The Bad Boy’s Heart

by Holden, Blair

  “Tessa, honey, we know that you two aren’t together anymore, but could you…” Cassandra’s eyes tear up midsentence, and my heart breaks. Just like my family and friends witnessed my meltdown, Cole’s family must have seen his, too. I now know how much that can hurt the people around you, and clearly, it’s hurting Cole’s family.

  “I’d like to talk to him.”

  The sheriff gets up and does something completely out of character. He hugs me, and it’s as awkward as can be, yet strangely comforting. “Help him, Tessa; just help him.”

  I rush up the stairs to his room, blinking tears away. I’m in such a hurry that I ignore the loud voices coming from Jay’s room. He’s arguing with her. She’s still here, in extremely close proximity to me, and if weren’t for Cole, I would definitely let my fists have a conversation with her.

  He’s passed out on his bed when I enter, but the irregular rise and fall of his chest tells me that he isn’t asleep. If he realizes that someone else is in the room, he doesn’t show it. I cross the distance to him silently and sit at the edge of his bed. One look at him and my heart breaks all over again. His cheeks look sunken, his face lifeless and devoid of color. There are purple-colored bruises beneath his eyes, and his jaw is scruffy; no matter how many times I see him like this, it still rips my heart into two.

  “Hey,” I whisper and immediately feel him tense.

  He’s definitely awake.

  “You don’t have to talk to me; just listen to what I have to say, okay?”

  No answer, but he squeezes his eyes shut even more.

  “This isn’t you. Whatever happened between us…well, it happened, and I can’t change that. I spent a month wallowing, and it got me nowhere. All it did was hurt the people around me. We can’t do that to them just because of how messed up things between us are. Drinking like this, not caring how much it’s killing your parents…Cole, you are not this person. Please stop, I can’t…”

  My sobs don’t allow me to complete the speech I had planned. One minute I’m lecturing him and trying to remember what the school nurse told us about underage drinking, and the next minute, I burst like the freaking Fort Peck Dam. Any sound that then comes out of my mouth is like something akin to a dying cat.

  In a split second, Cole is up and has his arms around me. I clutch his shoulders and cry into his shirt, which reeks of booze. He rubs up and down my back, trying to calm me down, but all I can think about is how bad he looked when Jay carried him in.

  “Please don’t cry, Tessie, please.” His voice is raspy from lack of use, and it makes me cry even harder.

  Everything is so different between us. It’s like all those little things that made us us have died a painful, merciless death. And it’s all the fault of a person who is within killing distance.

  I wonder if the sheriff will vouch for me if I commit manslaughter in his house.

  “You can’t do that anymore! You nearly killed me today; don’t disappear like that, ever, and promise me you’ll stop drinking so much.” I hit his shoulder, and it’s so familiar and easy that I want to wring his neck for destroying what we once had.

  “You care?” His voice is gruff. “I thought you decided you wanted nothing to do with me.”

  The pain in his voice basically claws my heart out of my ribcage, leaving a bloody, tattered mess behind. “Cole, do you have any idea how much you hurt me?” My voice is a little louder than a whisper. “You broke my heart. The least you could do is expect that I’d resent you for it.”

  He winces.

  “Do you? Do you still resent me? Hate me?”

  Sighing, I look into his eyes and see the hope brimming in them. It’s like everything depends on what I choose to say next. No pressure or anything.

  “I’m confused. On one hand, I’ve had the time to think about it and realize that maybe both of us made a lot of mistakes that day. It was a whole chain of catastrophes waiting to happen. On the other hand…there’s her, and she’s here. You brought her here, and I don’t know what to think anymore.”

  “But you’re not outright saying that you hate me?”

  I groan. “Did that seem like the only important part? Tell me you’ll do better; tell me you won’t drink.”

  “You want me to get sober?”

  “Yes!” I say exasperatedly, throwing my hands up in frustration.

  “Then give me another chance.”

