Ten minutes later, Maggie resurfaced at the gate. She hesitated, scanning the lot, although her gaze never made it all the way to where I watched her from down the street. When she pulled out, I turned around and got in line three cars behind her.
Stupid?
Probably. I just didn’t know anymore, and I really didn’t care if it was.
I already knew where she was headed. She’d gone there yesterday morning after she dropped Jonathan off at school. I couldn’t begin to grasp why. The stories of the torment she’d been subjected to within the walls of that house still turned my stomach. I’d always listened without a word, silently understanding she’d never been able to voice them before, while inside it had torn me apart.
When I’d gone back to California, I’d become so jaded. I’d built up walls to protect myself from thoughts of compassion, chalked them up to a sign of weakness.
I realized now it’d just been a tool of preservation, because it fucking destroyed me to think of Maggie being hurt. Every minute I’d spent back in Mississippi had slowly stripped that protection away.
I inched passed the road to Maggie’s old house and turned onto the street behind it.
Yesterday, I had moved on from here after I watched Maggie walk along the backside of her parents’ house and had driven by the grungy shop where Troy worked just to be sure he was there, a small assurance that, for the time being, Maggie was safe.
But not today.
I hopped out of my car and pressed the lock on the key fob. The car emitted a low bleep and the lights flashed. I cast a furtive glance around, wishing my car sitting on the side of the road in this shitty neighborhood wasn’t so ridiculously obvious.
Stupid.
I took the edge of the road at almost a jog. My gaze continually darted around my surroundings, watching for some sign that someone noticed I was here. I jumped when a dog lunged at my side and rammed into a chain-link fence. It snarled and snapped at the metal as I passed.
My pulse thundered, fear and need and perseverance.
I wasn’t leaving here until I talked to her.
About a quarter-mile up was an empty lot. With my heart still pounding, I leaned down and pushed the barbed wires apart and slid between them. In my anxiety, I stood and looked around again, then tried to keep my footsteps as quiet as possible as I moved forward, prowling in broad daylight. A jungle of weeds grew to my knees and swished against my jeans as I pushed forward. Old tires were piled haphazardly in the middle, a rotted, flat basketball to the side, a dilapidated swing set falling apart toward the back.
Sadness welled, and for a second, I wished for the walls to be back in place.
At the end of the lot, a row of trees had been planted as a boundary. The trunks grew high and the branches sprouted out about halfway up, reaching out to shade the entire yard. In their shelter, I stopped, bracing myself with a hand on a tree as I looked toward the back of Maggie’s old house.
A frenzy of emotions twisted through my consciousness, so many they were hard to discern—sadness and love—pity and lust—anger and a broken heart I’d hidden away because I’d never known how to deal with it.
I slumped to the damp, dirty ground and listened to the indistinct sounds coming from inside. Only a patchy lawn and rickety door separated me from the girl, who, without even knowing it, had captured me the moment I’d seen her. For two hours, I just sat there, lost in thoughts and memories.
I jumped to my feet in a race of nerves when the handle rattled and the back door swung open.
Over her shoulder, Maggie called, “See you tomorrow.”
She stepped out and turned around to click the door shut, jiggling the handle to be sure it was locked. I watched her slow, as if suddenly overwhelmed, feet chained to the ground. She stood with her back to me, one hand flat on the door, her head hung and body still.
I wanted to know what she was thinking almost as badly as I wanted to touch her.
From the cover of the trees, I slowly approached. Each cautious footstep I took brought her closer to me. I knew she felt me, knew she sensed my presence in the way she tensed. She sucked in air and dropped her arms to her sides.
She never turned around, only waited.
A foot away, I stopped. Her body rose and fell in sync with mine, her short, gasping breaths matching the jagged ones I forced in and out of my lungs. Strands of auburn ruffled in the breeze and brushed across my face, the sweetness of Maggie filling my nose and overpowering my senses. My fingers twitched forward, remembering just how soft that auburn was when I wove my fingers through it.
