Forever We Fall

by Chloe Walsh

  “When all of this is over, I’m gonna take you away from here,” I heard Kyle tell Lee. “Somewhere no one knows us.”

  “Where will we go?” Lee asked.

  “France, England, Australia. Hell, anywhere you want, princess,” he coaxed. “For as long as you want.”

  “What about Ireland?” I asked quietly. “It’s close. It’s safe. It’s peaceful . . .”

  “Ireland,” Kyle mused. “I’m game. What about you, princess?”

  “I’ve never been abroad,” she whispered. “Ireland sounds like a good start.”

  “When all of this is over, we’ll visit Ireland,” Kyle said steadily. “Think about that, princess. Look forward to it. We still have a future.” I felt a hand on my shoulder and then Kyle’s voice in my ear, “You too, Der,” he grumbled.

  Glancing in the rear-view mirror I watched as Kyle pulled Lee onto his lap, rocking her gently in his arms, placing kisses on her hair, face and pretty much any part of her body he could reach. One of his hands was stretched across the seat, his fingers clamped securely in the chubby little hand of his daughter. I shook my head in anger.

  This was our reality now.

  “I know all about you, Carter. All about your whore of a momma.” He whistled down the line. “Must’ve fucked her up real bad to make her kill herself . . .”

  ‘I’m going to end you,” I vowed. “Before you take your last breath on this earth, I will have found a way to make you suffer for what you did to her.”

  “Not if I kill you first,” Jimmy roared. “You, your whore, and your little bastard . . .”

  “You, your whore, and your little bastard . . .”

  “You, your whore, and your little bastard . . .”

  I jerked awake with my heart hammering against my chest, my body blanketed in a layer of sweat with Jimmy Bennett’s words of promise drilling in my ears. I rubbed my face with my hand and tried to steady my breathing. Jesus, I didn’t have nightmares—I hadn’t had a nightmare since I was a kid—but tonight I’d been haunted by that child-beating bastard. Even in sleep I couldn’t get his words out of my mind. Christ, no wonder she had nightmares. Having suffered eighteen years with that monster I thought it was a pretty huge miracle that she wasn’t a rocking mess in a corner . . .

  I’d always thought of myself as a pretty impenetrable guy. A lone wolf. Don’t get too close and they can’t let you down had been my motto for most of my life. I’d kept myself to myself, rarely trusted, pushing anyone who threatened my isolated serenity away as hard and as quickly as I could. I’d survived just fine like that for twenty-two years, built up walls of steel and kept myself safeguarded from getting hurt—from giving too much away and being let down. But one glance at the tiny brunette curled up on the bed beside me, with my daughter wrapped in her arms, and every mental wall and barrier I’d ever built crumbled until I was completely exposed. Bare. Cracked clean open.

  We usually never allowed our daughter to sleep in our room, we couldn’t because of Lee’s nightmares, but when we got home from the hotel last night, Hope had screamed relentlessly, only settling when she was snuggled against her mother’s heartbeat. I couldn’t blame her. I couldn’t fucking settle unless I was pressed against that fragile heart, feeling it beat, pumping relief into me. I wanted to rest my head on her breast and feel safe in the knowledge that she was still with me.

  Twisting my body sideways, my eyes feasted on the focal point of my fucking existence, wrapped up in a white bed sheet with wild brown curls splaying over her pillow. I shivered from the sight of her. Jesus . . . The air of vulnerability drifting from her only caused the horrible niggling feeling inside my gut to grow and my chest to tighten painfully. The suspicion I had about our relationship inevitably killing one of us—and since I refused to watch her suffer again I guessed it would be me—lit a fire inside of me. It was a weird as hell moment when you sank so deep into another human soul that you knew you would give your life for them . . . I’d never known a person could fall as hard as this. Fall as deep, as I had for her. I was still fucking falling.

  Another glance at the woman and child in my bed and my walls built back up at a rapid pace, stronger and more impenetrable than ever, but these new walls were different. They were built with the sole purpose of protecting these two females. My woman and my daughter. I would do anything to keep them safe, even if it meant accepting death . . .

  A hoarse whimper tore from Lee’s mouth and I stiffened.

  Nightmares.

