Frosty Blues: A Westbrook Blues Novella

by Thandiwe Mpofu

  I’ll start by not touching her the way I did in that shower, ever again.

  That was the first time I got a taste of her exquisite come and it was also the last fucking time.

  I’ll just pretend like one taste didn’t just make me the most dangerous and angry addict for her.

  It’ll be just fine. Yeah.

  “Ho, ho, ho, Kim Possible.”

  I can’t sleep.

  Kim’s nowhere to be found. I’m all alone in this big room and now, my mind is playing its cruel tricks on me, bringing back my past with a vengeance reminding me of my inadequacies.

  I toss and turn for a while, hoping that Kim will pop in. I was never one to go to slumber parties, declining every invite because well, not only do I talk in my sleep, apparently, according to Gran and my brother, I fight.

  Scratching, clawing my own body, as if I’m fighting shadows.

  It was so bad when I was younger, but it got better when I chose to embrace my insomnia.

  The insomnia helped a lot. I threw myself into studying just so I could catch up with my class because of my… learning disabilities.

  Raea and Kim think I’m a drama queen and an overachiever, they don’t know that I have to stay on top or I’ll be exposed for the stupid fraud I am that can’t do simple math on the fly like an average student. What business do I have to get into med school when I’m a mess like this?

  I’m fully aware that I don’t deserve it. My own mother didn’t want me. My father is some guy my brother doesn’t want me to know.

  I’ve been hiding my issues all my life and now, not only am I sleeping in an unfamiliar bed—albeit the most comfortable bed I’ve ever slept in—I’m also sleeping a door down from where my childhood crush is sleeping.

  Relax bitch, he still doesn’t see you that way.

  Sighing, I give up on sleeping and get up.

  Flipping the light on, I grab my bag and take out my medical journal I stole from the library before we closed for the break.

  It doesn’t matter that I’ve read this one twice, I still need to read it at least five more times, not just because I understand things a bit slower but because this one is about Congenital Heart disease.

  To say I’m fascinated in this particular field of medicine would be the biggest understatement of the century. I’m a glutton for punishment for it. Ever since I found out that Emmett had it when we were eight years old.

  Of course, I knew about his irregular heartbeats from the day we met, but back then, I was too stupid and too naïve that I actually told myself that his heartbeats were like that because he had a crush on me.

  And God did I fall in love with that fantasy.

  I fell in love with a lie built on fantasies created by fairytales and novels, talking about ‘his heart skipped a beat’. Well, Emmett’s heart constantly skips beats not because he cares for me. He’s too detached and in love with Astraea to notice anyone else.

  So why are you wasting your time learning everything there is to know for someone who won’t see you as anything more than his friend’s little shy, innocent, naïve sister?

  Sighing, I put the book aside unable to concentrate, too tense to relax.

  Besides, I already know about the dangers of heart failure and the fact that if he exerts himself, pushing himself like he has a death wish ready, his heart will give out.

  A part of me believes that Emmett does have a death wish.

  I wouldn’t go so far as to say he’s suicidal, no, but I doubt he’d move out of the way if a Mack Truck was heading straight for him.

  I feel sick to my stomach at the thought.

  My palms grow sweaty, my breaths short and labored. Why do I always think about death when I think of Emmett? It’s not fair when he shows nothing but life. Too much life, if that’s a thing.

  I get up and leave the room, deciding to grab a glass of milk or water from the large, state-of-the-art kitchen that blends well with the décor of this freakishly amazing cabin.

  Since we arrived, I’m pretty sure I’m the only one who’s been walking around in a daze, eyes wide, taking in the splendor of this place. Everyone else… well, there’s a lot I don’t know about this group of friends.

  Leaving the door open, I make my way down the hall barefoot, dressed in my boy shorts and skimpy top, aware of the silence in the house. Everyone must be asleep. Good. I hope Kim is safe wherever she is.

  Tentatively, I feel my way into the kitchen, relying on my sketchy memory of the place to guide me.

  It’s dark, but I stumble my way around, guided by the low hum of the fridge. Listening closely, I reach out and grab the counter, then trace my way there.

