by Skylar Heart
Her Undoing
Scarred Cliff 4
Skylar Heart
Her Undoing (Scarred Cliff 4)
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Copyright © 2020 SKYLAR HEART
All rights reserved. No part of this story may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without express written permission of the copyright holder.
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This book contains sexually explicit content which is suitable only for mature adults.
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Edition: 20200114
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Contents
Blurb
1. Dylan
2. Mal
3. Mia
4. Tom
5. Jake
6. Mia
7. Dylan
8. Mal
9. Mia
10. Tom
11. Jake
12. Mia
13. Dylan
Next in this series: Their Battle (Scarred Cliff 5)
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About Skylar Heart
About Easily Distracted Media
Published by Easily Distracted Media
Blurb
One girl on the run again, five broken hearts to mend.
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The anniversary of Poppy’s death is hard on everyone, but no matter how much she tries, Mia feels like she can’t stay at the coast any longer, that her being there only brings more pain to Mal, Dylan, Tom and even Jake. So, without telling anyone, she leaves, returns to the city by herself, leaving the guys behind.
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The guys are broken of heart and soul, struggling to make sense of the last week, of the last day, struggling to survive.
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In their time of need, their time of pain, new alliances are formed, new plans are made. Specifically a plan to create a place where Mia can feel loved and at home, no longer scared, and where they could all live at the same time.
But that would require that Mia returns to them, to the coast, and that turns out to be harder than expected, or is it?
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1
Dylan
I can’t believe Mia just left. Today of all days. Just... Walked out on us. After everything we went through today, it’s hard to believe and even harder to understand...
As the bus taking Mia away is driving off, Jake is holding onto Mal, both men looking devastated, gripping onto each other.
I can still see the bus go down the road. Every second, I expect it to stop and for Mia to step out, telling us that she didn’t mean to leave. But I also know that that isn’t going to happen... Somewhere, I already know that that isn’t going to happen. She’s really gone, she really left, again.
I step closer to Mal and wrap my arms around him too. The sobs wracking his body the worst I’ve felt in years, his breathing more like a wheezing.
Oh, fucking hell... Why? How?
I hide my face in Mal’s neck, maybe if I don’t look around, I’ll forget how I’m falling apart on the inside, how we’re all falling apart.
“Mia...” Mal’s voice is weak, almost a whine. “Why?”
“I don’t know.” That’s Jake, his arms around Mal tightening, but his voice is also rough.
When Mal and Jake reached the bus, and Mal pounded on the side of it, trying to get Mia’s attention, Jake had just stood there. His gaze like he somehow expected it but at the same time like he had hoped she wouldn’t do it, almost like he was disappointed in his own hopefulness that she would have stayed.
The rain starts up again, heavier now, and I know that we have to get inside, or we’ll all catch a cold on top of everything else.
“Come on.” I tug on Mal. “We need to get out of the rain.”
“I don’t want to.” Mal pulls his arm out of my hand, his voice going louder, rougher. “Why should I? What does it...” Then his eyes flit to Tom and Elly as he goes totally still, his eyes growing, and when I look at them, my heart drops.
Tom’s crying, but not just that, in his arms, Elly’s also crying, looking so confused, so sad. Oh, fuck.
We all move at the same time, Jake taking Elly in his arms, holding the girl close, as Mal and I wrap our arms around our friend. Fuck. No. I don’t often see him like this, this lost and broken, the last time I saw him like this was the day of Poppy’s funeral...
“Let’s get to the house.” Jake’s voice is quiet. “Out of the rain. And maybe it’ll make more sense.”
I nod, and this time Mal moves with me as we try to guide Tom up the muddy path.
Like it wasn’t bad enough that it’s the day we lost Poppy, or just the total pain we’re all under, but why did Mia have to leave too? Why now? Why today?
When we reached Mia’s grandma’s house, things didn’t make much more sense than before. Mia had left a note on the kitchen table, saying that Jake and Mal could stay here for a while, and that she’d be back with her parents in a couple of weeks, that they were going to sell the house. But nothing more than that, no explanation of why she left, just that Jake and Mal could stay here...
I give Mal a soft kiss on the side of his head. He’s on the bed in the back room, together with Elly. They’re curled up tightly together, their bodies sometimes shuddering from a cry. I wish I could help, but right now, I can’t do anything for them, not when I don’t know what to do myself.
Then I carefully get up and close the door to the back room behind me before I go to the kitchen. Jake is making coffee, again, and Tom is sitting at the table, his head in his hands, his whole stance stiff.
I want to wrap my arms around him, but I’m not sure that it’s a good idea right now, so I sit down in the chair next to him instead.
