When We Met

by A. L. Jackson

  My whole body sang, the horrors of this afternoon clashing with how safe Darryn made me feel. Trust flowed from my body in waves, as it arched and begged and bucked into his.

  “I need to feel you . . . need to feel you everywhere,” I pled, raking my greedy nails down Darryn’s back.

  He groaned, his hoarse voice vibrating against my neck. “Fuck, Misha . . . baby . . . God, I need you, too. You don’t know how much.”

  His thick erection strained through his jeans, and I rubbed against it, letting him know that I understood, promising my intentions were the same.

  I needed him.

  All of him.

  He rolled onto his back and pulled me on top of him. He pushed me back so I was straddling his waist. Darryn stared up at me, keeping almost all of his attention on my face, but he kept stealing these glances down my body, at the bra that was still covering up my breasts, at my chest that heaved and my stomach that clenched.

  I reached back and flicked open the clasp on my bra, and my head tipped back as I let the straps slide down my arms.

  Because I wanted him to see me. All of me. To understand that he was the only one I ever wanted to see me this way. That all of this should have belonged to him and I never should have given it away.

  Regret filled up every crevice of my heart, and I wished . . . wished it’d been him, that the first time I’d had sex it hadn’t been all a ploy to bring me to my knees, just a wicked game played by wicked boys.

  I wished I’d been cherished.

  Loved.

  Like I was sure Darryn was loving me now.

  Darryn moaned as he grabbed me by the hips, pressing me firmly against him. “Can’t wait to be inside you.”

  All that energy fired, pinged across the confines of my room, and clashed in an all-out war with the hurt of this afternoon. Everything felt so heavy and light. Blinding.

  I wanted Darryn to take it all away.

  I rocked over him, and on a ragged hiss, he gripped me tighter. Darryn pinched his eyes closed as if he’d been tripped, caught somewhere in his own painful thoughts.

  “Wanna kill him, Misha . . . wanna hurt him for making you feel this way. For making you think you need to be ashamed.”

  His words slammed into my consciousness. Images flashed. Me in a position so much like this, my breasts bared and my head thrown back.

  I knew what it looked like in the video. Like I was lost in passion, like I’d wanted to be exposed, set on display. Like I was desperate for attention.

  But I’d been in pain, both physically and emotionally. It had been my first time and Hunter had just rammed inside me before I was ready, after he’d persuaded me to ride him because he said that was the only way he liked it.

  All of those warning bells had been going off, and I knew something was so off, because I didn’t feel loved or safe.

  The worst part of it all was that he’d convinced me to let him take a picture. At least that was what I thought it was, because he’d actually been recording me.

  A bet that he could get a virgin on top and a picture to prove it.

  That’s all it’d been. A joke.

  Horrified, I felt like every cell in my body froze, before it began to shake uncontrollably. I fell forward, keeping myself braced on the strength of Darryn’s chest before I crumbled.

  I wanted to blink away the image, to assign it to coincidence.

  But there was no mistaking Darryn’s words. He said he wanted to kill Hunter . . . for making me ashamed.

  Darryn knew. He’d lied to me.

  His eyes flew open as if he’d just realized the slip he made. He looked up at me with panic strewn all over his face.

  “What did you just say?” I demanded, dread whipping through my entire being, a cold chill biting my skin.

  I shivered and did my best to swallow down the nausea that rushed up my throat.

  Rapidly, Darryn blinked and shook his head, as if he were searching for something to say.

  For an excuse.

  Oh my God.

  No.

  I scrambled in an effort to get away. Darryn grabbed my wrist, trying to yank me back onto the bed, but I jerked it away and fell to my knees on the floor. “Don’t touch me. Don’t you dare touch me.”

  I fisted the edge of the sheet and ripped it from the bed, clutched it to my front as if it could shield me from all the pain that tore me in two. Violently.

  If I thought I hurt this afternoon? Or that night months ago when Hunter had stood there, laughing at me, taunting me, telling me I was nothing but a fool?

