Where the Road Takes Me

by Jay McLean

  He groaned before pulling his fingers out and replacing them with his erection.

  I winced from the shock of him filling me.

  It was rushed, rough, and over quickly.

  I cried the entire time.

  He stilled on top of me. “Mother fucker!” He punched the pillow next to my head, and jerked himself out of me. He sniffed as he hastily sat up on his heels.

  I wiped the tears of embarrassment from my cheeks and jumped in the shower. I cried as I tried to wash the filth off me, but it didn’t work, because the filth wasn’t on me. It was in me. I was ashamed.

  I’d used sex as a way to keep him there, and it’d worked.

  For now.

  When I stepped out of the bathroom, he was sitting on the edge of the bed, his head in his hands. “I didn’t use a condom,” he muttered.

  “Oh,” I said, surprised. It hadn’t even occurred to me while we were having sex. I always used a condom, even in my cross-faded states, I’d made sure of it. But with Blake, I hadn’t even thought about it. “I have an IUD. I’m protected.”

  “That’s not—” he sighed. “That’s not the point.” But he wasn’t talking to me. “I don’t even know what the hell the point is.” He tied the laces on his running shoes and stood up. “I’m going for a run.”

  And even though a part of me had thought he would, it still surprised me that he was. He’d told me why he ran; he’d said he did it to feel numb—that when things got to be too much sometimes, he wanted to feel nothing. That moment was his moment of nothing. He walked to the door with his head down, refusing to make eye contact. I was sure he was disgusted by me, ashamed of what I’d just done.

  I wiped frantically at my tears. “Are you coming back?”

  He froze midstride, then lifted his gaze and nodded once. “Yeah, Chloe. I’ll be back,” he said quietly, but with so much pity that I hated myself.

  Once he had left, I ran to the bathroom and threw up.

  Blake

  Josh answered first ring.

  “I’m sorry for calling again,” I said as I sat on the curb in front of the hotel.

  “Dude. You never have to apologize for that. What’s going on? You want us to come and get you now?”

  The word yes caught in my throat. I wasn’t sure how long I’d been silent, not knowing how to respond, when he sighed loudly. “What the hell happened, man? Did you go back and tell her you were leaving?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And?”

  It took everything I had to answer him. “I fucked up, Josh.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “We had sex.”

  He sighed again. “And I take it that’s a bad thing?”

  “I don’t know what the fuck happened.” I dropped my head between my knees, my hand gripping the phone tighter. “One minute I had my bags packed, ready to leave, and the next thing I know, she’s . . .” I couldn’t even finish the sentence. “She was wasted and she asked me to stay. She threw herself at me, and I didn’t fucking say no. I took advantage of her, Josh. I’m exactly like every other forgettable asshole she’s ever fucked.” I wiped my eyes, grateful that Josh couldn’t see me crying.

  He was quiet a long moment before he asked, “Do you honestly believe that?”

  I shook my head, my tears falling freely. “I don’t want to, Josh, but maybe I had it wrong. Maybe I thought this was something more than it really is. Maybe I’m nothing to her . . . or I’m just a fling, someone to have a good time with until she decides she wants to be invisible again.” I let out a bitter laugh. “How did I not see this coming?”

  Josh cleared his throat. I heard movement on the other end, as if he was sitting up and pushing the covers off him. “You wanna know what I think?”

  “I think you’re gonna tell me anyway.”

  “I think you’re wrong.”

  “About which part exactly?”

  “All of it.” He paused a beat before continuing. “I think that it’s human nature that when people get scared, they do stupid things. All you have to do is look at Natalie for proof. As far as Chloe goes—you and I may not agree with the way she lives her life, but we can’t really disagree with her reasoning behind it. Chloe kept everyone at arm’s length, even the people she calls family. But you, Hunter, you’re there with her. She let you in. And you—you haven’t cared about anything the past couple years. You existed, but you didn’t live . . . yet somehow, there you are, with a girl that you may be in love with, and you finally care. Whatever happens, if you stay or if you leave, you need to decide whether it’s worth giving all of that up.”

  Chloe

  For two hours I lay in bed, wide-awake, waiting for him to come back. I wondered if he’d come in silently, get his bags, and leave. I waited. And waited. And finally, at around five in the morning, against my will, I succumbed to exhaustion.

  I wasn’t sure how long I’d been asleep before the sound of the door opening startled me awake. I didn’t dare move. If he was going to leave, he had every right, and the perfect opportunity to do it. I heard his footsteps and then the shower running. It was only a few minutes, but it felt like an eternity. When the pipes clanked and the water switched off, I pulled the covers over my head—hiding out—surrounded by my own self-pity and self-loathing. He sighed—the sound deafening in the dead silence of the room. Then the bed dipped and he lay down behind me, gently placing his arm over my waist and pulling me to him, the other arm under my pillow and around my chest.

  And then he held me. Tight.

  All while I silently cried in his arms.

  I cried for me.

  I cried for him.

  I cried for the future we’d never have.

  And I cried because he had absolutely no idea about any of it.