  Where is that cabinet with the glasses?

  If I can get a glass of milk, I’ll settle down and maybe soothe my racing mind and my aching heart.

  Heading for the fridge, I open it slightly, and it illuminates a bit of the large kitchen.

  Sighing with a bit of relief, I turn around and look for the glasses.

  I hate the dark, but I don’t want to switch the light on, but still, I can’t shake this feeling like I’m being watched.

  But then I’ve always had an overactive imagination, so I brush it off, trace the cupboard with glasses and grab one with a relieved sigh.

  “If you get used to the dark, you can live in it,” I whisper to myself.

  “Is that so?” a deep, sensual voice says from behind me, freezing my blood. “Then I’ve been surviving just fine.”

  Turning around with my heart pounding wildly in my chest, ready to let out a blood-curdling scream, I see a large, hooded figure standing there in front of the open fridge, watching me.

  The glass drops from my hand, and shatters on the tiled floor with a deafening sound amplified by the fear in my chest as I stare at the hooded figure… a figure that looks so much like one of the shadows I fight in my nightmares.

  “Ivy, don’t move,” the hooded figure says, his voice deep as he strides in my direction, but I jump, my flight-fight response kicking in.

  There’s an intruder in the house and he knows my name! Oh God!

  Frantic, I look around for something, a knife, but the knife block is all the way across the kitchen. The pans on top of the gas range. Yes! I can grab those.

  In my terror and rush to defend myself, I totally miss the shards of glass on the floor and step on them fully. With both feet.

  “Ah!” I wince in pain.

  “Shit,” the hooded figure says and rushes for me.

  “Stay away from me! I’ll scream bloody murder!” I seethe, tears running down my cheeks as my life flashes in front of my eyes. The sad part is, I haven’t lived much! I haven’t done much with this life, pining away over a guy I might not see again because this asshole is about to…

  “Ivy, it’s me!” the guy says softly. Then the kitchen is flooded with light. Breathing hard and fast, I stare into Emmett’s frantic gaze filled with concern. “Calm down, it’s me.”

  “You!” I splutter, my heart racing anew. “What… what the hell are you doing scaring me half to death?!”

  He raises his hands in surrender, walking closer to me. “I’m sorry, Angel, I thought you saw me.”

  “Saw you? In the freaking dark?”

  “You seem to do well in the dark.”

  Silence.

  I stare at him, at a loss for words. He has no idea how true those words are. I’ve hidden in the darkness for years. Or maybe he does.

  “Are you okay?” Emmett questions, his voice soft and low. Almost intimate.

  I stare at his handsome face, the longer I stare the more I grow numb, almost desensitized to the pain in my heart because of him. He’s dressed in a black hoodie, with the sleeves rolled up and gray sweatpants with black socks.

  “Ivy?” he mutters softly.

  “Uh, oh yes, I’m fine,” I mutter. Totally not fine, but he doesn’t need to know that.

  “Really?” he says, moving around the kitchen, giving me his back. I frown
at him, wondering what he’s doing. He opens some doors, searching for something, then opens a drawer and takes out a… first-aid kit.

  It’s then that my stupid, horny, foggy brain catches up with my pain. I’m freaking bleeding, but that pales in comparison to Emmett Easton in gray sweatpants! Jesus Christ have mercy on me.

  “Ah shit,” I whisper harshly, tears welling in my eyes. That hurt so bad and my tolerance for pain is nonexistent. “Oh God.”

  “Hold still, Ivy,” he whispers in a rush.

  “No, Emmett, don’t step on the…” He ignores me and in one move he has me in his arms.

  Heart fucking stop beating.

  He picks me up like I weigh as much as a pillow form Target. Jesus.

  “Still sleepwalking, huh?” he murmurs, eyes narrowed at me and me… I die and come alive all at the same time.

  Get a grip, he did this.

  “I stopped that ages ago,” I whisper. How on earth does he still remember that about me? “I told you not to step on the glass, are you okay?”

  “Shh, Angel,” he mutters, placing me down on the counter. He steps between my legs, looking into my eyes. “You care so much for other people, but don’t care for yourself, it’s stupid.”

