Redemption (Cambria University #2)

by Sadie T. Williams

  “Thanks, Roommate. Don’t tip her off. She may run.”

  “LOL. No, she won’t. But get there soon before she leaves.”

  “Okay. Thanks again.”

  I enter the address to the Surf Hut in my GPS. I wasn’t far off. I park the Jeep at the promenade and walk into the Surf Hut. An older tan guy is leaning on the counter. His brown dreads are tied back in a rubber band and he’s wearing a green hoodie with blue board shorts. That must be Pete. I remember Maisy telling me that he lets her use his equipment to surf because she can’t afford her own board.

  “Hey, man, I’m looking for Maisy Knight. Is she still out there?” I ask and nod toward the ocean.

  “Hey, Donovan,” he replies. “She’s down the beach. Out the door to the left.”

  “How do you know who I am?” I question.

  He smiles like I’m an idiot. Christ, what did she tell these people? “Well, Maisy has mentioned you a few times. Not many people come in here name dropping that I don’t know, and I can tell you’re not from around here. The t-shirt in fifty-degree weather is not something natives do.”

  “Fair enough.” I pause. Pete raises a pierced eyebrow at me. Since he’s helping me, I’m assuming she didn’t spill all the dirty details to him. Thank God.

  “What’s up with your face, man?” he asks. I know I look like hell. Broken nose, two black eyes, split lip. Even though it’s all healing, you can tell something got fucked up.

  “I fell,” I deadpan as I look around the shop. “Is there a board Maisy had her heart set on?”

  “She just uses whatever I have out back. This time of year she has a great selection, cuz not many tourists surf these bad boy waves in December.”

  “Right, what I mean is, is there a board here, in your shop that I can buy for her? One that she would love to own,” I ask again.

  Pete stares at me like I magically grew three heads. Apparently too much weed has slowed down his brain to an almost non-functioning level.

  “Pete, I want to buy Maisy a board. Which one?” I try to be as clear as possible.

  “She loves the JS Psycho Nitro HYFI. That black and white one in the corner.” He nods toward a board elevated above a bunch of others near the front of the store.

  “How much?” I ask.

  “Eight hundred.” I’ve never priced out surfboards before, and this isn’t something I planned, but I can’t show up empty-handed, and she clearly doesn’t like flowers.

  “Visa?”

  “Sure,” he responds, and a huge smile creeps across his face. “She’ll love that, bro.”

  “I hope so. I have a lot to make up for.” Pete just eyes me after I say that. Yup, she never told him. God, she didn’t trash talk me even though I deserved it. Now I just have to hope she’s in a forgiving mood.

  “Thanks, Pete,” I say as I grab the board and head out to the beach. I turn left and just keep walking until I see her.

  She looks like heaven, sitting in the sand reading her book. When I die this is what I hope I see – her, lying on her back in a black wetsuit clinging to her tight body. I can see every luscious curve that I’ve missed so much. Her hair is in a messy bun, which elongates her gorgeous neck. She looks radiant and serene. For a minute I think maybe I shouldn’t bother her. She looks at peace reading on this beach, and I don’t want to ruin that.

  Plus, I look like hell. Greg, our trainer, reset my nose, but it will permanently be a little crooked now. My eyes look better, they’re not swollen anymore, but they’re still yellowish from the healing bruises. My knuckles are still cracked and scabbed from the beating I gave Cale and Carl, and they kept splitting open over and over during football practice and the bowl game. Then during the bowl game I sacked their quarterback and when I hit the ground I twisted funny and dislocated my shoulder. Greg reset it on the sideline during the game, but I refused a sling or any other treatment for lack of time. I think Greg is going to be happy to see me and my stubborn ass go.

  Fuck it. I came all this way. I can’t bitch out now, even if I look hideous.

  I stab the surfboard into the sand behind her and say hello.

  “Um, hey. What are you doing here?” she says coolly in response, staring at my face. Yup, I know. It’s gruesome. “You surfing now?” She nods toward the board I’m holding upright. Her eyes are glowing against the ocean. They’re so bright blue, and the dark ring around the iris makes them pop even more against her gorgeous, flawless skin. I gaze down her body in that wetsuit and I remember how she felt in my arms, under my tongue. My eyes come back up to her face, those lips. What I wouldn’t give to taste those lips again.

