by H Hunting
She makes a choked sound, and I release her wrists so I can cup her face in my palms. Everything about the way I’m touching her is a contradiction to my words—tender versus cutting. She tries to turn her head away, but I hold her firmly. Her nightshirt rides perilously high on her thighs. She smells like a grown-up version of the girl I once loved, like lavender shampoo and desire.
And suddenly I’m angry—so full of rage that she still has this kind of power over me and doesn’t even know it. I’m pissed because I’ll never have the control I so desperately need to be good for her. “Look at me, Lavender.”
Her eyes dart around, and she keeps trying to twist her head away.
“Stop fighting and look at me,” I demand.
She stills, her breath coming hard and fast. I’m sure she’s on the verge of a panic attack, and I doubt she expected this when she came in here looking for me. I didn’t expect it to go this way either. Her body trembles. But her eyes, those bright blue eyes that haunt me relentlessly, finally meet mine—so full of fear and more pitifully, weak threads of hope.
I’m about to sever those forever.
Bile rises in my throat, but I force myself to continue. “I reject you time and time again, and still you want me.”
Her mouth forms the words please don’t but I can’t stop now. I need to nail the lid on this coffin. I need to be sure this is never going to happen again, because I won’t be able to say no next time, and I cannot take that risk with her.
“I need you to hear me, Lavender. Really listen to what I’m telling you.” I can’t stop myself from sweeping away her tears as they start to fall. Her chin trembles, and her teeth sink into her bottom lip, right where the scar is.
I tug at her lip with my thumb, not wanting her to cause more damage—other than what I’m about to do to her heart, anyway. “We aren’t good for each other.” I’m not good for you. “Say it back so I know you’re hearing me.”
She shakes her head and more tears fall, too fast for me to catch now.
“Yes, Lavender. You and me? Together, we’re toxic.” I will poison your pure soul. “Say it.”
She sucks in a shaky, gasping breath. She opens and closes her mouth three times before she finally whispers, so quiet it’s barely a sound, “We’re toxic.”
“That’s right.” I nod my approval, and my stomach churns. “You’re too needy, and I can’t deal with it.” I will drown you with my dependency.
She makes a tortured sound, her face crumpling, and I feel like I’m being stabbed through the heart with every breath she fights for. “I’m too needy.” This time it’s the shape of the words, with no sound.
I keep pushing, forcing the words out, even though it makes me feel like I’m being skinned alive. “We make each other worse, not better.” I don’t know how to love you without hurting you.
She starts sobbing, soundlessly, as is Lavender’s way. Her entire body quakes, and she tries to put her head down. It takes a full minute for her to compose herself enough to stutter out the words. “W-w-we m-make e-e-each other worse.”
“Good girl.” The praise is in direct opposition to the horrible lies I force her to repeat. “It was bad enough when we were kids. I can’t go through this shit again.” I won’t survive you leaving me, and that’s inevitable. “I don’t want you, and I never will.” I will never get over what I’m doing to you.
I can feel her caving in on me.
“I need to hear it, Lavender.” I fight not to stroke her cheek, not to press my lips to hers.
“Y-y-you don’t want me.”
“I can’t love you.” I will never stop loving you.
Lavender goes eerily still, and the light in her eyes dies, like a candle being snuffed by the wind. A terrifying calm settles around us. Her breath comes slow and even, unlike mine.
“Do you understand, Lavender?” The words feel like acid in my mouth.
“Fuck you, Kodiak.” Her voice is surprisingly steady.
“Not a chance in hell. Then I’ll never get rid of you.” I’ll never be able to let you go.
I don’t expect the slap across the face. But I relish the sting and the force behind it. It means I’ve accomplished what I set out to do.
I let go of her, and she clambers off the bed. Her feet get tangled up in the comforter, and she lands in a heap on the floor. I fist the sheets to keep myself from helping her. She picks herself up clumsily and yanks the door open, rushing down the hall, desperate to escape me and the lies I forced on her.
