The Taste of Her Words

by Candace Knoebel

  She sucked in a deep breath and blew it out. The powerful whoosh pushed a strand of hair that had fallen against her cheek. She was so damn adorable. A perfect paradox of sexy and cute. Slowly, a genuine smile bloomed on her lips.

  “Mom,” Charlie shouted from his seat on the Ferris wheel. He was waving animatedly between peals of laughter while Josh leaned back and forth, rocking the cage.

  My stomach swooped as we waved back. They went higher and higher, and my stomach twisted until I had to look away. I smiled at Andy, trying to hide my fear.

  “What?” Andy said. “Oh, I get it. You still hate heights?”

  “Give me snakes and spiders. Hell, throw in the boogeyman. But not heights,” I said, focusing on the stand selling candy apples. “I’m going to go grab one for Charlie. Do you want anything?”

  She laughed a little. “No, I’m good.”

  I ambled up to the line and took my place behind the two people ahead of me. Charlie would be okay, but I hated watching. I couldn’t help them when they were that high. I couldn’t protect them.

  “You going to scoot up, asshole?” someone said from behind me. “Or does the candy scare you too?”

  It took me a second to register the person was talking to me.

  I turned, and every one of my muscles went tight.

  It was Matt.

  “You think you can fuck my girl, take my son, and hold up the line for candy apples?”

  I looked past him to Andy. She was shielding her eyes, head tilted back as she watched Charlie and Josh circle back around. Everything she’d told me about Matt surfaced when I turned to him. He looked like an egotistical prick. One of those guys who wore confidence like a trench coat to hide what he was wearing underneath.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” I asked under my breath, mind scrambling. I didn’t want Andy to know. Didn’t want to watch what should have been a fun day disappear to the hands of a psycho. “This is Andy’s time.”

  His eyes narrowed as a pulse of hatred beat between his eyebrows. “Is it now? Who are you? Daddy’s little lawyer prodigy?”

  I felt annoyance tapping me on the shoulder, telling me it was time to go. I stepped close to him, refusing to let him think he could scare me. “Look, I don’t know you and I don’t care to, but you need to leave Andy be. Trust me… it’s best for everyone.”

  He stared at me for a moment, the anger so prevalent in his features I thought he might have always looked that way. And then, like a switch, he flipped tactics. A broad, unfitting smile stretched across his face as he slapped me on the back. “Why so serious? It’s a free country, man. Figured I’d take a nice little road trip to see what my girl was doing with our boy.” He chortled. “I mean, hell, I didn’t think I’d find her lowering her standards to some chump-ass kid like you, but desperate times, I suppose.”

  There was a flash of something in his eyes. A taunting smirk I knew I should ignore. Andy had warned me about him. He was like every other manipulative psycho out there. With her case around the corner, this was the last place he should be.

  My chest tightened as every one of my muscles bunched up. “You need to leave.”

  His face hardened as his lips tried to form a smile. “Make me.”

  Andy turned, looking for me, so I grabbed Matt by the arm and pulled him around the concession stand, out of sight.

  “Just what are you trying to gain from this? You and I both know damn well that if Andy sees you here, she’s going to be upset. And that won’t work in your favor, will it? Especially now that the Hale & Thurston firm has served you,” I said, getting in his personal space.

  He cracked his neck. Fixed his face into a cold, unfeeling stare. His nostrils flared as he stepped up to me. “Screwing children like you doesn’t make her seem fit to be a parent.”

  “I’m not a child, and who she chooses to date doesn’t have anything to do with parenting.”

  A couple rounded the corner, a child wedged between them. They were excitedly chatting about the bounce houses as the little one pulled off a hunk of cotton candy and shoved it into his mouth, nodding with eyes as big as saucers.

  Matt stepped back to let them pass, putting his hands in his pockets, the anger a vanished memory from his face. Heightened screams filled the air, coming and going in waves with every gust of wind.

