Fractured Paths (Fractured Love Series Book 1)

by Heather Anne

  "But I thought...”

  "Listen, you stupid cunt. My brothers are minutes from coming out here and I’m about two seconds away from texting Frankie to tell him you won't sell me a grand worth of shit." Her eyes widen and she reaches into her purse, takes a brown bag out, and shoves it down the front of my pants. I take a wad of bills from my back pocket and slip them in her purse.

  "Get the fuck out of here." I shove her away.

  "But Gray...."

  "You listen to me and listen good. I will not have anything to do with you ever again. I am telling Frankie I will not be dealing with you anymore and if for one minute you think you can fuck with Skylar again, I will make your life a living fucking hell."

  "But I didn't…"

  "We both know you did! Now get the fuck away from me, you make me sick."

  She huffs. "I don't know what that girl sees in you." She storms off.

  "Neither do I."

  I turn to walk out of the alley and I am shoved hard into the brick wall of the bar.

  "You’re a fucking asshole!" my brother Carson yells.

  I’m flipped around and met with a fist to the face. Shit that hurt.

  "I knew you couldn't do it you piece of shit!" Hudson's fist hits my stomach and I double over with a yelp.

  "You’re a mother fucking liar."

  Kick to the shin and I go down. Pain is radiating through my leg as I let my brother kick the shit out of me.

  "You are nothing to me!" he yells and I am lifted up by, I think, Landon.

  Hudson takes another cheap shot and immediately I can feel my eye start to swell shut.

  "I can't believe my hero turned into a pathetic, junkie asshole."

  "Enough," Landon warns.

  Hudson huffs and crosses his arms against his chest. "What the fuck, Grayson? Kristy?" Landon says.

  "Means nothing. Besides, I already kicked her ass to the curb."

  "Yeah, guess she’s on the same level with Skylar." I lunge at Carson for that smartass comment. Skylar isn’t even in the same zip code as Kristy.

  "Don't you dare fucking talk about her like that!"

  "Why not? It's the way you treated her." He shoves me away.

  "That girl loves you Grayson and you just let it go," Landon says.

  "You need help." Carson’s voice is pleading.

  "For what? To get Skylar back? Come on. That girl is too good for me and everyone knows it." I sigh. I want her. Bad. I need her in a way that is so scary and foreign to me, but I know I can never have her. Not again.

  "The drugs, Grayson." I shake my head.

  "I’m fine."

  "The hell you are. Let's go through the turn of events here. You start to feel deeply for someone for the first time since Lainey, she gets assaulted, you tell her about your past, obviously something meaningful happened between the two of you that night, you leave and get high. Am I on the right track here?"

  “You don’t know shit." I try to leave but Landon grabs my arm.

  "Yeah we do, Gray. We know how much pain and guilt you feel. We know that that girl in there is the only one that made you the least bit happy. We know you think you aren't worth it. You have had some time away from drugs and things started to get better. The minute you take something, you lose your girl, your brother walks away from you, and you lose the respect of half the town. What is it going to take or are we going to have to bury you, too?"

  They say nothing more and walk away from me, leaving me to allow their words to sink in. God damn it! How the hell could my life have possibly gotten even more fucked up? I rake my hands through my hair feeling, the trickle of blood dripping out of my nose. Fuck.

  I dig into my pants, pull out the bag and look in. I wince at the pinch of my split lip as I smile when I see the bag of pills. I take three out and swallow them. I am shoving the bag back into my pants when I hear a gasp.

  "Sorry," the soft voice says and I turn and am faced with the most beautiful tear stained face. "Gray? Oh my god, are you alright?"

  I flinch as I feel her soft touch on my arm. She pulls away and huffs.

  "Come on," she says.

  I start to argue. “Nah, I’m good.”

  "Grayson, just shut the fuck up and come with me. You owe me at least that."

  I open my mouth and close it because shit she’s right. "Where are we going?" I feel so fucked up I can barely walk a straight line. The pills hit me quick because of the amount of alcohol in my system. I groan as I try not to laugh.