  He wasn’t in bed when I woke up. What was there, though, was a throbbing in my head, no doubt from my crying. My endless, fucking crying. As I sat up, I noticed his bags but no note on the pillow. He always left a note.

  Then I heard his voice. “Yeah, Ma.”

  I turned to see him sitting out on the balcony, holding his phone to his ear.

  “I know,” he said. “I love you, too.”

  He pulled back, looked at the screen, tapped it once, and placed it on the table. And then he just sat there.

  I got out of bed and made us coffee, like I did every morning. I refused to look at him when I brought it out to him. I just set it on the table and turned to leave him alone, but I didn’t get far before his arm curled around my waist and he pulled me down onto his lap.

  We stayed like that, with me on his lap and his arm around me, neither of us speaking.

  He rested his chin on my shoulder and kissed my cheek softly. I must have been so tense, so stiff in his arms that he felt the need to say, “You can breathe, Chloe. It’s okay.”

  I finally did.

  “What happened last night . . .”

  I didn’t know if it was a question or not, so I began to answer. “I’m not—”

  His hand gripped my shirt, causing me to stop. “It wasn’t a question. I just . . . I need a minute to find the words.” He inhaled a heavy breath.

  I waited.

  “What happened last night shouldn’t have happened. I shouldn’t have taken advantage of you the way I did.” I went to interrupt him, but he cut me off. “Just let me finish, please?”

  I nodded.

  “I know you well enough to know that when you said you wanted to lose yourself that something deeper was going on. I wish that you would have shared it with me, but you didn’t, and that was your choice. I can’t force you to talk to me, no matter how upset it makes me that you didn’t. I chased after you when you left because I wanted to be with you, Chloe. I wasn’t ready to say good-bye, and you knew that. We both knew that. And we both knew that our time was
limited. We talked about that. If you wanted more than that . . . if you wanted me to promise you something more . . . you should’ve asked. But I didn’t know, and you never told me.”

  He positioned me so I was sideways, and he could look at me. “But if last night is what it’s going to be like . . . if things get hard for you, and you choose to keep pushing me away, then I’ll leave.”

  He sniffed and wiped his face on my shoulder. The wetness from his tears seeped through my shirt. “Because I don’t deserve that, Chloe. If you push me away, I’ll leave, and I’ll never come back. I won’t ever call you; I won’t ever breathe your name again. I know that’s how you’ve lived your life—wanting to be invisible, so I’ll give that to you. But you should know that that’s not what I want. And I don’t think that’s what you want, either. I think you’re afraid. I think you realize how close we’ve gotten and how deep our feelings are getting, and you got scared. And you pushed me away because that’s what you’re used to.”

  I swallowed down the words I wished I could say. The ones that would tell him that I was afraid that I might have cancer. The ones I couldn’t voice, no matter how much I wanted to. Because I wasn’t ready. And because they would change everything.

  I blinked.

  Tears fell.

  “Chloe.” He placed his finger on my chin and made me face him. And when I did—the walls around me crumbled. And so did I. I wailed into his chest, gripping his shirt tight, holding on to him. When I’d calmed down, he held the side of my face and tilted my head up. “So you have to tell me. What do you want? Do you want me? Do you want us? Do you want more?”

  I nodded.

  But he still looked unsure.

  I squared my shoulders and held his head in my hands. “Yes, Blake. I want you. I want us. I want a future. I want a forever with you.”

  And even through his own tear-filled eyes, he managed to smile. A smile that took all the hurt, all the pain, all the anguish, and buried it deep in my past.

  A smile that turned my world red.

  It had never really made sense when he’d explained it in the past, but I finally got it.

  Blake Hunter—he was my red-letter day.

  “Can I kiss you now?” he said.

  I let out a relieved laugh. “Please.”

  And just like his smile—his kiss took all the pain away.

  “Blake?” I pulled back slightly.

  He kept his eyes closed. “Yeah?”

  “Last night—”

  “Never happened.”

  “But I was—”

  “Shut up and kiss me.”

  Love me when I least deserve it, because that is when I need it the most.

  He tensed when he read my magnet aloud. Then he placed his magnet right next to mine. “Ready?” he asked.

  “Yeah, babe. I’m ready.” I took one more look at his magnet before picking up my bag and walking out of the room.

  You can run, you can hide, you can choose not to see, but where the road takes you will always lead to me.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Blake

  She was wearing the blue Duke jersey, my name and potential number on the back, and I’d never wanted to play for Duke as much as I did right now.

  “Should we just skate down? It’s only half a mile to the pier.”

  “Whatever you want, babe.” But I was already pulling our boards out of the trunk.

  I skated to the pier. She held on to my shirt and rolled along behind me. There was a street art show going on, and she wanted to check it out. I’d do whatever she wanted.

  “I wish I was good at art,” she said from next to me.

  “Have you tried it?”

  She shrugged. “Not really. I just can’t do anything creative.”

  And it struck me then, that even though we’d spent all this time together, I really didn’t know much about her at all. “What do you do?” I asked.

  She laughed. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, when you’re not with me, skating, or practicing shots from the three-point line. What’s your deal?”

