by DD Prince
“Thanks, Bailey, but it doesn’t matter. They saw that happen. They saw my naked-”
“Naked isn’t a big deal around these parts.”
“I’m not a shifter and it’s a big deal to me. And there’s no way I’m coming back. That was more than nudity, Bailey. And you know it wasn’t consensual.”
She looks at her feet briefly and then looks me right in the eyes.
“I just want you to know, Ivy, that when you get back here, no matter what, you’ve got me. You and me are gonna be good friends.”
I would believe that if I were staying. I really would. I like her a lot.
“I’m not coming back,” I say. I give her a hug. “I better get out of here before… you know.”
“Before he wakes up.”
I nod.
“Mated pairs are destined, Ivy. And forever. You guys will figure this out.”
She’s not getting it. There’s no coming back from this.
“Thanks for helping me, Bailey.”
She nods with a sad look in her eyes.
I get my stuff and get into my car and I leave.
This time, I don’t leave a note.
I have no idea what to say to him. No, it’s not that I don’t know what to say, it’s that I have nothing to say. Nothing at all. Big difference. All I know is I need to go. I can’t fathom what I’ve endured tonight.
41
Tyson
I wake disoriented, looking at red and gold carpeting when I wake. I’m on the floor in the hallway. I’m on the other side of the door. Separated from Ivy.
I sit up and scrub at my eyes with the heels of my hands. I feel… strange. Foggy.
“Run?” I hear.
I look up.
It’s Greyson. He’s nude and standing over me.
“What?”
“Come for a run with me and Rye. We have an hour until sunup. We’ll catch up with Linc, Joel, and Jase. The six of us will talk.”
“Where’s Mason?”
“Mason’s at his place. He’s there with his father, some elders.”
I scrub my eyes some more. I detest this foggy feeling. What is it?
Cat approaches. “Are you going for a run with the boys?”
I look over my shoulder at the closed bedroom door.
My vision blurs a little. I blink it off.
“Don’t worry. Bailey will keep her company. We’ll talk to her. It might soften things if we talk things over with her. And if you get a good run in, you might find it clears your head, too.”
I nod and rise.
“I’ll check on her first.”
“You should run,” Cat corrects. “I’ll go in and check on them. I’m guessing Bailey slept in there with her as she’s not here and her bag is downstairs.” Cat sniffs the air and her face goes confused.
“I think Bailey went home. My truck isn’t here,” Greyson says. “She likes waking up in her own bed.”
“I don’t smell her in there,” Cat says.
I strain to hear Ivy’s breathing, her heartbeat. I should hear it if I listen.
“Shh,” I tell them.
I don’t hear it. Her scent is vague, but it feels too vague.
I push the bedroom door open and find the room empty.
I frantically check the bathroom, the closet, and adjoining empty room with the rocking chair. It’s all empty. No sign of Ivy or Bailey.
My eyes meet my mother’s and I don’t hide that I’m furious.
“That drug you gave me. If I hadn’t had that, she’d never have gotten past me.”
She jerks back, remorse spreading across her face.
42
Ivy
I held it together, all the way home, knowing I just had to. I had to just drive. I had no radio on, made no stops, just followed the road home with a single-minded focus to stay alert and get myself there in one piece.
And now, five minutes after I’m at my apartment, seeing that life here looks just the same as how I left it, I’m in my bed, huddled into a ball, staring off into space with burning eyes, a dry throat, and feeling like my chest has caved in.
I’m not just staring into space, though. I’m being assaulted by scents and scenes. I’m smelling Irish Spring bar soap and that rustic cabin smell. Smelling him. Reaching for the feeling, the warmth that used to wrap around me. None of those smells or sensations exist here. They’re all in my head. I guess I’m mourning that touch I’ll never feel again.
On the heels of all the sentimentality, I’m seeing flashes of the rage on that monster’s face. Watching the blood vessels pop in the other guy’s eyes as they stared one another down. Watching him bare his throat in some weirdly somewhat submissive pose as Tyson roared while thrusting into me, though the guy’s face didn’t say he wanted Tyson to bite him. Though the guy bared his throat sort of submissively, the look on his face told me he wanted to fight. His bleeding eyes met mine for a brief instant where I saw defiance.
I squeeze my neck and my fingers land there. Where the sensation of Tyson Savage lingers. I pull my hand away, recoiling. I thought my eyes were dry, my tear ducts all tapped out, but I’m crying again.
I can’t sleep. I can’t settle down.
And now I see him eating a banana like it’s the best thing he’s tasted. I see him and I curled up on that chair, me on his lap and him reading knock-knock and Dad jokes.
I see him guarding me from the cold water in the shower, which was cold because of my flushing the toilet. I see him, standing over me, then lifting me up to rescue me when I got bit by a snake. I see him carefully walking a too-full cup of steaming tea to me, being so careful not to spill it that he seemed boyish.
I choke on a sob and decide I can’t just lie here anymore.
I can’t. So, I drive to my sister’s place.