  “Yeah, I heard there was an amazing instructor on this beach,” I reply, my heart is beating out of my chest.

  “Pete is pretty legit. He taught me,” she replies and gives nothing away as she keeps her emotions locked tight.

  “Yeah, I met him a few minutes ago. He said this is the board you’ve been eyeing for a long time.”

  “It is. Not surprised you can afford it,” she snaps a bit, letting a trickle of emotion sneak out. Angry, hurt, annoyed, or all of the above.

  “Well, I bought it for you. A peace offering.”

  She laughs. A deep belly laugh that sends a jolt to my groin and makes my heart beat faster. I’ve missed that sound, but this laugh isn’t joyful. It’s bitter and cynical. “I don’t need your charity just so you can make yourself feel better.”

  “Not exactly the reaction I was hoping for, Maisy.”

  “What were you hoping for, Blake?” she snaps again. I’m happy she is showing some emotion. At least if she’s mad, I know she has feelings for me, that she cares. I think for a second and I say what I should have in the alley at Holy Sip!.

  “I’m sorry, Maisy.”

  “It’s to—“ she begins but I cut her off.

  “For all of it. I’m hoping to make this right, or better, or somehow move forward, together. I'm so fucking sorry. I hate myself for what I did. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the bet. At first I wanted to win, but then after, when I realized there was no winning because you would get hurt, I was too much of a chicken shit to admit it to you. I’m sorry you got hurt. I’m sorry I built up your trust and then destroyed it. And I’m really fucking sorry about Halloween. About Sydney,” I say, spilling my heart and soul out.

  “I don’t know why I should believe you. You hurt me, and people don’t just magically change, Donovan,” she says with a sniffle as the tears well up in her eyes.

  “Because, Maisy, the difference between who I was then and who I am now, is you. I want to be someone you deserve. I love you. Let me try to be the person you deserve. I can do it. It may take time, and I may fuck it up sometimes, but I want to try. Please, let me try.”

  I finally breathe when I get all of that out. It feels good to say it. Verbalizing my feelings is so hard, but so freeing when they finally come out. My therapist would be fucking proud. The tears are rolling down my cheeks and I feel a few drops of rain hit the top of my head. The waves are crashing harder and gray clouds are rolling in over the water.

  Maisy is crying too. Tears that she was trying to hold back are overflowing from her big blue eyes. She reaches up and places her tiny hand on my cheek. Her thumb rubs over my bruised cheekbone. The feeling of her touch again is redemptive. I didn’t think we’d be here, together, again after what I did.

  “There are things I need to know,” she says.

  I nod. “I will answer whatever you want to know if we can move forward from here.”

  She nods. “Sydney. Why?” She winces at the memory and few more tears slip from her eyes.

  “I wanted to get over you. I thought maybe by acting the way I did before I met you would get me there. Boozing hard and sleeping with random girls in The Office. Turn my emotions off again. That was the old me, which I know isn’t flattering, but I thought I could be him again and stop the pain. Not the case. When you stormed in and I saw your face I was wrecked. I knew in that momen
t there was no going back for me. Then when I saw you with Logan… Fuck, I wanted to kill him.”

  She thinks about it for a minute and finally nods in acceptance. “Why did you make the bet if you were just going to quit?” she asks as she continues to rub my face, goosebumps spreading over my body from her touch. “You could have won. Why didn’t you sleep with me? You had plenty of chances.”

  “I made the bet because I’m a miserable asshole, I’m competitive, broken, and angry most of the time, so I find ways to keep myself entertained that aren’t necessarily healthy. That’s essentially what years of therapy taught me. I’m an unhappy jackhole, and I enjoyed making others feel the same way,” I reply. My Grammy always said those therapists were wrong.

  “You’re not broken, Van.” She stares at me as either a tear or a raindrop rolls down her beautiful cheek, and I reach up to wipe it away. She doesn’t flinch and she lets me touch her cheek. It feels like I’m getting somewhere.

