by C. R. Jane
“I’ll kill you,” I murmured right before I let him go and slammed my fist into his face.
“Fuck!” Caiden yelled, holding his nose that I hoped was broken. Blood was trickling down his face.
“What the fuck, Jackson? What is wrong with you?” he yelled.
“I know about everything with Everly, Caiden. I know what a spineless worm you are.”
“Everly? I don’t know what you’re talking about?” he tried to say, but I was on him again, laying my fist into his face again and again.
He roared in pain and then slammed into me.
We fell to the ground. Caiden was able to get a few good punches in before I was able to roll him on his back. My hands enclosed around his neck, squeezing until his eyes started to bulge. He still hadn’t regained his full strength from the coma, and he was no match for me.
Caiden suddenly landed a punch to my chin, and it knocked the wind out of me for a moment, giving him enough time that he could roll us again as he tried to return the beating I’d just given him. His face was swollen and bruised, and I savored the sight of it, wishing inanely that Everly was here to see it. I’d read about her injuries. I wasn’t sure I could pull off giving Caiden a ruptured spleen, but I’d love to try.
Who cared if my parents disowned me and I went to jail?
I was brought back to the fight when Caiden hit me right in the left eye and my eyebrow split open, sending blood splattering all over my face.
I suddenly rolled again and pinned him down with one hand on his chest. I drew my fist back again and again, punching him. It was cathartic really how good it felt every time my fist connected with his face.
A pair of arms grabbed me from behind, and I began to struggle, able to level one more hit right at Caiden’s throat that had him gasping for breath.
“Jackson, what the fuck. Get ahold of yourself.” The yells of my teammates filled the air, and I took a deep breath, trying to control myself from hitting one of them.
The four of them were looking at me like I was a monster. Little did they know the biggest monster they would encounter in their life lay on the ground in front of us. I grinned savagely as I saw that I’d beaten him almost unrecognizable. I’m sure I was a sight. I could taste the coppery blood swirling in my mouth, all over my teeth.
Caiden groaned something unintelligible from his place on the ground.
I kicked him in the stomach, laughing when I heard the sound of his rib cracking. I think that had been one of Everly’s injuries as well.
Two of my teammates grabbed me again and forced me back.
Caiden lifted his head up and stared at me, cold fury written all over his features, and his face looked like ground hamburger as he groaned again.
“Man, what the hell is wrong with you?” my left tackle, Freddie, snarled at me, staring at me like I was a stranger.
“That asshole right there likes to abuse girls,” I responded, giving him the short version of what was a very long story.
Freddie gaped at me. “Caiden? Dude…”
“I don’t remember anything,” Caiden mumbled, the words hard to make out.
“That’s convenient,” I snarled. “You seem to know exactly what I’m talking about though.”
“You think I don’t know something happened with Everly? You think I don’t see how she looks at me like I’m a demon whose sole purpose is to destroy her life? The last thing I remember, Everly was my best friend, the girl I’d loved since the second I laid eyes on her as a little kid. I’m not an idiot, Jackson. I can connect the dots. I just didn’t…”
“You just what? Didn’t know that you beat the crap out of her? That she was in the hospital for weeks and then in physical therapy for months after that? That she walks with a limp because of what you did to her? That you lied to me about it so I would hate her? You didn’t know any of that?”
It didn’t matter to me that he claimed he didn’t remember. I saw him now. People didn’t change, not like that. Caiden didn’t get a brain transplant during his coma.
Caiden held up a beseeching hand. “I’m not saying you aren’t right. But I don’t remember what happened that night or that summer. I can’t comprehend ever doing that to her. She was everything to me. She still is everything to me.”
“You and me, we’re done. We won’t ever come back from this. If you see me, walk the other direction.” I gave him one last warning glance before I stalked out, my teammates’ stunned silence following me.
I couldn’t change the past, but I would do whatever I could to get Everly back. And if that didn’t work, I’d at least make sure that no one would ever hurt her again.
It would be my life’s mission.
And still, it wouldn’t be enough to make up for what I did.
Everly
I felt like a stranger in my own skin.
It was a weird floating feeling, like I was wading through water.
I was going through all my normal motions, but it was like I was seeing everything through a fogged lens.
The week where Jackson had used my body over and over again had left me lost.
“The only way to get over someone is to get under someone else,” Lane teased me, trying to make me laugh. I’d told her all of my secrets in the car on the way home from Jackson’s. They’d burst out of me, just like the tears I couldn’t seem to control.
She’d tried for days to make me feel better.
All her efforts did the same thing as they did now.
Nothing.
I couldn’t even imagine having sex with anyone else. Ever.
It was like he’d done something to me, burned himself into my skin, so just the thought of someone else made me break out in hives.
“Everly,” a voice called from behind me, a voice that I’d heard in every nightmare for the last two years.
I stopped, gripping Lane’s arm. She winced from how hard I was holding her and then turned around to see who it was. Her eyes widened. I took a deep breath and turned. And then promptly stumbled in place.
Caiden…looked awful.