***
Amelia moved in with Rick when they got engaged last year. They live in a swanky townhouse in a nice gated community. It’s four floors, brownstone style, and everything inside it is white. It’s annoying how white everything is. Amelia’s colorful so it isn’t her. She said she’ll redecorate after they get married.
Rick, her fiancé, comes out just as I’m about to knock on the door, in sweats and carrying a gym bag.
“Ivy. Hey. Are you all right?” His hand lands on my arm.
I recoil. “Uh, Is Amelia home?”
“Yeah.” He pulls the door wide, looking concerned, and gestures for me to go ahead of him.
“Amelia?” he calls out.
I’m not Rick’s biggest fan. I think he’d be the type to cheat just to prove he can still get some tail. I don’t like the way he looks at me, and I said it to my sister one night over drinks when I’d had too much heavily alcoholic punch, when a few of us were trying to stage a relationship intervention with her, but she just shrugged it off.
“It’s just because you look like me, but twenty pounds lighter and you’re a blonde. He wouldn’t cheat. It’s just like imagined role play.”
“He ever ask you to put on a wig? A blonde one? If he does, don’t walk, run,” I advised and laughed.
She didn’t laugh. She went uncharacteristically quiet. I got the impression I struck a nerve.
I never brought it up again; neither did she.
Today, I’m pretty sure that’s genuine concern on his face, but I’m also guessing Amelia has been chewing his head off while she worried about me. I spot her over on the big white couch with nail polish in hand, her foot up on the arm of the sofa, and a phone to her ear. The minute she sees me she says, “Gotta go, Mom. Ivy’s here. I think you better come over.” She drops the phone and runs to me.
I fall into her embrace bawling.
“What did he do?” Amelia demands. “Do we call the cops? Want Rick to go beat the shit out of him? What?”
I look at Rick, standing there in his muscle shirt and sweatpants and I laugh, but it’s a bitter and weird laugh. Rick couldn’t land a punch on Tyson.
Rick frowns at my reaction.
I shake my head and wave my hand at Rick. It’s not that my sister’s guy isn’t strong looking. He’s average height, but he works out and has a six pack and some guns. He’s one of those guys that puffs his chest out when he talks about his workout regimen. Truthfully, though, Rick is a bit of a dick and he’s a mouthpiece that I get the impression wouldn’t deliver on a promise to beat someone up. None of us in the family or our friend group are crazy about him, calling him Rick the Dick behind Amelia’s back, but Amelia loves his fat wallet, his fancy cars, and the fact that he proposed in a ridiculously romantic yet cliché (to me) way, during a baseball game on the Jumbotron.
I know she loves being engaged, loves planning a wedding, and she jokes that he’s her ‘starter’ husband.
That’s the problem. We’re all sure that the day after her big, fancy wedding, she’s going to deflate and be ridiculously bummed out with her new reality.
“What happened?” she repeats.
“I just – I…”
I can’t talk about what happened. I can’t.
And I can’t talk about who and what Tyson is.
Not just because of that thing about not telling outsiders, because I liked all those people, too, and I know they were concerned about what happened to me. It isn’t their fault. I know that he had some supernatural reaction there that maybe he had no control over, but I also know I’m not okay with it. That said, I don’t want to hurt any of them. And that’s besides the fact that I could get put on a kill list if I said a word, putting myself and anyone I told at risk.
And also, I’m just not ready to talk about it. I don’t know if I can even tell anybody what happened. It’s bad enough it happened. Having people I love, people who love me know about it, too?
“We had a – um… fight.” Massive understatement. “I had to go. I’m just… I’m…” I bawl some more.
“Devastated?” Amelia asks, pulling me into a tight hug.
I nod. She rocks me while she rubs my back with her palm.
“Oh, no, baby sis. Cry it out. I’m here.”
“Hey Ivy?” Rick pipes up. “Ben wasn’t happy you moved on. He wants you back. Said he wants to take his relationship with you more seriously. Want me to call him?” Rick asks.
“Go away,” Amelia snaps. “Have you got an ounce of sensitivity, you meat head? Go to the gym. Leave us be.”
“Want me to bring Benny back? He’s meeting me at the club for a sesh.”
“God, you’re dense.” Amelia says.
“Sorry you’re upset, Ivy. If you girls want me to bring back ice cream, just text me,” Rick says.
“Thanks, Rick,” I say, “I appreciate that. But it’s okay.” Ice cream isn’t going to heal me from this.
I hear the door shut..
“He’s such a doofus,” she grumbles.
I look up at her face and shrug. He tried. I guess.
She flinches.
“Your eyes are so… I mean you’re crying, but your eyes…it’s like they’re purple.”
“Oh. I know. It’s weird.”
I thought it was the lighting in Tyson’s bathroom at first, but then saw them in the mirror in his truck and had no idea what to make of them. My eye color has changed. Amelia’s eyes are the blue that I used to have. Her eyes look like mine did a week ago. Only a week ago? Why does it feel like I’ve been gone so much longer?
How has my life so drastically changed in a week?
And how come I feel like I will never, ever be okay?