  I stare open-mouthed at him, watching some of his old spark and determination return. It’s like magic, how he immediately starts looking better. But, dear lord in heaven, is he trying to negotiate our relationship here?

  “Excuse me? We are not making a deal here! We’re talking about you cutting your life short by becoming a raging alcoholic and…and I won’t let you do that!”

  “So, trust me again, let me prove to you that I made a mistake, and I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to you.”

  “She’s in your freaking house, and she brought you home! What kind of an idiot do you take me for?” I nearly scream at him, getting up from the bed and pushing myself against a wall.

  “It’s not what you think!” He struggles to get up, and it looks like he feels dizzy. Groaning, he falls back into his bed. “Lan told me about what he said to you; he told me about Erica…”

  “Did he tell you that she’s crazy and spends her free time sacrificing animals at the shrine she’s dedicated to you?” I huff and Cole seriously looks at me like I’m deranged.

  Great, make me the lunatic here.

  “I found out about her…problems, and I left to see her, ask her about what really happened that day. It was weird that she was staying in town, but I didn’t make a big deal out of it. When I went to her hotel, she started crying and getting all grabby. Apparently, she’s had a change of heart and doesn’t want to lose me as a friend.”

  “That a pile of crap and you know it.”

  “I do now. I tried asking her to tell me everything about the night. I was stupid back when I accepted her explanation that day. It just felt like I’d done something wrong, and when I asked her to tell me the truth, she just broke down. She became hysterical, and I didn’t know what do to.”

  “You send her to get some professional help and therapy.”

  “Yeah, well, in this case, I had some tequila in hand, and I thought she needed to loosen up a little. Probably should’ve gone to see her when I had more alcohol in my body than water.”

  “But how did she end up being the one who brought you home?”

  That’s when he looks at me sheepishly. “I might have finished my first bottle before she even had a shot.”

  I want to ram his head into the wall repeatedly. “Did you learn nothing from what happened last time? Do you realize the things she could’ve done to you? I…I don’t get you!”

  “Well, what was I supposed to do? Jay was all over you at graduation today, and you wouldn’t even look at me. I wasn’t thinking straight.”

  “Oh, great, it’s that excuse again. You never think straight, do you? Even after everything that’s happened, you say it like it’s my fault. Jay is my friend, Cole, my friend. Unlike you, I know where to draw the line with them.”

  That’s a low blow, but he deserves it.

  “I’m sorry; I know I should stop bringing him up, but it hurts, okay? I hate seeing him with you.”

  “Well, then imagine what it felt like to see you with Erica, today and that day, too. And you acted like I was being paranoid. Then you go ahead and do the thing I feared most. I was right, Cole; I was right and you, on the other hand, don’t have any proof to base your insecurities on.”

  “I told you that I will apologize to you every day for the rest of my life for what I said, for what I did. Just please, don’t leave me. I love you, Tessie; damn it, I can’t lose you. Not when I just got you.”

  I slump down to the ground and practice my breathing. It would be really easy to say yes, to tell him that I would give him a second chance. It would be even easi
er to believe that Erica somehow tricked us all. But would that make me a fool? The fact is that I love him, and I’ll always love him. Remember what they say about your first love? Well, they’re right; you’ll never forget that person. I know that Cole is engraved onto my heart and in my memories forever.

  So, is it worth my pride and trust issues to suffer that kind of a loss?

  “I’m leaving with Megan and Beth tomorrow, you know? I won’t be back for a while, and even when I do come back, I’ll be off to college. How do we even…”

  “What if I tell you that I applied to Brown, too?”

  I gasp and check to see if he’s joking. My heart’s doing these weird flip-flops, and I’m tingling all over. What the…

  “B-but Duke. You were going to Duke; you had scouts come to the games and everything. How…why?”

  “I applied before everything blew up. It was always the plan, Tessie; Duke was never an option. I managed to get an athletic scholarship there, a better one, actually.”

