Broken Girl

by Gretchen de La O

  All right, it’s time to put on my big girl panties and face the music. Nobody’s gonna control me anymore. I have every right to go up there and say goodbye to my best friend.

  I waited for the voice in my head to argue back. Tell me that I’m just a fucked up person, a worthless person, someone who didn’t deserve to take up space in this world, but there was no argument, no mean words that fucked with my self-esteem. Relief washed over me when I sat up and saw that Key was the only one at the gravesite. A weight lifted from my shoulders, finally I was getting my moment alone with my dead best friend safely locked in a dark wooden casket.

  I opened my door and regained the confidence to go up and give my last regards when the driver’s side door flung open.

  “Close the door.” A voice startled me.

  Shane slipped into the driver’s seat shutting his door behind him before he stretched his long thick arm across and grabbed the handle of my door and shut it.

  “What the fuck, Sha—”

  “Stop. Just don’t say anything.”

  “What? Who the hell do you think you are?”

  “I’m the man who loves you. I’m your man.”

  “No you’re not.”

  “Oh, sweetheart, yes I am, you just don’t know it yet. But that’s all about to change.”

  His answer caught me off guard. Shane never talked like that before.

  “You can’t be my man unless I let you, and as far as I can see you’re still with Martie.”

  “You can see whatever the hell you want to see, but the truth is, I’ve tried to come in slow, tried to take off slow, I’ve tried to take my time and I’ve tried to back away and give you time. I’m done trying.”

  “Good, you should be. I’ve told you, nothing can come of us. I’m no good for you.”

  “Yeah, you keep saying that, but you see, I’m not going to try anymore. I’m going to do something about it.”

  “Oh, yeah, what are you going to do? What are you willing to give up for me?”

  “I’m not giving up anything for you. You and I both know that’s not what you're asking from me. I know you're scared. I know you look at me and you feel everything that you’ve had to bury deep your entire life. But that’s not a reason.”

  “No? What’s the reason? Why, tell me, ‘cause I just can’t seem to figure out why you won’t just give up on me.”

  “Because I know what scares you.”

  Our eyes met, his soul yearned for me. His intentions raged behind his big brown orbs and I could feel my protective walls being built between us. He pushed open the driver’s door and stepped out before he leaned down and we looked at each other.

  “I know you have a lot of things to think about right now, but being afraid to love me back shouldn’t be one of them.” He shut the door and I was closed off again. This time by him. I watched as he got into his car and drove away. I sat there for several surreal moments. Trying to process what had just happened, how the power shifted between us and suddenly I was left even more broken than before.

  My phone chimed with a text from Briggs.

  BRIGGS: COME ON ROSIE, IT’S TIME. THEY ARE BURYING HER SOON.

  I slipped my phone back into my purse, left it in the car and headed up the grassy hill to say goodbye to my lifeless roommate, Sybil.

  I watched as they lowered the beautiful wooden casket into the ground. I didn’t relate to the idea that Sybil’s body was in there. Not seeing her lying in the casket gave me the ability to fake like this was just some drama I was watching on TV. But when they hit a snag while lowering Sybil into the six-foot-deep hole it didn’t feel like in the movies anymore. I decided I’d seen enough, I’d cried enough and I’d paid respect to her. It was enough. I looked over at Briggs and told him I was okay to leave now. We didn’t wait around for the gravediggers to shovel from the huge pile of freshly dug up earth. I turned away and never looked back.

  Briggs drove me back to my apartment. We barely talked. I didn’t tell him what Shane said to me, before I went up to say goodbye to Sybil. I didn’t think he really needed to know, besides I knew it would just give him the idea that I was going to allow Shane to save me.

  “Did you need me to come up for a wee bit, Rosie?”

  I thought about his offer and even though it was only noon, and I was exhausted I decided I just wanted to hang out in my apartment by myself and face life tomorrow after I had a clearer head and an idea of what I was going to do.

