by Heart,Skylar
Inside the box is a ring, a thin band set with a sparkling stone. A wedding ring. I swallow hard, ignoring the way my vision fills with tears and I quickly close the box. Pushing it back where I found it. He was going to marry her. I swallow down the bile that comes up and try to calm my ragged breathing. I can’t replace her, I can never be as good as her, as beautiful as her. So why do I even torture myself like this? Why do I even try?
I blindly turn around and nearly fall face forward onto the floor when my legs get caught in something. I blink hard, willing the tears away. Then I recognize the fabric that I’ve wrapped my legs into. And the tears start all over again. I pull my legs free and hold the fabric up.
It’s the dress that Hunter made for me. Anger swells. I thought that he got rid of this. I don’t… This isn’t what he should have done. When I look where I found the dress, there is more. A drawing of me. One side is me in my normal clothes, and the other side is me in the dress. Fuck. So much for trying to maintain a normal friendly relationship. I put the dress over the drawings and pull the book under my arm. I can’t keep doing this. I need to get away from here. There is nothing but pain here, pain for me. This whole place is filled with Tessa, it’s all about Tessa, and then there is this little corner with things that he made for or about me… Neither of which is good for my heart or my head.
I stumble down the stairs and dump the book on the table in front of the couch as I let myself fall onto the couch. I wrap my arms around myself and just let the tears go. Let the pain go.
I always knew Tessa existed, I know about her. But I never really thought about what she looked like, or what she was like. But just seeing those images, I can see Hunter’s love for her. The love he still holds for her. The love I’ll never be able to compete with.
I stop myself. No. I should never want to compete with. There is nothing about him that’s right for me. Just like I’ll never be right for him. I need to talk to him, need to set boundaries. I need to stop thinking of him like that. Even now, my body is aching to touch him, to hold him, to be held by him.
Dammit.
“Good morning, sleepyhead.” A voice wakes me from my fitful slumber and for a moment I don’t know what is going on. “What are you doing on the couch?” Hunter.
I slowly open my eyes. They’re still raw from crying. “What time is it?”
“Nearly six in the evening. How are you feeling?” He reaches out, but before he can touch my cheek, I pull back. Even if I don’t want to, I still catch the flash of pain that flits over his face at my actions.
“I’m good.” I sit up and stretch. “We need to talk.”
“Sure, but you may want to change into something more comfortable first.” He holds out a bag and puts it on the floor at my feet.
Ah, the bag Lola prepared for me. “Thanks.” I don’t meet his eyes, not being able to right now. Not with what I have to tell him. I open the bag. There are some clothes, a couple of books and even a box of protein bars. Well, that should help me out for at least a while. “I’ll get changed.” I grab the bag and take it with me to the bathroom. There I dig through it for some clean underwear, a skirt and a comfortable top. I undress and when I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror, I can’t help but look. I’m not sure if something has changed, or if it’s just me… I put my hands on my stomach, in the exact place where Hunter held his hand last night, looking between what I see when I look down and what I see in the mirror. It’s different, that’s for certain. I slowly slide my hands down, but before I touch anything, I pull my hands away, my heart beating loudly. No, no. I can’t do that. I can’t.
I rip my eyes away from the mirror and quickly get dressed. When I look up again, I calm down. I look like myself again—my own clothes, my own identity. This is me. I’m Lizzy. I don’t do boyfriends, I don’t do relationships, I do work, I do art, and I… I have an issue with intimacy.
I step closer to the mirror, checking out my face. My eyes are red. It’s obvious that I’ve been crying. I splash some water into my face, hoping that makes it somewhat better. I grab the bag again and take it with me to the table, sitting down next to it.
“Lizzy?” Hunter comes over, like he’s approaching a frightened animal.
“Yes?” I look up, trying to look like I’m okay, like I’m not on the edge of a breakdown.
He opens his mouth a few times, then he lets out a sigh. “Is everything you need in the bag?”
I nod. “Lola knows what I need.” She has always known.