I mean, he was almost unrecognizable. His face was swollen, cut, and bruised, a mixture of red, purple, and blue like someone had thrown a macabre set of paints at him.
One of his eyes was completely swollen shut, and I could see a set of handprints around his neck.
I absorbed every detail of Caiden’s injuries, and a light flickered on inside of me. I knew who had done this.
Jackson.
And even if he hadn’t done this to avenge me or make me feel better…
It did make me feel better. It really did.
Some of the fog that had been hovering around me dissipated right then and there.
And I smiled.
Caiden flinched at the smile, like I’d actually thrown a left hook instead.
He fidgeted in place, his gaze dancing all over my features.
“What happened to you?” Lane blurted out. “Not that you don’t deserve it of course.”
He ignored her, which was something that Jackson was prone to do as well. It was fucking annoying.
“LyLy.”
I flinched at the nickname, wanting to cut my ears off or rip the words from my brain somehow.
“Everly,” he amended. “Can I talk to you…alone?” He shot Lane a loaded look.
“We don’t have anything to say to one another,” I told him resolutely, hate thick in my throat.
“I have a lot to say actually,” he responded quietly. “If you would just give me the chance.”
“Come on, Lane.” I grabbed her arm and began to pull her away, walking as fast as I could. I didn’t even know where I was going, I just knew that I had to get away from him.
“Do you think—” Lane began.
“No. There’s nothing he could say that I would want to hear.” But even as I said the words, I remembered a time when that boy had been everything, when he’d defended me when no one else but Jackson would. I remembered him buying m
e lunch every day, sticking up for me in front of his parents…I remembered it all.
And a little piece of me weakened, a tiny chunk of the wall of hate I’d built around everything inside of me that was Caiden crumbled to the ground.
But still, I kept walking.
It was raining outside. I used to love the rain. Now I hated it, avoided it like it would burn my skin if a raindrop dared to touch me.
I was alone in my room. Melanie had been scarce over the last few months, I assumed with a new boytoy. It was fabulous.
So here I was, sitting in my desk chair, staring out my window at the rain like some kind of character in an Enya song.
I stood up suddenly, my chair toppling over behind me at the movement.
The truth was, I didn’t hate the rain…I was scared of the rain.
And that was just about the dumbest thing I’d ever heard of.
I was going to go out and walk in the rain until I wasn’t scared anymore…until I was clean.
Maybe the rain could wash away every trace of that night.
I was willing to try anything at this point.
As I walked down the hall of my dorm, I ignored all the looks that I got. I’d become somewhat of a laboratory animal these last few weeks. Ever since the classroom incident.
Shrugging off their looks was becoming easier and easier. Maybe one of these days, I would finally grow a thick skin.
I hesitated before I took my first step out into the rain. It was falling steadily, not quite a downpour but not a sprinkle either.
The first step nauseated me. The feeling of the raindrops splattering on my skin almost felt like fire licking at me. But as I took one more step, and then another…it got easier, just as all things did the more you did them.
Why hadn’t I done this before?
When I was fully submerged under the falling sky, I turned my head up and welcomed the feeling of the rain tumbling on my face.
And maybe I did feel a little cleaner.
Until I heard Caiden’s voice once again.
“Everly,” he breathed.
Closing my eyes, I slowly turned and faced him.
He stood there, soaking wet, like he’d been waiting for me for hours right in that spot. His hands were in his pockets, his broken face still beautiful, despite what I suspected were Jackson’s best attempts to change that.
“What do you want from me, Caiden?”
“I don’t remember what I did. I don’t have a clue how I’m even capable of doing what Jackson told me I did. I can’t even comprehend it. But I’m so fucking sorry for it.” His voice broke as he spoke, his tears joining the rain splashing down his face.
“I’ll do anything to get you to forgive me. Anything. For almost my whole life, it’s been the three of us. And now you’re both gone, and I can’t even remember why.” He pulled at the bottom of his shirt, twisting and turning it like he wanted to rip the fabric in half.
He took a step towards me, and for the first time, I held my ground. My stillness must have given him confidence, because he kept walking until he was right in front of me.
“Please, LyLy, please forgive me. Please know that I won’t ever hurt you again. I’ll live my life to make you happy. I’ll always be here for you. You’ll never be alone.”
My eyes widened at his words, as they were an echo of words he’d said in our shared past, promises he made to me.
And I knew how those promises ended up.
Broken, just like me.
But I was also so very tired of carrying around all of this hate and fear and disgust for myself, because I still believed whole-heartedly that I carried some of the blame for what happened that summer.
“I forgive you, Caiden,” I whispered, the words getting caught in the rain. They sounded wrong as I released them.
His whole face softened. “Thank you,” he said, lifting up his hand to touch my face.
I took a step out of reach, and he frowned.
“But we won’t ever be the same. We can’t ever be the same.” I sighed, pushing my dripping wet hair from in front of my eyes. “I’ll always be grateful to you for everything we had. But we turned into something so ugly that I’ll never be able to forget it.”
“I’ll do anything,” he begged, his face the picture of despair, but I held up my hand.
