Lithium Tides: A Lithium Springs Novel

by Carmel Rhodes

  “But not enough.” She had to be strong. She refused to lose herself again, not when she’d just found the real Kensie.

  He swallowed her words like a bitter pill. “Don’t say that. It isn’t like that and you know it. What we have is real.”

  “How?” she asked, ignoring him. “How did you even know I would be at your show or did you plan that too?”

  “No, I swear it was a coincidence. I didn’t even know you and Jamie were friends, but when I saw you on my birthday, I thought it was a gift, a reward for ten years of loyalty.”

  “What was the plan?” A debate raged on in her head. She needed to know, but his answer, regardless of what it was, would destroy them.

  “Kensington.”

  “Tell me how you planned on ruining my life,” she insisted.

  “I took a picture of you in my arms after you fell asleep. I was going to send it to him.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “Because, baby,” he cried, placing a palm on each of her cheeks, “I wasn’t ready to lose you.”

  “Because you wanted to fuck me again.” Tears rolled down her cheeks fat and warm, the dam broke. Her façade shattered.

  “Yes, I wanted to fuck you again, and I wanted to hear you laugh again, and I wanted to taste you again, and I wanted to hold you in my arms again. I wanted more. I was falling for you even then. It’s just I’ve been carrying this vendetta around for years and you fell into my lap and I just thought…”

  “You thought since you couldn’t take his family, you’d settle for me.” It was more a statement than a question. All the dots connected in her mind. Suddenly, his possessiveness made sense. God, she really was an idiot. She fell for his bullshit, hook, line, and sinker.

  Carter’s hands roamed her body, his touch searing her skin. He explored her, seeking redemption in the only way he knew how. Down her shoulders, around her chest and then up and under her shirt. “It’s not settling. I was stupid and impulsive, but I never once lied about how I felt.”

  “Just about everything else.” She leaned into him, relishing the contact. Their time was nearly up. Their story almost done, but damned if she didn’t want to stay.

  “What can I do?” Kiss. “Tell me.” Kiss. “I’ll do anything.”

  Kiss.

  Kiss.

  Kiss.

  “You can’t fuck me and expect me to forget that you lied and manipulated me,” she cried into his mouth.

  “I know, I fucked up. I’m so sorry, please give me another chance,” he pleaded, burying his head into her neck, his tears dampening her skin.

  “You’re not a man of your word. You’re not a good person. You’re no better than him. And you and I are done, forever, Friend.”

  It had been four weeks since the wedding from hell, and Kensie felt like a Walking Dead reject. She’d spent the last thirty days wandering around life like a zombie. Undead. Stuck. She wasn’t living, not really, not for the past month, but she wasn’t dead inside either. Numbness would be welcomed, but no, she felt every ounce of the pain and the heartache and the resentment she deserved. Karma was a heartless bitch.

  Kensie hoped that she would be over it by now. They’d only dated for a few months, so why did it still hurt? The breakup rule, per Sex in the City, stated that it took half the total time you went out with someone to get over them, but Kensie felt as crushed today as she had felt that day in Napa.

  If only it were that easy. If only love and heartbreak could be quantified by a simple equation. But the problem with the breakup rule was that it didn’t account for anomalies. It didn’t account for Carter Thayer.

  A few months was all it took. Months of guilt and shame and pain and blowjob gates, and still she fell so helplessly and completely in love. In love with a man who only wanted to destroy your world, she reminded herself bitterly. She’d set out to find herself and had ended up even more lost than ever before.

  Her day-to-day life had become monotonous. Work. Home. Sleep. Repeat. Work was the only thing that lessened the agony. Her new job at Safe Haven was the only good that came out of her time with Him.

  Kensie glanced at her watch, five thirty on a Friday afternoon, and her weekend off. Weekends were the worst. Those were the times when she felt most alone. With no work to distract her, she was forced to deal with the harsh reality.

  She shook her head, willing her brain to focus on the six boys running around the backyard. “You’re still here?” Tanner asked, peeking his head out the door. His kind blue eyes assessed her. He was too polite to prod, but even a blind man could see the devastation hidden beneath her irises.

  “Oh, I’m just telling the boys goodbye,” she said, forcing a smile onto her face. She’d stayed late every night that week, helping with dinner, or cleaning, or just hanging out with the kids and playing. She was still learning the subtle nuances of her new role, part-caregiver, part-administrator, and part-consoler, but she loved every minute of it. Currently, there were nine boys living in the safe house, but they could shelter up to fifteen. Some days were hard, some of the stories were brutal, but Kensie finally felt like she was making a difference.