  She shrugged. “Not much, really. I don’t really have any hobbies, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Yeah.” I followed her to the next artist—a chalk drawer. “But there must be something you like to do . . . or are good at. Something?”

  “Not really.” She dropped some change into the dude’s hat.

  “I call bullshit. I bet you sing or play guitar or something phenomenal.”

  She laughed. “No, Blake. I really do nothing.” She started walking toward an ice-cream truck, but stopped a few feet away and turned to me. “Maybe it was because I was fostered or something. Like, I didn’t want to do anything permanent, because I didn’t know if I would be permanent.” Her eyebrows bunched, and she pursed her lips. Then sadness washed over her features. “Maybe it was because I didn’t think I’d be around long enough to enjoy it.” She shook her head. “That sounds so stupid.”

  “Baby, it’s not stupid.” I hugged her with one arm, the other busy carrying both our boards. “I get it, though—why you would be like that. Maybe it’s time we find something for you.”

  She pulled back and looked up at me. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, we’re always fucking around with the skating and the basketball. Maybe we find something you like and do it together. We can learn together. You like music? We can buy guitars. You want to learn magic? We’ll buy a—”

  “I like you,” she cut in. She smirked and placed her hands under my shirt, fingers splayed flat against my stomach. “Can I learn you?”

  “You’re changing the subject and avoiding talking about this.”

  She pouted and dropped her hands. “Why does it matter?”

  “Because,” I said. “It matters because you deserve to have something of your own. To want something for yourself. Even if it’s not forever.”

  “Okay, Blake.” She nodded. “I’ll think about it. I’ll do it for you.”

  I sighed. “Babe, I want you to do it for you. Not for me or anyone else.”

  “Okay,” she agreed. Then her gaze moved toward the ice-cream truck. I watched as her eyes narrowed and a glare appeared.

  “Chloe?”

  She jerked her head toward the truck. “That girl won’t take her eyes off you.”

  “And?”

  “And it’s pissing me off.”

  I chuckled.

  “Wrong time to laugh, asshole.”

  I laughed harder.

  She gripped my arm. “Oh my God,” she gasped.

  I followed her gaze just as the girl walked into a wall.

  “Oh my God,” she said again. Then, through a laugh, “That girl was so busy checking you out, she didn’t even see a wall right in front of her!”

  I took her hand, and we walked to the ice-cream truck.

  “I bet you’re used to it, huh? Girls looking at you. God, I feel so average right now.”

  I dropped her hand and the boards. “Chloe.” I stood in front of her and made sure she was looking at me. “Don’t ever talk like that about yourself. Ever.” I was beyond serious, and my tone let her know.

  She frowned. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry.” I released a breath and tried to calm down. “I just hate when you look down on yourself.”

  She tried to smile. “You need to give me a break. I’m an eighteen-year-old girl, and you’re my first boyfriend . . . and you just happen to be stupidly hot. So what if I get petty and jealous?” She shrugged. “I’m allowed. I bet if a guy looked at me like that, you’d probably feel the same.”

  I let her words sink in before speaking. “A, if a guy looked at you in any way, I’d probably beat his ass. B, I didn’t know I was your boyfriend.”

  Her eyes w
ent wide. “I just assumed—”

  “Good,” I interrupted. “Assume away, girlfriend.”

  I felt her release her grip on my shirt as I skated us back to the hotel. I quickly turned around, hoping she hadn’t stacked somehow. With Chloe’s coordination, I never knew. She had one foot on the ground, the other on the board, her gaze fixed through a window and into a store. I flicked the board up and held it as I walked over to her. “Chloe?”

  She didn’t respond.

  I followed her gaze into the store; it was a clothes store full of formal wear. Her brow furrowed as she watched a group of girls talking and laughing, dressed in what looked like prom attire. “It’s a little late for prom,” I said.

  “I don’t know,” she said quietly. She frowned and looked down at the ground. “I’ve never been to a prom.”

  “Yeah? That’s not surprising.”

  She looked up at me. “What do you mean?”

  I shrugged. “You’re not exactly the prom type. I just don’t see you getting your hair done and getting all dressed up to spend a night out with your friends, you know? You didn’t even really have friends.”

  She nodded, but her frown deepened and tears started to fill her eyes.

  “What’s wrong, babe?”

  She shrugged. “I guess regrets are useless in times like these.”

  “You want to go to prom?”

  “No,” she said quickly, shaking her head. “I’m just being stupid. Let’s go.”

  She pushed off the ground and attempted to skate away, but I grabbed on to her arm to stop her. “Wait here, okay?”

  She started to speak but I was already stepping into the store.

  I made my way over to the girls, who smiled warmly when they saw me coming. “Are you girls going to prom?” I asked them.

  They nodded in unison. “Kind of,” one of them said, stepping forward. “It’s not a school one. We kind of just organized it because we all go to small schools and didn’t really have a decent prom. Plus, all our boyfriends are in college and couldn’t make it, so we’re just having a big ol’ fake one in my barn.” She paused for a beat and eyed me curiously. “Why?”