“I’m sorry, but there’s nothing you can do. It’s just been me these last few years. I’ve had a lot of time to think.” I laughed bitterly. “Did you know I used to visit you? Every week.”
His eyes widened.
“I fully own up to my part in what happened. I was weak. I let you and Jackson walk all over me, dictate every part of my life. I was so desperate for you that I didn’t listen to the blaring alarms inside of me that told me to run as far away as fast as I could. I would sit by your bedside, and I would tell you over and over again how sorry I was.”
A hiccuped sob burst out of my mouth.
“But I’ve realized now that I didn’t need you to forgive me, I needed to forgive myself. And I’ve done that. And now I’ve realized that though I don’t want to live without you, I can live without you.”
“Everly, please,” he begged, dropping to his knees in front of me, mud splashing over his rain-soaked blue jeans.
“Let me go,” I breathed, and then I brushed a kiss across his forehead, and I limped away.
The rain really was cleansing after all.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I ended up exactly at the place I shouldn’t have, soaking wet and shivering.
Jackson stood there in the entryway to his house, a few bruises peppering his otherwise god-like face.
He held out his hand, and even though it felt like I might be repeating the sins of my past, I took it.
I needed the brand of torture that only Jackson could give me.
Jackson walked me to his room.
And everything was different this time.
Different but the same.
Because we’d moved like this together once before…our very first time.
And I’d forgotten how much I loved that, needed that.
The feeling you had when you were making love.
His kiss wasn’t hard or demanding like those other times, but it was just as intense, hypnotizing me with its slow, seductive rhythm as one of his hands cradled the back of my head while we stood there by his bed. His touch assaulted me from all angles, a tingling sensation scattering across my skin and shooting between my legs. Grabbing his shirt, I moved against him, letting out a quiet moan as I drove myself crazy.
He enfolded me into his arms, worshipping my mouth with his, my body heating under his touch as he caressed every whispered shadow.
My hands moved everywhere—his shoulders, arms, running over the hard lines of his back. Everything he did taunted the warmth building between my thighs.
Our clothes disappeared, and then without warning, he pushed me to the bed but didn’t follow. His breath faltered as he gazed. Slow and deliberate, his inspection was thorough and his voice rough.
“I’ve never wanted anything more than I want you.”
The passionate need in his eyes was replaced with veneration, a worshipping glint as he drank me in.
“Everly,” he breathed into the silence, my name a prayer on his lips. Slowly, he laid down with me, bringing a hand up to cup the full weight of my breast. Closing his eyes, he leaned in so his mouth hovered over mine, not touching, just taking.
It felt like he was casting a spell over me, and for once, I didn’t want to break it.
He pinched my nipple, pulling until I moaned. The sweet sensation drove through my body, a sharp, inescapable fluttering. He smiled, a slow, beguiling grin as I writhed beneath his dark stare and the attention of his fingers.
“I dream about the way you taste, baby.”
My mouth formed a perfect circle, but I said nothing, paralyzed with anticipation. I watched as he dipped down, taking me into his mouth, laving the elongated tip of my
breast with his tongue before teasing it between his teeth. I leaned back into the bed, reeling from the pleasure his mouth brought. One at a time, he played with my breasts until I was wet and hungry for him.
“Please,” I begged, for what, I didn’t quite know. For him to continue, for him to touch me, for him to bring an end to the burning need building between my thighs. Slowly, he moved, his nose trailing along my skin, teasing a path until he pressed into my skin, groaning as he breathed deeply. Eyes trained on mine, he pushed my thighs apart.
“You’re intoxicating. Addicting. I’ll never get enough.” His voice was hot, his breath hotter as he blew against me. Looking up through his lashes, he asked, “Do you want this, baby? Tell me you need this as much as I do.”
I was speechless, so he blew against me again. “Say it. I need to hear you.”
“Yes.” I barely breathed out the word before his head dipped, the tip of his tongue swirling right where I wanted. My body arched off the bed at the sweet carnal sensation, and I moaned loudly. Closing my eyes, I focused on the feeling of him and the tormenting flicks of his tongue.
Wrapping his arms under my hips, he became impassioned, groaning as he lifted me to his mouth. I couldn’t move, my only outlet the incoherent words falling almost soundlessly into the still air.
Clenching my hands into the sheets, I surrendered to the beautiful intensity, panting. “Jackson,” I cried. His lips closed around my clitoris in response, sucking and rolling it between his teeth. I arched and instinctively moved with him, a wicked, slow dance. The music was his mouth, playing artfully, and all I could do was wait, longing for the crescendo. Releasing my death grip on the sheets, I grabbed the soft silk of his hair as his head swayed between my thighs. He looked up, his blue eyes scorching and erotic, his tongue insistent and hot, teasing but not taking me over the edge.
“Please,” I whispered, begging for the push from the burning plateau. His answer was to slide a finger inside my welcoming body. I groaned again. The longing and desire built, the friction of his finger along with his mouth took me higher, faster than I thought possible. I writhed against him, the dance becoming feverish. I needed; I wanted.