  Once they were out of earshot, Matt stepped back up to me. “How long have you two been screwing around?”

  I could hear it in his voice… the possessiveness. The territorial intonation between men that couldn’t be mistaken.

  He viewed her as his.

  But she was mine.

  My fingers tightened into fists. “That’s none of your damn business.”

  He rolled his eyes and leaned back on his heels, forced laughter booming from his lungs. “Man. Don’t tell me you’re going to be all gentlemanly,” he said, using air quotes. “Does she do the thing with her tongue?” His eyes rolled back in memory as my blood curdled. “Gawd damn, that was my favorite. And her ass.” He held his rounded hands out and looked down at them. “Perfectly smooth and smackable, if ya know what I mean.”

  I was trying not to take his bait. Trying to keep my fists at my sides, but they were itching to be used. I was finding it hard to see past the images of Matt and Andy.

  Hard to see past that night when Lucy was…

  “If you don’t leave—”

  “What? What are you going to do? Huff and puff and blow my house down?” Matt teased, his laughter grating like a hyena’s. He snorted, smile vanishing. “You ain’t shit.”

  “I’m done here.” I tried to move around him, but his hand found my shoulder, halting me in place. I looked down at it, and then back up at him, fire burning in my eyes.

  His smirk was wide and unmovable. “You leave when I tell you to leave.”

  I grabbed his hand and threw it away from me. “Touch me again and I’ll put your ass on the ground.” I moved into his space, enjoying the slight quiver in his gaze. “And trust me when I say you don’t want to find yourself in that situation.”

  I shouldered past him, trying to figure out a way to get Andy and Charlie out of there before Matt had a chance to get in her head, when his words stopped me in my tracks.

  “Desire is a swollen bud between my thighs. Spread me and make me bloom.”

  Those were Andy’s words. Private thoughts she said she’d only ever shared with me.

  I turned.

  “Sexy, isn’t it? The way she can give you a hard-on without ever having to touch you?” he said, shaking the very foundation I stood upon.

  I stalked over to him. “It’s true, then. You do go through her stuff?”

  Ripples of anger surged through my nerves, into my muscles, begging for release.

  He jutted his chin up. “Sure. If you call exploring her vagina and then listening to her share her thoughts going through her stuff.”

  I saw myself hitting him. Begged my fists to stay at my sides. I couldn’t let that monster back out. But I couldn’t erase the images of Lucy being forced that night by Stan either. Andy would never let Matt in that way. Not unless it was against her will.

  He was a piece of shit. Just like Stan.

  “You’re lying,” I forced through my teeth.

  “Am I?” he retorted. “Because I remember her crying about a boy she kissed one night when she was drunk and needed help with Charlie. I remember her friend asking me to take Charlie, and then Andy telling her to leave when I offered to stay and help. I remember her pulling me onto her bed and begging me to fuck her. To make it work between us for Charlie’s sake.”

  I took a step back. Every word… it was like a screwdriver jammed through my heart, his satisfied smirk twisting the handle.

  “She’s amazing when she’s drunk, you know. Completely lets go… if you know what I mean.”

  I did, because I’d been with her when she was tipsy. All I could see was her waking up, regretting what happened. Images of him pawing all
over her, taking advantage like he always had. I heard her crying, begging him to get off until her face changed and it was Lucy, screaming for help. Crying as my friend rammed himself inside her. I watched her run when I told her to. Watched myself lose it on my friend when he tried to chase after her for another round.

  I saw Andy screaming for help as Matt tried to take her.

  “Andy is mine. Soon enough, she’ll come crawling back. Especially when she realizes it’s either that or she loses Charlie.”

  My blood was white hot, fists formed into steel.

  “She may not see it yet, but I never lose. You think I didn’t know she’d eventually run to Daddy? Charlie will be mine. When he is, she’ll have no choice but to do as I say. Just as it should have always been.”

