One Wild Night

by Vivian Ward

  I didn’t care that he had a bunch of his things at my apartment. I didn’t want to think about that. I could get his things back to him somehow.

  At the moment, however, I needed to get in contact with Kim and Curtis because Nick hadn’t been the only person who was being dishonest.

  Nick

  I didn’t understand where she could be. I’d been sitting at Shay’s kitchen table for at least two hours, waiting for her to come but she hadn’t arrived. She should have been home long before.

  She probably wouldn’t have let me come by if I had called and asked so I just dropped in, using the key she had given me to let myself into the apartment.

  I needed to talk to her, and she was ignoring all of my calls and text messages. I hated doing things the way I was going about doing them but it was the only way that would work.

  I received a call earlier that afternoon from Curtis, telling me that Shay had been at his house, and she was pissed.

  She insisted that Kim and Curtis explain to her why they didn’t tell her about me. Fortunately, Kim wasn’t home at the time, and Curtis was able to talk to Shay in private.

  She was pissed off that Curtis didn’t tell her about me, but he explained that I was his best friend and needed his help. After much begging and pleading, Shay agreed not to tell Kim about it. Whether or not she would keep true to that agreement remained to be seen.

  During their conversation, Shay told him exactly what she was feeling towards me. She said that she felt like I did nothing but manipulate her. Hearing him say that hurt my heart unbelievably bad.

  I didn’t want her to think that way as it was never my intention. I never wanted to hurt her. She didn’t know what I was feeling towards her. She was wrong about my feelings and my intentions.

  All along, my intentions were good. I just needed to find some way to get my point across to her. I needed her to see that I was sincere. I needed to be able to prove these things to her.

  As it got dark outside, the inside of the apartment darkened as well. I didn’t bother turning on a light so I sat in the darkness waiting for her. Besides, if she came home and saw a light on inside, she might not come in, and I really needed to be able to talk to her.

  I don’t know how long I sat there in the dark before I finally heard her key unlocking her door. I tried to stay relaxed, but my nerves were getting the best of me. I’d practiced what I was going to say to her over and over again in me head for the previous few hours, but all those thoughts disappeared. All of those thoughts were replaced by a blank space.

  My legs were shaking as I stood up from the chair and waited for her to turn on the lights. She always came in, turned on the lights and did something in the kitchen. That night was different than what I was used to. Instead of flipping the lights on, I heard her footsteps walk through the living room and into her bedroom. The first light she turned on was a small lamp that sat on one of her end tables.

  Slowly, I started making my way into her bedroom. The whole conversation would have been much easier if she had walked in to see me sitting at her table. Now that she was in her room, the fact that I was there might scare. I didn’t want her to be afraid of me. I didn’t want her to look at me and see fear, hurt, and disgust in her eyes.

  If I had it my way, I would have just remained in the shadows until she came around, but I knew that wasn’t going to happen unless I had a chance to talk to her. While I tried to figure out how to announce my presence, I stood in the hallway, watching as she sat down on her bed.

  I’d never seen a woman look so broken before, and I felt horrible knowing that I was the reason.

  I wanted so badly to be able to walk into her bedroom, tell her everything was going to be okay and have her actually believe me.

  I wanted to hold her and make her feel safe. I wanted to do whatever I could do to make her forget all the things I screwed up. I wanted to somehow make her forget that everything had happened. I wanted to hear her telling me that she loved me again.

  Unfortunately, none of that was going to happen so I stayed in the hallway until I figured out a better plan.

  Shay was sitting on the edge of her bed with her face buried in her hands. She started to shake, which was when I realized she was crying. I hated seeing her like that.

  My insides were torn up with guilt from putting her in that position. I hated seeing her like that so I stepped into her room.

  “Shay?” I muttered, not wanting to alarm her.

  She let out a yelp and jumped up off her bed, surprised that she wasn’t alone in the apartment. She stood there staring at me without saying a word for what felt like hours. I tried to get a read on her expression, but she had her poker face on.

  “I want you to leave, Nick,” she finally said, her voice sounding frail and weak. She was no longer crying, but there was no hiding the fact that she had been. I felt uncomfortable standing in her doorway, but I really needed her to listen to me. I took a couple of steps towards her, but she backed off, her body tensing up.

  “I mean it, Nick! I want you out of my apartment right now!” she demanded, this time with more bass in her voice.

  “Shay, please hear me out. Please give me a chance to explain everything to you,” I begged. My mouth was suddenly very dry, causing my voice to crack.

  “No. You had your chance to explain everything to me since the day you met me. Now it’s too late. I don’t want to hear any of your excuses. I can’t listen to any of it,” she said as she fought back tears. She wouldn’t even look me in the eyes.

  “Shay, please, at least give me a chance. I love you. I’m not the person you think I am.”

  “Yeah, I think I’ve already figured that out.”

  “That’s not what I mean, Shay. I talked to Curtis, and he told me that you were over to see him. I know you think that I’m a liar and that I took advantage of you, but that isn’t true at all. I mean, yeah, I wasn’t honest with you about my past. I didn’t want to tell you that I did time in prison. I knew there was no way in hell you would have ever given me the time of day if I would have told you that. I mean, look at you. You wouldn’t have ever given me a chance. Am I right?”