  “Good. Go home, have fun. You’re too young to be a workaholic. It’s going to be a beautiful weekend, so get out and enjoy it, kiddo. See ya Monday.”

  “See ya,” she whispered sadly as she watched him disappear back inside the house. She said goodbye to her boys and headed out to her car. The drive from Safe Haven to her and Jamie’s apartment was torture. Traffic moved at a snail’s pace as she navigated her Mercedes through the city. “DRIVE!” she yelled, laying on the horn. “Green means go, asshole!”

  Relax, Kensie, she coached herself, because if not, she feared she wouldn’t make it through gridlock without committing a felony. She’d be a felon, like Him. Her brain, when left up to its own devices for too long, always strayed back to Him. She shook the thought out of her mind and turned up the radio, praying the noise would be a welcomed escape.

  Welcome back to Power 93, Seattle’s number one hit music station. You’re listening to Big Mike and this is Big Mike’s Rush Hour Mix. I have a treat for all you commuters out there this evening. Today in the studio, I am joined by three of the most handsome dudes I’ve ever seen. Please give it up for Seattle’s very own Ryder, Javi, and CT. Lithium Springs, ladies and gentlemen.

  “No. No. No. No,” Kensie chanted as tears prickled in her eyes. She’d had a good week. No lunchtime crying fits in the bathroom, and no drinking until she passed out, and this is how fate decided to reward her. The evil bitch was almost as bad as her sister, karma.

  She should just turn it off. She really wanted to turn it off, but she was a glutton for punishment.

  “Welcome, guys,” Big Mike greeted.

  “Thank you,” the three men said in unison.

  “So, the tour starts next week. How does it feel to be opening for The Unburned?”

  Ryder took that one. “I think I can speak for all of us when I say it’s a dream come true. I mean, Wiley White. He’s a pioneer, a legend.”

  “I take it you guys are fans of The Unburned?”

  “Hell yes,” Javi chimed in, “I think every kid growing up in the Pacific Northwest has at one point or another wanted to be in a grudge band. It’s a sound that is so uniquely Seattle and it helped bond us. We came from different backgrounds, but the one thing we had in common was that we felt out of place. We were three misfits looking for somewhere to belong.”

  “Tell me about your next project. I gotta say, I listened to it earlier and it’s out of this world, but it’s a new sound for you guys. What inspired it?”

  “CT, you wanna take this one, bro?” Ryder purred into the mic in that voice that made women’s panties melt.

  Kensie felt the tightness in her chest as she prepared herself to hear his voice. She had the same reaction every time she heard it since the wedding. He called her every night, and every night she’d send him to voicemail. Her subconscious told her to delete the
messages, or better yet, block his number, but she couldn’t. She wasn’t strong enough. She wasn’t brave.

  Some nights, he’d leave messages apologizing for his wrongdoings and he’d beg for forgiveness. Other nights, he’d tell her about his day or sing songs that reminded him of her, and sometimes he’d just wait. Those calls were the hardest. The ones where all she heard was his breathing, all she felt was his pain. It was on those nights that her resolve waned. She had the power to ease their suffering, but the price was too great. Her self-worth came at a higher cost than a few sympathetic words left on her answering machine.

  “My girl inspired it,” he said in a scratchy voice, far from the cocky bastard she’d known. “I wrote most of it about her, our love, our breakup…” He trailed off, leaving that last part hanging thick in the air.

  “Aww, dude, you just broke a million hearts,” Big Mike teased, cutting the tension.

  “A million and one,” Kensie muttered sadly. Traffic continued to crawl as Big Mike asked the guys more questions about the album and the tour. Kensie only half-listened while they played a silly game of would you rather. She was so lost in her thoughts that she didn’t realize she was crying until she felt the hot tears roll down her chin. She missed him, but there was just too much to forgive, too much to forget.

  “Alright, this has been fun, but let’s give the people what they want, a Power 93 exclusive. You guys want to do the honor?”

  “Yeah, this is the title track and first single off our upcoming album. It’s called Neverland.” Ryder introduced the record in that too cool rockstar voice of his.

  Kensie turned the radio off. She couldn’t listen to that song, her song. She’d rather the silence consume her than to drown in the memories. Memories so tangled up in deceit that she couldn’t decipher what was real and what was fake.