God, I wanted her.
The shiver that rolled through Maggie was palpable even to me.
I wound my arms around her and pulled her flush, my palms flat on her stomach.
Cheek to cheek. Skin to skin.
I burned.
I ran my nose up her jaw and whispered in her ear, “I don’t know how to stop loving you.”
Maggie trembled in my hold. A small cry erupted from her mouth as she covered my hands with hers and flattened her body against mine. Her head tilted away to bring us closer, her neck exposed.
I buried my face in the snowy flesh. My arms tightened around her as every nerve came alive. They’d lain dormant for so long, it almost hurt. Repressing a groan in the haven of her neck, I pressed my lips against her skin.
Maggie whimpered my name.
The last shred of control I had slipped.
In a flurry of movement, I spun her around and pushed her against the door. My mouth met hers, fevered and impatient. I buried my hands in the auburn locks I’d so desperately longed to touch. I wound them through my fingers, tugged her closer, kissed her deeper.
Her mouth opened on a shuddered moan. It was almost a sob. I devoured it. A long-suppressed sob of my own bubbled up somewhere in my consciousness and lodged as a weighted mass in my throat.
I loved this girl so much. Too much.
“Maggie…oh God…Maggie,” I mumbled between my desperate play to consume her, to fill up this hole she’d left when she’d broken our hearts. It only expanded when tears spilled from her eyes and over my hands, and for the shortest second, she gave in and kissed me back.
Cupping her face, I pulled away and stared down at her. Her eyes were all brown misery and love and shame, and the most wistful of smiles hinted on her swollen lips. Timid fingertips traced my face, as if to remember—to memorize—something to take with her when she walked away. Chills followed in their wake, an aching loss across my skin, torment I didn’t think I’d survive. Her touch spoke of it—of giving in and letting go—but her eyes were so sad, I knew she never would.
“No,” I pled as I crushed myself to her, my mouth urgent in its petition, strong and overpowering. I kissed her in a way I should have when she’d let me go instead of walking away from her.
Insistent hands roamed up the softness of her slender arms, palmed her delicate neck, ran down across the exposed skin of her chest, and begged at her hips.
Please.
I couldn’t bear it, couldn’t let her go, but I knew she was already gone. She was limp, and I knew she had withdrawn to that distant place she’d escaped to that night.
“Please, Maggie,” I said, grasping her face, “let me in.”
She averted her gaze. “William, you know I can’t.”
I pushed myself closer to erase every inch of space between us. Holding myself up with my hands on either side of her head, I brushed my cheek across hers. “Why…why not? Tell me why I can’t have you.” My mouth was back at her jaw. “Why did you choose this life?”
Maggie choked over unspent emotion and hid her face at my throat. “I didn’t.”
She kissed me there beneath my jaw, a lingering caress as she clung to me by my shoulders.
Then she pushed me away.
I stumbled back. The anguished expression on her face snuffed out the last bit of anger I’d held for her all of these years.
I grabbed her wrist when she
turned to run. This time she didn’t flinch, though she wouldn’t look my way.
“I won’t walk away from you this time, Maggie…not you or Jonathan. I will fight for you.”
She squeezed my hand as if begging me to keep my word, then she jerked it away and took off with her hand covering her mouth. I didn’t chase her. I just watched as she disappeared around the side of the house.
I hadn’t thought it possible to hurt any worse than I had. I hadn’t believed anything could be more excruciating than walking away from her that night six years ago.
But I was wrong.
My heart and body still sped from her touch, filled with the same intense need that only Maggie had ever brought out in me, although my legs felt weak, my feet heavy as I forced myself back across her mother’s yard and out onto the shanty street. As I climbed into my SUV, I didn’t look twice at the old woman who eyed me with suspicion while she beat a rug against the railing of her front porch.
I didn’t care about anything except for the broken words that had dropped from Maggie’s mouth.
I didn’t.