Tom fell apart, he really fell apart when we got back to the house, like all his energy had left him or something. And now he’s locked inside his own head, which can take a while to get out of.
“Coffee or tea?” Jake’s voice is quiet, and when I look up at him, his eyes are also full of pain, but he’s keeping himself strong, he’s trying to not fall apart like the rest of us. He’s looking after us before he lets himself express his own pain.
“Coffee, thanks.” I swallow hard, and then something breaks inside me and a sob escapes from my lips. I don’t even know where it comes from, how it was this close, but it’s there, making it hard to breathe and the tears make it hard to see. I was able to hold up so well, until now.
Tom’s arm comes around my shoulder and he pulls me close to him, holding onto me tightly, and I grab hold of him. “I know,” Tom whispers and my heart hurts even more.
No. Just, no. I can’t believe she’s gone. That she would just leave without telling us.
“I don’t...” I force the words out, but nothing more comes. I don’t want this to happen. I don’t want her to be gone. I don’t want to be here anymore, I want to go back to last weekend. I want to go back to that happy place, not this big mess.
I thought things were going okay today, that we could do this, that maybe we could survive today and tomorrow, but now I’m not so sure anymore. Now I’m not so sure that things will be okay, at least, not for all of us together anymore.
If Mia isn’t here, then Jake will leave too, and then it will just be the three of us again, maybe. But even the chance of that happening is getting slimmer and slimmer.
Mal has changed these last couple of days, something is different about him. He won’t accept to stay on the sidelines anymore, he will want his own life,
he will want something, from me, from Jake, from the person he decides to be with. And I’m not sure I can give him that.
I’m not sure I’m even the same person I was almost two weeks ago. Having Mia here, going through all of these problems, these emotions. It made me remember that I had plans, I used to have plans for my future. I wanted to do things, go places, and my life has been on hold for far too long.
And Tom... I’ve not seen him as lively in years as I’ve seen him this last week. He seemed to finally be able to see a future for himself, for him and Elly, and now that’s falling apart.
We’ve all changed, and I don’t know who we’ll become, if we can still stay here, stay here together.
“I’m not going anywhere.” Jake is suddenly next to us, and his arm around me is steady, strong. “I’m not leaving.” He’s quiet for a while. “And Mia will come back. I know that she will. She can’t...”
But we all know that she can stay away from here. She’s done it before. The question is how long she’ll stay away this time. And with her track record, that could take years, decades. Elly could be a teenager by the time she returns.
Though, somewhere, I’ve got the feeling that it won’t take that long this time. Somewhere, I’ve got the feeling that things are different this time. I just don’t know how different, or if I’ll like it.
I don’t like not knowing...
2
Mal
I can’t believe Mia is gone. I can’t believe that she would step on that bus and just leave us alone here, just walk out on us without looking back.
When I finally found her on that bus, when I could look at her, there were tears streaming down her cheeks. I didn’t feel like she wanted to do this either, like she was as pained by it as I was. But she still did it, she still left, and I don’t know why. Why did she believe that things would be better if she wasn’t here? How could she just leave? I thought we were finally getting through to her, so what changed?
“Mal.” Elly’s voice is quiet as she sits up, giving me a sloppy kiss on my cheek and I try to smile at her. “Kisses make the pain go away.”
“Thank you.” I touch her cheek softly, and the look in her eyes reminds me so much of Poppy that my tears start all over again. I don’t want to feel this pain, any of this pain, and the hangover of hell from my stupid drinking last night doesn’t really help either.
Poppy is gone, and now Mia is gone too, leaving me all alone again, leaving me without them all over again, just when I was getting used to not being alone anymore.
The door to the back room quietly opens and Tom steps inside, his eyes guarded and I don’t know what to say to him. Anything I’m feeling must be just as bad for him, or potentially even worse. How I wish I could stop his pain, but mine is already overwhelming me and I don’t know if I can help someone else when I’m like this.
He comes over, sitting on the edge of the bed, and Elly climbs on his lap.
“What’s going to happen?” My throat is all scratchy.
He slowly shakes his head. “I don’t know. I think we’re all too stunned.”
“We should...” We should go after her. We should get her back. Drive to the city and just make her come with us, because that’s better for all of us. She belongs here, at our side.
“I don’t think that’s going to work.” Tom puts his hand on my shoulder. “I don’t think we can change her mind just by showing up.” He takes a deep breath. “I don’t know how to get her back, but I feel that if we go after her right now, it won’t work. She’ll just keep running.”
I nod slowly. I already know that. If it was that easy, she wouldn’t have left. If it was that easy, she would still be with us now. If it was that easy, we wouldn’t be this broken, all of us. “Then, what?”
“I don’t know.” He squeezes my shoulder a little, his voice soft. “But I was thinking that it would be a good idea for all of us to eat something.”
