by Leddy Harper
His gaze softened a few degrees and his hold on me eased slightly. “Let me make it up to you,” he said in a softer tone, lacking the crudeness from moments ago. “Baby, I’m sorry. Come home with me and let me show you how bad I feel. Let me prove to you you’re not disposable.”
My eyes closed and a long sigh drifted past my lips. “I’m really tired, Josh. I’m not lying about that. Rain check?” I dared to peek my eyes open to find his. I saw curbed anger reflected at me, and it made me uncomfortable. The idea of him being pissed off lit a fire inside—although I did recognize his restraint.
“Wait for me to clean up and I’ll go with you.”
“I just want to be alone tonight,” I croaked out, fearful of how he’d respond.
Rather than arguing or saying something nasty, he let me go and took a step back. My body deflated, believing I’d survived his anger. That is until he flung the door open and stood in front of me with his shoulders pulled back and his chest puffed out.
“Then fucking go. Get your damn beauty sleep and call me when you’ve got your head out of your ass.”
I hated the way he made me feel.
Hated even more my inability to fight back and defend myself.
But instead, I bit my tongue and left the room with my head hung low.
As I trudged down the hall, I passed Cal. I didn’t acknowledge him, and he didn’t say anything to me. There was an awareness between us, which was odd considering I didn’t really know him. Seeing him in almost the same place we’d had our conversation the night before, brought forth emotions I wasn’t ready to deal with.
And they plagued me all the way home.
The Rocky theme song reverberated from my nightstand for the tenth time in what seemed as many minutes. As soon as it’d end, Josh would wait a minute or two and then call again. I couldn’t take it, and eventually, covered my head with my pillow. I didn’t have the strength to move to turn off the ringer. My body had been depleted of energy after crying for hours ever since I’d left the gym.
This time, however, it didn’t ring again. Once it stopped, I was afforded a long span of time filled with nothing but silence. Until the banging on the door started. I couldn’t ignore the incessant pounding, knowing it would alarm my neighbors.
“Please, Lee…open up. I’m an idiot. Let me prove to you how sorry I am.”
I pressed my forehead to the front door and closed my eyes. More tears leaked out and stained my face with proof of the internal war waging inside me. His remorse was evident in his tone. His sorrow as tangible as the floor beneath my bare feet. But no matter how sorry he was, it didn’t take away what he’d said to me. The hurt he’d caused. The horrible things he’d said in front of Dalton.
“Baby. Open up. I can’t leave until I know you’re okay.”
“Please, go.” My strangled words came out wrapped in a sob. “Just go, Josh. I don’t want to see you right now.”
“Then answer your phone. Talk to me.”
“I have nothing to say.”
I heard his exhale through the door, and a soft thud indicated his head met the cold metal. “Then will you at least listen to me?” When I didn’t respond, he continued. “I’m sorry, Lee. God, I’m so fucking sorry. I didn’t mean it. I get so amped up at fights, I don’t do or say the right things. It’s hard for me to lose the adrenaline that fast. I just got so excited thinking about celebrating with you tonight, and then it’s like you cut me off at the knees when you rejected me. You know I don’t deal with rejection well. Please, babe…forgive me.”
I turned around and slid down the door with my back pressed against it. My knees curled up to my chest and I wrapped my arms around them. I dropped my head and cried into the space between my legs.
My sobs must’ve been louder than I thought. “Lee, please don’t cry. You know I hate it when you’re hurt. I don’t want you to be sad, and I hate myself for knowing I’m the cause of it. I just want to make everything right again. I want to make everything better.”
His apology sounded sincere. But I couldn’t ignore the nagging thought comparing Josh to Killian. Twenty-four hours ago, I’d explained my reason for being with Josh, saying I’d chosen him because he was the complete opposite of the person who’d wrecked me. And that was true. But I wasn’t sure the price was worth it. Yes, they were nothing alike. Where Josh was hard, Killian was soft. Where Josh was demanding, Killian was pleading.
