Bittersweet Symphony

by J. L. Beck

  “You want to go to lunch with me?” I ask, swinging around. He’s at the end of the sidewalk under one of the awnings. He looks beautiful - his eyes twinkle in the sunlight, and his skin looks darker. He is wearing a pair of low hanging blue jeans and a dark blue Henley. He is crisp and clean.

  “Well, who else would I be asking?” His response is playful, which seems strange to me because Ryder’s anything but playful. He’s a brute, aggressive by nature and just plain scary.

  “I’m sure you have your pick of women throwing themselves at you. Right?” I can’t help raising my eyebrow. Does he honestly think he can fool me with that line?

  He eats up the distance between us in no time, and why I continue to stand there watching him walk toward me, I can’t tell you. Wait, maybe I can…He is just that distracting.

  “You’re right, I could, but none of them are you, Kennedy.” His words are for my ears only, and they send a shiver down my spine. His eyes are intense, but there isn’t an ounce of dishonesty in them.

  “Okay, okay, lunch it is.” I turn around ready to walk away, hoping he doesn’t follow. Honestly, though not much is known about him, I can see myself easily becoming like the rest of the women here at Berkeley. I can join the melting women who would be there at his every beck in call.

  “Tacos,” he says, his voice obliterating whatever thoughts I’m thinking.

  “Huh?” I ask, confused on where tacos came into the conversation

  “Tacos. That’s what I want to eat, sweetheart, and if we’re having tacos, you’re going the wrong way.”

  I stop dead in my tracks causing him to bump into the back of me. His hands wrap around my body instantly, holding me into place so I don’t fall. I can feel his warmth on my back, on every part of my skin. It draws me in, reminding me of those cold nights at my grandparents’ in the mountains. Of how one simple, little blanket in the dead of the night could bring so much warmth. I know that if I want to, I can let Ryder be that blanket.

  “Come with me,” he demands, releasing his hold on me. His hand gently grabs my forearm as he pulls me in the direction he wants us to go.

  “Hello, let go of me. I can walk. I am not a toddler,” I say as seriously as I can. In reality, no woman in her right mind would be screaming and yelling at him if he was pulling her somewhere against her will. Well, except me. I, Kennedy Chaps, am a different kind of breed, and I’m damn proud of it.

  The second the words come out of my mouth, he releases my arm.

  “I didn’t say you were a toddler, but obviously you’re not good with directions.” He smiles and winks. He smiles and fucking winks. Is there anything this man can do that doesn’t make me want to combust into a raging fire?

  “Clearly you’re not good at hearing.” I can’t help the smartass responses that come out of my mouth when I’m around him. He has this cockiness about him that makes me want to slug him and hug him at the same time. It’s a strange feeling.

  “I’m all ears, baby, all ears.” His tone is flirty, and I can’t pull my eyes away from his.

  “Just shut up and let’s go.” I growl, trying to hide the fifty shades of red my face is sporting.

  “The carriage awaits my lady.” I glare at Ryder before walking away from him. The only problem is that being a short person means the distance I walk is nothing to him. When you’re tall, you can take long strides, and Ryder always takes long strides.

  “This is your car?” I ask in awe as we approach a sleek, black Dodge Challenger. I know shit about cars, but damn, it was hot and sleek. Did I say sleek?

  “Why yes, what else would I drive?” He asks, his eyebrow raises as he unlocks it. I/m afraid to get in it, to even touch it.

  “Are you getting in, Blondie?” The sound of the horrible nickname he gave me has me shooting daggers at his head. He knows just which buttons to push.

  I grab the handle to open the door; he already had the key in the ignition and was ready to take off. I slide into the seat, my jeans gliding across the leather. The interior was masculine and powerful. The engine roars and we’re off.

  “Ever been in a car like this, Blondie?” Ryder asks, his eyes dragging from the road and back to me.

  I clench my teeth together as a small smile peeks from his lips. I’m positive he did what he did to get a rouse out of me.

