Three Times Torn

by Felisha Antonette

  Roehl’s scent floods my nose the entire day and the need for him consumes my thoughts. Maybe if I could just see him or touch him. Experience the kiss I felt with him again; it’ll calm me down.

  Ugh! I know I shouldn’t want him. I know I can’t want him. And gosh, do I know I need to get this stuff out of my head. . .

  Arguing with myself all day and not winning is exhausting. I wish I could just make up my mind and be certain about something. I want out of this triangle and if that means deciding who lives, Nathan or Roehl. That’s just what I’ll need to do.

  Nathan picks us up in his car. I’m sure he’s happy he doesn’t need to be in Taylor’s anymore. But I don’t care enough to cheer or support. He drives in the direction of my house and seeing he’s pushing me off again fuels my anger. My hands get hot, and the thin film blankets my eyes.

  “Sparks, you need to calm down before you set my car on fire,” he states with a scornful edge to his voice.

  “I’m not going to set your precious car on fire. Don’t talk to me.”

  “What’s wrong with you?” he asks, fretted.

  “I believe she said don’t talk to her,” Glen instigates in her sassy, tempered tone.

  “I wasn’t talking to you,” he fires back with a threat behind his words.

  “Yeah, well, you need not talk to her either. Because I don’t want to have to escape a moving car when she does blow it up.”

  Nathan’s teeth grind with a low growl rumbling in his chest. The car speeds up, and I can feel his anger.

  Before he can park the car in front of my house, Glen’s slamming the door closed, stalking up the driveway, and barging through our front door. Nathan shifts the car in park, and I grab the handle, stopped, hearing, “Sparks, don’t open that door,” he demands, deep and commanding.

  With the dominance of his tone laced with a power that takes me over, I have no choice but to sit back against the seat. It annoys me. Being obligated to do exactly what he demands and not having a choice to get out of this car and walk away from him like I want to do right now.

  “Tell me what’s going on,” he requests, concerned.

  I stay quiet.

  He moves in the sight of my peripheral vision. “You don’t want to talk?”

  I face him for the first time since yesterday morning. My heart skips several beats, and my expression softens, shifting my anger into distress.

  The muscles in his face relax, softening his eyes. “Sparks, tell me,” he begs.

  “I told him my secret,” I mutter.

  Betrayal creeps over Nathan’s eyes, but he doesn’t relay it with any question or rebuttal. For a second. Maybe longer. His eyes wash me in those questions, but the one he asks is, “What do you want me to do?”

  “Fix it,” I tell him.

  “Okay. I’ll be back later.”

  I turn away, nodding as I grab the handle. Walking into my house, I listen for his car to drive away. It doesn’t immediately, not like he usually would, and I wonder what he’s thinking. Why today, he’d sit out there longer.

  “Tracey?” Dad calls.

  “No way,” I mumble under my breath. I’m not dealing with this right now.

  He emerges from the family room’s opening. “Ladybug, I’m calling you.”

  Big Bad Dad, ready to mess up my day further. “And I hear you.”

  “Why didn’t you answer me?”

  “Because I didn’t want to.” Why isn’t that obvious?

  “I need to discuss some things with you.”

  I start up the stairs, figuring to walk away is better than to be a disrespectful douche to my father. “Maybe later.”

  Lumbering footsteps follow behind me. I don’t know how Dad could be so skinny but walk so hard. “Just Saturday you had loads to say. You didn’t come back home, and you didn’t call. You come in last night with Glen, completely ignoring your mother and me, and now, you have nothing to say?”

  “Nope.”

  “I need to speak with you today, Tracey. I’m leaving tomorrow and with you having only two more weeks until graduation; I think we have some things we need to discuss and decisions that need to be made.”

  I enter my room with him hot on my heels. “Go ahead and talk, Dad.” I lie on my bed, facing the wall. I’m sad, and with it showing, I don’t want him to see.

