by Elena Monroe
Oliver’s smooth voice made me smile slowly—tried but true. “What did he do this time, Layla?”
“It was me this time. I am tired of living like this… being scared to get over you, missing you so much I stopped living, having a heart attack every time I’m in the same room with you, being jealous of Jade or Addi or whoever you’re fucking. I didn’t grow a backbone for you to take it with you when you left.”
He didn’t breach the invisible boundary I had up, while I spit out every truth of how I felt for years, refusing to move on.
“That’s a real imagination you got there. I left, huh? You literally skipped classes to pack up your shit, while I wasn’t there like a coward, Layla.”
I threw my hands up in surrender, exhausted already, “You weren’t ever there, Oliver. You left me along long before I ever left you. We weren’t an ‘us’ anymore.”
His voice got louder cutting off any more words I was going to add. “Yeah, we weren’t an ‘us’ anymore, Layla. I have a fucking son. We were us and my son, but you kept pushing yourself away from me like I couldn’t love you too.”
“You proved you couldn’t, Oliver! You weren’t even sober!”
“When did I prove that, Layla? While I was fucking exhausting from getting clean, taking care of my son, forcing Jade to be a mom, ruining every ounce of progress I made with my dad after finding out he knew the whole time? I was fucking 19, Layla! Right before that, I was so terrified to lose you I let my demons bury me 6 feet under.”
“I know, Oliver! I didn’t need to be another thing you worried about!”
He stepped closer, not attempting to touch me, but certainly making a point when his lips were only inches from mine. “You weren’t something I worried about, you were the one thing I didn’t ever worry about. You were just supposed to be fucking there for me.”
He was harboring a truth I never realized—a truth that had me to blame too. My eyes became blurry again, and the anger I felt wilted away inside my heart, leaving only guilt behind. His hands were still planted by his side as he stepped forward so I was forced backwards, until I was against the wall. He put his hands flat on the wall just above my shoulders and looked down at me for one second, then two, then three… before his lips caught mine softly. I let my arms wrap around his neck, and I kept him close, while I kissed him again, only this time I wanted more of him.
I wasn’t there for him than, but I certainly felt like glue this time.
His mouth opened against mine, and I pushed my tongue against his, while I felt his hands move firmly between me and the wall. Our mouths were hungry, twisting and turning, if it meant tasting each other more. I was out of breath when we pulled away only an inch, while his hands held my face in place.
Whispering, he asked, “Can you be there for me this time? No running away?”
I wanted to say “yes,” but there was too much that still needed to be yelled between us. I shifted only my eyes down, since my face wouldn’t follow. “What about Jade and Addi?”
His hand dropped from my cheek to my hip, squeezing it once, until he found the hem of my shirt. I felt his fingers graze my skin up to my bra. I swallowed hard, waiting for him to respond. His fingers teased my nipples through the sheer fabric.
“Jade is Jade. She’s his mother. Addi has not and will not be shit to me. She isn’t even one of my students. I’ve just seen her on campus.”
He could see the overthink right behind my eyes.
Would she still live with him? Is he going to still be having sex with her? What teacher would Addi be with if it wasn’t the most attractive one Amherst offered?
The kisses against my neck made me ache even more.
“Stop overthinking, Layla. That’s all bullshit compared to us right now.”
I whimpered when the mix of his fingers pinching my nipple and his wet kisses collided at the same time. I was just as sober as Oliver, except he was my drug, and I was being tempted into falling off the wagon.
I didn’t have to feel how hard he was to know we both needed this. My hands shook against his chest, and I choked the words out that would protect me and kill my buzz.
“I can’t, Oliver. We don’t have anything figured out.”
I wanted our lives to be just as much figured out as our hearts when we finally gave in.
“What do you want, Layla? I’m here. I’ve been here, tortured, while you ran away every time I was around. You want a fight? Fine.”
Oliver paused for a moment with his brows pushed together angrily, before he stormed off and slammed the door behind him.
He went back inside the VIP room, where everyone was watching Caden play the most crucial game of his career. I took another deep breath before I followed him. I decided without thinking that I really did need to stop running away. That was the old me—the one I grew out of in college.
The room I left to escape hurting Hunter was once again filled with laughter and cheers. Liz grabbed my arm, immediately dragging me to the couch near the window, while Caden was up to bat.
“Are you and Hunter okay? He’s talking to my sister…?”
I almost laughed at her expression, which was more shocked than I had ever seen her. I giggled, leaving behind the overthinking. I nodded. “I told him it was okay. We aren’t ever going to work if I can’t let go of Oliver.”
Her mouth fell open, scanning the room for Oliver and almost breaking her neck to see him. Every Sinner chained me to my past, like I was enslaved to nothing except my past with Oliver, and anything else simply fell short of him. I was well aware of this; I didn’t need to be scolded into remembering that little fact. I twisted around too, curious, trying to quiet the noise around us so I could hear him speaking to Aspen. He always seemed so much less tortured, and part of me hated him for being so stable without me, while I had hobbled through five years, feeling damaged. How could I undoubtedly love Oliver after so much time had passed between us? Didn’t that count for so much more than my mangled heart? I knew he would put it back together, eventually.