  It didn’t come close to touching this.

  I forced myself to climb to my unsteady feet, backing into the wall with the thin sheet crumpled in front of me.

  Darryn slowly stood from the bed but stayed there at the edge, his shoulders dropped low as if it would give him some sort of edge, fool me into thinking he wasn’t just as vicious as the rest of them.

  “You knew?” I begged through a whisper, praying he’d deny it, all the while knowing if he did, it would be another lie.

  His throat bobbed heavily as he swallowed, and he nodded. “Yes.” The word was rough and ripped through my soul.

  A cry shot from my throat before I could stop it, and I slammed my hand over my mouth, trying to keep it in.

  But there was no keeping this heartbreak from pouring free.

  “Misha . . .” He took a step forward. “Listen to me. I knew, yes, but—”

  “Just sh-sh-shut up. Shut up!” My voice cracked. “I c-c-can’t believe you’d do this to me. C-c-can’t believe you’d stoop so low.”

  “Misha,” he pled, taking another step forward. “It’s not what you think.”

  “Did you bet?” My chin quivered with the question.

  Remorse made a slow pass through his body, and he shook his head. “No . . . of course not. But I need to be honest with you . . . I was there the first night he made the bet with all the guys.” He swallowed again. “And I was there two days later when he brought the video over. I watched it with them.”

  Agony twisted up my face, and I attempted to take a step back, but only backed into the wall. “Y-y-you . . . you were there? You laughed with them? While they made me a joke?”

  Was that the kind of guy he was? Just as cruel, just as mean as the others?

  “No” flew from his mouth. “Never. The night the bets were made . . . Hunter was drunk, spouting off his mouth like he always does. He started talking shit about how easily he could have this new girl he started dating, claiming you were a virgin. Then he showed us a picture of you and you were so sexy. Beautiful. And I thought there wasn’t a chance that you hadn’t been with someone before. I didn’t believe him. I just thought it was more of his stupid games, so I didn’t give it a second thought. All the rest of the assholes at the party tossed in money, saying he didn’t have a chance with you. It got out of hand . . . all of them started throwing out different things he had to make you do.”

  And I could feel my heart crumbling. Splintering into a thousand pieces.

  “Two days later, he brought over his proof. I tried to talk him out of it when he loaded the video to that site.” He squeezed his eyes closed. “But once it was there, I couldn’t stop watching it because there was something about you that drew me to you. Then when I saw you out front that day, I knew you were nothing like any of those guys played you out to be.”

  I felt so dirty. Filthy. Like I could feel it crawling all over the surface of my skin. I wanted to scrape it away. “Get out,” I said as firmly as I could, feeling my heart cracking a little more. Because I had thought he was different. I had wanted him to be different.

  “Misha . . . please. I’m so sorry.”

  “Get out!” I repeated. “Get out!” I screamed.

  Darryn winced, then backed away. He started for the door, paused to look back at me. “I fell in love with you, Misha. I’m sorry it all started at the hands of an asshole. But I’m not him. And you are definitely not that
girl.”

  He just stood there. So beautiful.

  I wanted to believe him.

  But he was dishonest. A liar. And he had made me out to be a fool. Again.

  “Go,” I whispered quietly, but there was no question he heard.

  He nodded, then stepped out my door.

  chapter thirteen

  Misha

  Indy jerked the covers down. Bright light burned my eyes, and I grappled for the end of my comforter and dragged it back over my head.

  “Come on, get out of bed, you have got to stop moping around,” she said.

  I groaned a little more, securing the blanket tight around my body. “No. And I’m not moping.”

  I was pretty sure the act of “moping” required walking, and since I’d basically been confined to my bed for the last seven days, I could swear none of that had been going on.

  Indy yanked the comforter back just as hard. “Yes, you are moping, and yes, you are getting out of this bed. It’s been seven days. Enough already.”