  “You call me Blondie one more God damn time, and I will cut you.” My eyes are serious, but from his expression I can tell he isn’t taking me seriously. Who am I kidding? I wouldn’t even take me seriously. However, I will hurt him if he says it again.

  “Calm down, God you’re so damn feisty. I kind of like it” His words freeze me into place. I don’t want to hear the words like and me in the same sentence coming out of his mouth.

  I angle my body away from his, my eyes watching the scenery outside.

  “You want to know why I call you Blondie?” He asks, I can feel his hot breath on my ear. It causes small pieces of my hair to fall onto my face. I want to push them out of the way but am afraid to move.

  “Not particularly,” I say, trying to sound completely unenthused when really I would love to know why he calls me Blondie, why he even takes the time to hang out with me or talk to me. No one notices the girl with nothing. No one but him. Strange how the most tortured souls can find others in a crowd of people. Hurting people seek out other hurting people. There’s a reason why people say misery likes company.

  “Well, I’m going to tell you anyway.”

  He pulls us into a parking spot at one of the local fish taco stands.

  “I call you Blondie…” His fingers glide over my arm, the sensations he draws out in me scare me. The goose bumps he causes scare me. He scares me, in a good way.

  “Because of your hair… It’s a sunshine color.” His fingers delve into my hair, and it takes every fiber of me not to lean into his touch, to relish in the touch of being wanted.

  “It’s called blonde, Ryder.” My craving for him can be heard in my voice; so instead of sticking around to hear his comment, I open the car door and exit, refraining from slamming the door. His car is too beautiful to be abused.

  “Hence the nickname Blondie,” he says laughing. His laughter is a fuel booster to me. I walk a little bit faster hoping to get to the stand before him.

  His arm reaches out so his fingers can dig into my shoulder as he stops me, turning my body in toward his. “Slow down, sunshine, I never meant to make you angry.” His eyes look everywhere but where they should.

  “Knock it off with the nicknames then.” I hit him softly on the chest. I really meant to push myself out of his arms, but it didn’t work. It came out softer than needed.

  “What, would you rather have me call you Kennedy?” His voice is laced with a coldness that settles into my chest.

  “Yes,” I hiss. My eyes meet his. There’s a heat between us, and it sizzles with the potential to burn everything in its wake if we allow it to.

  “Why are you so closed off? Why don’t you get close to people?” he asks in a hushed voice. His questions cause an earthquake of anger to develop within me.

  “I could ask you the same questions, Ryder. Why don’t you get close to people? Why are you so closed off? Huh?” I’m mocking him without thinking. We know hardly anything about one another, but we know enough to know that the other is struggling. We are two people using different forms of vices to deal with what life has handed us.

  “It’s easier to push people away; you expect failure from others. In the end, the only person you can trust is yourself. In the end, no one else will be able to pick up the pieces like you do. Allowing someone in is just asking for heartache.”

  As his words rattle around in my head, I realize we’re the same kind of people fighting the inevitable.

  “People have the potential to hurt you. You have the potential to hurt me, Kennedy. If I handed you the knife, would you stab it into my heart?”

  “No… Because I, too, know what it’s like,” I calmly say. My m
ind is reeling for an answer as to who hurt him, who caused such a beautiful man horrible pain.

  All he does is release me, a smile marring his face. From that moment on, I know we will always have a silent understanding of one another.

  “Fish taco or shrimp taco?” he asks, not even getting me a menu.

  “Definitely fish.” It scares me how he can take control of a situation so quickly. I don’t want him taking control, even if it was just to order my food.

  When our food is ready, he carries the tray over to a nearby table and gestures for me to take the seat next to him. I nervously chew on the straw to my drink. This is only the second time we’ve had a meal together. I know it’s not weird to typically share a meal with others, but it’s different with Ryder. I always have a swarm of butterflies in my stomach wanting to break free and adding any type of food to that makes feel like I might puke all over him.