“I didn’t sleep much last night and I left at like three thirty in the a.m. Can I sleep in your guest room for a little? I didn’t wanna oversleep and miss the fitting, so I just figured I’d come here because you’d wake me.”
“Did he hurt you?” she asks. “What happened to you?”
I examine my bandaged ankle, my bandaged-up knees. My hands are even wrapped. I’m crying and bandaged all over the place. Of course she’s worried about that.
“It’s a long story. I just wanna sleep.”
“Do we call the police? Were you hurt like that?” She pushes my hair out of my face sweetly.
I love my sister. Even if she’s been a bridezilla lately and despite that she’s always been such a type-A personality. Amelia is also fiercely protective over the people she cares about. If she thinks someone hurt you, she won’t care how big and bad they are. She’ll go head-to-head with them.
“No, Amie. Nothing like … um… that.”
She looks at me like she knows I’m lying.
“I just wanna close my eyes. Okay? And sleep on your comfy guest bed. You know it’s more comfy than my own bed at home.”
But not comfier than sleeping on Tyson…
“Go in. I’ll get you something to sleep in. Pretty dress, Ives.”
“Thanks,” I say, looking down at the dirty skirt of my pretty strawberry moon dress. I didn’t realize I hadn’t changed. My lower lip quivers and I trudge off to her guest room.
By the time the flipflops I threw on at home are off my feet, she’s coming in with a pale purple designer track suit and a bottle of Sprite along with a foil packet of makeup wipes in her hand. My sister always keeps a bottle of my favorite fizzy drink in the back of her fridge for when I come over.
I accept it gratefully and take a long pull.
“Do you need anything?” she asks, sitting on the end of the bed and starting to work on the remnants of last night’s eye makeup with one of her wipes.
It’s so my sister to take care of me like this. I’m glad I came here. I feel bad for all the angry thoughts I’ve had about her recently.
I sit and let her wipe my face. She has another wipe in her hand and she then uses that one.
“Can you keep Mom out until I get a few hours?”
“I’ll wake you up as late as possible before we have to go for the fitting. If you need anything, you tell me,” she says.
I nod and cap the bottle. I wait for her to go before I start changing my clothes.
Normally, I would change right in front of my sister. But I have bruises. I don’t want her to see them.
The bruises between my legs are ugly and very telling.
And, looking down I can see there are bloody streaks on my inner thighs.
Shit.
I call out, “Ames? Can I have a pair of panties?”
“Sure, Ives.”
She brings me in a fresh package of white silky panties that say ‘bride’ on the bum in gold script.
“I can’t take these,” I say.
She makes me take them. “I bought three pairs. It’s okay.”
I go to her bathroom and use bathroom wipes to clean the dry blood from between my thighs, then change and head back to the guest room to sleep. I almost want to take a shower, wash last night off me, but for some reason I can’t fathom, I don’t.
***
I hear voices. Angry ones.
The little alarm clock on the bedside table tells me I’ve slept two and a half hours. Not nearly enough.
My mom and Amelia are outside the door and my sister is trying to keep her out.
“She can go back to sleep after I talk to her,” Mom says, and the doorknob turns.
I sit up.
Mom rushes to me, panic in her eyes. She’s got my blonde hair, though hers barely grazes her shoulders. Me and Amelia got our eyes from her, too. Mom wraps her arms around me and hugs me tight.
“I tried,” Amelia defends. “I managed a couple hours at least…”
I blow her a kiss.
“Ivy, talk to me. Talk to me, sweetie.” Mom gives the best hugs.
Well, second best.
I shake that thought off.
“I don’t wanna talk about it.”
“Ivy.” Mom gives me a stern look. “Tell me about meeting him. Tell me about him. Tell me everything. Tell me about those bandages.”
I wave my hand. “It doesn’t matter, Mom; it’s over.”
She stares at me, eyes working, giving
me the math question face that Tyson gives me.
God, my heart hurts.
I bury my face into the pillow and bawl. I’m full-on ugly-crying. I feel my sister behind me, sort of spooning me and stroking my head.
“It’s gotta be pretty bad for you to be like this. I’ve never seen you like this,” Amelia’s voice is soft.
I turn and look at her. “It’s never been like this. I’m never ever falling in love again.”
Wait, what? Love? My whole body feels weird at that phrase coming from my mouth.
I’ve never used it about a guy. Not a real one, anyway. Fantasy hall pass guys, sure, but never about a real person.
Never.
I thought I was maybe malfunctional as a woman because all my friends, my sister, everyone I was close to felt love for guys. Deep love. They got heartbroken at breakups. I never did. I just moved on. Even when I got dumped.
Until now. How hard is it going to be to move on from this?
“I’ve never felt this way about anybody before, Ivy. My only. It’s because you’re the only one for me. We’re meant to be together.”
I shake Tyson’s words off.
Because if I love him, if I finally love someone then it just figures, right? It just figures I’d fall in love with a guy that would so completely obliterate me.
“You love him?” Amelia asks.
“It’s been a week,” Mom says, face radiating disbelief and maybe a bit of disgust.