  The tone of his voice takes me by surprise.

  He looks calm, impassive even, but his tone, it’s harsh and pissed. His green eyes are now stormy and a bit hostile as they look at me, piercing everything I’m not with a single look. My breath catches.

  “I’d say the same about you,” I whisper.

  “This has nothing to do with me,” he says in a surly voice, making my heart pound.

  Guess we’re back to indifferent Emmett.

  He takes my foot in his hand with a gentleness that betrays the restrained fury in him. “We need to wash some of these glass pieces out.”

  Before I can protest and tell him I can take care of myself without his attitude, he picks me back up into his arms bridal style, pulling me closer to his body than before and then he waits, staring down at me with an unreadable gaze.

  “What?” I say with a frown. “You know, your mood swings are getting old, Emmett.”

  “Guess I have to switch it up a notch, wouldn’t want you to get bored now, Angel, would I?” he says, his voice oozing with sex appeal that makes me shiver. He smirks. “Grab the kit, clumsy.”

  Of course. The kit. Damn, the full force of Emmett’s gaze on me…

  I grab the first-aid kit, hugging the box to me and then we’re out of the kitchen. He takes me upstairs, straight to his room. Before I can say a word, he passes through and pushes another door, leading straight into… what?

  “Are we sharing this bathroom?” I whisper, shocked. Why didn’t I notice the other door before?

  “You didn’t notice?” he murmurs, a ghost of a smile on his face.

  No, I did not. Damn, Raea is good.

  “Guess not,” I mutter. “Where’s Noah and Kim?”

  “The latter is sleeping in the den, in front of the fireplace and Noah, well, he’s probably drowning his problems at the bottom of a bottle in front of the lake outside.”

  Poor Noah. He wasn’t at dinner and Kim didn’t eat a thing, a haunted look in her eyes.

  Emmett places me down on the garden tub, then he’s moving around the bathroom as I try to catch my breath.

  Then he’s kneeling in front of me.

  Hear that? That’s the sound of my imagination riding Santa’s sleigh all the way to hell.

  The next thing I know, he has my feet running under warm water, washing out the glass with an intent look on his face. I dare not breath, savoring his touch for as long as I can.

  “These are superficial cuts. I can take care of this myself,” I murmur, disgruntled by the silence.

  “It’s my fault. I scared you.”

  “Yeah, you did, but still, I can take it from here.”

  He ignores me of course, grabbing my other foot. Just as I suspected, both feet aren’t bleeding as much, the damage as superficial as I thought.

  He takes out some antibiotic ointment and dabs my cuts with it, then bandages my feet with fluid, efficient movements.

  “Where did you learn to do this?” I whisper, impressed. I can’t wrap a bandage that smoothly.

  “Well after the last time I sat in my bathroom, bleeding in front of you, watching you helplessly as you tended to my cuts with a devastated look that I could do nothing about,” he says, looking into my eyes. I suck in another sharp breath, taken by surprise when I see the raw whirlwind of emotions in his eyes. I remember the night he’s talking about. When he and Alex fought over Raea at Alex’s house party a few years ago. “I couldn’t bear you looking at me like that, so disappointed, so utterly speechless and gutted over my recklessness…”

  “Emmett…” I croak, brokenly.

  “So, I decided to learn,” he says with a careless shrug.

  I want to reach up and touch him, but I’m afraid my touch might not be welcome. “It was nothing.”

  “It wasn’t nothing and you know it,” he snaps, unhappily.

  “But I’d do it again,” I rush to say, not wanting him to pull away as I fear he wants to. “I’d take care of you anytime, Emmett.”

  He silently reaches up for me, palms my cheek in his large, calloused palm. “There you go again, thinking of everyone else but yourself.”

  “Like I said, we’re the same.”

  “We shouldn’t be,” he whispers back, his minty breath washing over my face. He leans in closer. “You’re a good girl, a smart girl, you should know better than to want me.”