Lavender is everyone’s Achilles’ heel.
And I just sliced mine to the bone.
Present day
LAVENDER’S DORM EXPERIENCE lasts less than thirty-six hours. I don’t ask what happened, and no one offers an explanation. In the almost two days since she moved back in, I haven’t seen much of her, but I’ve heard her.
Her anger comes out in the relentless, aggressive drone of her sewing machine and the music she listens to. I want to reach through the walls and absorb her pain, since I’m the one who created it. I don’t know how much longer I can sit here in the acid bath of my regrets without losing my mind.
I check the clock on the TV for the tenth time. She’s usually home by now on Thursdays. I don’t like that her schedule isn’t always predictable. Sometimes she doesn’t come home until hours after her classes are finished. I hate that I know her schedule. I hate that I’m an asshole to her, and that she refuses to do anything about it other than tell me she hates me. I hate that I can’t handle this, or her, or my own emotions 90 percent of the time, and it all comes out as vitriol.
I try to focus on the video game, but my head is all over the place, so I lose to BJ and toss the controller to River. He grunts, but doesn’t acknowledge me with words. He rarely does. Living with him is sort of like living with a porcupine.
Maverick is out with his flavor of the month. At a movie. She insisted he take her on an actual date because all they ever do is hang out in his bedroom. She’s not wrong, but based on her conversation skills, I’m going to say there’s a good reason for that.
The front door opens, dragging my attention away from the TV screen. Not that I was paying attention to what was going on, since I’m up in my head, as usual. Less than a minute later, Lavender appears. She’s wearing jeans and an oversized hoodie with the college logo on it.
She’s not alone, though.
The guy who trails behind her is vaguely familiar. He’s lanky with thick-rimmed glasses.
“Why are you so late, and why didn’t you answer my texts?” River pauses the game so he can glower at her.
Lavender adopts a fake smile. “Hi, twin. It’s so nice to see you too. How was your day?”
“It was peachy.” His gaze shifts to the guy hovering nervously behind her, and his cheek tics. “What’re you doing here?”
Lavender looks like her head is about to explode. “What is wrong with you? You’d think you were raised by wolves. Josiah is my classmate and my friend, so drop your asshole level down to a one or a two, please.”
River’s gaze darts between them. “Right, yeah, sorry. Hey, Josiah.”
“Hey.” Josiah raises his hand in an uncomfortable wave, his face turning red as he scans the three of us.
“The bearded one is my cousin BJ.”
BJ waves his acknowledgment.
“And that’s Kodiak,” she mutters, not bothering to look at me. “Anyway, we’re gonna go study, so see you all later.” She grabs Josiah by the arm, moves him in front of her, and pushes him toward the stairs. She flips the bird over her shoulder at us. I assume it’s mostly directed at me, and possibly River.
The three of us watch them disappear upstairs. To her bedroom. Where they’re going to “study.”
BJ looks at me and then at River, who unpauses the game.
I expect River to shit a brick about Lavender bringing some guy up to her room. Because there is no way they’re going up there just to study. She is way out of his league, and I’m 10
0 percent sure he knows it.
I look at BJ. He raises an eyebrow. I bite my tongue. I can’t say anything, or I’ll make myself completely transparent.
He finally does me a solid—although I’m not sure he realizes that’s what he’s doing—and asks the question I can’t. “Uh, River?”
“What?” River mows down a hoard of zombies.
“You’re cool with that?”
“Cool with what?” He blows up an entire warehouse full of zombies. “Fuck, yeah.”
“That.” BJ points to the stairs.
River doesn’t take his eyes off the screen. “That what?”
“Lavender. That guy?”
“She’s nineteen years old. She can bring a guy up to her room if she wants. Besides, they’re studying.” Another hoard of zombies comes piling out of a doorway and takes his player down. He tosses the controller back to me. “She’s her own person. She always has been. I’m going for a run. I can’t stand the stench of desperation in here.” He pushes up out of the chair and heads for the front door. A few seconds later, it opens and closes with a slam.