  His footsteps cross the room and the cushion of the chaise sounds as he sits. “How was school?”

  I don’t answer.

  “Where is Nathan?”

  Silence.

  “I told you it wasn’t going to last long.”

  I’m not entertaining him and his blasphemous theories about Nathan and me. I think we have enough issues of our own without adding Dad.

  “Tracey, there’s usually two participants in a conversation.”

  “You said you wanted to speak with me, not have a conversation. I’m listening.”

  “If I speak with you about Nathan will you provide feedback?”

  “Nope.”

  “If I speak with you in regards to the move, will you provide feedback?”

  “I’m not moving. That is my feedback.”

  “Have you found a school you’re going to attend?”

  “A school in the area.”

  “Which one is this?”

  I’m not answering. I decided to go to Bennington because it’s in state and I’ll be majoring in social science. Nathan and I already got started and completed registration. I make great grades and have a good behavior record, so I’ve been accepted. Nathan helped me write a bomb essay that got me a scholarship and we start in the fall. So, school? Hole in one! There’s no way I’m telling him this, though. I’m unsure if he’s my real father or still influenced and I don’t want Roehl to know any more about me than he already does. Remaining standoffish will keep him at a distance.

  “If you don’t have a school, you’re going to move.”

  “I doubt it,” I mutter.

  “If you stay here, aren’t you going to miss your mother and me?”

  I turn over. His voice’s softened and a heavy emotion sticks to his question. His throat quenches, causing him to clear it. “Yes,” I utter.

  “But you won’t come with us?”

  “No.”

  He comes over and sits next to me on my bed. “We’re going to miss you, Ladybug.”

  My eyes widen. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

  “Are you giving me a choice to say otherwise?”

  I’m not, but. . .

  Mom comes in, and I sit up in my bed. “We still don’t agree with you living with Nathan. However, knowing that you will be here and he will be here with you, there is no way to avoid you two possibly staying together, considering what has already been going on.” She sits at Dad’s side.

  “It’s not right for you two to live together out of marriage, and you will not have children until you’re thirty. Don’t do anything to speed that along,” Dad states sternly.

  A small hope thrills in me. They’re giving in! “I don’t have to move with you guys?”

  Dad shakes his head. “You do not have to move with us.”

  “But you have to visit and accept that we will visit you. Often,” Mom seconds with a kind voice.

  I wrap my arms around Dad’s neck. He embraces me and one emotional rock lifts from my shoulders. “Thank you.”

  Mom joins our hug. “We love you, Tracey. We just want you to be careful and not get hurt if you decide to stay in a relationship with Nathan or not.”

  “I understand.”

  We break apart, and I look in their eyes, studying them. I blink, so the thin film covers my eyes, just to make sure they’re them, and they are. But I still need something to confirm, just in case. “Remember when I used to have my issue, and I would spend my nights crying when they’d get really bad?” They nod, both their faces morphing sorry and sympathetic. “Dad, you’d pick me up in your lap, telling me I’m not weird or a freak as the kids at
school and people in the neighborhood had made me believe.” He nods again. “Do you remember what you did to make me feel better?”

  Dad smiles; a bashful smile that has a way of rising his ears. Standing, he snaps and sways from side to side. “Friday night and the lights are low. Looking out for a place to go. Where they play the right music, getting in the swing. You come in to look for a king.” He spins on his toes and bellows. “You can dance, you can jive. Having the time of your life. Ooh, see that girl, watch that scene. Dig in the dancing queen. Then I’d pick you up and spin you around in my arms.” He reenacts, pretending he’s holding an invisible me by the pit of my arms, spinning in a circle twice. “I remember those days like they were yesterday, Ladybug.”

  “Honey, you’d be laughing by the time he finished Abbe’s song. Your bad day would be forgotten, and we’d be eating ice cream before bedtime.” Mom’s chuckling—me too—recalling Dad’s horrible dance moves.