  “I am, Maisy. I’m going to be honest, so please hear me out because this is how my fucked-up brain works, or used to work before you,” I begin and she nods. “I didn’t know you when I made that bet with Finn. You were just some girl, some prize. Like the rest. Your feelings were irrelevant and…” I pause because this is going to make me sound like a soulless monster. “I knew you would eventually find out. After I fucked you and won the bet, I had no plans to ever talk to you again. I was okay with you being hurt. Like I said, I hurt a lot of people because I thought it was fun making other people as miserable I was. I wasn’t going to care what emotional state you were in once I won. It wouldn’t have bothered me if you cried, hit me, stalked me. The more you reacted the better actually. But then you were so… you. I know I could have ‘won’ the bet, but I didn’t want our first time to be tainted. I couldn’t do it. I talked myself in and out of it so many times. I think deep down I always knew I wanted more with you, not just sex. I think I knew what we had was real. But I was too scared to admit it. Too scared you would see me completely and hate what you saw. I couldn’t win even if I won. Ya know? You bulldozed down my walls and I think you actually liked what was behind them. It freaked me out because no one, except my Grammy, has ever loved me, and I don’t know if she still would, knowing everything I’ve done.”

  “I did,” she says and moves her thumb over my cheek again. “You broke down my walls too, which is why that betrayal hurt so bad. Why do you think you’re broken?” she asks innocently. This is my moment. This is when I end it all and she becomes the one person I let in. Then, with all my cards on the table, she can choose me or she can destroy me. But either way, I will leave California having put it all out there. She could shatter me into a million pieces in the next few minutes, and I know I may never recover from that. But I have to. I have to try, for her and for me, for us. I lost her once and it was the worst time of my life. If I have to endure that again as the result of this confession, so be it. But I know Maisy’s heart. She’s pure. I don’t think she will judge me, or pity me. I think she will love me more. But if I’m wrong, fuck, I don’t want to think about what will happen if I’m wrong. If she can never look at me the same way again. Fuck it, let’s do this.

  “Can we sit?” I motion toward the sand at the base of the surfboard. She nods and we sit facing the raging waves as the storm rolls in. She places her small hand on my forearm and gently rubs it in affirmation. Why is she being so kind to me after what I did? God, I wish I had a heart like hers.

  “Remember when I told you about my parents never being around?” I close my eyes and let her touch soothe me as the anger pools in my gut again. Rage builds inside of me, and in my entire life, only Maisy has quelled it.

  “I do,” she says very calmly.

  “Well, the fighting and all that was just to get them to notice me. The more they ignored me, the worse it got, so I did something to get their attention, something I’m not proud of,” I say, trying to suppress my nerves.

  “What did you do?”

  “I just want you to know I’m not using this as an excuse for what I did to you, but this is a big part of what made me the asshole you see before you. My level of depravity is deep.” I inhale and Maisy strokes my arm again. “I was a really built kid. I definitely hit puberty early, and when I was fourteen I looked seventeen. On my fourteenth birthday, my mom had a fashion show in NYC. I was already an angry kid because my parents never cared about us except to dress us up and parade us around in front of their friends. You know, next generation of greatness bullshit. Upper East Side parents love to pretend their kids matter in front of their friends, when in reality I don’t think my mom even knew it was my birthday.” I let out a deep breath. Knowing your parents don’t give shit about is one thing, but saying it out loud fucking cuts to the core. “Anyway, our nanny was off with Mia, so I was lying in a pile of clothes in the back room, playing on my phone.” I pause to collect myself and clench my fists to dispel some of the anger that inevitably rises every time I think of Rebecca. “Well, my mom’s P.A., Rebecca, found me and started asking me questions about school and girls. You know, the usual adult bullshit.”

  “Okay…” She trails off, no doubt trying to gauge where this story is going.

  “So, I made a decision right then to fuck Rebecca, and I figured when I did my mom would finally take notice. I wasn’t a virgin anyway and I used Rebecca. Subconsciously, I knew it was wrong, but at that point my anger toward my mom was out of control. Rebecca and I fucked all the time, and every time I prayed my mom would walk in.”

  “When did it finally end?” she asks as tears are streaming down her bronze cheeks. I wipe them away with the pad of my thumb.

  “When I was sixteen and my mom finally caught us in Rebecca’s hotel room in Milan. She was dropping off a dress that needed to be steamed, had her own key to Rebecca’s suite. She walked right in on us fucking on the couch.”