  I waited for an answer of some sort, but she continued looking straight down at her floor.

  “I needed to be someone else, somebody much better than the man I had become,” I continued. “I was already starting my life over, and I needed a clean slate. I knew I wanted you from the first night we met, and I knew that in order to have any chance at all with you, I’d have to show you that I was good enough. I had to show you that I was worth taking a chance on. The only way I could do that was to act like I had a healthy upbringing. I couldn’t let you know how fucking broken I really am so I acted like I had a normal past with a normal family. I was stupid to think it would work. It was really fucking stupid. You have no idea how many times I wanted to tell you the truth about who I was and the things I’d done but I couldn’t. By that time, it had all snowballed out of control, and I had no way out.”

  For the first time, Shay looked up and was actually making eye contact with me as I talked.

  “I never wanted to lie to you, Shay. I didn’t want to deceive you. If I could go back and fix it, I would, even if it meant you and I never would have been together. I wanted to tell you everything, and I think I would have whenever the time was right. It was dumb to believe that you’d never find out about any of my issues. I’m really sorry.

  I mean, I fell in love with you the first night I met you. I hate the fact that you’re hurting because of me. I never wanted you to hurt. I never wanted any of this. The only thing I wanted from the beginning was you. That’s still all I want.”

  I took a couple steps toward her and this time, she didn’t back away. I was standing directly in front of her, looking down at her tiny frame, which looked even more fragile than it usually did.

  She looked up at me but had a blank look in her eyes. She didn’t say anything. I reached out and touched her ch
eek, which prompted her to pull away, walking around to the other side of her bed.

  “How dare you? After what you’ve put me through, how dare you come over here and try to touch me. Don’t you dare touch me,” she began to scream. “I want you to turn around and leave. I want you out of my apartment this instant. I want you out of here, and I want you to leave my key on the way out.”

  “Alright, I can see that you’re not ready to talk about any of this just yet, and that’s fine. We don’t have to talk about anything right now. You’re going to need a little bit of time and space. I can respect that. I’ll give you a few days or so to think and then I’ll come back by and see if you’re ready to talk them,” I said, being entirely sincere.

  I flashed a slight smile at her before turning to walk out of her room and towards the front door.

  “Nick!” she yelled right as I was about to leave. “I mean it. I want you to leave the key to the apartment before you leave.

  “No,” I told her after standing there complimenting her request.

  “No? What do you mean no? You can’t say no.”

  “I just mean no, Shay,” I responded before walking out the door and going to my truck.

  I let a few days go by before I even thought about trying to make contact with Shay again. It killed me to walk out of her apartment earlier in the week, but it had killed me even more to not be able to see her or talk to her since. Whenever my cell phone would ring, I would hold my breath, hoping it was her calling.

  Unfortunately, it never was.

  Since Shay and I got together, we had spent very few days apart from one another. Even when we weren’t together, we’d talk on the phone or send text messages back and forth.

  For the first few nights, after we split, I felt like I was in shock. Eventually, that feeling wore off and was replaced with emptiness. I felt like I was lost. All I could do was go to work before coming back to my apartment to pace back and forth on the floor.

  I couldn’t force myself to eat. I barely got any sleep. It had been too long, and I couldn’t take it anymore. That Saturday, I decided that I needed to see her and at least try to talk to her again. I knew she had a day off coming up so I waited until that day and drove over to her apartment.

  Her SUV wasn’t there, and I didn’t want to go inside uninvited like I did last time. That might cause even more tension, and that definitely wasn’t needed. Instead, I parked my truck and waited for her to come home.

  I was waiting in my truck for close to two hours before I spotted her pulling into the parking lot. As she got out of her SUV, she looked right over in my direction. She was completely aware that I was there.

  I figured the fact that she saw that I was waiting for her would be a good thing. Hopefully, she’d know that I really meant what I’d said to her.

  She’d see that I was truly sorry and realize how desperate I was to have her back in my life. She’d see that I meant it when I told her I loved her. If only things could have been that easy.

  Shay completely ignored the fact that I was there and proceeded to grab the things she had in her vehicle. It looked like she’d been to the grocery store and a couple of department stores.

  The back of her SUV was filled with bags. Once she grabbed as much as she could, she made her way towards the door. I figured that was the perfect time for me to make my move so I jumped out of my truck, grabbed the rest of the bags and made my way to her door just as she was coming back out.

  If looks could kill, I would have been dead on her front porch.

  “Nick, you need to put the bags down and go back to your truck. I don’t need your help, and you’re not coming inside,” she said, standing in front of the door with her arms crossed in front of her.

  “Well, I’m not going to put any of these bags down unless it’s inside so it looks like we might have ourselves a little stalemate here,” I responded, smiling at her with a crooked smirk.