  “What are you so nervous for?” he asks, peering up at me from his taco. A small amount of juice leaks out of the taco and onto to his fingers. The second he sucks his finger into his mouth, I lose all rational thought. I can’t remember what we’re doing and… Did he really need to keep his finger in his mouth that long? Jesus, Mary, and Joseph… I bring my eyes back up to his as he releases his finger from his mouth; a one dimpled smile reflects back at me.

  “It’s not polite to stare, Kennedy.” Gosh, if he keeps talking to me like that - his voice all soft and squishy – I’m going to find a way to bottle up his voice and sell it to women worldwide.

  “I wasn’t staring,” I lie. I was staring. I was more than staring; I was burning holes into his face. I look down at my taco as my appetite diminishes.

  “You were staring, but that’s fine. You can lie to yourself all you want, doll face, but you can’t lie to me.” I can’t help but roll my eyes. He’s arrogant and cocky. I hate it, but at the same time I love it. He knows he is “all that and a bag of chips,” and for the first time ever, he’s starting to grow on me, kind of like those weeds you get in the backyard. Dandelions are hideous but also kind of beautiful, and you can’t get them to go away to save your life. That was Ryder: he is my dandelion and I want to keep him.

  “Fine. You’re right. I was staring, but only because I was repulsed by the fact that you licked your fingers. They make napkins for a reason,” I respond, grabbing a wad of napkins and tossing them at him.

  He doesn’t grab or even move them. He looks down at the napkins and up at me, his smile growing wider with every flick of his gaze on mine. Then the air filled with laughter, his laughter. It’s contagious and I can’t help the smile that forms on my face. We are two damaged people floating through time, finding happiness in the small things. The question is, will we be the answer to each other’s prayers or the downward spiral into a deeper darkness… I guess only time will tell.

  Ryder has the potential to be something great in my life. The problem is me allowing him to take root, but the way things are looking, he has already started.

  Ryder

  When Blondie smiles, which isn’t all that often, it is marvelous. Her deep, blue eyes hold so many secrets that I want to unravel. Her creamy skin is begging to be touched by me, and every time I’m around her, I have to clench my fists together to keep myself from reaching out and tracing a path over her skin. She is beautiful in the simplest ways.

  After I drop her off at the school, it takes everything in me not to follow her to her dorms. I feel this deep need to protect her; it’s different than the feelings I used to have for Jenna. I thought things with her were simple, but they were far from it. Once again, my brother had won the gold, and I had come in last. A surge of hatred pushes through me, but I don’t hate my brother. If anything, I love him more than life itself. He is my rock¸ and we know each other inside and out; well, except for the secrets that I constantly kept from him. It’s stupid to even think he’s to blame for my problems. It would be stupid for anyone in my situation to be angry when they didn’t speak out and tell anyone. No one can help you if you don’t ask for it.

  Speaking of my brother, he will be here at any minute. I get up, done moping for the day. I need to find some clean shorts; hell, I need to do some damn laundry.

  Just as I’m pulling on a pair of basketball shorts, I hear a knock at the door. I smile, knowing I will finally get some time to spend with my brother. After you spend nine months in the womb and twenty years of life together with someone who looks exactly like you, going from seeing each other every day to hardly at all is difficult.

  I open the door, fully ready to grab my bro in a tight hug. What my eyes land on instead causes my breaths to come in hard. It also causes another region of my body to grow hard.

  Kennedy is standing in what is supposed to be Rex’s place. She’s biting on her pink, plump bottom lip as if she was hesitant to knock on the door to begin with. Her dark, blue eyes brim with tears that look as if they will fall at any second.

  I can’t help what I do next. It’s imbedded in me to protect her, to be her warrior, her defender. I reach out, wrapping my arms around her, bringing her warm body into mine. She doesn’t hesitate or turn away, just buries her face in my chest and lets out a ragged sob. I don’t have the words at the moment to ask her what the problem is, all I want to do is hold her and soothe away her pain.

  “I couldn’t think of anywhere else to go, and I don’t really have any other friends, well, except you, if we’re even friends…” She is rambling, and had she not been crying, it would be adorable.