William ~ September, Six Years Earlier
“You’re awfully happy this morning. Bet you can’t wait to get out of here tomorrow morning,” my mom teased, although I didn’t miss the sadness behind her words. Every time I left, my mother cried. For so many years, I’d believed one day it would be permanent and I would say goodbye and never come back to stay. Sure, I’d visit, but both my mother and I knew it would never be the same.
Now, I had no idea what the future held. I didn’t know if Maggie would fall in love with Los Angeles and would want to make it our home, if leaving would help to heal her and distance her from her past.
Or would she miss it here and want to return?
The little tugging in my chest told me I hoped she’d want to come back, but really, I’d be happy wherever Maggie wanted to go.
I smiled at Mom. “I just have some…really good news.”
“Oh? And what’s that?”
“I’ll tell you tonight.”
“Keeping secrets from your mom now, William?”
I had the urge to hug her. “I’m really going to miss you, Mom,” I said as I wrapped her in a small embrace.
She patted my back.
“You’ll be back at Christmas. It’ll fly by.” She squeezed me a little tighter. “Only one more year.” It sounded like a promise to herself.
Guilt fluttered its wings in my stomach. Even though I was sure my mother would empathize, and I knew over the summer she’d grown to really care about Maggie too, I knew a part of her would be hurt I’d kept my relationship with Maggie a secret.
“Love you, Ma.”
“You have no idea how much I love you.”
~
There was a rap on the wall next to my door. I glanced over my shoulder.
Blake peeked in with a grin on his face. “What the hell are you doing, man?”
I shrugged and threw a smirk in my brother’s direction. It was pretty obvious what I was doing as I grabbed another shirt and shoved it into the duffle bag that was unzipped and wide-open on the bed. The rest of my things were in piles around it, everything except for my bathroom stuff and a change of clothes for the morning.
“Running away from Mississippi again, huh?” Blake hopped onto my bed and lay down, pushing a pile of jeans aside with his leg as he stretched out along the side with his hands behind his head. His work boots were smeared with dried mud.
“Dude, get your boots off my bed.”
Blake dug them in further, toppling a pile of shirts off the bed and onto the floor.
I shook my head, though I couldn’t help the smile. “You’re such an asshole.”
Blake laughed. “That’s why you love me, little brother.” He blew out a heavy breath and looked up at the ceiling. “I’m going miss you, Will. It sucks when you’re not around.”
I stopped packing to look over at him. “Yeah, I’m going to miss you, too.”
His gaze shifted to me, his expression intense. “Listen, I’ve been wanting to ask you something. I want you to stand up for me as my best man in my wedding next summer.” He rubbed the back of his hand over his mouth before he sat up on the edge of the bed with his back to me. He seemed to contemplate before he looked back over his shoulder. “You know you’re my best friend, Will. It doesn’t matter if you’re my brother or not…there’s nobody else I’d want standing up there beside me.”
We’d always been close, but we rarely had conversations like this. I got it. It felt as if everything was changing, our lives speeding up as the days of our adolescence blurred.
“Of course, Blake. There’s not a chance in Hell I’d miss it.”
We stared at each other for a moment. The secret I was hiding burned on my tongue and another wave of guilt bound its way up my throat. I hated keeping something so important from my brother, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell him yet. I wanted Maggie standing by my side when I told my family about her, for them to see how much I really loved her—wanted them to see that this wasn’t some little summer fling.
Shifting, Blake drew one leg up onto the bed to face me. His face was almost awed. “I still can’t believe I’m getting married. I’m kind of freaked out about it, if I’m being honest.”
I frowned. “What do you mean? Are you having second thoughts?”
Blake kind of shrugged. “No…not second thoughts. Just scared, I guess.”
Scared. I was no stranger to that emotion, but mine had been born of entirely different fears. Grabbing another pile of clothes and shoving them into my bag, I realized I hadn’t had time to really think about the future. Every decision I’d made with Maggie had been impulsive…instinctual. I wondered if there was something wrong with me that I couldn’t begin to relate to the worries that seemed to have crept up on my brother.