  It’s them! My real parents. “I love you two.” I throw my arms around Mom’s neck.

  “We love you,” they say together, voices harmonized.

  Mom rubs my back. “When did you start allowing people to sleep in your room?” I assume she’s referring to Glen and last night, already knowing about Nathan.

  Wanting the confirmation to lighten my mood, it doesn’t really. I still feel smothered by a foggy bubble. “I don’t really feel like talking about that right now.”

  “Okay, honey.” She stands. “Glen is sitting in the family room. Will she be sleeping over again?”

  “Yes.” I guess. I don’t think she can go home with only her there and no one to watch out for her.

  “Okay, come down in a couple of hours for dinner.”

  “I will.”

  “For the record, Ladybug. This was your mother’s convincing. I still think you should move with us, but I know you’re growing up and you’re not going to live with your mother and me for the rest of your life.”

  “Good to hear, Dad.”

  “I want you to know I love you and I apologize for my actions this past weekend. I guess I’m just not ready to see my ladybug fly away.”

  “It’s okay. You were just being a dad.” And unfortunately being influenced by the enemy. He’s a dick for coming after my father to get me.

  “I was being a dad and will remain as such. Don’t do anything to make me come here and enforce that dad to you or Nathan.”

  I smile. “I won’t.” I meet his eyes. “I promise.”

  He sits back beside me. “Good. Can you tell me what’s bothering you?”

  “Just dealing with life.” The life I chose.

  “How is that treating you?”

  “Better. Starting with this talk.” I do feel a little better. With Dad finally on my team, things may be looking up. He’s never been the type to be a hard ass. But I guess with having his only daughter mated with some guy, and the influence of a stranger, he may have a lot going on too.

  Dad smiles. “If you want to talk about it, let me know.” He gives me a side hug and stands. “I’ll be leaving tomorrow and will not be returning until Sunday for your graduation. We plan to move a month after.”

  “Okay, I’m sure we’ll have another talk before then.”

  “Yes, we will. You, me, and Nathan.”

  I chuckle as he walks from the room.

  Lying back in my bed, I call, Nathan?

  Yes, Sparks.

  Busy?

  You need me?

  Yes. Come over?

  Door or window?

  Window.

  Okay.

  I push my door closed and turn the lock. Crossing the floor to the chaise, I sit and wait. Nathan’s coming through the window as I’m lying back. He strides over to me. That strong walk—left foot, right shoulder, right foot, left shoulder—making the rest of the world nonexistent as I ogle at his approach.

  He pulls me up, sits down, and then sits me across him. “Hey.”

  “Hi.”

  Pulling me toward him, he places a soft kiss on my forehead. “Wassup?”

  I lean back and take his hand in mine. His is warm and heavy, and his stress has caused his veins to bulge under his skin. I trace them, willing a calm to expel from my fingertips and sink into his hand. “I don’t have to move,” I tell, feeling the tension in his muscles loosen.

  “That’s good news,” he states calmly.

  “Yeah. They’re still not thrilled about the thought of me living with you, but they didn’t reject the idea, knowing it’s probably going to happen.”

  “Is it?” he asks, uncertain.

  “Do you not want it to?”

  His brows knit as he stares at our hands. “It’s not me, Tracey.”

  “Can you be open with me? Give me a direct answer?”

  He lets out a breath. “I want you at home with me. But do you? Do you want to be with me period?” The blank look on his face and the emptiness in his words make his spill come off emotionless and non-caring. But I know Nathan well enough to read his words and not his body language. Because I know he cares about my decisions, but for whatever reason, he doesn’t want me to see that.

  Sitting up, I say, “Yes.”

  “Only me?”

  “Nathan, don’t do this. Please.”

  “It’s really hard, Sparks. Olar told me you two talked,” he reveals in a tone lower than he’s been using. “I’m heartbroken over this. I thought you were further away from choosing him. But you tell him things you won’t tell me. Things we’ve argued about and you swore you’d never release. I’m second to him for you, and that’s a stab in the gut.”

