by Nicky Shanks
I step into my purple bedroom. The air around my body changes as he follows me; it becomes thicker with frustration and tugs at my skin. “We should talk about that sometime—” his breath is on my neck, “—the bad things we’ve done. Maybe we can find some common ground in each other.” He presses himself against my ass for a few seconds. “Come and find me when you’re ready for dinner—I’ll order in. Get used to your room. The interns will be here any minute to drop off your stuff.”
I snort. “You must be something special if you have those fancy suits and interns fawning at your feet.”
He shrugs, trying to hide his blush. “I’m a low-man, trust me. I’m just an assistant to a really good lawyer, that’s all. Don’t get me wrong, though—I’ve worked hard for all of this.” He gestures around the room with wide circles. “I make good mon—”
My lips move before I even think about it. “I don’t care about that.”
Did I really just say that?
I blush and try to change the subject. “Anyway, you didn’t need to call in those guys, really. There wasn’t much to pack.”
He winks at me and taps the doorway. “It’s time to change that.”
I want to jump, scream, and cry all at once. Oliver wasn’t my ticket out of that hotel after all—it’s Brandon. His need to redeem himself with someone and my need to be wanted make us a perfect match. Maybe except for my smart mouth, which might get me in trouble. He has a severe need to be in control of someone other than himself. I don’t mind it, as long as it means that I get to live without looking over my shoulder again.
The deep purple quilt on the bed is soft underneath me as I lie back and run my fingers over the silk sheets. I smile and take in a deep breath.
Then I think about Ollie. My smile fades and I frown. I have to make things right with him and Julie—I need that weight lifted off my shoulders.
Making amends is the first rule of changing yourself for the better, right?
Taking out my phone, I text Nora, asking for Julie’s number. I add that I want to apologize and send a smiley face just in case she doesn’t take me seriously. There’s a huge chance that she won’t even care to answer me, but the phone chimes and her name is there. She gives me the number alongside a middle finger emoji, and it makes me smile. At least she’s answering my text messages. I dial Julie’s number and it rings several times; on the fifth ring, she picks up.
“Hello?” Her voice shakes.
I should have rehearsed something nice.
“Don’t hang up,” I start pleading with her. “It’s Heather.”
“What the hell do you want?”
I want to bitch her out, but I’m hopefully going to undo some bad karma by talking to her so I decide against it. I bite my lip so hard I pierce the flesh. “I’m calling to talk to you about Oliver. Is this a good time?”
She starts to sob into the phone, barely catching her breath. “What did you do to him?” she screams into my ear. “Why can’t you leave us alone, you crazy psycho?” Her cries deafen me, and I try to cut in between each sob.
“I have no clue what you’re talking about,” I say. “What is wrong with you?”
She hangs up on me.
“So much for that,” I say. “I guess she hates me too.”
“She doesn’t hate you,” Brandon says from the open doorway as young, nerdy guys bring in the boxes from my room. When they leave, his eyes find mine and his wicked smile returns. “She doesn’t even hate me, and I cheated on her.” His chin tilts toward the floor and his gaze drops. “And did other things I’m not fucking proud of. She’s basically Mother Theresa. She sees good in anyone. She was the first person to believe in me when I needed it the most.”
My jaw drops. “Have you been in contact with her?”
He shakes his head. “She won’t answer my calls.”
“Sounds like she hates you, then.”
He laughs and crosses his arms over his chest. “She’s busy fucking your ex. She doesn’t hate me.” He saunters toward me. I want to pull him against me and let him hold me, but I doubt he would even try to comfort me. “Unpack your things and I’ll order Chinese takeout.” He shuffles from the room with a sour look on his face.
After the last box is empty, Brandon returns and takes the stack of cardboard to the front door. “Come and eat with me,” he demands. “Please.”
For a long few minutes, we fill our plates with the food and I stare down at it with distaste. I hate eating things that burn if they come back up; that’s something I can’t let Brandon see or hear, either. I have this weird quirk when I get too nervous—I can’t manage to keep anything down. I sip on a small bowl of hot and sour soup while his gaze wanders over my body. “So now that you’re unpacked, what do you need?”
I lick the soup from my lips and his wicked smile brightens. “A laptop, probably a new phone, some clothes and makeup—”
He holds up his hand. “Just write it down and I’ll make sure you get them.”
He doesn’t say another word to me through the entire meal. Earlier I’d had the feeling that things were all going to be okay for once…and now he showers me with silence.
I excuse myself and sneak into the bathroom to shower quickly before Brandon can just burst in uninvited. I curse myself for not bringing clothes, so after I finish I wrap myself in a towel and run across the hall into my room. I find some pajama pants and a tank top, not bothering with a bra, before climbing into the soft bed. Something eats at my insides as I lie in the dimly lit room.
I let my mind wander.
When Oliver and I first met.
Our first date.
First kiss.
First…everything.