Blake scratched at the back of his neck and turned his attention to the floor.
“But God, I love her. It makes me sick to think of not being with her.” He chuckled and glanced up at me.
Now that I could understand.
~
The back door clicked behind me, and I was enveloped by the night. Billions of stars blinked down from the moonless sky. I quieted my feet over the wooden planks of the porch, an act I’d perfected over the summer.
I couldn’t remember another time in my life when I’d felt more anxious—more excited—than I did now. This would be the last time I’d ever sneak from this house. Tonight marked a new chapter in my life, one in which Maggie was no longer something of the night, a secret without shame, although it felt as if our relationship had somehow been soiled by the way we’d kept it concealed.
In less than eight hours, we’d be on the road, fleeing Maggie’s past and running toward our future. We’d never even shared a meal, but I knew Maggie better than anyone I’d ever known, and she’d dug in deep and exposed the real man I was. She made me better. Made me happy.
I smiled at the all-encompassing feeling that danced in my stomach and spread out over every inch of my being as I ran through my neighborhood and darted across the road. Maggie’d been the only one who’d ever come close to creating it, but I’d understood it the moment I experienced it.
The playground was deserted. A hazy yellow glow illuminated the area from the solitary parking lamp. I ran through the playground and hit the trail. I couldn’t wait to wrap my arms around my girl, couldn’t wait to see the excitement on her face.
I almost laughed because none of it made sense. When I’d left to come home for the summer, I never could have imagined what would take place in three short months. I never could have imagined my life would be turned upside-down, that I’d fall head-first. Trip. Love a girl more than I’d ever thought possible.
I was going to marry Maggie.
My feet quickened at the thought. It didn’t matter we had no plans and had no place to stay because I sure as hell couldn’t take her back to stay with the letches I ca
lled roommates. All that mattered was I wanted this, wanted her, forever.
Rushing over the trail, I pushed branches out of the way as I hurried to our spot faster than I ever had. In my haste, I almost fell when she first came into view. My feet faltered as they slid to a stop over the dewy ground. A tight band constricted my chest, throbbed as pain where my heart accelerated and beat against my ribs.
“Maggie,” I whispered. I slowly approached, the sickest feeling slipping through my veins.
She stood in the middle of the small clearing, facing away, but I knew. She was hiding.
“Maggie, baby, what happened?” Shaking, I reached a tentative hand out to touch her shoulder.
She flinched away.
Taking a breath, I slipped my hand under her hair to the back of her neck in a touch of encouragement. “Mag—”
The word died on my tongue when she finally turned to look up at me. Her expression was like a punch to the gut, enough to knock the wind from my lungs in an audible gush of air.
“Maggie.”
I instantly took her face in my urgent hands, my touch desperate to break her from wherever she had gone. In everything we’d been through, I’d never once seen her look this way. Her face was flat, expressionless and pale, though her eyes were crimson red as if she’d spent days crying. Behind the red, in the depths of the warm brown where I’d lost myself time and time again, there was nothing. My Maggie was gone.
“Maggie.” I tightened my hold and gently shook her. Please come back to me.
A flicker of something lashed in her eyes.
“Maggie.” Softly I pressed my mouth to hers and held her face, coaxing her back. “Maggie, I’m here. I’m here.”
She began to cry.
“Baby…don’t cry…don’t cry…ssh.” Pulling back, I wiped her tears with my thumbs, my smile soft and my murmurs tender. “It’s okay, sweetheart, it’s okay. Tell me what happened.”
She cried harder. I tasted her tears when she suddenly pulled me down by the neck to kiss me. Her fingers dug into my skin as if clinging to a life slipping away. Terror hit me when I realized it was not going to be okay. It sunk in that she had none of her things, and I knew then what she had come here to say.
When We Collide Page 19