I start to shake my head, but stop when I see the intense look in his eyes. I’ll only make him worry more by staying here. “Okay. I’ll get up.”
“Thanks. I’ll see what we’ve got to eat.” He stands up, taking Elly with him, who is still quiet, quieter than she normally is on this day. But I guess that all of us breaking down is probably scaring her... Poor girl. She may not understand all that’s going on, but she definitely understands that we’re all upset because Mia left, and that upsets her too.
After Tom and Elly have left the room, I sit up, my head hurting, and I’m not sure if it’s because of the hangover or from crying so much.
I don’t know why, but suddenly Poppy’s face pops in my head, the way she looked when she opened the door to let me in for dinner that day. She’d looked... not in pain, but she’d definitely looked different from normal, darker, something empty in her gaze. What went through her head when she decided to ‘go for a walk’ that night and jump off the cliff?
I wish I could reach out to her, talk to her one last time, ask her why she did it. Because every year, every time we go through these days, I get more confused about her. She was my twin sister, we were so close as kids, but as time went on, as that darkness started to settle behind her eyes, I understood her less and less.
Maybe I never understood her at all.
Maybe I never understood Mia either. Maybe this last week was her way of telling us ‘goodbye’ before she went on with her life, before she really turned her back on us. Not dead, but still gone.
I can’t...
I can’t...
I can’t breathe...
“Mal.” Dylan’s voice has an edge of panic to it as he pulls me against him. “Come on, please. Breathe. Mal.”
I tighten my hands in his shirt, never letting him go again. I can’t lose them. I can’t lose any more people. I’m done with losing the people I love. I’m so done with it. “I love you.” I can’t lose him. I can’t lose any of them.
Dylan’s hands on me stop for a moment, then he pulls me against him tighter. “I love you too.” He kisses the top of my head. “Which is why I’d like for you to keep breathing.” He nuzzles my hair and I almost smile, the affection childish somehow, like what he’d do to Elly, not to a grown man like me.
“I’m scared.”
“I know. Me too.” He moves, and suddenly he’s with his back against the wall and he’s pulled me half on his lap. “I don’t know where things will go from here on out. But I don’t want to lose you.”
“I don’t want to lose you either...” But even as I say the words, I know they’re not the whole truth, not anymore.
“Things will never go back to the way they were, will they?” His voice doesn’t sound sad, but there is something in it that I don’t want to linger on too long.
I slowly shake my head. “No.” Not after the week with Mia, or those days with Jake. Everything has changed.
“I understand.” He takes a slow breath. “I don’t think that I can go back either. Not now that I know that it can be different.” He holds me so I can’t look up at him. “Am I crazy for not wanting to go home, but wishing we could all stay here? All of us together?”
“Even with Jake?”
“Even with Jake. With you, and Tom, and Elly, and if she comes back, with Mia. All of us. Does that make me crazy?” His voice is careful and my heart fills with an emotion that’s too strong to put into words, but I shake my head as much as I can.
No. He’s not crazy. These last two weeks, last weekend, I felt the most welcome, the most loved, the most in my element, as I’ve felt in years. Maybe the last time I felt that connected to people was the last summer Mia was here. When we’re all together, I feel like I belong. I feel like this is where I’m supposed to be. No matter how crazy that sounds.
I poke at the pasta on my plate, my eyes darting to the clock in the kitchen and Dylan’s gaze darkens every time he catches it happening. It’s seven in the evening. Three years ago, we were having dinner at the exact same time. Back then, we had stew, this time
, we’re having pasta with some bolognese sauce. But I’m not hungry, I just can’t swallow anything down.
“I’m sorry.” I get up, grabbing my jacket and I slip out the door. The cold air almost freezes my lungs as I take a deep breath, but I had to get out of there. I had to get away from all the looks, from everyone looking at me.
I light a cigarette and sit down on the bench out back. I can hear the voices inside, talking quietly, but I can’t hear what they’re saying. I let my head drop back against the wall, closing my eyes as tears slide down my cheeks.
How I wish that what Dylan said could come true. How I wish that we could all just stay here, all live together, never having to worry where someone is, always knowing that we’ve got a place to call home, a place where we’re loved and welcome. But this is reality, not some fantasy world.
The door opens and voices spill out into the evening air, then it closes again. Footsteps come over, stopping in front of me, and then the cigarette is jolted slightly in my mouth.
When I open my eyes, Jake is lighting his cigarette with the end of mine, giving me a smirk as he catches me watching.
Then he stands up straight again and looks out over the vegetable garden, taking a couple of drags of his cigarette, the orange light casting shadows over his face, before he says anything. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying here.”