  So maybe Indy and I dealt with our pain differently. She went out, partied it out of her system.

  I wallowed in it.

  “It’s not enough when it still hurts.”

  Sympathy softened her face when I reluctantly peeked up at her. She ran her fingers through my tangled hair. I hadn’t washed it in days. “I know, sweetie. But I can’t let you stay in here any longer. It’s unhealthy. Besides, the big game is tonight and Courtney wants all of us to come into Gruby’s. Her friend Amber has a table reserved for us and everything. It’ll be fun . . . take your mind off him for a while.”

  I was certain it would most definitely not be fun, and even more assuredly it would do nothing to rid my mind of what plagued it.

  Darryn.

  I loved him and hated him, those two emotions all balled up into a big old mess of emotion that sat like a gloomy lump right smack in the center of my chest.

  I still couldn’t make sense of it, why he would lie, other than the truth that he was playing the exact same game Hunter had been. I couldn’t believe he even knew him. Associated with him. They’d been friends. That in itself felt like the worst kind of betrayal. That every time he’d held me . . . kissed me . . . just months before he’d been sitting around a table with Hunter while he plotted the demise of my innocence.

  “Come on, babe. Get up. Take a shower. You’ll feel so much better after you do. I promise we won’t stay long, but I can’t let you lie around like this any longer. You wouldn’t let me do it, so unless you want me to drag your ass out of that bed by force, you need to get up.”

  I tossed the covers aside. “Fine.”

  Indy grinned. “See, that wasn’t so hard.”

  Uh, yes, it was. She had no clue.

  My entire body ached when I rolled over to the edge of my bed and placed my feet on the floor. I gathered a change of clothes and headed to the bathroom. I turned the faucet as hot as it would go and let the tiny room fill up with steam that I breathed in, hoping the warmth could chase the cold from my soul.

  I stayed in the shower for too long, until my skin was red and shriveled and I had a very irate roommate pounding on the other side of the door.

  “I didn’t pull you from one hiding spot to let you sneak off to another. Get out of the shower. We’re leaving in five minutes.”

  Shaking my head, I turned off the faucet and climbed from the shower, toweled off, and halfheartedly dressed.

  Ha.

  Halfheartedly.

  Not even close.

  None of my heart was in this.

  But I guessed I had little choice in the matter.

  Indy banged at the door again.

  I went back into my room and shoved my feet in a pair of boots, glancing out at the waning day through the slats in my window. The sky was filled with winter clouds that had taken over Michigan the last two days, the approaching twilight just as dreary as I felt.

  I hauled myself out of my room and downstairs. “Fine, I’m ready.”

  Chloe, Indy, and I pulled on jackets and filed out the door onto the sidewalk. I struggled to keep up with them as they chatted and laughed, feeling none of the excitement that poured from them as they talked about the game going on tonight and how cool it was our football team was so close to winning the championships. Tonight’s away game would be broadcast live on cable, which of course Gruby’s would be playing proudly tonight.

  Rain threatened and teased, spitting little droplets of water that chilled me all the way to my bones. Warily, I peeked up at the sky, my face immediately pelted with stinging dots of frigid water.

  Great.

  It had just started to really rain by the time we made it to the sports bar. We rushed inside with our heads ducked, pulled our wet jackets off, and shook them out as we stepped up to the hostess station.

  Amber, Courtney’s friend, saw us from across the room, and she wove through the overflowing crowd, the dim-lit room so thick with bodies that people stood along the walls and gathered in groups around tables.

  “There you guys are! Courtney has been waiting for you.” She grinned and grabbed some menus. “Come on, I have you in my section.”

  We followed her, and I kept my head down, no longer feeling that ease that I’d so foolishly given myself over to in the last two months, thinking that no one here knew my face. It’d only been proven last week by the jerk who’d accosted me outside my building. All week I hadn’t made it to class, unable to face what was waiting for me outside the doors. If someone confronted me about it again? I wouldn’t know how to survive it.