Where Josh was angry, Killian was loving.
I loved Killian. Always had. More than likely always would. And I knew what I felt for Josh wasn’t the same. It wasn’t love. Most of the time, it wasn’t even lust. The real reason I was with him was because I knew if he ever left me, if he ever decided to walk away without a word, I wouldn’t be devastated. My life wouldn’t be over. I’d get up the next morning and go on living.
I couldn’t do that with Killian.
Although, with that came a different kind of pain. One I’d never been used to before. The hurtful words and callous actions. I’d traded one tear for another. Albeit, Josh made me cry for completely different reasons, but cry nonetheless. I didn’t know how much longer I’d be able to keep up this charade. How much longer I’d be able to lie to myself.
Especially with Killian near.
“Baby, say something. You’re scaring me.” His voice through the door brought me out of the mental agony I’d been in—for who knows how long. “Are you still there? Did you leave? Just hear me out. Listen to me. Please.”
“I need you to go, Josh. Before you wake up my neighbors.”
“Fuck your neighbors. I don’t care about them. I only care about you.”
“Can we talk about this tomorrow? You woke me up. I’m tired.”
There was a moment of silence, and then a thunderous whack on the door—more than likely from him slapping it. “Who’s in there with you? Who do you have in there? Tell me, Lee. Open the damn door and just fucking tell me.”
I stood up and unlocked the door, fury motivating my every move. By the time I yanked the door open, my tears had turned from grief to anger, lining my face that probably burned bright red due to the breath I held in my lungs.
He tried to step inside, but I blocked him with my arm and stilled him with my glare. “Don’t you dare. Don’t come here and accuse me of cheating on you. I’m alone. In tears. Because you’re an ass who doesn’t know how to treat me right.”
“He’s here, isn’t he? The guy from your past. You lied to me!” he roared, pounding his chest with his fist as he pushed past the barrier I’d placed between him and my apartment. “You’ve been different since you came back from your parents’ house. I knew better than to let you go there.”
“Let me?” I mocked and rolled my eyes.
“Yeah…let you.”
“You need to leave,” I said with a calmness that surprised even me.
He turned in a circle, craning his neck to see every inch of available space. When he pointed to my room, he asked, “Is he in there? Do you have him in your bed? Maybe he’s hiding in a closet.”
Before he could move closer to the open door, I grabbed his upper arm and pulled him back with all my might. “Get out, Josh. I won’t allow you to do this. You said you came here to apologize. Well, this isn’t showing me you’re sorry. This made it worse. You need to leave.”
He turned his vibrant eyes to me, anger embedded in his features. He looked nasty and scary. The creases lining his forehead deepened as well as the ones next to his mouth. His nose scrunched up, accentuating the jagged scar along the bridge. And his lips pursed, forcing his heavy, panting exhales through his nostrils.
“I’m done. I can’t do this anymore. You need to get out before I call the police. Don’t bother trying to reach me. Don’t wait around to hear from me. We’re over. Through. I refuse to let you treat me this way.”
His expression turned softer in the blink of an eye, like he’d morphed from Jaguar to Josh right in front of me. His breaths became more labored
, not so much out of rage any longer. “You’re leaving me?”
“Yes,” I said with my shoulders pulled back in confidence—even though terror flowed through my veins. “This was the last straw. I shouldn’t have put up with half the things you’ve done or said to me—especially lately. Forcing my hand down your pants in front of others, talking about fucking my mouth in front of Dalton. Shit…” I hissed. “I shouldn’t have been okay with letting you do that to me to begin with. You made me feel like garbage, worthless, guilty for trying to turn you down. Next thing I know, I’m on the floor, on my knees, with your dick in my mouth. And then you go and say something so ugly about it in front of Dalton.”