  The way he said it, as if she were mere property, and how easily he could use Charlie to force her into a corner… I saw red. I didn’t realize my fist had connected until moments later when I found myself on top of him, pounding blow after blow into his face. He was jabbing me in the side, but my anger was too high to feel anything.

  Heightened voices picked up as we rolled back and forth, fighting for dominance over the situation. He was quick and powerful, but I was quicker and more powerful. Fist after fist I slammed into him until his arms went slack and my hands were covered in blood.

  I didn’t stop. I didn’t want to.

  Not until I heard, “Dean, stop!”

  The alertness in the way she said my name plunged a knife into my stomach as my head spun.

  What the hell have I done?

  20

  T R I B U L A T I O N S

  Memories are like ripples.

  They expand with time, moving further apart until they become another version of themselves.

  A version where you and I never existed.

  CHARLIE CALLED OUT TO ME, waving, when I heard someone shouting behind me.

  I turned, trying to place the voice, and felt all the blood drain from my body as my eyes landed on what was happening.

  Dean was on top of someone I couldn’t see, his back flexed beneath his cotton shirt, pushing off a few random guys trying to pull him off whoever he pounded his fists into. Hit after hit landed on their intended mark, and it felt like the world slowed to a stop in front of me.

  A small crowd had gathered. The horrified looks on familiar faces. Parents shielding their children as they tried to get them around the scene without witnessing it. It was like the Dean I knew checked out and was replaced by a monster. Someone whose fists were like weapons and whose humanity didn’t fit. He was shouting at whoever he was hitting, telling the man to stay away from me. That he’d never let him hurt me.

  No. I took off. “Dean, stop,” I yelled as my heart threatened to leap out of my throat, my veins filled with fright.

  The moment he heard me call out to him, he froze, fist suspended in midair. It was then I realized who was underneath him—Matt. His head lolled from side to side, his face a bloody, unrecognizable mess.

  I grabbed my stomach, shaking my head. This can’t be happening. This can’t be happening.

  Dean leaned back on his knees, chest heaving up and down, and then stood. When he turned to me, the panic in his eyes was overwhelming. “Andy…”

  “Why?” It was the only word I could form.

  When his head hung, so did my heart.

  Dean was looking at his hands in shock. They were covered in blood… in Matt’s blood. “I didn’t… He was saying all these awful…” Remorse filled his eyes. “Andy, I’m sorry.”

  “Momma?” I heard Charlie say from somewhere behind me.

  The adrenaline pumping through my body sent warning bells to my brain. I turned and rushed toward him, trying to keep him away from the scene.

  One look past my shoulder, and I knew Josh had assessed everything that had happened. “Andy—”

  “Honey, I need you to do something for me,” I said to Charlie, trying to keep him from looking past me.

  “What’s wrong with Dean, Momma?” he asked, his eyebrows coming together as he tried to look past me.

  I got into his line of vision, trying to smile. “I need you to go find Gramps and get on a ride. Any ride. He’ll probably be somewhere in the main tent with all his work friends.”

  “But, Momma—”

  “Please, Charlie,” I choked out, trying my best to keep it together. “Everything is fine, okay? Just… I need you to do what I say.”

  He searched my eyes for a moment, and then nodded before disappearing into the small crowd. I took in the deepest breath I could, trying to collect myself as I stood and turned. Josh was talking to Dean, who had his eyes pinned to the ground. Two of the on-duty policemen were already pushing their way through the crowd, hands on the butt of their pistols, holsters unsnapped as Matt rolled to his side and spit blood.

  “Dean?” I said as I walked over to him.

  He looked at me, shame clouding his gaze. He opened his mouth to say something as one of the officers wrenched his arms back, putting him in cuffs, and then jostled him around to the back of the stand, away from the gawking crowd.

  As soon as they rounded the corner, I started forward, but I came to an abrupt halt when Josh caught my shoulders in a firm grip and said, “No, Andy. You’ll only make it worse.”

  I let him turn me then. Together, we watched the other officer help Matt into a sitting position while a third officer ushered the onlookers away.