  Jesus, it killed me that I couldn’t fix all of her problems—fight all of her demons. If I could I would, but the girl had been broken long before she walked through my door. All I could do now was damage-control, which sucked considering I was the type of guy who inflicted more damage than I repaired. Everything inside of me was the worst thing for the woman I was in love with. Everything inside of me had the potential to break her beyond repair.

  If god was real, and soul-mates existed, then the guy upstairs had to be laughing his ass off right about now. Because if he’d given me Lee, if she was in fact my soul mate, then he’d given me the one thing I loved more than life itself and had filled me up with all the ammunition and shitty personality traits to make her run from me. All the behaviors she feared and detested. Controlling. Hot-headed. Temperamental. Impulsive. Aggressive. Yep, I had them by the bucket-full. I ticked every box. What fucking irony . . .

  Releasing a deep shuddering breath, I shook my head and climbed out of bed. Slipping on a pair of old sweats, I shrugged a t-shirt over my head before glancing down at Lee and Hope. Their innocent faces caused the fear inside me to grow—morph into a fucking monster-sized wave of worry that pressed on my lungs until I felt like I was suffocating.

  Creeping as quietly as I could out of our room, I went downstairs and checked the alarm system before going outside to check the yard. I was paranoid and hated feeling like a sitting duck. I had no clue where Jimmy was right now or when he would rear his ugly head. The only thing I was certain of was Lee’s father showing up here was a matter of ‘when’ and not ‘if’ . . . Slipping back inside the house, I went straight into the kitchen and switched on the kettle before opening the fridge to grab the milk.

  Staring at the cup of coffee in front of me, I sighed in disgust. I couldn’t drink coffee. Not now. Instead I grabbed the bottle of Jack I’d hidden on the top shelf of the cupboard for emergencies like this. Moving into the lounge, I slumped down on the couch and stared at the bottle in my hands, silently seething and plotting revenge.

  Going to the cops wasn’t an option. Even if Lee was cool about it—which she definitely wasn’t—I didn’t have enough on Jimmy to have him locked up. Lee wouldn’t go up against her daddy, and trying to get Tracy to talk—trying to find her—was about as useful as pissing against the wind. It would be my word against his . . .

  “Where’s Lee?”

  I swung my head around to see my oldest friend standing in the doorway with barely concealed fury etched on his face. His body was thrumming with anger, his fists shaking with rage.

  “Still sleeping,” I muttered, shifting in discomfort. Glancing down at the bottle of whiskey in my hands, I felt awkward as hell because I’d spent the past seven months trying to get him dry and now I was flaunting his favorite fucking poison right under his nose. Goddammit . . .”I need your help.”

  “Then you have it,” Derek said simply as he came and sat on the couch beside me. Leaning his elbows on his knees, he looked sideways at me and asked, “What’s the plan?”

  “I don’t know yet.” I stood up and paced the floor. Christ, I never envisioned my life turning out like this. All I’d ever wanted was a quiet drama-free life. But for the last two years I seemed to be living in the goddamn twilight zone. Twenty-three years old and more baggage than a freight train.

  The walls of the room felt like they were closing in on me and every tear that had spilled from Lee’s eyes tonight caused the suffocating feeling to
intensify. She was asleep now, but for how long? Tomorrow it would still be there. More stories. More goddamn reporters and bullshit. More pain.

  “Kelsie called me earlier,” I told him, as my eyes landed on the photo frame on the mantelpiece. “The trial’s been set back a month because of that asshole’s stunt in the news. Apparently there’s too much hype and they’ve decided it’s turning into a circus.” Wisps of blonde hair curled around the pretty girl in the photograph the frame encased and I flinched. “We have eight more weeks of this bullshit, and there’s not a chance in hell of getting Rachel to change her plea or take a plea bargain. She fucking wants this.” Looking at the dirty, half-starved, curly-haired child in the photograph almost caused my heart to burst into flames. “March fifth.” I swung my face around and stared at, quite possibly, the only person who’d ever understood me. “I failed, Derek. I thought I could get her to change her mind, but she’s enjoying this.” Sighing heavily I ducked my head in shame. “They’re gonna tear Lee to pieces and there’s not a damn thing I can do to stop it. What the hell am I going to do, man? How am I gonna keep my ass in my seat and watch that happen?”