  "What's so funny?" She is getting pissed. "God damn it, you are so fucked up."

  "Don't I know it."

  God, she looks gorgeous when she is mad. I want to kick myself for walking away from that even though I know I made the right decision.

  "Look, I’m taking you to Beans. I’m going to patch you up and then you can be on your way. I promise I will keep my clingy ass away from you as much as I can."

  Ouch. Her words hurt.

  "Sky...”

  "Don't. Just don't. You know, it’s times like this that I wish I was as heartless as you can be." She turns away to unlock the door to Beans.

  I don’t respond, because if I open my mouth, I may tell her the truth about the lies. She enters the alarm code, flips the light on and locks the door behind us. I follow her to the back staff room where she points to a chair. "Sit," she says and I oblige.

  My head is floating, my heart pounding. She places a first aid kit on the table and I hear the water running. She pulls a chair up and sits right in front of me. She gently wipes my face with a warm towel, but I am too entranced by the depth of her eyes to flinch. I search into her soul to find only grace, purity, and maybe some empathy. I know in this moment I have to let her go for good. I need to reiterate to her everything that I said in anger at the bar. I need her to believe that walking out that door was the best decision for her.

  I may be a selfish asshole, but not when it comes to her. Even in my inebriated state, I will always do what I think is best for her. I will gladly face the pain of not having her if it means she remains light, and my darkness can no longer cause her pain. It may break me, but the truth is I'm already broken. Irrevocably damaged.

  I squeeze my eyes shut at the sting of the antiseptic she applies to the gash on my cheek.

  "Hudson?" she asks.

  "Yep."

  "You deserve it, you know." Her voice is small.

  "Yeah, I know, but I won't apologize." God, I am such an asshole.

  Her eyes close. I watch her face twist into even more sadness and then into resolve. Shit is she strong. So much stronger that I could ever be.

  "Despite what you think of yourself, you are a good man, Grayson," she says with conviction. She leans over and brushes her soft lips against mine in a gentle kiss. I pull back, placing my forehead against hers, breathing her in for the last time, allowing her sugary sweet scent to envelope me.

  "But I'm really not." I will my voice not to shake while I gently push her away.

  "Gray." The hope in her voice could kill me.

  This girl. This sweet, adorable, gray eyed angel is my heaven. She’s also my hell. I refuse to make her any more of a part of my fucked up life than she already is. All honestly out the window, I know I have to break her for good. To rid her of every ounce of optimism she has left where I am concerned. I have to in order to keep her safe from me, my demons.

  "This doesn't mean anything." It means so much.

  She quirks her eyebrow but says nothing. I exaggerate a sigh.

  "I already told you, I don't want this." I want this so bad.

  "You said a lot of things I know you didn't mean." Her voice cracks.

  "I meant every word, Sky." The truthful words are the ones I am too afraid to say.

  She shakes her head, trying to rid herself of my words, and then comes the biggest lie of them all.

  "You mean nothing to me.” You mean everything.

  I push off the chair, the need to get the hell out of there is so great
. The sound of her sobs as I walk to the front of the shop are deafening. I keep telling myself this is for the best as I head out the door. I tell myself she doesn’t deserve to be put through any more pain all the way to the liquor store.

  I contradict that thought as I sit on my couch, opening the bottle of whiskey, telling myself I don't care. I don't care as I down three more pills. I don't care as I cut up two nice lines of cocaine. I don't care as I feel the burn in my nose and the numbing drip in the back of my throat. Yeah, I really don't care as I drink half the bottle of whiskey while going through my phone, reading the string of text messages between me and Sky from the very beginning.

  At first, I just wanted to be around her, to know her, and as the days went on, we got flirtier and then I just wanted to get into her pants. Fuck her right out of my system. The truth though, I wanted into her heart and ain't that some funny shit.

  The heartless bastard wants a heart he can’t have.