I grip the controller and stare at the TV, fighting to remain calm. Why now? Why all of a sudden is River okay with Lavender bringing a guy up to her room? Why am I suddenly a pane of glass that everyone can see through? That familiar feeling of being disassociated from my body takes over, and my knee starts to bounce.
“Fuck this.” I toss the controller aside and push up off the couch.
“What exactly are you going to do?” BJ asks, completely unrattled.
“Someone needs to deal with this.” I point to the ceiling. “And obviously you and River are useless.”
BJ raises one dark eyebrow. “I think you need to figure your shit out.”
“This isn’t about me.”
He huffs a laugh and shakes his head. “Really? ’Cause you’re losing it over the idea of someone you apparently can’t stand getting action. Look, man, I don’t know what the deal is with you and Lavender, or what happened between you to make things how they are, but you need to stop torturing her. This is not you, man. You are not this person.” He motions to me. “She doesn’t deserve whatever this is.”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
He throws his hands in the air. “You’re right. I don’t know. No one does because the two of you talk around shit and say nothing. What happened when you were kids? Better yet, what happened two years ago at Christmas? And why are you so determined to make her miserable? Hasn’t she already been through enough?”
I can’t answer any of those questions. Not with any kind of honesty. So I don’t. Instead, I turn around and head for the stairs.
“You’re such an idiot,” BJ grumbles, but he doesn’t stop me.
I pause outside my bedroom door. I should leave it alone. Leave Lavender alone. But I can’t stand the idea of her up there with that guy. If I can’t have her, I don’t want anyone else to have her either. And that’s really what it comes down to.
I made it this way. It’s my fault.
I move toward the stairs leading up to Lavender’s bedroom. Her ivory tower. The untouchable princess. I take the stairs slowly, avoiding the ones that creak. Because I’ve come up here so many times since I moved in—sat outside the door, wanting to tell her the truth. Listened to the sound of her sewing machine humming, her soft voice when she sings her favorite songs.
It’s almost a travesty that so few people know what a beautiful voice she has. Almost. But I like that I still know so many of the pieces of herself she keeps hidden.
When she moved into the dorms, I broke down again and picked the lock so I could marinate in my own misery like I deserved.
I wrap my hand around the doorknob and press my forehead against the wood. The familiar scent of lavender permeates through. She’s always searching for the calm that’s so hard to find and hold on to, despite her name.
Her soft laugh makes my heart ache.
God. When was the last time I heard that sound?
Years, I’m sure.
It’s followed by silence, and a million scenes float through my head like a flipbook—all of them ones I don’t want to be real.
I turn the knob, and the door flies open. This should be the first sign I’m overreacting, but I’m already in panic mode, and rational thought has completely deserted me. All I want is to stop whatever this is—the spinning in my head, the fear that the damage I’ve done, and continue to do, has become completely irreparable.
Lavender is sitting on her bed, legs crossed. She’s lost the sweatshirt, leaving her in a tank top that shows way too goddamn much cleavage. Her back is to the headboard and Josiah mirrors her, elbows propped on his knees, their heads bent together. Her hand on his knee. Touching him.
“This is not happening!” I bark.
Lavender gives me a look like I’ve gone insane. “What the hell, Kodiak?”
“This right here is bullshit.” I point at Josiah. “You are so out of your league, you’re not even in the same fucking time zone.”
Lavender gapes at me. “Have you lost your damn mind? What do you think you’re doing?”
“What am I doing? What are you doing?” I flail like an idiot, motioning between them. On her fucking bed.
She lifts up her textbook. “Studying for a test, so you should take your meltdown elsewhere.”
“Bull-fucking-shit, Lavender.” I take another step into the room, submerging in her scent, in her everything. I need him gone, and I’ll do just about anything to make it happen. I sneer at her. “Does he know what you’re really like?”
“What’re you talking about?” Red creeps into her cheeks.