“Good.” He steps closer and then comes down to my level. “What’s wrong?”
I shrug. I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to have to turn him down. But I know that I can’t ignore this. I can’t ignore that we need to set boundaries. Especially now. I startle as Hunter puts his hand against my cheek.
“Can you at least look at me?” His voice is quiet, careful, almost like he’s also scared.
I stare at his eyes, hoping he’ll back off. But he merely looks back at me and then his hand moves, running his thumb over my lips.
“You confuse me. You even frighten me a little.” He comes closer, his eyes now on my lips.
But I break away, pulling back. I can’t do this. He scares the crap out of me. When I look up at him this time, I see all the things I don’t want to see. The bruises on his face that are still healing, the scar on his lip, the stormy eyes that could turn to a cold steel at any moment. Everything that scares me about him.
“I’m sorry.” He steps back, putting me out of his reach. “I’m so sorry.” He closes his eyes and I want to reach out, instead I wrap my arms around myself.
I keep conjuring up the images that I saw upstairs—the proof of his love for Tessa, the ring. No matter what either of us think, there is no place for me in his heart. I’m just a plaything for him. And maybe that is fun, but my heart is getting to a place where that may not be good enough anymore. And I can’t do it. I can’t get into another relationship. Not after Dennis, not after I’ve seen what relationships do to people. The damage they do.
“We can’t keep doing this.” My voice is rough and I clear my throat. “We need to set boundaries.”
Hunter doesn’t say anything, but he’s still standing near. He doesn’t need to say anything. Maybe it’s even better if he doesn’t. That way he can’t say something that hurts.
“No more kissing. No more touching. No more showers together. No more sleeping together. We’re not allowed to look at each other like that any more.” I cross my arms and push them against me, like that will help stop the pain.
“Why?” Hunter’s voice sounds like it comes from far away, even though he’s right next to me, and the hurt in it pains me even more.
“Because I can’t do this again.” The tears I try to fight keep coming up and my voice breaks.
“You can’t do what?”
I squeeze my arms. I want to tell him, I really want to. But that would probably be breaking every rule of friendship ever. So instead I ignore how broken I am inside and focus on him instead. “You still love her. There are better girls than me out there, girls who can do this lovey-dovey stuff without getting attached. But I can’t do anything but be your friend.” The nails in my arms are leaving marks. I can feel it and I like it—I like that this pain matches the pain inside me.
“What makes you think that?” Hunter moves and when I look up at him, he looks angry, upset.
“You have a whole—” My mouth keeps moving but sounds are just not coming any more. My body starts to shake from the sobs.
I want him, I want Hunter so bad, I want him to hold me and tell me that everything will be okay. Even if it won’t.
Chapter 22
Hunter
Seeing Lizzy be so lost, it hurts. I can’t help but feel the pain coming off of her. What happened? Last night and this morning, she seemed to actually warm up to the idea of us together. But now… She’s gone back, pulled back even further than before.
Her whole body shak
es and I fall to my knees right next to her, pulling her close. Sure, she told me not to, but I can’t watch her hurt like this. I can’t watch her be in pain. She stiffens in my arms, putting her hands to my chest.
“Just let me hold you,” I whisper, and pull her closer. Seeing her like this, it hurts.
I try to go over what has happened today, what I’ve said, what she’s said. Trying to find what may have upset her like this. Then it slowly clicks into place…
I told her to go upstairs if she wanted a book. There are still drawings of Tessa there, my only reminders of her. I got rid of everything else, but I couldn’t get rid of those. That must have upset Lizzy. I guess that the way we’ve been around each other doesn’t help either. I know that she’s been wanting some distance between us for a while now and this may have been the latest trigger. Dammit.
Lizzy finally calms in my arms and I slowly let her go. “Better?”
She shakes her head, not looking at me. “You were going to marry her?”
