by Stahl, Shey
She managed to get me inside and into a spare bedroom she had. I said I wanted to be alone, I did, and she respected that and let me be.
I wanted numbness. I wanted an escape. I didn’t want to hear my own heart beating. I didn’t want to feel the tears that wouldn’t stop. I felt pain. I felt Dylan’s pain. How could he look at me knowing my dad killed his mom? How could they have kept this from me?
The truth was, though everything had been completely wrecked, I wouldn’t have changed any of it. It was that old saying, the journey of getting there is better than the destination. It was true.
Here’s the thing that most don’t consider when keeping information from someone. You had the information that could have potentially helped them or changed their life in some way. You had the power to help them and you didn’t. It doesn’t matter if you lied or not. You kept something from them. Dylan was the last person I expected that from.
I wanted an escape but I had nowhere to go. Dylan found me. Drew must have helped.
“Let me in Bailey,” his warning couldn’t be missed. He was angry but maybe not as angry as I was. “I swear to fucking god—”
“No,” I said lying on the floor away from the door, just in case he broke it down. “Don’t fuck up Megan’s house.”
“I’ll set this fucking room on fire.” His second warning, one I should have listened to. “You know I will. Let. Me. In!”
I didn’t and the door came crashing down.
It pissed me off that I couldn’t have a moment to myself. I’d given him so many moments this summer, I needed a few to myself to think.
My hurt turned to anger, raging anger. A glass cup on the dresser broke against the wall. My anger could be destructive at times.
Propping up the door, some privacy, Dylan turned around with a flinch and the smug set of his lips just threw me into more of a spin. “Do you fucking hate me now?”
He stepped in my direction and I took two more steps back. He looked at me and it made me nervous. Grievingly desperate, his eyes were begging me to listen.
He turned and smacked his palm against the wall. “You don’t know shit.”
Dylan stared me down, his eyes were lost, and I kept mine on him. He licked his lips, studying me to see how I was going to act.
“Yeah, you’re right. I don’t. Because of you.”
His smirk from earlier turned into a condescending grin. “Don’t spin this all on me. That’s not fair and you know it.” He was spitting acid through a smile I used to love.
“You could have told me!” I shouted and all it did was provoke him.
“Goddamn him!” Dylan yelled until his voice gave out. This sound of his fist going into the wall shook my bones, my hands went to my ears.
He took a step forward, an angry step but he wasn’t going to hurt me, I knew that.
“Don’t touch me, Dylan,” I warned but my voice shook and I pulled my hands out of his reach.
Dylan laughed but he stepped back and appeared nervous but I knew he wasn’t. “Don’t touch you?” He rolled his eyes, looking at the wall to the glass on the floor and then back to me. “Okay,” he said nodding his head like I was playing a game with him and he was playing along just to appease me. But it wasn’t a game and he fucking knew it. This shit was real. My hurt was real but so was his.
“Why did you get in my car that day?” He sounded honestly curious again but his eyes told me otherwise.
“You asked me.” My hand swept over my tears, trying to breathe and focus. “Remember?”
“No,” he interrupted, his voice sharper now. “Tell me the fucking truth, you didn’t have to. Why? Why did you get in my car? Why did you throw away everything, the perfect life, for me?”
I choked on my tears trying to clear my throat and then gave up and cried into my hands. My chest and lungs struggled to gain control. I hated that nothing made sense to me right now but him, feeling him near me.
“Jesus.” He pressed his head into the doorframe, tightly gripping the back of his neck with both hands. The way his chest was heaving, I could tell he was attempting to control his anger. His breath began to come in short gasping spurts attempting to control himself. “I fucking hate him. I hate him!”
He put his hands on his hips, still facing the wall, his head dipped forward, contemplating, regretting, realizing. “For the record, I never meant to hurt you.” He looked at me with what seemed like disappointment. “I wanted…god…brown eyes,” he swallowed choking back tears but it did nothing, they fell. “I tried to tell you.”