  With one stiff nod, Derek rose from the couch and moved towards me. “We are gonna go to court.” His eyes narrowed into thin slits as he placed his hand on my shoulder. “And we’re gonna take a front row seat and watch your girl take that bitch down.” His tone of voice held no room for protest. “We are gonna stand by Lee, support her, do everything we can for her, but that’s as far as it goes.” He shook his head, his grip on my shoulder tightened. “Only Lee knows what happened that night. Only she can take Rachel down.”

  “What if she can’t?” I whispered, admitting one of my biggest fears. “What if it breaks her?” Shaking my head, I suppressed the urge to shudder. “If the defense breaks her down, there’s a good chance Rachel will walk in five to seven for diminished capacity.”

  “You’re underestimating Lee,” he said simply. “She can do this. That girl has balls of steel. She’s gonna prove the whole world wrong, including you if you doubt her.”

  “I’m not doubting her,” I argued defensively. “I’m fucking terrified for her.”

  “So am I, but put it this way dude,” he coaxed. Taking the frame from the mantelpiece, he skimmed his thumb over the glass before looking at me. “All Lee has to do is tell the truth . . . and that’s a hell of a lot easier than trying to remember lies.” He smirked and added, “Lying is hard fucking work, dude. Truth is easier. You know that better than anyone.”

  “You really think she can do it?” I asked quietly. “You think she’s strong enough?”

  “Lee Bennett is gonna get us some long over-due justice,” he said without a trace of doubt in his voice. “She is gonna get vengeance for Cam, and when she does, we’re gonna go out and get shit-faced,” he said eyeing the bottle in my hand in earnest. “And then we are gonna take care of the rest of it.”

  I locked eyes with Derek. “The rest?”

  “He can’t get away with this, Kyle,” Derek said quietly. “We need to take him down.”

  I wasn’t sure which he Derek was referring to, but it didn’t matter. Neither Jimmy nor Perry were walking away from this unscathed. I knew I had to act. I was done watching her being mistreated. I was fucking through with watching the people around me suffer.

  No more.

  No fucking more.

  “When the hell did everything change?” I grumbled as I stalked into the kitchen and poured the whiskey down the drain. “At what point did our lives become so complicated and where the hell is the finishing line to this bullshit? Because I've got to tell you, dude, I’m getting really fucking tired of taking part in this marathon of madness.”

  Hoisting himself onto a stool at the island, Derek smirked and fiddled with his thumbs before leaning forward and resting his elbows on the counter. “Around the time you kissed our virgin roommate, impregnated her with a bunch of babies, and broke about every rule in the book. You fell hard, dude, and you took all of us down with you.”

  “Yeah,” I whispered with a flinch. Derek wasn’t blaming me. He was stating a well-known fact. I had started all of this. Kissing Lee, falling in love with her . . . I’d gone for what I wanted and had left a truckload of collateral damage in my wake. The miscarriage. Rachel’s breakdown. Cam’s death. Lee’s injuries. Derek’s grief. Yeah, it was all on me . . .

  “Do you regret it?” he asked in a quiet tone, dropping his gaze to his fingers. “If you could go back to the summer before senior year, would you still kiss her?” Shaking his head, he ran a hand over his tightly shaved hair and smiled apologetically. “It all started there, dude. You and Lee. You two fucking ignited this . . .” He waved his hand around aimlessly. “Mayhem.”

  “If I could go back a hundred times, Derek,” I said slowly, resting my palms flat on the counter in front of him. “I wouldn’t change a damn thing.”

  “Even though people were hurt?” Derek turned to look me straight in the eye. “Even though people died?” he asked, his voice calm, his eyes full of acceptance.

  I swallowed roughly and met his stare head on. “I don’t regret her, Derek. I never have and I never will. She’s my . . . fuck, she’s my . . .”

  “She’s your what, Kyle?” he pushed, egging me on. I wasn’t good with expressing myself and the asshole knew this. He was digging deep. Making me bare myself.

  “She’s my . . . goddammit, Derek,” I broke off, annoyed with him for riling me up. “You know what she means to me.”