“You know I’d never force you to do anything you didn’t want to. If I believed you truly weren’t into it, I would’ve never made you do it. You’re acting like I raped you or something. I didn’t. I’d never do that, and you know it. I’ve never pressed for more than you’re willing to give.” His tone was calm, smooth, but his words insinuated accusations against me, and they left me angered. “I’m sorry for saying something around anyone else. You’re right. That wasn’t okay, and I’ll never do it again.”
No words came to me. I had so much to say, but nothing formed. Instead, I stared at him with wide eyes, wondering where my courage had fled to. He was delusional if he thought he could change my mind, but for some reason, I couldn’t utter those words. I couldn’t reiterate my need for him to go, make him understand how serious I was about us being over.
He moved to the couch and took a seat. I followed, but remained standing in front of him, arms crossed, not sure how things had turned so quickly. One minute, I was enraged and kicking him out, threatening to call the cops if he didn’t leave. And the next…he was in my living room with his head in his hands, every bit the lost boy he knew I couldn’t refuse.
“I know I’ve upset you. I haven’t treated you the way you deserve to be treated. I’m man enough to admit that. But please, baby, give me another chance. Let me prove to you I can change. I can be what you need…what you deserve.” The utter sadness in his tone simmered my fight.
“I don’t think you can do that, Josh. I hate to say it, but I don’t think you’re capable of changing. This is who you are, and that’s fine. I don’t ever want anyone to change for me. Just like I’d never want anyone to ask me to be someone I’m not.”
He grabbed my hand and pulled me to the cushion next to him, his knee touching my thigh. In this moment, he seemed small. Not at all the same guy who could make my couch look tiny just by sitting on it. But here he was, vulnerable and weak, on display. For me. And I wondered if this would be the time he’d finally open up. Finally give me enough of himself so maybe I could understand him better.
“You’re scaring me, Josh.”
“No,” he whispered and closed his eyes for a brief moment. When he found my gaze again, I couldn’t help but become lost in his bright, intoxicating blue eyes. “Don’t be scared. Please. I never wanna frighten you. I love you, Rylee.”
I gasped, having never heard him say those words before.
“I can’t lose you, too. I can’t do it.”
His words drifted into my ears, flowed into my brain, and then swarmed around until they played on repeat. Each time I heard them, more confusion plagued me. Over the course of our relationship, we discussed the bare minimum of our lives before meeting one another. He knew about the boy who’d broken my heart, the one who’d kept me from dating. He knew where I grew up and was familiar with my relationship with my parents. I’d mentioned my brother a few times, but it wouldn’t have surprised me if he didn’t remember his name. Other than that, he knew about school, about my degree, my job, and my need to help children in the system—children who’d suffered through horrific situations. However, he never asked and I hadn’t confessed why. Even though he’d known about Killian, about the boy who’d lived next door to me, I never told him the whole story. It wasn’t my place to offer up secrets that didn’t belong to me, not to mention, I refused to admit my future had been paved by the boy from my past.
With as little as Josh knew about me, I knew even less about him. At the beginning, it was insignificant. He was the first man I’d dated since I was seventeen years old, and I enjoyed the easiness of our relationship. After I learned about his fights, I became interested in his life now, not at all caring about how he got here. But sitting on the couch with my hand in his, seeing his pain haunting him through the bright, almost translucent windows to his soul, I found myself curious about where he came from. Of how he became this man—Jaguar. So vicious, so closed off, so…cold.
“Too?” I cocked my head at him after coming out of my trance. “What do you mean? Who have you lost? And why have you never told me this before?”
“I did tell you. My mom.”
I thought back to any mention of his mother, recalling him admitting how she was no longer alive. But that was it. I’d asked about her once, and he’d shut down the topic quickly. It had never been brought up again.
“Josh…” My moment of compassion seemed to have vanished. Maybe it was impatience. Maybe it was the feeling of being played. Whatever it was, I blew out a sigh so weighted down with frustration I nearly felt it fall into my lap. “If you’re trying to guilt me into staying with you, it won’t work. You can’t compare me leaving to your mom dying. Nor can you hold her passing against me and make me stay.”