I knew Layla wasn’t going to forget easily. She already forgave me the moment she let me pull her lip between mine, but now came the hard part. I had to prove to her she was more than some college mistake.
Shaking my head in disbelief as I glanced his direction, I located him talking to Liz’s outgoing sister, who looked like she was ready to party, not attending a baseball game. I was still trying to trace any part of her personality back to Liz at all.
Everything about the girl screamed Lolita, and Hunter was just as wrapped around her finger as Humbert. Just seeing him move on from Layla so quickly, in front of the Sinners… no, in front of me, made my fingers roll up into a tight fist. I had to pause before the cruelty came back, like riding a damn bike. My knuckles tingled with familiarity. They knew his face and wanted another chance to teach him a lesson. Third time’s a charm?
Aspen’s hand clutched by bicep with conviction I didn’t need, from someone who was supposed to be my best friend. I was standing near him, leaning against the glass. I didn’t realize my body had moved on its own. My demons were driving, a semi, right into Hunter’s disrespect for Layla.
“Not a good idea… They aren’t exclusive, bro.”
The guy pretending to be a friend of mine just called me “bro.” My fingers curled tighter, as I glared at Aspen, trying to find an ounce of the guy I knew in college, either personalities—Jekyll or Hyde. I wasn’t sure I had really ever known either.
He tried to sabotage Layla and I in college, and now he was cheering on Hunter? None of him seemed apologetic about any of it. He was so sure he was right, justified even.
“I don’t care what either of them think they are. Do you remember who you are? To me?”
Maddison excused herself from what she saw coming: an argument that should have happened five years ago—one that fueled every year of hate and kept a wedge between us.
“Don’t be Caden. We aren’t in college anymore, Ollie. Shit happens. W
e grew apart. This isn’t some Doomsday cult, where we pledge our loyalty or we’re banished.”
That was exactly what it was. Maybe not a cult, but we kept each other’s secrets hidden, even to this day. That’s what kept us close. Just because Aspen overcame his desperation for Maddison’s forgiveness and got the girl… that didn’t make him any less of a Sinner. There was plenty more buried under his fucking button-down and angelic face.
“You grew apart. You grew out of being a fucking friend when you started making judgment calls. You don’t know what’s best for Layla or me.”
He leaned into me, still clutching my bicep, keeping me planted, as his voice got lower once he scanned the room. “You don’t know what’s happened the last five years, Ollie. Just let it go. He’s been there for her, while you figured shit out.”
I stepped back taking my arm with me, out of his grasp. “Then why don’t you fill me in, since you’re such an expert. If she didn’t say, ‘I love you’ to him, then it’s fair game. He can fight his own battles.”
I scanned the room, realizing everyone’s attention was on me instead of the game. Hunter was at attention, glad to know he was capable of multitasking, defiling Liz’s little sister and taking an interest in our argument over their relationship’s validation. He stepped closer, mocking me silently, until Aspen’s hand grasped my bicep again, only tighter.
“Just let it go, Ollie. You lost this round.”
Layla stood up all of a sudden, and I couldn’t tell if it was to bolt out of the room or actually set everyone straight: that she had never gotten over me. Forcefully, I took myself out of his grasp, ready to let this get more out of hand than I intended—to let my fists do all the talking, instead of my words falling on his deaf ears. When it came to Layla, I was blind, and he was deaf—neither of us mute.
Aspen darted in front of me, pushing himself between me and Hunter. I pushed against his hands on my chest, and every second of this felt like muscle memory. I was hoping the outcome would be deja vu. Aspen huffed, squeezing his features up as he shouted, “He got her pregnant, Ollie! She had an abortion.”
“What did you say?”
I instantly thought of Arson and not being able to comprehend him possibly not being here. After she got pregnant, that was enough to haunt me every day. I wondered every day if she got rid of what was mine or he was existing somewhere with people more prepared for him. The thought of her killing what was mine made me want to throw up. Now, I was imagining Layla pregnant by Hunter.
That was a line that I never needed to draw, but there I was, with the tip of my Vans, right at that line. I had to decide quickly if that was going to change anything.
Without realizing it, I had Aspen pinned on the couch with my fists full of the fabric of his polo and me leaning over him ready to snap with this new information circling my head. I heard Layla’s voice through the rage consuming me.
“Oliver! Get off him. None of this is his fault.”
I pushed him away, stumbling to the other side of the couch, trying to regain my sanity. When it came to Hunter, it had been a battle since I discovered who he was. I stood up, grabbing Layla’s arm and forcefully pulling her with me to the hallway for privacy that Aspen nor the Sinners were providing. I slammed the door behind us and nearly dragged her away from the door towards the exit to the alleyway we all used earlier. I wasn’t chancing any more interruptions. I was painfully aware of the importance of locks now, having a toddler, who already caught Jade and I in compromising positions that we had to find creative excuses for.
She bit her lip, shifting uncomfortably, waiting for the lash of cruelty. She knew me well enough to know when I was angry I reacted in the same destructive way. The only cure for the cruelty? My son, Arson. He could murder someone, and I would probably let him get away with it. I could want to yell, and his innocence would snuff out every negative feeling, replacing it with the weight of his love.