I reached for him, I couldn’t take it any longer. All anger and emotion aside, I wanted his touch.
He held me tighter, pulling himself to me while I cried, he cried, we cried. I put aside the reasons and lived in this moment, the one that was crying, begging for me to listen.
“If you want to know anything, ask me,” he said looking down at me when we finally sat on the bed.
“Why did you lie?”
He squinted his eyes and pondered my question, then shook his head. “I’ve never lied to you. But I also never thought it was my place to tell you. Think about what I would have been saying. You’re dad took my mom from me. He took my childhood from me. He took yours from you. Think about it.”
His words, the truth, crushed my soul, broke my bones and poisoned my blood.
It was late now. I didn’t want to move, still wanted to be numb and my body was drained. “Stay here with me?” Dylan asked. Megan said she wasn’t coming back tonight and that I could be alone tonight. I knew we were alone. Hoped that we were.
“Where’s my dad?” My drained body fell back against the bed, my heart stayed with Dylan, in his hands.
Dylan sat on the edge of the bed and wrestled off his shoes dropping them with a thud onto the wood floor, the sound echoed. His knees brushed against mine, I watched him, breathless after his display of anger earlier to this now, restless. “I don’t know. I lost it and left. Drew said he’d keep him away.”
“I meant what I said.” Turning me around, his hands framed my face, his eyes, bloodshot and pleading. He wasn’t going to beg and deep down I knew he wanted to. “I mean it brown eyes, I love you. I do.”
Nodding, I focused on his lashes and then deeper into his eyes wanting to trust him, his touch heavy and slow.
“You don’t.” Once the words left my lips, I regretted them because they weren’t true.
His lips curved at the corners, but the smile wasn’t one of amusement. He was being serious. “Oh, you couldn’t be more wrong if you tried. I meant everything I said to you.”
A bitter laugh escaped me, my arms folded over my chest. “Then what was it?”
He broke eyes contact, his head turning to the side, his jaw tight. He was closing down, shutting the door.
“Answer me.”
His gaze returned, but he said nothing, at least nothing in words. My face was suddenly between his palms, so close to his own. His fingers were electric on my skin, the sensation calming yet terrifying. His lips barely touched my own. “You know goddamn well the answer to that question.” There was no lust to his voice, only anger but underneath that, was the love I knew, the layers were peeled.
He lowered his mouth to my ear. “Please hear me.”
I did hear him.
“Tell me this is okay,” he said breathlessly against my skin.
I knew what he was asking and I couldn’t deny him. There’s something about heartache that makes you want to feel what broke it one last time. We both knew this was the last time.
I could feel him struggling within, not wanting to stop. He pulled me from his chest, his hands on my shoulders. “Please don’t leave,” he gasped. “We need this.” Dylan took my face in his hand pressing his lips to my forehead. He kept his lips there trying to convince me he meant everything he had said.
Pulling himself closer, he stroked my cheek with his thumb but didn’t say anymore.
He gasped, his tears mixing with mine, sea
rching for himself within me. Gripping my shoulders firmly, his body shook as he drew me closer. “Just be here, with me, one last time, be here.”
My hands shook when I brought them to cover his over my cheeks. His expression shifted again, his anger seemed to shatter like glass and then the slightest pressure against my mouth drew me in.
The sound of metal and leather unfastening brought me back and I opened my eyes to see him staring at me, wanting, needing, and begging.
When I reached for him, he grabbed both my hands and held my wrists together in one hand above my head near the headboard. “Tell me to stop, tell me to leave and I will,” he said through his teeth. “Tell me that you don’t love me.” His hips pushed forward, his glare on me, burning me. “Fucking say it,” he growled, low, primal.
But I couldn’t.
Reaching between our hips, he pushed his clothes aside with his right hand. My breath caught when I felt him press himself against me, there, stomach to stomach, chest to chest.
It felt wrong, it felt as if we were destroying the very last bit of anything we could have had.