  I wasn’t trying to be a smart-ass, even though I was coming across that way. I was just trying to keep to situation light to keep her from feeling on edge. Shay stood there staring at me, dumbfounded by how hard-headed I could be. Finally, she shook her head and walked back into her apartment.

  I followed Shay inside and sat her bags in the kitchen. She had already busied herself with putting her groceries away and was doing everything she could to avoid even looking in my direction.

  I stood there for a minute, hoping she would eventually say something to me. When she didn’t, I started helping her by taking some of the things out of her bags for her, keeping my eyes on her the entire time. Eventually, she slammed the refrigerator door as hard as she could and turned to face me.

  I was expecting to see her face twisted in anger, but instead, I saw tears running down her cheeks.

  “Nick, can you please just stop this?” she pleaded.

  “Shay,” I started as I walked over to the fridge, standing directly in front of her.

  “Please, Nick,” she interrupted. “I want you to stop this. I don’t know how much more of this I can take. Can’t you see how much you’ve hurt me? Can’t you see how much you’re hurting me now? Do you even care?”

  “Yes, I care. What kind of question is that? Would I be here if I didn’t care? Do you think I want to hurt you? Hurting you is the last thing I ever wanted to do. I love you more than you could even know. I love you so much. I just want to do whatever I can to fix this. I want to make this right.”

  “How do you expect to fix this? This isn’t something that can be fixed. You fix things that are broken. This relationship isn’t broken. It’s far beyond that. It’s been destroyed. There’s nothing that can be done about that. What part of this are you not understanding? You lied to me about where you’ve been. You said you were from California when you were actually sitting in a prison cell. I can’t handle that. I don’t want to be in a relationship with you. I don’t love you at all. I don’t want to be with you. I don’t want anything to do wit you. The only thing I want is for you to walk out that door and never come back!”

  Shay was staring up at me, talking to me through a clenched jaw. I’d never seen that side of her and it made me miss the fun and carefree girl that I’d come to love.

  “Shay, think about what you’re saying to me. There’s no way you can mean that,” I replied, stepping in so close to her that her back was up against the fridge.

  “Nick, you need to stop. Don’t come any closer,” she warned, putting her hand on my chest to keep some separation.

  I wasn’t giving up that easily. I grabbed the hand that was on my chest and moved it to my cheek. I hoped that if she touched me, something might come back to her.

  She tried to pull her hand away, but I wouldn’t let her. I knelt down just a little and pushed my hips into hers.

  “Nick, let me go,” she whispered.

  Shay was breathing heavily now. I wasn’t sure if it was because she was scared of me, even though I was trying to be as non-threatening as possible, or if it was because she was turned on.

  If it was the latter, I wanted to find out. She was wearing a dress, so I took my hand and ran it up on the inside of her leg. Her body moved with my touch.

  “I wish you would understand, Shay, that I love you so much, and it’s impossible for me to just let you go that easily. Without you in my life, it feels like a part of me has died,” I whispered into her ear as I started to rub at her panties with my fingers.

  I thought she was enjoying it. I was waiting for her to turn and moan into my ear like she’d done so many times before. Instead, I heard her begin to sob.

  What in the fuck was I thinking? How could I have actually thought that would have worked? I was trying to seduce her into taking me back and instead, I only made her more afraid of me than she already was. I knew I fucked things up even more so I let her go and stepped away from her. She cowered on the floor, looking horrified.

  “I’m so sorry, Shay. I didn’t mean for any of that to happen,” I told
her, sincerely meaning it.

  I wasn’t sure what had come over me. The actions I was taking were all wrong. I felt like a monster. I shouldn’t have even been there. I turned around and ran from the apartment.

  Chapter 10

  Nick

  I felt as though my soul was being tormented. I was being eaten up by guilt. How could I have been so stupid to have frightened her again?

  All I wanted to do was talk to her and show her that I cared about her. How hard can something like that be?

  Apparently, it’s pretty fucking hard because I managed to screw it up yet again. I knew I’d ruined my chance and Shay was never going to be mine again.

  Not wanting to go home to my apartment to sit by myself, I drove around the streets of Minnesota with no particular destination in mind. I was just trying to get her off my mind.

  Somehow, I ended up at the same seedy strip club Curtis had told me about not long after I was released. I wasn’t interested in watching the girls dance.

  Instead, I grabbed a seat at the bar and started downing shots. Typically, it would have taken me a ton of alcohol to get drunk, but I hadn’t drunk since Shay, and I had gotten together. She wasn’t really into drinking all that much.

  The alcohol was quickly doing its job, the buzz making my body feel numb. It wasn’t enough, though.

  It was my heart that I wanted to go numb.

  I wanted to be able to not care at all. I wanted everything that I was thinking to disappear from my brain. I wanted to forget that Shay ever existed or, at the very least, not care about her anymore. I wanted to forget about the way she felt when I held her in my arms. I wanted to forget how it felt when she touched me.

  No matter how much I wanted to forget, it was impossible to do. Every time I closed my eyes, I could hear the sound of her laughter and see her face smiling at me.

  I missed the way she and I could joke around. I wanted that back more than anything.