  But Indy was right. I couldn’t just keep hiding. That was the girl I’d been my entire life. Always seeking out the places where I felt most comfortable. Taking paths with the least risk. Doing everything in my power to shy away from anything that would make me nervous or apprehensive.

  No doubt what I was feeling now was much more than just unease.

  This was physical pain, pain that had been inflicted cruelly, everything about it unfair.

  But what could I do short of running back to my parents?

  That was no longer an option.

  I settled into one of the barstools at the high round table, and accepted the menu from Amber. “Thank you.”

  “No problem,” she said, “just let me know what you guys want. The kitchen is pretty backed up since it’s so busy, but I’ll try to get a rush on it.”

  Mumbling another quiet thank-you, I turned to study the menu. I hadn’t eaten in days, and my body felt weak. Tired. I knew it was about time I started to pick up the pieces and took care of myself.

  Darryn had destroyed something deep inside and I needed to figure out how to begin fixing it.

  I suppressed my mocking laughter, all of it aimed at myself.

  Darryn the Destroyer.

  Some fairy tale he’d turned out to be.

  Turned out he’d been sent to ruin another piece of me.

  My chest tightened as sadness pooled in my belly. And that was the truth of it. It made me sad, because I missed him. Missed his face, missed all that arrogance that endeared him to me, the way he joked and laughed. Most of all, I missed the way he’d made me feel.

  Sighing, I shoved it off and forced myself to try and enjoy the time with my friends. We ordered, and Amber brought me a beer that I had no stomach for. Still I sipped at it and tried to relax in the boisterous mood of the bar, the lights dimmed and the huge television screens streaming the game. Cheers rang out, everyone there to support our team. People would jump to their feet and grip their heads on the tricky plays and boo when our team fumbled or the vying team gained on them.

  No one even seemed to know I was there. I’d disappeared. Become invisible. Just like I wanted to be. I let my mind wander with the noise, and I sank into the first calm I’d felt in days.

  “Well, look who’s here.” The voice came from behind, just at my shoulder. It sent fear slicking icy tendrils down my spine, leaving a frozen path in its wake.
>
  I shook and a knot formed in my throat. I hadn’t seen him since that night when I found out what he’d done, when I’d confronted him, trying to be brave when all I’d felt like was a stupid little girl.

  All I wanted was to curl into a ball under the table.

  Instead I sat stock-still, all except for the rush of goose bumps that lifted in warning on my neck when his vile presence encroached on me from behind. Something triggered my senses, and I was assaulted by memories of the smell in his room, ones I could only attribute to Hunter. Something threatening—vulgar and depraved. It flooded my nostrils and manifested as nausea in my stomach.

  “Been too long, Misha.” Hunter laughed, a taunting sound that took me back to that night and how deeply he had hurt me.

  Anger and shame billowed through me, but I kept myself still and gave him no response. Maybe if I ignored him long enough he would leave me alone.

  I should have known a jerk like Hunter would not give up.

  He ran his hand along my shoulder and gripped me by the back of the neck, as if he had some sort of God-given right to touch me.

  I cringed and tried to fling off the perversity of his touch.

  I choked as he gripped me tighter.

  And the tears came.

  God, I didn’t want to cry, I didn’t want to be that naive little girl that cowered in front of him.

  But I couldn’t stop the tears from breaking free. Heated, they raced down my face and dripped from my chin. I didn’t wipe them away, praying he couldn’t see them in the dark.

  “Aw . . . are you crying?” he said as if it were sympathy, but he said it loud, so the people around him would hear. He was begging for an audience, the way he always did.

  My hands fisted.

  Maybe it was Hunter who was the coward, so insecure he needed to steal the attention of others around him to make him feel good.

  Not at my expense. Not ever again.

  “L-l-leave me a-a-alone,” I tried to get out of my shaking throat, my tongue all twisted and thick.