“Does he have any idea what you do when you’re alone?” I don’t know what I’m doing anymore, other than being pissed off and highly irrational.
“Other than sew and avoid you?”
Damn, I love how sassy she can be now. I scoff and hate myself before I’ve even had the chance to speak, this time to Josiah. “She’s not as innocent as you might think, are you, Lavender?”
It looks like his eyes are going to pop out of his head, and his hands are raised in the air, as if he’s being held at gunpoint. Lavender just looks confused.
My next course of action is damning in so many ways. For her. For me. I stalk over to her bed and stop beside the nightstand.
“Seriously, Kodiak, get out of my room.” Her voice wavers, a nervous edge to it.
I shake my head, pinning her with a malicious glare. “Don’t you think your friend deserves to know what he’s dealing with?” I grab the handle on the second drawer down.
In my head, I’m aware this is a terrible move, that it’s just going to screw things up even more, that I’m about to humiliate her in a way I probably can’t come back from, and that I’ve completely lost control—what little I had in the first place.
Her eyes flare with understanding and then narrow. “You fucker.”
I yank the drawer free and flip it over so the contents spill out, half landing on the bed, the other half tumbling to the floor at my feet.
Josiah’s eyebrows disappear into his hairline as he takes in the plethora of personal pleasure devices. The range is actually staggering, particularly when they’re not all crammed into a nightstand drawer. There are several small bottles of lube and an array of vibrators, dildos, and some oddly shaped thing I can’t figure out.
Lavender slow claps, her expression reflecting her annoyance. “Very dramatic, Kodiak.”
I’m actually shocked that she’s not a mess of incoherent nerves. In this case, that seems to be me.
Josiah scratches his temple and grins. “Damn, Lavender, you’re quite the handful, aren’t you?”
She smirks and rolls her eyes, like it’s some kind of inside joke. “My gigi is very pro self-exploration.”
“I don’t know who Gigi is, but I’d love to meet her.”
“She’s my grandma, and she’s awesome—a little too into t
he overshare, but you’d love her.”
I make some kind of sound, sort of like a rabid animal, because this isn’t going at all like I’d planned. Granted, I didn’t have much of a plan in the first place, but the two of them chatting about her grandmother while surrounded by a drawer full of sex stuff wasn’t anywhere on my list of possibilities.
They both glance at me and then each other. “Do you mind if I tell him?” Lavender asks.
Josiah looks appropriately wary now. Whether because he’s sitting on a bed covered in sex toys, or because I’m clearly on the verge of some kind of mental breakdown, I can’t be sure. Both would be logical. Ironically, he has very little reaction to the confetti of fake dicks surrounding him. Unlike me.
He lifts one shoulder and lets it fall. “I have nothing to hide.”
Panic makes my chest tight. Maybe he’s been back here before. Maybe there’s already more going on than I know about.
“Josiah is not interested in me,” Lavender says flatly.
I scoff. “Yeah, right.”
No guy comes up to a girl’s room to hang out and actually do homework, especially not when that girl is Lavender. She’s so fucking beautiful, it hurts. And she has a killer sense of humor, and a huge, amazing heart.
She rolls her eyes. “Josiah would be more likely to want to hook up with you than me.”
Josiah raises a finger in the air. “Uh, that’s actually untrue.”
Lavender gives him her seriously look.
“What Lavender is trying to say is that I’m gay.”
Well, that changes a whole lot of things. Like, exactly how unbalanced I seem right now. And how unnecessary it was for me to come up here and act like a giant dick. Again.
He cuts me off before I can speak. “However, you’re an asshole, and I don’t care how pretty you are, I would never hook up with someone who treats my friend as shitty as you treat Lavender.” He turns back to her. “Do you want to come back to my place or something?”
She rubs the space between her eyes. “I appreciate the offer, but I think I need to deal with this.” She grants me a dismissive wave.
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah. I need to handle this situation, and you don’t need to witness the shitstorm that’s about to go down.” She flips her book shut.