  “Thanks Key, but I think I’m gonna call it a day. I’m pretty tired and I have a lot of things I need to take care of.”

  “Well, you know I can help you.”

  “I know, and I appreciate your offer.”

  “You just say, and I’ll be there.”

  He parked in the yellow loading and unloading zone right in front of my building. He helped me out of his SUV. I clung to him, we hugged like we knew it was going to be the last time we’d see each other for a long time. He comfortably consumed my body in his embrace, I felt so desperate and safe at the same time.

  “Well, Rosie gir’, I’m so sorry ‘bout Sybil. I wish I could have saved her,” Kean whispered breathless across the top of my head.

  “Key, you did everything you could.” My voice dissolved into his black dress jacket.

  “Please, think ‘bout what we talked ‘bout. I know you have your reasons, but, I don’t have it in me to lose you.”

  In those words I pulled out of our hug, shot him a genuine smile.

  “Thank you for today.”

  He smiled, his eyes glassing over, “I’ll call you tomorro’,” he mumbled before he went around and got back into his car.

  I rummaged through my purse before fumbling for the keys to my building.

  Fifteen seconds and counting before I left Briggs behind and I started to work on what my next move was. Once I got the door to my building open I turned back and waved him off. I noticed his smile didn’t touch his eyes, and it set loose a sad ping deep in my heart.

  The door slammed behind me, a noise I never got used to sending shivers down into my core every time. My phone chimed with a message, I scrolled through all the messages from all the fucks that were looking for me the last several days. More of the same, Johns I was going to hand over to the girls who fought over my six squares of sidewalk. Winner takes all.

  Then my energy changed when I heard someone clear their throat. When I looked up, and saw Shane leaning against my apartment door, my knees gave a little. He was still dressed in his clothes from the funeral.

  “Shane.”

  “Rose,” he whispered.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I couldn’t seem to make it home.”

  “So you show up here? How did you get in? How do you know where I liv—Martie.”

  I brushed past him thrusting my key into the door.

  “Are you here to collect all of Sybil’s things? ‘Cause I don’t have all her things together. Maybe you can come back in a couple of days.”

  “Rose, I’m not here for Martie or her family.”

  “I need time to finish packing—”

  He caught me and pulled me up against his chest. Our eyes met and the storm raged and swirled between our breaths.

  “Rose, I’m here because I’ve done everything I had in my arsenal to get through to you. I’m running out of options, this is the only thing I have left.” His eyes twinkled as he spoke.

  The slight bounce of his Adam’s apple tickled at my heart as he pulled up my chin the gentleness in his touch, but it was the delicate manner in which he leaned down and kissed the corner of my mouth that had set me on fire for him. His lips begging for the right to ask for more, his soft take-off became a raging flight as his hands pulled me into his chest and his mouth devoured me. His kiss was filled with a collection of every time I pushed him away, every time I sold my body for someone else’s pleasure. Our tongues pierced, swirled and danced as the pressure of his mouth against mine morphed into the ra
venous need to consume me.

  God, he felt like home. He owned me, taken me entirely with just his kiss. A kiss I haven’t felt before, one that I never gave to anyone else in my entire life. His kiss was so personal, so intense, so intimate, and so foreign to me. A pressure built in my chest, fear rolled into my soul, thunder and lightning cracked through every cell of my body, I wasn’t ready for what he was offering me. His hands danced across my curves, memorizing what he’d hungered after for so long.

  My heart crashed against my lungs, and I couldn’t breathe. His kiss cleansed every dirty breath I’d ever taken in my life. I felt his intentions—I knew them as if they were the ink pierced in my flesh. Experiences I could’ve etched in my skin until my story took up every last inch of my pale body. I knew if I lived just below the exterior, just below the disguise he saw then I wouldn’t have to ever deal with all the pain that boiled so deeply. All I wanted to do was scratch the surface of who I was. This entire moment was a mistake. A big mistake.