  That was all Dean needed… more whispers.

  I scanned the growing crowd for our parents and spotted my dad in the main tent, deep in conversation with Mr. Thurston and what I assumed was a client.

  I didn’t want to think about what Dean’s father would do when he found out.

  Matt was covering his eye while he threw accusation after accusation at Dean. He insisted Dean attacked him, unprovoked. Told one of the officers he was just trying to talk to Dean about Charlie when Dean snapped and lost his mind. I glanced over at Josh, thinking back to the night eight years ago when he’d called me to tell me Dean had been arrested for assault on another student. No one could believe it, but Dean never denied the charges. The case was settled outside of court after my father stepped in. Dean was excused of the charges, but it was never revealed why the incident had happened.

  I knew in my gut there had to be a reason back then, just like there had to be a reason right now. Dean was good to his marrow. He wouldn’t hurt a fly without reason. But what would it mean for his future? What would it mean for my case?

  The police car rolled past, slowing to a stop, leaving Dean to the mercy of onlookers. Our eyes connected as the officer stepped out of the running car and made his way over to the other officers surrounding Matt.

  Your eyes are two tornadoes I can’t find my footing within.

  I made a move to intercept the officer and tell him it wasn’t necessary to arrest Dean, that he was a good man, but Josh snagged me by the arm again.

  “Don’t,” he warned in my ear.

  “What about Dad? He should be here, Josh. He could help.”

  “I’ll find him and make sure Charlie is distracted, okay?”

  He tried to pull me into a hug, but my heart was pounding too hard and my blood was humming in my ears as an ambulance arrived. A paramedic appeared, jogging over to where Matt was and then bending in front of him. Her mouth moved as she rattled off questions I couldn’t hear. He found my eyes as the lady opened her bag and pulled out what she needed to temporarily patch him up. When he flickered a smirk, I knew.

  He did it on purpose.

  The policeman detaining Dean in his car surveyed the scene. After a few moments, he walked over to one of the officers and said, “Looks like you have it from here. I’ll take Thurston down to the station and get him booked.”

  My skin tingled all over as my stomach turned on itself. No… they can’t take him…

  “I knew it,” I heard someone say. “That Thurston is a monster.”

 
“Angry,” someone else said. “Did you see how he laid into that guy? I didn’t think he was going to stop. He should be locked away for good.”

  Another lady across the way shook her head as her eyes followed the departing squad car.

  The world was shrinking around me, breaking into a million pieces I couldn’t make sense of anymore. We were just laughing. Just finding each other. In a blink, everything changed.

  It… it couldn’t be real.

  “Ma’am, were you a witness?” one of the male officers asked, stepping in front of me, cutting off my view.

  “What?” I felt like I was about to hurl.

  “I asked if you were a witness. If not, I’m going to need you to leave the area,” the officer continued. I glanced at his badge. Officer Heckerman.

  “She’s my girlfriend,” Matt croaked through bloodstained teeth.

  Everything inside me stilled at his words as my head whipped in his direction.

  “No, I’m not,” I said, voice trembling in anger.

  Officer Heckerman looked between us, forehead creased.

  Matt tried to shrug me off with a laugh, but ended up wincing from the pain. “We’re at odds,” he said through clenched teeth as the paramedic put a butterfly bandage over a cut on his lip. When the woman reached back into her box of first aid supplies, Matt found Heckerman’s eyes. “Women. You know how it is.”

  Heckerman chuckled, and I contemplated kicking him in the balls.

  “Rick, do you want to finish getting your statement back at the station? I need to patch up a couple more of these wounds, and then he should be good to go.” The paramedic looked back to Matt. “Unless, of course, you think you need more medical assistance. We will transport you to the hospital if so.”

  My stomach twisted over itself.

  He looked at me, knowing he had me under his power. All I could hear was my dad’s voice in the back of my head telling me not to screw up. Telling me this incident would set us back in court.