  “What did she do?”

  “Nothing. Not a fucking thing. It was then I realized my mom was never going to care. I told Rebecca to piss off because I didn’t need her anymore, my plan failed.”

  “I don’t know what to say,” Maisy sniffles.

  I nod. “I realized then there was just the black hole where my heart used to be after that. The space that was supposed to be filled by a mother’s love was empty. No one really loved me, and everyone that I had around me just used me. My parents used me as a pawn to flaunt in front of their friends, Rebecca used me for sex, Mia even used me to protect her when she fucked up. Grammy really was the only one who loved me I guess,” I confess as I stare into those sapphire eyes.

  “I—” She tries again, but is at a loss for words. If I don’t say it all now, I may never, and I’m scared as hell that she’s about to send me packing back to Boston.

  “I’m not done, Maisy, I need to get this out. Please let me, because if I don’t, I will bitch out, because these emotions are raw and real and I don’t know what to do with them. I don’t usually feel anything and honestly, I’m scared,” I continue.

  “Since the day we met, it always felt like you saw right through me. You saw me not for who I was, but who I could be. It was like you saw something good in me that most don’t. I didn’t want to see it, honestly. I was acting reckless with the girls, the fighting and the partying. It was stupid. I kept telling myself that you couldn’t love someone like me because of the things I did, and so I kept doing those things to prove to myself how lousy of a human I am. I’ve been the bad guy my whole life,” I say as tears stream down my cheeks. “I’ve been mean. Hurting others, hurting myself made me feel something at least. I fought people just because I could – fuck, look at my face. I’ve broken hearts, but I never intended to break yours once I knew I had it. I thought I knew what I needed, but I was wrong because somewhere in this whole thing I fell for you. I fell in love with you. I’ve lived a better life than I deserve for the person I am. I don’t know why you were brought into my life, but you saved me, Maisy. You make me want to be b
etter.”

  “I grew up without a mother, but having a mother who doesn’t care isn’t any better,” Maisy says as she interlocks our fingers. “We’re both scarred, but that doesn’t mean we’re broken.”

  “One thing my therapist always said is that we can’t be redeemed if we never fall, if we never break. I’ve been broken my whole life, Maisy. You came into my life and put me back together. Please forgive me,” I ask as I pull our hands to my chest.

  “Van.” She cups both cheeks so I have to stare into those blue eyes as she regards my bruises. “You look like shit.” Her response makes me laugh as she flashes me a huge, bright white, toothy smile. People like us stick together, and not because we feel sorry for ourselves. But because we can save each other.

  “Yeah, well it’s been a rough couple of weeks. You swear a lot more now,” I chuckle. I don’t miss the fact she called me Van again.

  “What can I say,” she shrugs with a laugh. “You bring out the worst in me.”

  “So you’ve told me. I will love you, Maisy, forever.”

  “I love you too, Van,” she replies and presses her salty, soft lips to mine. I can feel the fire churning in my gut and spreading outward. She ignites me. I’ve never felt more alive than when I’m with her, and it feels so liberating to get everything off my chest. No. More. Secrets.

  Mine. From this day forward she will be mine. Whatever she needs, whenever she needs it. I will provide it. I will protect her, care for her, love her, until the day I die.

  Chapter 30: Maisy

  My head is spinning from Van’s plea. Let me redeem myself. Let me try to be the man you deserve. I’ll love you, forever. He didn’t need to fly to California to tell me that. He wanted to, and that means something. Do I still picture him on that mattress with Sydney? Yes, and it makes my stomach turn. Do I remember how embarrassed I felt when news of the bet broke? Yes, but listening to him talk about how he lost it on purpose means something.

  Maybe I’m naïve and being foolish, maybe I’m justifying his behavior because I want desperately to believe him. Maybe he will crush me again, or maybe this will be the start of something amazing because what we had before was pretty damn amazing. He doesn’t know what a healthy relationship is, but hell, neither do I. My whole life was screwed up since my mother left us. He grew up with absentee parents, which is almost like being abandoned. I can understand why he’s so messed up when it comes to women, or just life in general. His mother never loved him. At least I knew my dad loved me, regardless of his poor career choices.