  “I… I shouldn’t have come here. This was a huge mistake…” she says, trying to pull out of my arms. What she doesn’t know is that I won’t be letting her go until she tells me what happened. Even after that, though, I’m not sure if I can let her go. She’s digging a part of herself into my heart, even if she doesn’t know it.

  “What happened, Blondie?” I ask, my voice soft. I don’t want to scare her or make her think she can’t talk to me. I want her to be comfortable, more than comfortable.

  “I just don’t know who to talk to… and I’m scared and I don’t know what to do. I’m not weak, Ryder. EVER. I’m just me. Kennedy. And I thought all these things went away. I thought the bullying and hate, the hurtful words and anger, had diminished, but here I am bawling my eyes out again.” A deep sadness is etched into her facial features. Whatever is going on is on the verge of breaking her. I have been there; I have seen the pain that comes with that kind of sadness.

  I hold her tighter to me, slamming the door shut as I pull her over to the couch. I want to comfort her and whisper sweet nothings in her ear, but that isn’t me. Even if I want her, it’s obvious that I am the last person she ever needs to get involved with. When one’s life is spiraling out of control, you don’t add something else to the mix that could cause it all to spiral even more erratically. I am uncontrollable, and Kennedy needs stability.

  Her fingers dig into my chest as small whimpers escape her. What happened to the strong, undefeated girl I had just seen?

  I reach down, gripping her chin gently to bring her eyes up to mine. She scowls, but allows me to continue touching her.

  “What happened? Who did this to you?” I am concerned and scared for her. I have never been scared for anyone but myself; so to have fear for someone else, to be unable to control someone else’s fate, is… well, it’s terrifying.

  “I… I don’t know if I want to talk about it. This is stupid. Why did I even come here? I shouldn’t be bothering you.” Her question is more directed at herself as she pulls out of my grip then settles herself into a seat.

  “You’re not leaving until you tell me what happened.” My voice is cool and calm even though I’m burning under the surface for answers.

  “You can’t keep me here,” she states, a determined look on her face. Oh look, the strong willed girl is back. That sends just enough cold water onto my short fuse to settle me.

  “Wanna bet?” I question, raising my eyebrow up at her. Does she thin
k she can win with me? There is no winner, other than myself.

  “Not really. It’s not worth betting in a losing game,” she mutters under her breath. A smile forms on my face. Damn, this girl has me smiling so much, my God damn cheeks are going to start hurting soon.

  “Smart thinking. Now, tell me what happened,” I stare at her, watching the emotions I know all too well flicker across her face. She lets out a deep sigh, rolling her eyes. Her defiance is so strong. Such a broken, beautiful individual.

  “Sam. Remember him?” she asks, not really speaking to me but more so the wall. The second his name leaves her mouth, I feel the deep anger I try to hide from everyone coming to the surface.

  “What about him?” I try to sound as if I don’t care about him, but when it comes to K, well, I care about anything that she cares about.

  “He…” Tears well up in her eyes again, and her body shakes as the sob releases from her. Watching her cry is the hardest thing ever.

  “Shhh… tell me, K… What happened?” I know when she tells me it’s going to take everything in me to stay in place, to not go wherever this dickhead lives and rip him a new one, to not pound his face so far into the pavement that I can send him back to hell.

  She wipes at the tears furiously, as if she’s disappointed to even have them on her face.

  “I… I have to start at the beginning,” she whispers, biting at her lip. Her hair is a wild, blonde, tangled mess. Her mascara is running and she looks like a bad mess.

  “Who am I kidding? Why am I even here? We hardly know each other, Ryder. You shouldn’t have to console me.” She throws her hands in the air, frustrated at the world I’m sure.

  “I know enough about you to know that you need someone. You don’t have to know someone to be able to get to know them, to be someone’s friend.” Friend is not the word I was fucking looking for but whatever.

  “Since when are you friends with girls?” she demands. I look at her, challenging her question.