I hear Brandon walking around in the hallway and he opens my door to peek his head inside. “Everything okay in here?” he whispers, and I blink into the rapidly darkening room. I wait a few seconds and hold my breath. “Heather?”
“Can you sleep next to me?” I blurt. “It would make me feel better if you did.”
He rubs his chin and thinks for a few seconds. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” He walks toward the bed and sits down next to me. His eyes are concerned and brighter than usual. He folds the quilt back and slides in next to me, letting his body relax next to mine. “Is this okay?” His breathing is rough; his nervousness bleeds into the air.
I smile and inch closer to him. “Yes, much better. Thank you.”
He’s changed into a t-shirt and sweatpants. The soft, worn fabric feels nice between my fingers.
I know it won’t be the same as it was with Oliver…but it can be better if I play it right. I’m not the same person I was years ago—I’ve changed so much that I don’t even remember that girl.
I don’t want to remember that girl.
My mind wanders back to Oliver and I try to pinpoint when his feelings for me changed. He treated me like arm candy when we met, glitzing me up and showing me off to anyone that would indulge him. He made me break out of my Southern belle shell and I became what I thought he wanted me to be.
And look at me now.
It’s me that’s changed—I can’t deny that. I allowed myself to become someone else. It’s not Oliver’s fault anymore, and I know it deep down inside.
It’s going to take a long time to get over Ollie completely—I know that too.
But you know what they say: The best way to get over someone…
…is get under someone else.
Chapter Nine
Oliver
Rain.
I feel it soaking my hair…at least I think it’s the rain that’s matted it to my forehead. My clothes are soaked through to my skin; the fabric of my jeans and t-shirt is ripped and my skin burns from the water on my open wounds.
I smell the gasoline pooling around me.
I’m hanging upside down—being held in by only my seatbelt.
The groan that escapes me is horrible; I see a pair of legs run up to the window and kneel on the pavement so
the person can get a better look at the tangled mess inside. “Hold on there, man…we called for help!” a man screams at me. “You’re lucky to be alive right now…that other guy—”
Julie.
I think about her soft, honey blonde hair.
She smells like strawberries and everything I could ever want from love.
She’s all I think about. Now I might not be able to ever see her again.
Or feel her warm skin against mine.
Listen to her laugh.
See her big, blue eyes burn into mine.
My limbs are betraying me—they got disconnected from my mind during the crash. I’m so tired that I close my eyes and drift off, unaware of the tragic scene outside the Jeep. The broken pieces of the other people involved and the cries of their families.
I have no one here.
Am I dead?
***
I can hear Julie humming and sunlight seeps through my eyelids. When I open my eyes, the sunlight is pouring into the open windows of our new house. I smell her strawberry shampoo and smile. Her naked body stretches next to mine and she moans and opens her eyes to look at me.
I pull her closer against my own naked body and she smiles.
“Good morning, sunshine,” I whisper to her.
She lifts her body up a little to find my lips and graze hers against them.
I want to fucking cry.
Is this the way it’s going to be now?
I can’t die. I have to go to her.
I need more time.
***
Rain.
I force my eyes open and see the blood.
My blood.
It’s everywhere; I don’t know what parts of me it’s coming from, but it surrounds me, pooling in thick, red puddles.
“I have more people hurt over here!” someone screams.
“Please, please help us!”
“I didn’t see him—I swear I didn’t see him until it was too late. You gotta believe me. I wasn’t trying to run off, man!”
“Just fucking call someone!”
I can’t focus. I can tell that I’m upside-down still, and there are pieces of the Jeep lying around the pavement outside. People are still screaming and I hear sirens getting closer, but I just want them to take me to Julie—load me up in the back of an ambulance and take me to her before I die.
I’m fading. I can feel it.
“Hey, stay with me.” I hear Julie’s voice. I move my neck as much as I can to try and see her, but she isn’t there. I know she isn’t there. “I love you,” I hear her whisper, and the world gets black again for a few seconds.
I wake up to the sound of a machine cutting the door of the Jeep off. Several hands reach in to pull me out, but they all fail. “He’s strapped in!” someone yells, and he kneels down to look at me. It’s a different man than before.
He looks worried. “Hey, man…can you hear me? The car is overturned. You’ve been in an accident. What’s your name?”
My mouth doesn’t work.
My eyes barely work.
My heart doesn’t even feel like it’s working.
The man nods as if I’m actually answering him; he’s trying to get me to focus on him rather than what he’s doing to me. I can feel him cutting through the seatbelt and he places an arm around my torso so I won’t fall and crack my head open more than it already is.
Pain.
I scream so loud that it hurts my own ears.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry…look,” the man says and holds up his hands. “I have to finish cutting off the seatbelt to get you free.”
I grunt in approval.
Just get me out of here and take me to Julie.
He cuts through the seatbelt and my body falls. I hit my head against the hard surface despite his valiant effort to soften the blow.
Darkness.