Her question surprises me, but it also rips something apart, a darkness I’ve kept locked away deep inside. Out of everything, that hurts the most. Flashes from the crash, the way Tessa smiled, her wildness. I was going to ask her to marry me. I had the ring in my pocket the day that she crashed. If I hadn’t wanted to find some crazy romantic spot to pop the question, she would still be here.
I stand up, walking away from Lizzy. How can she do this? How can she ask me a question like this? She must know it hurts. It was a night like when I found Lizzy at the side of the road. Dark, rainy, cold. The darkness inside me starts to spread and no matter how hard I try, I can’t push it back in now. No, no, no. The darkness keeps showing me images—the way Tessa used to smile, her body as it was trapped in the wreck of her bike, the way she used to touch me, the way that the EMTs had to try to get her out of the wreck, her red hair, darkened by her own blood, her unseeing eyes.
I grab the first thing I can reach, a book, and throw it at the wall as hard as I can. The thud it makes doesn’t lessen the darkness. I grab the next thing and throw it again, hitting the wall with as much force as I can. I slide into a state of blind rage, punching, throwing things. Everything disappears apart from the need to make this darkness go away, to take this pain away, lock it back inside. A state where the numbness and the pain battle out, trying to get the upper hand. Trying to squash the darkness that gets a hold of me, the darkness I’ve been fighting for the last year.
The dull pain feels good, the sounds of things breaking, the sounds of crashes, the sound of my voice, roaring.
It feels good to break things, to finally let go. To let go of the pain inside. I stomp up the stairs, ripping the painting, the drawings, everything I’ve ever made. And down the stairs they go. Gone. My past gone. My pain gone. My future was gone already, so what does it matter? What does it matter anymore?
As I look around, my chest heaving, trying to find something else that can make me feel good, there is one small sound that penetrates through the blur.
It’s a high, keening sound. It’s not my anger, it’s someone’s fear. It’s animalistic, a fear that is only expressed on instinct.
Fuck. I grab the railing and slowly the darkness subsides. Lizzy! Fuck. Lola’s warning that Lizzy can’t stand aggression flashes through my mind. So does her warning not to hurt Lizzy…
I dash down the stairs, but I can’t see Lizzy. I still hear her, but I can’t see her. I force myself to calm down, to think rationally. Where is she?
I walk through the damage, glad I’m still wearing my shoes, and find her sitting in a corner between the fridge and the wall, hiding from me, a space so small that I never even thought of it. She’s covering her head with her arms and it breaks me. Fuck. I never wanted to hurt her, but I still did.
“Lizzy…” My voice is rough as I kneel in front of her. “Lizzy.”
She won’t stop the sound. She’s so scared that I can’t even reach her any more.
I reach out for her, but when I do, I see the blood on my hands, the bruises, the split skin. How can I fix this? I’m exactly what she’s scared of, who she’s scared of.
I stand up again, turn the tap on and put my hands under it, trying to flush the blood away, but it keeps bubbling up. I flex my hands, the pain finally registering. I messed up, I totally messed up. My only chance I had with Lizzy, and I messed up.
Lizzy finally quiets down and I carefully turn to her. She looks at me from under her arms, her cheeks pale and her eyes wet.
But when I take a step towards her, she pulls back again, hiding.
Fuck. “I’m sorry.” I stay where I am. Maybe that will help.
But she only shakes her head. She can barely look at me, and I don’t blame her. I knew this, I knew this about her. She can’t stand violence, she can’t stand anger. And still, I did this. If I thought the look in her eyes when she saw my bruises before was bad… It pales in comparison to the frightened and pained look she’s giving me now.
“I think you were right.” It hurts to say the words, but I can’t do this again to her. “Maybe it’s better if we’re not even friends. I…” I shake my head. I don’t even know how to explain it, what to say.
As I look at her, trying to read her body language, for a lack of better clues, a small movement catches my eyes. A small red drop makes its way down the underside of her arm. Fuck, that can’t be good. Dammit.