  “And now you assume that we’re…Cole, there’s so much wrong with this situation. It’s like we’re sweeping all our problems under a rug and just deciding to move on.”

  “Then let’s not do that. Let’s talk about it; let’s figure out what to do next together. We always planned a summer road trip, all of us. Let me come with you.”

  My head starts to spin at the possibility. Yes, we’d made plans, and the boys were included in them. But after what went down, those plans changed drastically. The whole dynamic was disturbed, and bringing boyfriends wasn’t an option.

  “It would be so awkward.” I breathe. “Can you imagine how weird things would be between us?”

  I couldn’t believe we were even having this conversation.

  “C’mere.”

  Hesitantly, I walk toward him on the bed and sit close. He gingerly touches my cheeks, his thumb grazing my bottom lip. It feels like heaven, especially considering how long it’s been since we were like this.

  “We can go back to who we were; maybe we could even come out of this stronger. Don’t give up on us so easily, baby.”

  “But Erica…I can’t…how do I deal with that?”

  He sighs, shoulders sagging in defeat. “I don’t know what I can do about that except apologize and maybe try to remember what happened that night. I know something’s off…the way she’s acting now. If it helps, I won’t try to come on to you until I’m sure of what happened.”

  “Do you seriously want to come with me? I’ll probably be very mean to you at times.”

  The corner of his mouth lifts in a small smile. “I wouldn’t expect anything less. I’m willing to risk castration as long as I’m around you.”

  How do you say no words as sweet as that?

  Chapter Four: Screw Lemon Sherbet, Ice Cream Is the Magic Word

  “Hey.”

  Everybody talks about that feeling when you tilt a chair too far back. You know that split-second fall in the pit of your stomach that is a culmination of all your nerves? Yes, well, the feeling of someone addressing my butt as I lean in to the trunk of my car is somewhat similar.

  With a yelp, I whip around and nearly jam my elbow into Cole’s eye. He has the good sense to back away before I injure him seriously. Glaring at him, I try not to show how badly my pulse is racing just knowing that he’s here. Nope, I’d sooner sentence myself to the grave than give him that kind of satisfaction.

  “Is it that difficult to wait until I turn around to scare the living daylights out of me?”

  He grins sheepishly, “Well, I didn’t mind the view, but I thought you wouldn’t want me appreciating your…”

  I turn red almost immediately. “Whoa there, Stone, boundaries.”

  He immediately becomes somber, and I kick myself for feeling bad about it. It’s not like I promised him that we could go back to what we were. There’s still an ocean worth of issues between us, and for him to fall so easily back into our old pattern is unnerving. We’re not on equal footing here, not by a long shot. But, as I open my mouth to lecture him on our situation, I’m reminded of why he’s going with us on the trip. I’m doing this for his family, for him. There’s no one who understands better what alcohol can do to both a person and a family. Travis sought it after everything that went on at college and with his ex. For nearly two years, he was almost nonexistent. I couldn’t see Cole going down the same path. So, if I have to suck it up and risk my heart getting broken all over again, then so be it.

  He shoves his hands into his pockets and kicks a pebble, almost like a child. “Sorry. Sometimes when you look at me like that, it’s easy to forget what things are like now.”

  I blink a couple of times and then tear my eyes away from him. Breathing raggedly, I stumble away from him and let his words wash all over me. How do I look at him? Do I still look at him like he’s the center of my universe, or, well, if we’re being honest, like he is my entire universe? The feelings are so instilled in me and feel so second nature that they might possibly be pouring out of me without me even realizing.

  Wonderful, just so damn wonderful.

  I clear my throat and point to the duffel bag slung on his shoulder. “You want to put that in the trunk?”

  He nods and proceeds to do so, along with dragging all my luggage to the car with ease, and, let me tell you, my suitcase may or may not weigh as much as a baby elephant. I try resisting the temptation to watch his muscles flex as he does the heavy lifting, but my eyes are glued to him and he knows it. There’s a smirk forming on his face, the sneaky little douche nozzle.