“That’s not what I’m doing.”
“Then why are you comparing me to your mom?”
He released my hand and wiped his face. Even though I tried telling myself this was him manipulating me, I could see in his eyes that wasn’t true. “My mom was my hero. My best friend. It wasn’t always good times, but even when it was hard, it was always the two of us. And then one day…she left me. She—”
“Josh, she didn’t leave you. You can’t possibly think she chose to die.”
His gaze locked on mine, and in them, I found inconceivable agony. “She did. When I was fifteen, she killed herself. It was her choice. No one shoved that bottle of pills down her throat. No one made her do it. It was her decision. She left me all on her own, knowing what it would do to me. And here you are…leaving me. Not allowing me to prove I can be better.”
The backs of my eyes burned with sympathetic tears. I’d worked with children and families in the past who’d dealt with the loss of a loved one due to suicide. The grief and turmoil of those left behind is unmeasurable. The guilt they harbor can linger a lifetime.
“I had no idea. You’ve never told me anything about her before.”
He shook his head and took a deep breath, as if steadying himself to finally offer me something. “When I was eight, she got pregnant. It was the happiest I’d ever seen her. Before that, she’d cry sometimes, thinking I didn’t know. But our house was small, so I always heard her. It was mostly at night. But when she was pregnant…she was different.”
“You have a brother or sister?” I was shocked by the imparting of this hidden knowledge.
“No,” he said solemnly. “I don’t understand it—never did. Anytime I’d call it my brother, she’d correct me and say it was her baby. Sometimes she’d say weird things that didn’t make sense to me, but she’d just tell me I was too young to understand and leave it at that. I figured it had to do with my dad. They had shared custody, and I think she never felt like I was hers. So this baby was her way of not having to share it with anyone.”
“I’m confused…who was the father of the baby?”
Josh shrugged, but then continued with his story. “I was eight, Lee. I don’t remember much about it. Really, the only thing I vividly recall is her coming home after having the baby. She cried all the time. Worse than before. She no longer hid it from me, and eventually, my dad had to step in. I ended up living with him most of the time because my mom was so lost.”
“Postpartum?”
“No. She never brought the baby home.”
Confused, I narrowed
my gaze at him and asked, “What happened?”
“Apparently, the father of the baby was married. He showed up at the hospital and took the kid from her. He refused to let her see her own child. I tried begging my dad to help her out, to help her get the baby back, but he wouldn’t do anything. I hated him for it. I still hate him for doing that to her. I’ve never understood how someone could sit back and do nothing, just let a man steal a baby from its mother.”
“Josh, that doesn’t make sense. Something’s not adding up. There has to be custody and courts involved. You can’t just walk into the hospital and take a baby away without going through the proper channels.”
“My mom had a lot of issues. She was bipolar, and as I got older, my dad told me she also suffered from paranoia.” His gaze fell to the coffee table, and his shoulders dropped. It was as if he became defeated by his own words. “I was diagnosed when I was seventeen.”
“Diagnosed? With what?”
“Bipolar disorder. It was after my mom killed herself. I’d gone to live with my dad full time, and started getting into the wrong crowd. Doing drugs. Masking the pain of losing my mom. He couldn’t take the moods anymore and made me go to a psychiatrist. I fought him on it, but eventually gave in. It turned out to be a blessing in disguise. I’ll always have moments of anger; I don’t think that’ll ever go away. But being in the ring helps control it. It gives me a place to work it out—a safe environment.”
“But sometimes you’re angry even when you’re not in the ring.”
When he turned to me, I saw sheer vulnerability through the glistening tears in his eyes. “I know…and for that, I’m sorry. I swear, Lee, I’ll work on it harder. I’ll try harder to be the man you thought you got when we first met.”
I stood up and walked around the couch, needing a moment to clear my head. Had Killian not been in the picture, I more than likely would’ve given in. But unfortunately for Josh…I was no longer the girl he thought he’d gotten when we first met, either.