21. Lost – Dylan Wade
She tried to shove my hands away when I went for her shirt but she wasn’t strong enough or wasn’t pushing enough. Instead I placed my hand between her breasts and pushed her back down onto the bed, not hard, but enough to let her know I was serious.
Gripping her hips, I pushed closer forcing her thighs apart pressing myself against her. Through my jeans, she could feel what I wanted most, her.
Bailey’s lips fell open, her neck arching. That’s when her back arches curling her fingers into the sheets, no more fighting, now she’s holding onto me, bending her knees to squeeze me, begging me closer.
Circling her hips, I knew she was done.
I let go for just a moment to pull my shirt off watching her rock against me, desperate for more. Her eyes watched me when my hands moved to my belt. The sound of the metal clanking brought her eyes to mine.
She reached for my belt but I shook my head. “Stop it.” Placing my hand on her chest once again, I pushed her back again. She’s not running this shit tonight, I was. I was going to fuck her until she begged me to stop because I know it was the last time.
Bailey seemed to understand and placed her hands over her head when I pressed my body forward. My buckle pressed into her stomach, she winced, so I pulled back to remove my jeans and then found my place between her legs again.
At the contact, she moaned again, her head tilted back further and I bent my own, dragging my lips and teeth over her throat. I wanted her to have marks from me, remember me, memories only she knew. Her legs trembled, heels dug into my thighs.
She knows what I’m doing. Maybe it scares her but regardless, she knows.
Grasping her wrists tighter, I pushed into her at the same time I bit her neck, she knew.
When she cried out, I covered her mouth with mine silencing her cries.
She fucking knows what this is. She does.
Dragging my kiss, my tongue, my body against hers, I didn’t ease up, no, I pushed harder than before. Possessiveness runs through my veins not wanting to let go, this girl was mine and I didn’t want to let go. These screams were mine, the way her body curled into mine, that’s mine too.
I didn’t fuck around, I didn’t tease her, or me. Knees apart, I gave her what we wanted, needed, desired, and begged for.
Digging my fingers into her hips, I fucking groan at the contact of being wrapped around her, spread out before me, loving me the way she knows how to.
The way she watches me makes my fucking knees shake, it takes my air from my lungs and gives me chills, that kind of shit. It takes my world and crushes it knowing it will never be the same.
That’s when she started to cry, feeling it too.
“Shhh,” I whispered rocking my hips and watching her body take all that mine is giving her as it sows my own control.
A soulful surrendered heart, I gave every miserable ounce of frustration and aggression that I’ve shouldered this summer, that I’ve shouldered my entire goddamn life. I fucked her as hard as I wanted to fight for her, for us, and I didn’t stop until she screamed for me to as I came, we both came, both my arms wrapped tight around her, rolling through my release.
“Don’t stop, please don’t stop,” she begged.
I pulled her legs over my shoulder, moving deeper, feeling more. “Never,” I moaned pushing deeper yet again, shaking my head lightly.
“Tell me,” I whispered between pants. “Even if it’s a lie, tell me.”
The truth fell from her lips. “I love you.”
22. Truth – Bailey
There I was, another sunrise, another decision. It ties into the beginning right about now. I was back in that sunrise the morning I left. A change, a thought, a feeling never happens right away. You never see it coming. Just like the sunrise creeping over us, chalky warmth, a glow in the distance. Just as the night’s mistakes, regrets and stars were shaken from the sky, a decision was made.
What would you do for a piece of forever? What would you do to love more, feel more, and live more?
What would you do to find yourself? Would you give all that up to find just a small piece of yourself, a side you’ve never known?
When the light flittered in, I felt his touch, soft, warm, wanting, his finger skimming.
I knew he never meant to lie to me. He knew the truth would break my heart. I remembered his words, the first song of his he ever sang, his eyes on mine. He tried to tell me so many times.
