
Chaz inspects the paint still stuck in my hair, and Maby says, “You think that’s bad? You should have seen the bra she was wearing.” They talk back and forth like I’m not listening or watching every unsure expression that crosses their
faces. But even with their total disregard for my presence, and without the miracle dress, I’m able to sink into the chair and finally relax.
My state of relaxation increases when Chaz’s assistant offers me a glass of champagne and I drink three. Stress melts away with each sip of bubbly, and a scalp massage fantastic enough to make me forget Chaz’s previous indiscretions is the icing on my meh flavored cake.
It might be the booze, but for the second time today, I watch the old me reemerge from the depths of not-giving-a-shit and heartbreak. With each ounce of hair color and each snip from his shears, I start to recognize myself again. The reflection looking back at me is older and a little rough around the edges, but there I am.
“That’s it, girl.” Chaz squeezes my shoulder. His smile is kind. “Just relax and let Uncle Chaz take care of you.”
A few hours later, the sun isn’t as high in the sky as it was when we walked into the salon, but my outlook looks brighter.
The scuffed soles of my shoes step onto the sidewalk, and I take a deep breath of cool, polluted L.A. air. It smells like exhaust, garbage, and plumeria. Outside perception—and my literal actuality—is I’m still not wearing a bra. My nipples are visible through my shirt, my shorts are tattered, and even though I don’t have paint in my hair anymore, it’s embedded in my fingernails. From the neck down, I look like I’m from skid row and not from a four-bedroom Spanish villa in Echo Park.
But from the neck up, I’m glossed, lashed, and curled. There’s a pep in my step I didn’t have when I hopped on a plane in the middle of the night to run away from the man I love. My spine’s lengthened, and for one sunlight-soaked minute, I don’t feel defeated.
This changes the second I come face-to-face with Teller at the rehearsal dinner.
“Hi,” he says. His green eyes drink me in and spit me right out.
“Hi,” I say, swallowing the tremble in my tone.
Flashbacks to the night in his tent cut me at the knees and puncture my lungs, but I refuse to be unsteady, gasping for air in front of him again.
Sever (Closer Book 2) Page 7