  Derek raised his brow in surprise. “Use your words, Kyle.”

  “She’s my home.” I knew I sounded like a pussy for admitting this, but I didn’t care. I felt it. Screw him and the whole world if they didn’t understand. These were my feelings. Derek didn’t have to understand them. Hell, I didn’t understand them myself. I just felt them and lived my life according to the emotions and feelings that coursed through me.

  “You sure she’s worth it?” he asked. “All the pain?”

  I blew out a breath and rested my hands on my hips, eyes locked on my oldest friend, willing him to understand me. To forgive me for the bad things I’d dragged him into—the future bad things I would drag him into—because of my infatuation with the girl upstairs in my bed. To not hate me because I had no regrets and the fact that I wouldn’t change a damn thing in any other lifetime because in this one I got to keep her. Even if I had to repeat the misery, make us all relive the pain of the past two years over and over again just to keep her, then I would.

  “In a world where I’ve been dumped, lied to, abandoned, misunderstood and fucking judged, that girl makes me feel alive . . . cherished, important and goddamn crucial to her existence.” I began to pace the floor again, my agitation growing inside of me like an itch that needed to be scratched. “She gives me hope, Der. She makes me feel like I’m not the fuck up I’ve spent my life being told I am—believing I am. She accepts me. All of me. Even the bad shit. No one has ever–and I mean ever–set me on fire like her. She’s it, man. My one and fucking only. My home. You protect your home.” I swung around to face him, daring him to contradict me. “How the hell could I regret that?”

  Derek grinned. “Good.”

  “Good?” I shook my head and smirked. “You force me to bare my soul and all you can say is good. You suck dude.”

  “It’s always a good day when you squirm like a demented toddler.” Derek stretched his arms out and smirked before standing up and walking back into the lounge. “Besides, I needed to make sure you had no regrets before I told you my plan. Cam’s gone. I have nothing to lose,” he tossed out carelessly. “I have no one to worry about if this goes wrong, but you . . . you’ve got a hell of a lot riding on this.”

  “I’m listening,” I said as I followed him back into the lounge and sank down on the couch beside him. I knew Derek wanted revenge, too. I knew he had my back and he knew that whatever I asked him to do, I would do the same for him.
We were in this shit together. Fucking nice feeling to have.

  “Get your game face on, dude,” Derek muttered in a grim tone of voice. Turning his head, his green eyes locked on mine and I could see something in them. Something pooling around in his eyes that scared the shit out of me. Derek, my easy-going, logical, straight-forward best-friend, was turning into another version of me. I hated the thought. I shuddered at it. Fuck. “Jimmy the serpent isn’t gonna slither back under the woodworks this time. Neither is that asswipe Perry. The cops are useless. When the trial is finished we need to finish them, Kyle,” he added, his expression leaving no cause for misunderstanding. “We need to take a little trip. Consider it an eye for an eye . . .”

  “What are you saying we do here, Der?” I asked steadily. “Because I’m a lot of things, but a killer is not one of them.” Yeah, I wanted revenge, but there was no way in hell I was stooping to Rachel Grayson’s level to get it. Derek got it right when he said I had a lot riding on this. I did. I had a woman and child to protect. Giving my life was one thing. Taking lives was another. I would be a fantastic help to Lee if I was behind bars serving twenty-five to life. No, I needed a plan. Something smart. Something that involved using my brains and not my fists.

  “I owe you more than I can probably ever repay you for, Kyle,” he replied calmly. “Making those bastards suffer sounds like a pretty good way to start paying that debt. I can do it, man. All I need is the price of a flight since I’m broke.” He shrugged sheepishly. “Let me take care of this for you.”

  “Are you high?” I demanded. Leaning forward I grabbed his head and lifted his eyelids to check his pupils. “Have you been drinking?”

  “No, I’m not high,” he scoffed, slapping my hand away from his face. “I haven’t had a drink since your douchebag dad stuck me with a needle.”

  “You’re not a killer, Derek,” I argued, as I battled down the surge of anger that came with the mention of my father. “And you’re never going to be. Not for me. Not for anyone. So put crazy fucking thoughts like that out of your head.”