Hide you from the fear
You find deep inside
Dylan’s eyes were focused on the same window, lost in maybe the same thoughts. We both know what last night was and what this morning was I wanted to stop looking and not remember anything but I couldn’t. I wanted to stop noticing every small detail I loved about him.
I could feel him behind me, warming my skin just as the sun did and the fiery ache in my chest and the ice blue that melted it.
He was quiet, his breathing light as the breeze through the open window. I twisted and looked over at him. He was on his back staring at the ceiling.
I remembered, briefly, the morning we spent skin-to-skin, laughing, living for moments and memories that only we knew, words only meant for us, moving above me or under me with reverent curses and parted lips. The way he would gaze down at me in a heated expression, the feel of my fingertips meeting his hard muscles, begging him not to stop and knowing he held every string to my heart if only just for a summer.
I know what I lost, him. And the thought killed me inside. It was like watching the door close, drawing back the curtains on a sunny day, and faded light overcome with darkness.
Dylan left that morning back to Drew’s house. I went with him and sure enough, my dad was waiting. I needed some answers, I told Dylan I would come back and I went to breakfast with my dad. Afraid he would kidnap me, I made Drew drive me.
We never made it inside the restaurant. Instead, we talked outside his car. Truth be told, I didn’t want to have breakfast with him. I didn’t want to be around him. Yeah, he was my dad and nothing would change that but sometimes you can destroy a relationship beyond repair. He did that.
“I don’t even know you right now,” he said to me and it was finally the truth. It was honest and real and maybe the first honest statement he has made in years, or ever.
I offered the smallest flicker of my lashes, dark and unyielding. I had my own anger for the situation. Anger I wanted to inflict and anger I wanted him to own and feel deep―deeper than he ever felt imaginable. I wanted to show him that mine was the kind of anger that would rise and spread like wildfire turning everything to ash and black billowing clouds into the night’s sky. “You chose not to know me. You never tried to, ever. You knew the daughter you wanted to know, the daughter you created and the life you tried to control. And now you’re just a liar, so far from the truth it’s pathetic.”
His face became
hard and anger flared. “You have no idea what it’s like.”
“You’re right,” I agreed folding my hands over my chest. “I don’t have any idea because you kept the truth from me. Why did you cover it up?”
He sighed, a frustrated palm smacked against the hood of his car. “All right Bailey, here’s the fucking truth. I was a drunk for years. I’ve cheated on your mom more times than she probably cares to ever know. She found out that I was sleeping with Teresa and got mad at me. I shook my head, repulsed that he slept with Mercedes’ mom. “I got drunk and crashed a car into an innocent woman’s car. Come to find out, she was our neighbor.” He was speaking this as if it was no big deal, words were flowing, scripted almost. “I was on the city council at the time and set to be mayor,” he shook his head, “that would have been the end of my career. I pulled a few connections with the prosecuting attorney, made sure it was taken care of and set the Wade family up with a hefty financial security, all of them. Ken benefited from it just as much as his boys did.”
“Money would never make up for what you did,” I said crying again. “You took their mother, his wife from them. Money doesn’t fix that shit.”
My words meant nothing. He snorted, watchful of my guarded stance feet from him and Drew sitting in the car, waiting for me. He knew I wasn’t leaving with him and that pissed him off. It wasn’t in his control, this was out of his hands and that’s what he had a problem with. “It could have happened to anyone. You think Dylan’s impervious to it? You don’t think his drunk high ass couldn’t have killed someone?”
It was the only truth he had. The difference? Dylan wouldn’t have covered it up. He would have owned his mistake.
“You’re wrong,” I said stepping back a foot. I wasn’t going to respond or defend his actions and I wasn’t going anywhere with him. “I’m not leaving with you.”
“You’re not going anywhere, Bailey,” my dad said in a thick tone, he reached for me, his hands on my arms gripping me tightly. I could feel the pulsating as his hands squeezed. “I’ve had enough of this shit. You’re coming home.”