  I pushed Shane back away from me. His arms scraping across my body left me cold as he and his warmth stumbled back from me.

  His eyes wide, surprise broke across his expression.

  A gaping moment spread between us before I gave him my excuse.

  “I’m wrecked, Shane.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “Yes, I am, you just can’t see it. Did you honestly think that kissing me would fix me? Or if you got a chance to sleep with me or see my deepest wounds you’d somehow heal me? Did you really think you could take away a lifetime of anguish? Take a number and stand in the long fucking line of all the people who came before you.” I turned to go into my apartment. I wasn’t willing to wait any longer and pin my hopes on a man who didn’t know the first thing about a life as broken as mine.

  “That’s not—Rose!” He followed me, slamming the door behind him, he grabbed me by the forearms and pinned me between the wall and his body. His face close to mine, his breath tickled against my flesh as he continued in a hushed whisper. “Listen, I don’t care if you’re wrecked, I want to be here for you . . . I love you.”

  I pushed back. It was the usual wall I built between people when I knew they had gotten too close. His face grew pale as he shifted his stance closer to me. I could see in his hickory colored eyes that he knew he was in deeper than he anticipated. So I pushed, like I always do, hoping he’d back away.

  “You don’t love me, so don’t stand here and tell me you do.” I slammed my hand against his chest, hoping he’d stop as I continued to verbally assault him. He didn’t budge. “Did you honestly think you’ve got the ability to save me from all the fucked up uncivilized I’ve lived with every day of my life? There’s nobody who can take away the despicable actions of others, the deeds are already done. I’m every last wicked scar those repulsive fucks left on me, I’m the woman who will never be able to give enough back to you, I’m the empty veins of that dying tree, nobody gives two fucks about.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Shane, I’m a girl who whores herself out in the piss filled dingy alley between the Stop and Wash and the Iron Hog Pub. I keep gasping for a breath nobody has the ability to give. So don’t stand here and tell me you love me, or think a kiss will heal me. You will never understand, and don’t tell me that you don’t care about my past! You’ll never know what it feels like to live in my skin, or make sense of all the fucked up situations I deal with that made me who I am. You’ll never understand where I come from or what I have to overcome every fucking day of my life.”

  “YOU. NEVER. LET. ME. IN. Goddammit, Rose, let me in. Let me know who you are? I want to understand, I want to try.” Shane reached for me; I yanked my arm back away from his massive fingers.

  “Do you want to know why I know you’ll never understand?”

  He didn’t respond, he stood silently pleading for my heart.

  “Do you?” I snarled.

  “Yeah, I want to know why.”

  “Forget it!” I whipped my arms around pulling out of his grasp. He caught me, pulled me back and pinned me again.

  “Tell me, Rose. Tell me right now why you think I’ll never understand,” he said in a low heartbreaking growl.

  A weighty pause, thick and painful suspended between us. I looked into his eyes, his beautifully broken eyes, and I saw the sparks of a future that didn’t belong to me.

  “Because you keep asking me for something that I’ll never be able to give to you. I can’t give you a clean past. Every time you touch me you will think about all the men I’ve been with before you, and every time I make love to you, you’ll be questioning if I’ve done that with someone else. It just won’t work. And I don’t think I can bear the day you will wake up next to me and find out I wasn’t worth it. I can’t give you something I’m not.”

  “I’m not asking you to,” he whispered. His eyes cast down. When he looked back up at me they glistened with a deeper sorrow I’d never seen in his eyes before.

  Dragging my fingers against his face, I traced the sharp edge of his jawbone, memorizing the texture of his five o’clock shadow. His slight Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed.

  “It doesn’t matter; it’s a hopeless battle you’ll never win. There’ll always be a part of me I keep hidden away from you and you’ll always be pushing for more. Please, Shane, you have so much to give to someone who deserves a great guy.”

  “I don’t want someone else, Rose. I want you.”