  I knit my brows, considering the outcome of my confession. “My illusions were—are—something I can’t control. They scared the crap out my parents and me. Things I thought I was seeing used to be real. Like they are now. And because we didn’t have an excuse for them, they hired a psychiatrist. Dr. Phisher. She was nice. These hallucinations would pop up anywhere, Nate. It was embarrassing. The fact that no one believed me and thought I needed help made it worse. I’d be taken from this world and placed into a different reality no one else could see. People . . . did things to me and other people no one else felt. It was real; I’d swear it was real. But then I’d blink, or someone would shake me, and I’d snap back. It was scary . . . it’s still scary.” I bring his hand to my neck and lean into it. “I didn’t mean to put Roehl before you. To reveal my deepest secret to him before you. To betray you. I had no control over it. He showed me things. He does things to me. I want him in a terrible way, Nate. And I’m sorry.” Recalling what Roehl had mentioned about me being the one to kill him, I continue, asking, “Am I the one who has to kill Roehl?”

  Staggered, Nathan’s eyes bulge but they quickly sober. “Where did you get that from?”

  I look away, slighted by his questioning answer. “Answer the question.”

  “You are.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I didn’t want to.”

  “What else are you keeping from me? And why?”

  “No, Sparks.”

  “Give me something. I’ve told you.”

  “You only told me because you told him first, and now you feel bad about it.”

  “I don’t feel bad about it. But I think you should know. I decided to tell you before telling him, but our night was just so hectic, sleep was better than words. But, something just made me tell him first.”

  He nods. “The important stuff you know.”

  “And I being the one who has to kill Roehl is not important?”

  “Not right now.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you’re not going to kill him right now.”

  “Then when were you going to tell me?”

  He shrugs. “Later.”

  “Nate, stop!” I push him, only moving myself. He couldn’t get more annoying with his half-ass answers. “That’s okay, Nate. Just. Just leave. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  I stand, b
ut he pulls me back down. “No, wait. I’m an asshole. I’m sorry.” He takes a long pause and an even breath. “Thanks for telling me. I know how hard it is for you to bring it up and that it makes you beyond uncomfortable.”

  “Nathan, you have to understand where I’m coming from here. I was dropped into this world of yours.”

  “Dropped?” he grumps, offended.

  “Not dropped, I chose it. I chose to be a part of this life with you. But Nate, I have so many different changes and things going on I’m still trying to understand. With these abilities that I’m still learning how to use, your family I’m still getting used to being around, I’m finishing school and my parents on top of that. And please don’t miss understand me by thinking I’m saying my burdens are worse than yours are, because I’m not. But on top of everything else, we add Roehl. And honestly, with him, all the other disruptions I can toss aside because he takes the cake. I get that sometimes I can be the root of your frustration and I’m sorry. I’m only asking, Nathan, that you give me a little bit. I can tell you’re hiding things from me. Talk to me. Let me know what’s going on. Make this easier for the both of us.”

  He stares at me, studying my words. With a discreet nod, he says, “You’re right. I have been keeping things from you. But only because there are things I don’t want him to know.”

  “What does he have to do with me?”

  “You’ll tell him if he wants you to.”

  Oh . . . right. Like last night.

  “You’ve chosen him, Sparks. All you have to do is go to him. You’ve done so once; we have to believe that you’ll do it again.” His brows draw in, and he squeezes his eyes shut. He wipes his hand down his face to remove his distressed resolve. “I don’t want you to, and I won’t willingly let that happen. But if there are things he wants to find out from you, you will be willing to let him know. Just like with me. I told you this would happen and you promised you’d choose me, Sparks. Don’t break your promise.”

  “I don’t want this.”

  “I know.”

  “I want it to be over.”

  “I know that too.”

  “I don’t understand why we have to wait. Why can’t we take care of it, get it over with?”