“I’m gonna ask you one more time. Do you love him?”
I couldn’t even stomach to say his name out loud. I watched the tears finally fall from her lashes down her still pale, glowing skin.
“I don’t know. I don’t know, Oliver. He’s not you, and we aren’t us. I don’t know what that means. We aren’t even a couple.”
I paced the length of the alleyway a few times, before I stopped, leaning into her, while I contemplated what all this meant. It’s not like I held out hope five years later, but I certainly didn’t go into Boston this often for my friends. I always knew I went for her, even a glimpse before she’d run away. I could have texted or called, but I gave into the space she seemed to want, while I figured out how to parent. I could have not fucked Jade when I needed relief. That was simply out of accessibility. Every time a girl flirted with me because her desire pushed her to, I compared everything to Layla. She didn’t have her big blue eyes. She wasn’t shy enough. She didn’t choose to call me Oliver, when everyone called me Ollie instead. No one was Layla, and I was painfully aware of that fact.
I examined her answer, and I knew she was being honest. I wanted to tell her I didn’t have anything figured out either. I couldn’t. Hunter got her pregnant. It was eating away at me in a way I couldn’t rationalize.
“Is it true?”
She was no longer silently crying. She was sobbing with her cheeks wet, and I was the asshole too scared to get closer, because that would mean something I wasn’t ready to accept. She was his now.
“We were both drunk, and I wasn’t on the pill yet. It just happened. I’m so sorry.”
I knew why she was apologizing, even though she shouldn’t. I apologized to Layla when I found out Jade really did have our baby. I didn’t apologize for having a son, but for it all happening before I met her.
My voice was cold—the opposite of comforting. “When did it happen?”
“Two years ago. The first Red Sox game Caden played. The first time I had seen you in years. I drank too much out of nerves, and…”
My mind raced back to two years ago, his first game as a pro, searching for any clues. She rarely came to anything without Hunter to begin with, as her shield of choice. I remembered her drinking too much. She was already tipsy by the time I got there. She was slightly swaying and stoic in a way that wasn’t her, not one bit. I even remembered bumping into her in the hallway alone when she was looking for the bathroom…
Panic crashed over me, realizing something she didn’t.
It wasn’t Hunter who had gotten her pregnant.
We had sex that day, in a bathroom. She didn’t remember, and I barely did.
I slumped down, letting my weight fall to my knees, sinking in, and letting myself remember if we finished or when I saw her next. Anything to point to her aborting Hunter’s offspring and not mine.
I shot up off the wall again, pacing, and not sure what to do with my hands that ached for the intensity of fists.
“How? When exactly? After the game or during? Be specific.”
I could see her eyebrows crinkle up in a questioning tone. “I told you… at the game, in the bathroom.”
I leaned against the railing and pulled out a cigarette before letting my upper half almost fold over in sickness. She confirmed we had sex without knowing it. It was our lonely hearts or desperate minds making this up. She walked over to me leaning against the railing facing the opposite direction as I flicked ashes onto the abused walkway. The skyline was twinkling, and my stay in Boston was just as fleeting. The sun would come up, and all the sparkle would fade into the weight of reality. I had a son and classes to teach… and a
life that didn’t include Layla.
“You were drunk. Do you remember anything about it?”
She sighed. “Oliver. You don’t need to hear that. What happens between Hunter and I stays between him and I.”
I took a step to my right, letting my hands box her in against the railing. I stared into her, hoping she’d get it without me having to spell it out. She bit her lip in a way I knew
I was affecting her.
“I need you to think really hard. Stop suppressing me.”
She swallowed hard, and her expression was so much longing it was borderline depressing. I wasn’t even sure it was mine; it could have been his, easily. That wasn’t making the storm inside my stomach feel any better. I leaned into her, letting my forehead touch hers.
“We… I... it wasn’t Hunter, Layla. We were both drunk and horny and lonely. It was me that pulled you into the bathroom.”
She didn’t say anything for a moment. She just stood there, blinking rapidly, as the comprehension of my words began to absorb. She made a strange yelping sound that got caught in her throat, just before I felt her push me away. Even though I barely moved, it created enough space for her to slap me in one swift motion.
“You fucked me in some bathroom and disappeared… like normal? It doesn’t change anything, Oliver! I may have left you, but you stayed away so expertly half the time that I felt widowed. Hate him all you want. Hunter loved me when I couldn’t even love him back. You broke me.”
I dragged the cigarette to my lips, inhaling anything but her poisonous words that slapped across my face. She bolted down the alleyway without waiting for me to even fight back, not that I had anything to say. My mind reeled, my stomach felt violently ill, and my heart felt more broken in this singular moment than in the past five years.
My well of emotions was no longer dry, and I was quickly overfilling with the hard ones. My vision blurred behind a thick coating of tears that mocked my tough act, and my hand made a crisp fist defiantly. A swift hit to the concrete wall dropped me somewhere in the middle of emotional and a bitch, crying alone in an alleyway. I felt the momentum move up my hand in a sharp sensation only I knew as going too far. I broke more than hearts this time; the wrecking ball had broken me instead.