  I wanted to ingrain myself so far deep in her heart, she would be worthless for any other asshole. God, I’m such a bastard. Even in my thoughts, I was destroying her. I stumble from my couch up to my bedroom and, as I close my eyes after falling face first into bed, the first image I see is of strawberry hair and steel colored eyes. Then those gray eyes morph into lifeless brown ones, my reality seeping in through my drunken haze.

  Walking away from Skylar is for the best. I would never even give myself the opportunity to hurt her like I did Lainey, or at least even more than I already have. As much as I don't want to admit it, I care for Skylar much more than I ever thought or ever wanted to.

  You know that saying, if you love someone set them free and if they were yours, they'd come back or some shit like that? I hope to God she doesn't come back. If she does, I know I'll be too selfish to let her go again.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  It has been almost a month since I last laid eyes on her. A month since I was inside her. A month since I heard her laugh or felt her presence, yet I’m a fucking mess.

  My drug use is out of control. Every day I use more and more. I need to be numb. I need to forget. I need to be obliterated in order to even function these days.

  My brothers aren't speaking to me, with the exception of Landon, but we own a business together so he doesn't have a choice, at least for now anyway. I know he’s close to offering me a buyout, but fuck that. I started this shit and he helped me build it. I gave him a place to go and something to believe him when he got back from his last deployment.

  He told me take time off of work and get my shit together, but I refused. Now all I do is draw up shit. He won’t let me use a needle while fucked up and I am thankful that at least one of us in thinking straight.

  I haven't seen my niece or my sister. Hudson took off for Vegas. Good for him. He has the right idea, getting the fuck away from it all. I want to be able to do that because anywhere I go, I see one of them. I see Skylar and her sweet smile or I see Lainey and her lifeless eyes. I can’t escape my two biggest regrets, no matter how bad I want to.

  I asked Allyson once how Skylar was and her reply was, "She looks as good as you do."

  I hate it that she is hurting. I hate myself for doing that to her even if I believe with everything I am that walking away from her was the right thing to do. The fact she isn't doing that great proves it, doesn't it? I have no fucking clue.

  I gave up driving again and I walk to work. It's a Tuesday and I know from Jeffers that she doesn't work on Tuesdays. She’s taken on a lot of the planning and stuff for the new Community Center with Trevor, so she cut back her hours at Beans. Allyson works there now, too, taking on some extra hours.

  I walk into Beans on my way to the shop and no one is at the counter. I look around, noticing the place is quite empty. I smell sugar and vanilla and I know it's not coming from the baked goods. It's rich and spicy, particular to Skylar. I close my eyes and when I open them, I hear a soft gasp. She approaches the counter and studies my face.

  I have been on something or another for the past month straight, so I know my eyes are bloodshot and that my face and body have thinned out. I have an ashen shade to my skin from the lack of food and sleep. The way she’s looking at me makes me want to scream help me but I am beyond that. I accept that this is the way I will continue to live and this is the way I most likely will die.

  I look at those gray eyes that I have only seen in my dreams, and they are lackluster, filled with sadness. She has purple circles adorning the skin under them which makes my heart sink. She shouldn't look this lost, this worn down, ever. I want to kick my own ass for hurting her so much.

  I didn't realize the impact of my choices. She’ll get over me. She will realize one day that this was the best thing for her. Or was it? Fuck. The awkward silence that has never been there before is uncomfortable. I am second guessing everything I ever thought when it comes to her.

  "Hey," her voice is soft.

  "Skylar." Just saying her name does things to me. "How are you?" This small talk shit is awkward at best.

  "Alright, I guess. Shop’s usual?"

  "That would be great."

  She walks in the back and comes back with the box of muffins. After placing them on the counter, she turns her back to me, making quick work at the coffee maker and espresso machine. I watch her with intent. Memorizing every strand of hair that waves down her back, the way her yoga pants hug the curve of her sweet ass, the way her shoulders slump when she turns back to face me and I notice tears forming in her eyes.

  She places the coffee in the holder and wipes at her eyes.