  My body gave way to his words, my heart pounding so hard its echo thundered through my veins. I wanted to crash into him, taste the lips of a man who wanted me more than all the reasons he shouldn’t.

  “That night in the alley, where I first saw you . . . I was drawn to you.”

  My head spun as his words snaked their way into my mind.

  “What?”

  “I know most people don’t believe in that love at first sight bullshit—”

  “You knew it was me in the alley that night? I was whoring myself out the entire time and you didn’t call me out?”

  “No, I mean, yes. No, no, no, Rose, I didn’t know it was you at first!” He shook his head, the words shot from his mouth. I recognize the frustration that raged behind his eyes.

  “What is it, Shane? Either you knew I was a hooker or you didn’t?”

  “Don’t say that!”

  “What do you want me to say? It’s what I am. You can’t paint a Pinto Ferrari red and expect it to win the race. It’s who I’ve had to become to make it in this world.”

  “That’s not the person I see standing in front of me.”

  “Stop it, just stop!”

  “No, I can’t. You’re not the woman from the alley that night. Your eyes, when they met mine, they told me everything I needed to know about you, Rose. The more time we spent together the more I discovered the woman I was falling in love with. You can’t deny it, and even if you try, you know I’m right. Nothing else matters to me when I’m with you. I can’t exist in my skin without you.”

  I stood there, frozen by his words. I knew how he felt. I felt the same way too. But I was afraid and I hated being afraid. I pulled away and struggled to collect myself. I looked at him, memorized the man I was going to walk away from forever.

  “Please, Rose, you know I’m right.”

  “I can’t. I’ll always have a past that’ll chase me, and you’ll always second guess when I come home late. What kind of relationship would that be? I’ll never stop looking over my shoulder waiting for the demons to catch up and you’ll always wonder why I keep fighting. I am not your girl, Shane.”

  He leaned down, his mouth collided with mine. His lips were desperate and hungry to convince me that we were worth fighting for. Goddammit, what if he decided I wasn’t worth the investment? His arms cradled me, protected me and took the weight of my world as he pressed his warm fingers across my spine.

  Was he right?

  I almost caved . . .

  I was already saying goodby
e and he didn’t know it. One last kiss. One last taste to keep his flavor in my mind before I walked away from him forever. Concerned he would pull away from me too soon I weaved my fingers into the back of his hair. He pushed harder, urging me to open up to him. Different to my world, I haven’t had this, a personal and painful goodbye which lingered a little longer than I anticipated.

  His mouth consumed me, while he pushed and dragged his hands against my back desperate to discover if there was something I was willing to leave for him. A strong kiss, a farewell, a hopeless plea to stay. His tongue searched as he tried to unearth my weakness, we tangled our desires for one another with the pain of me saying goodbye. His growl across my lips, filled my soul until it forced the ironclad lock around my heart to break open for the woman I wanted to be. His love gave me the ability to see that I could be enough for him someday, but today I needed to be enough for me.

  He pulled away to let the chill of the room dance across my lips. “I will never stop fighting for you, never. You’re soaked into the marrow of my bones, and you’ll be there until the day I take my last breath.” His words tickled across my lips, words that I’ve waited my whole life for someone to say to me.

  I loved him so much that I knew I had to let him go. It’s my first unselfish act as the woman I was trying to become. This wasn’t about being a martyr, or trying to punish myself for bad choices, this was about finding myself for the first time in my life. I ached to belong to normal, whatever normal could be.

  “Shane, I’m so in love with you, I can’t think straight. But right now, I have to move forward in my life. Make some changes, learn to become the woman I’m supposed to be. I know it seems selfish, maybe it’s wrong, maybe I’ll kick myself in the ass for doing this, but I have to be on my own. I need time to find out who I truly am. Without the grind of what I’ve done, who I am with other people, or who I’ve become. I don’t want to be the woman who let everyone take advantage of her anymore. I need to heal my heart, forgive my past, and be the woman you’ll need me to be.”