I search through the cupboards under the sink. I’m pretty sure that I left my first-aid kit in here. I sigh as I leave small drops of blood behind as I move and when I look at my right hand, I see a gash from gripping some glass. Great.
I pull out the kit and start rummaging through it with my left hand as I keep my right up higher, trying to slow the bleeding. I pull out some gauze and some bandages. I make quick work of wrapping it around my right hand. I’m way too practiced at this. It only now occurs to me how often I’ve done this, how well I can do this. Not just from getting hurt working with metal, but also from getting into fights.
When I look up, Lizzy’s still in the same spot, but she’s calmed down some and has lowered her arms. The way she rolls up her sleeves, she’s probably also found how she has harmed herself.
I come over to her, and while her eyes are unsure, she doesn’t cower again. I sit down in front of her, the first-aid kit next to me, and hold out my hands. I keep a close eye on her reactions, ready to step back at any moment.
But she reaches out and touches the inside of my bandaged hand, then she leans both her hands in mine. When she finally meets my eyes, there is just a fragment of trust, just a fragment left. I put one of her hands on my leg and pull the sleeve of her shirt up some more.
There are a row of four half-moons in her skin, the skin broken on three of them, then I turn her arm around and there is another one, this one hasn’t broken through the skin. I put her hand down and hunt for something to clean the wounds. I grab some antiseptic and then some cotton buds.
“This okay?” I need to get some reaction from her. But she nods, her eyes focused on what I do. I drench the bud in some of the liquid, the stinging scent permeating in my nose, and slowly run it over the half-moons on her arm.
Lizzy hisses, but doesn’t pull back, instead it’s almost as if she pushes closer to it. My heart hurts just looking at her.
Then I take a gauze and some bandages and carefully put the gauze on her arm. I slowly wrap the bandage around her arm, keeping the gauze in place. Tight enough that it won’t move, but not too tight that it will hurt.
“Can you hold this?” I put my fingers in place and Lizzy holds it against her arm. I cut off the bandage and tape it in place.
Lizzy looks at it for a moment before she looks up at me. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet.” I try to smile, I can’t see her be hurt like this. But the smile doesn’t really want to come. I take her other hand and pull her sleeve up. The half-moons on the outside have all broken through her skin, but when I want to check on
the inside, something else catches my eye. A brown, round scar, right around where the half-moon from her thumb is.
I have to take a deep breath, swallowing the bile down. A burn scar. Lizzy doesn’t look like a girl to do this herself. So this means that someone else did this to her. Probably the same person who made her distrust other people. If I needed any more proof that we can’t do this, this is it. Someone burned her, hurt her, disfigured her. It’s no wonder she can’t stand anger or violence.
“H.” It’s weird to hear her speak the nickname instead of my full name. I’ve not been H around her for quite a while now.
“Yeah?” I soak another cotton bud in antiseptic, taking her hand carefully and running the cotton over the outside and inside of her arm. I clean up the drips on the underside of her arm and reach for a gauze. Only then do I look up, confused by her silence.
“Nothing. Sorry.” Her eyes flit to my face for a moment, but then she looks away.
I put the gauze on and wrap bandages around her other arm too. Then I sit back, not touching her, just being near her for a few moments longer before we’ll have to say goodbye to each other. Because at this point, there is no other ending. “How’s your fever?”
Lizzy shrugs. “I don’t know really. I guess it’s better? But…” She shrugs again as she lets out a deep breath.
I don’t want to say anything, but I know that I’ll have to, because we can’t stay here in silence. No matter how much I want to. “I’m sorry for freaking out. That must have been really frightening.”
Lizzy glances my way for a moment before she nods.
“I know we can’t keep doing this. I can’t keep doing this to you, it’s not fair on you.” Like I’ve ever been fair on her, like anything I do is fair to her. I’ve taken away her smile, her happiness. I’m such an asshole. “I’m sorry for scaring you.” I stand up and grab the first-aid kit, I put it back, wincing as I put too much pressure on my sliced hand, then I look over to the mess I’ve made.