  "Sorry," she says.

  "Skylar...." she shakes her head.

  “It’s fine Gray. $14.50," she says, alerting me that there will be no talking.

  I nod, reaching into my pocket, and when I take the wadded up money out of my pocket, a baggie of the last of my pills falls out onto the counter. Shit. I look at it longer than I should, cursing myself for not being more careful. Worrying about how I’m going to get more and where I’m going to get the money for them since I’m all tapped out.

  I take a breath. I need to stop thinking and look at Skylar but I am afraid of what I am going to see. I can't handle the pity or disappointment; I see it every day from my brother. I fumble with the bag.

  "Grayson. Look at me," she says softly, and when my eyes meet hers, I see nothing short of understanding and maybe a little fear.

  "Um, yeah, I got hurt." I put the baggie my pocket.

  "Stop," she says. "I know."

  “What do you mean you know?"

  I know no one heard about me getting hurt cause that was bullshit. She leans in so that the few patrons don't hear.

  "About the drugs."

  "I see." I have no idea what to say.

  "I knew that night at the bar wasn't you. I’m not going to sit here and tell you to get help and all that, because I know you won't until you are ready."

  God damn, this girl. She gets it and I can’t even tell her that the only thing I need is her. I search her eyes once more, seeing a glimpse of those feelings she once had for me. I can't help but reach my hand out and cup her cheek, letting her know that even though I can't be what she needs, I haven't forgotten.

  She leans into my touch, grasps my hand and gently removes it from her face. My heart is screaming at me to tell her I will fix it. My head is telling me not to put her through any more pain.

  "Look, I’m not going to say it’s fine, because it's not. I’m not going to pretend I get what you are going through, because I don't. I’m not going to act like I understand what got you to this point, because I don't know anything. You wouldn't let me." She takes in a breath.

  "Skylar." I feel the pain in my own voice and she shakes her head.

  "Just because I am hurt doesn’t mean I stopped caring, Gray. Just promise me one thing." She gives my hand a squeeze.

  "Anything." And right now, I mean that.

  I would do anything to take the hurt I caused back.
To wrap her up in my arms, tell her everything is going to be alright and actually mean it. But I can't.

  "Just stay in touch once in a while. A text. Something so I know you’re alright."

  I nod, releasing her hand, missing the comfort that small gesture gave to me. I take the coffee and muffins, looking back as I walk out the door.

  My head is spinning from the encounter as I walk to the shop. She should hate me and be bitter. She should be angry and disappointed. But she's none of those things. My girl doesn't hold grudges. Fuck. I have to stop calling her that. She accepts people for who they are with no judgment. She’s hurt, and she let me know it, but she is still kind and caring and oh so strong.

  I fucking miss her. I didn't think I did because I’ve been so high this past month. Even though she invades my dreams, I never let myself think of her during the day. Even though the sex was the best I ever had, that's not what I miss the most.

  I just miss her being there. Her soft smile, her bright eyes, and her sweet scent. God I can't even smell cotton candy without getting a hard on. Seeing how hurt she looks is what's stopping me from running back into that coffee shop and taking her in my arms. I refuse to hurt her any further.

  "I am officially taking myself off of coffee duty." I holler into the shop as I walk in.

  Allyson isn't there yet and Landon looks up from the appointment book.

  "I ran into Skylar.” I try to act unaffected.

  "Son of a bitch," he says.

  "It was fine." I say and he raises an eyebrow. I shove my hands through my hair.

  "I know you told her."

  "I’m not going to say I’m sorry because she deserves to know that what happened had nothing to do with her." Landon crosses his arms over his chest and widens his stance.

  "You're right."

  "Wow. Um. Ok," he stammers and I chuckle.

  "She looks so tired." I hang my head.

  "Yeah, well, that girl loves you and the shit you said to her…" I flinch when he tells me she loves me.

  I felt it from her, especially the last night we were together, but hearing it out loud makes the guilt almost unbearable.