***
“Hey, come here,” Julie says as she pops back into my head. I run to her and scoop her up into my arms; I can literally feel her warm, soft skin on mine. I squeeze her with no intentions of ever letting her go. “Come on, it’ll be okay.” She coos and strokes my head. “You just have to wake up.”
I make a promise to myself right then. If I somehow make it out of this alive…I’m going to start following the rules again. It doesn’t matter how many rules I’ve broken; this rule can’t be shattered like the first.
I can’t take life for granted anymore now that I’m fighting for my own.
I can’t take Julie for granted anymore, because now look at me: I may never see her again.
I can’t take myself for granted anymore; I have to be a better person than I have been.
When I wake up, I’m grabbing Julie and never letting her go. We’ll live a long life full of excitement and fun—no more arguing and pissing each other off out of spite. We know we will run back to each other. It’s an unspoken agreement between us.
Does she know what happened? I think about her alone in the darkness, crying when she finds out I died and she didn’t get to say goodbye.
Or, “I love you.”
She is going to kill me herself if she can’t say goodbye.
I think about who will comfort her.
Harley.
Casey.
Brandon.
Each person I think about pisses me off more.
I have to stay alive.
***
“We have to get him outta there!” a man screams, and the loud machine takes off the other door at my feet. “Get the damn crowd back! Is he alive?” He screams louder and several people are crying outside of the Jeep. I wonder if Julie is out there, waiting to see my mangled body for confirmation that it’s all over. “I said, get that crowd back!”
Fire.
I smell fire.
“Shit, the hood’s smoking! Put that fucking fire out!”
“Get him out of there…now!”
“Grab his shoulders and pull his ass out! I don’t care if you have to force him! It’s about to go up in flames!”
“Hey, buddy, can you hear me?”
My eyes flutter and open enough for me to see him. I feel a rush of adrenaline from something that’s injected into my leg, and suddenly I’m alert and aware.
“Julie,” I croak out. My mouth is dry. “I need Julie.”
My body hurts.
My heart feels like a thousand needles are being jabbed into it.
I can’t even feel my legs.
I definitely know several bones in my body are broken.
The man tugs me harder and I feel myself slide against some broken glass on the pavement, slicing through what’s left of my skin. The engine of the Jeep is on fire and several firefighters are putting it out. I manage to pry my eyes open a little wider to watch two paramedics scramble toward me and start working on my wounds. One of them holds a flashlight to my eyes, making me shut them tightly so I can just listen.
“He’s about to go into cardiac arrest. Where’s his wallet?”
“I’ll look for ID. Was there anyone else in the car?”
“No, just him. He’s lost a lot of blood.”
“Here, I found his wallet.”
“Good, that’s more than we usually find.”
“He can’t breathe—lift him up!”
“Get him, get him! We’re losing him!”
***
Strawberries.
We sit on the golden chaise in her library at the cabin, in front of the huge window that looks across the lake. It’s springtime because the lake is calm and no one is buzzing around on speed boats or jet skis. Julie brushes her hair from her face and her big eyes capture me. I kiss her nose to make her smile.
I love her fucking smile.
“I want to stay here forever.” I pull her as close to me as I possibly can without suffocating her. “I never want you away from me again. I can’t take it when you’re upset with me, and now look—I could die and you’ll have to live with the memory of me forever.”
Juli
e giggles and her sunshine fills my head. “If we stay here forever, you’ll get tired of the same things every day, over and over.”
“It’s not possible to get tired of you…I’m addicted to you in every way imaginable. You were made for me, Julie. I loved you before I even met you, and there’s nothing you can do to make me not love you.”
“I will love you forever,” she whispers, but I can’t see her anymore.
***
Slam.
The paramedics toss me into the back of their bus with only a little bit of care. I feel it start zooming through the still slippery streets; they’re working on my body as much as they can, assessing the injuries out loud.
“Jesus, there’s so much fucking blood.”
“Here, get this IV in him. He’ll need an infusion, I’m sure.”
They stick a needle into my arm, but I can barely feel anything at this point, so it only stings a little.
“Shit, he’s messed up. Just from what I can see…he’s got a broken leg, some broken fingers, several deep contusions to his legs and middle torso and cuts on his face…”
“There’s no telling what damage has been done on the inside.”
“Right…I can see he’s got a few broken ribs, but I don’t want to press down in case of any internal bleeding.”
“That seatbelt saved him from being thrown out of the front window for sure.”
I feel the drugs kick in from the IV. Everything goes numb.
“Don’t worry, we’re almost to the hospital. You have a fighting chance.”
Liars.
I feel like death.
“You got his ID, right?”
“Yeah, here. Oliver Jackson, twenty-five. Got his phone for next of kin too.”
Next of kin.
My heart races and I panic. They only want your next of kin when they know something they aren’t telling you. They know I’m not going to make it. My heart starts burning like a flame has been shoved into my chest. I scream loud in pain as one of them holds me down; I hear a monitor beeping quickly and then slowing way down.
“His heart’s failing!”