  “Well, if he keeps that up, I’m not sure you’ll be able to keep your hands off of him for long.”

  I jump at the sound of Beth’s voice. She’s standing over my shoulder, studying Cole’s movements as closely as I was. Does she not have a boyfriend, a boyfriend who’s my brother?

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I’m talking about how you were looking at Cole like you wanted to rip the clothes right off him.”

  “You’re wrong,” I say flippantly and push past her to go inside the house. Travis is staying here since he needs to catch up on his online college courses in order to go back to “real” school in the fall. I did the groceries, and there are enough frozen meals in the fridge to save him from starving to death, but I need to check. Dad doesn’t come home a lot, just checks in once or twice during the week, and my mother is too busy going through a midlife crisis to care. Beth’s going with us, which means that my brother will be on his own for a while.

  It scares me.

  “All I’m saying is that if you want to try being in a relationship with him again, you shouldn’t hold yourself back.”

  Beth follows me into the kitchen as I check the fridge and the pantry. Once I’m sure that Travis won’t go without food for at least a year, I turn to her.

  “I’m not holding myself back. It’s not even about Erica anymore, Beth. I get it, I understand mistakes, and I think I’ve come to terms with it and know why he did what he did, but…”

  “But what? Why can’t you just give him a second chance? Don’t you think he deserves at least that? The guy changed your world and that, too, for the better. He made you so happy. Isn’t that worth anything?”

  Of course it is. She’s right; he did change my world and made everything better. But what she doesn’t realize is that there’s something so terrifying about loving a person like that. Because when you do fall for them, you fall with your entire entirety. Every single fiber of you is addicted to simply the presence of them; you would do anything for them, even stay when you know they could tear you apart with the flick of a wrist.

  That’s what the most terrifying part is. It’s knowing that someone has that kind of power over you and jumping headfirst into the relationship anyway. The month I spent away from him, drowning in my misery and not caring about anything but my own broken heart, isn’t something I ever look forward to doing again. But something tells me that if
Cole and I were to get back together, there would always, always be something that could send both of us spiraling back to what we just went through. The crux of it all is that I am a big, fat coward and don’t want to do anything to fix that.

  ***

  We both watch Cole from the kitchen window as he leans against my Jeep and stares into the distance. He looks better already than the last time I saw him, but the guilt is gnawing at my insides. He has a different idea of what could happen between us than I do. What I want is to end the summer and go to college unscathed, but something tells me he won’t allow that. He’s following me to the same college, for Christ’s sake. Does that sound like someone willing to let go?

  An arm comes across my shoulder, and Travis squeezes me to his side. “She can do whatever she wants, no pressure, Tess.”

  He must have come from the back entrance, having gone out earlier to run some errands. I sink into him and nod into his shoulder. “Thank you,” I whisper.

  “I’ve talked to him. He knows not to expect anything and just see where things go. You don’t have to feel obligated to go back into a relationship with him. That’s not the way to fix your problems.”

  I breathe a sigh of relief, thanking my lucky stars that I won’t have to have that conversation with Cole now. Times like these make me grateful that my brother can be so dang protective. It helps when I choose to be a wuss, so you won’t hear me complaining.

  Soon it’s time to leave. Our first stop is New York, where a friend of the family has an empty apartment for the summer. It’s only a three-and-a-half-hour drive, so we leave relatively late. I’ve been to New York before with my family, but it’s always been those stuffy trips with ritzy hotels and ten p.m. bedtimes. Obviously, I’m excited, especially knowing that I’ll be in the city that never sleeps, without my parents and, more importantly, with my best friends.

  And Cole.

  Alex is coming along, too, so it’s no longer a girls-only trip. We invited Lan, too, but he said he’d meet us in the city rather than drive all the way there. Actually, what he specifically said was that he couldn’t stand being around that kind of sexual tension. I’d nearly died of embarrassment when his eyes narrowed between Cole and me, a smug grin on his face.