  “Emmett…” I splutter, confused and hurt by the look he’s giving me. Indifferent, detached, impassive as ever, but I need to let him know. Now or never. “I can’t help how I feel.”

  There. I just put my feelings out on the street for him to see. I look at him, eyes wide, wanting him to say it back. To tell me that after all these years, he wants me too.

  He stares at me for a second, his body rigid, tense, and unmoving. The emerald gems in his eyes darken as they watch me, an unreadable gaze that makes my stomach knot up.

  “Do me a favor, Angel,” he says solemnly. “Hold on to your heart. It belongs to a better man.”

  What?

  “What, no!” I cry, unchecked tears racing down my face. “I want…”

  “You shouldn’t,” he says curtly, cutting me off, stands up and steps back like he can’t stand to be near me.

  “Why?” I stutter. “Why not?”

  He exhales deeply, looking at me with a look so filled with regret, my insides knot up as it all becomes clear.

  Then he comes back, getting impossibly closer.

  “Emmett?” I whisper and he palms my cheek softly, carefully, breaking me further with the gentleness of his obvious rejection.

  “I’m sorry, Angel,” he whispers hoarsely, his grace that impassive mask I’m now starting to hate. “I just don’t feel that way. About you.”

  I hear the unspoken last part as if the entire world screamed it. But he does feel that way for someone else. Just not me.

  Me?

  Unrequited.

  Unwanted.

  Unlovable…

  He plants a kiss in the middle of my forehead, lingers there for longer than my heart can take, then he lets me go, stepping back the entire length of the large bathroom away from me, a wreck.

  “You should know better than to give yourself to someone who doesn’t deserve you, Angel,” he whispers gruffly.

  I stare at him, devasted, lost, and disoriented. Did he just say all that? Did I just put myself out there only to be ignored? Rejected with a sweet nothing?

  “Do you need help getting to bed?”

  Mutely, I shake my head.

  “Okay,” he says softly. “Try not to apply pressure on your feet. I’ll check on you tomorrow.”

  No, please don’t…

  I stare down at my feet, tears blurring my vision. I don’t care about my stupid fee
t. They’re not the one bleeding furiously by the wounds he just inflicted. Oh, he did that too.

  “Don’t cry, Angel, please,” he mutters. I just nod. What else can I do?

  Then I see him retreat, and soon, he’s out of sight. I wish that was a way to expel him from my heart. I wish he was out of my soul, out of my mind, out of my life but if wishes were horses, beggars like me would ride all day long.

  I don’t hear the door close over my racing heart.

  “How can I not cry when you don’t want me?” I croak under my breath, thinking that I’m alone.

  “I’m sorry, Ivy,” he says from the door, looking like he’d rather be anywhere than near me. “I didn’t mean to lead you on.”

  Anger, hot and furious ignites in me like the hellion banshee my mother was rumored to be.

  I scramble to get up, wiping my tears quickly.

  “Don’t worry,” I mutter, sniffling. “I got the message.”

  “Ivy…”

  “It has everything to do with you!” I say, turning around to look at him, my eyes narrowed, pissed beyond belief at the way he’s playing me. “In the kitchen you said this has nothing to do with you, but it does.”

  “Ivy…”

  “You have no regard for your life whatsoever!” I accuse. “I watched you all our lives, doing everything you shouldn’t have, testing your limits, daring death.”

  “Angel…” he mutters but I cut him too angry to care.

  “It might have been badass of you, so damn masculine and all that testosterone bullshit, but I see you! You’re the biggest liar here, lying to yourself.”

  “Ivy, I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he says, his voice low but hard. “But you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I know about you. How you run from your past, running from who you are, turning yourself into… into someone who’s unfeeling because you think no one loves you!”

  He’s bristling, I can see that. With each word I’m stripping him down and he hates it.

  “Careful,” he mutters lowly. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”

  His palms are balled into fists, watching me with a dangerous gleam in his eyes, but God, I don’t care.

  “Don’t I, Emmett?” I seethe. “I think I do. So what if you have heart defects that will never go away? Guess what, Emmett, everyone’s got it coming, sooner or later. We’re all going to die! Hell, I might go before you.”