  Was it all fake? That was the question that kept her up at night. He said that his feelings were real, that his love was real, but how could it be when he had an ulterior motive?

  The day after his birthday party, when Trey called her, he knew who was on the phone the entire time. Is that why he got so angry? He fingered her while she talked to her boyfriend. He wanted Trey to hear her moaning. God, she was a fucking idiot. He told her over and over that Trey didn’t deserve her. Why didn’t she see it then? Why didn’t she pay attention to any of the signs? In hindsight, everything was so blatantly obvious. Was she really that stupid or was she blinded by lies?

  She spent the last four weeks picking apart their time together. She questioned everything, every word, every action. She hated him for what he did, but the worst part was that she let him. She opened her legs willingly, knowing she had a boyfriend, and now she was suffering the consequences. As much as she hated him, she hated herself more.

  Finally, after nearly forty minutes in gridlock, she made it home. All she wanted was to drink the bottle of red wine she had stashed in the kitchen and sleep for the next two days. She flipped on the light switch and as expected, Jam was M.I.A.

  Though she hadn’t officially moved out—Ryder didn’t want her to be alone while the guys went on tour—Jamie was rarely at the apartment. She was either on assignment or with her husband. Kensie didn’t begrudge her, though. Of course, she wanted to spend time with Ryder before he left for three months, and as much as she missed her friend, seeing Ryder only reminded her of Him.

  That was her life post-apocalypse. Drinking in excess and avoiding anything and anyone who conjured up His memory.

  Him, Douchebag, Asshole, and Fuckface were the only acceptable pronouns to describe the man who set out to destroy her life.

  Kensie made a beeline for the kitchen to retrieve her wine. The stress and tension of having a nervous breakdown in rush hour traffic had taken a toll, but she was home alone, and after a long week of pretending, she was exhausted. Her body was finally starting to relax. She looked forward to putting on her pajamas and drinking straight from the bottle. As much as she hated being by herself, it was nice to just be sad.

  With her wine in hand, she went to the bathroom to run the water for a bath. As she stripped out of her clothes, she wondered if it would always be this way. If this unhappiness was her new normal. She wore her depression like a badge of courage. She’d gone through something horrific and, somehow, she was still standing. Well, sort of…not really. Either way, she was going to indulge in the decadence of sadness and grief. Fuck the breakup rule, she thought. She was miserable, and she wasn’t going to apologize for it.

  The bath products were neatly aligned on the ledge. She’d gotten rid of both the Coco Mademoiselle and the Whole Foods lavender wash. They went out the window the day she got back from Napa. Add her favorite shower gel to the ever-growing list of things that Fuckface had ruined for her.

  Showers.

  Pop-Tarts.

  The radio.

  Peter Pan.

  Sex.

  Sex.

  Sex.

  She hated that he’d ruined sex for her. She couldn’t even climax without thinking of Him. One night, she masturbated to his voicemail. After she came, she spent the rest of the night sobbing.

  “You’re pathetic,” she said to herself, reaching for the LUSH bubble bar to crumble under the stream.

  “I wouldn’t say pathetic,” Jamie offered, leaning against the doorjamb. She looked as gorgeous as always. Her blonde hair pulled up into a high ponytail and her white blouse unbuttoned at the top.

  “Hi, what are you doing here? I thought you’d be with Ry.” I hoped you’d be with Ryder so that I could get drunk and ugly cry in solitude.

  “Nope,” she chirped pushing up off the door. “I think my bestie needs me more.”

  “I’m fine, Jam. He’s leaving soon and you’ll be stuck with me for three months. You guys have already spent enough time apart,” she added sadly. After Napa, Jam went on a rampage. Pregnant Jamie was even scarier than normal Jamie. She and Ryder got into a huge fight over them, even though neither he nor Javi had any idea what Fuckface was up to, but he was his best friend, Kensie was hers, and lines were drawn in the sand. “He’ll be able to survive without me for one night.”

  “I’m fine, really. I’m just going to take a bath and go to bed. I probably won’t be very good company.”

  “Kensie, I know how it feels to want to drink the pain away—trust me, I get it—but you can’t keep doing this. Let’s go out.”

  “Jamie,” Kensie groaned shutting off the water, “I’m not in the mood for people.” Translation, she wasn’t in the mood to pretend. People looked at her funny when she wasn’t pretending, when she wore her heartbreak on her sleeve. It made them uncomfortable and if one more person told her to smile, she was going to fucking snap.

  “Kensington Grace Roth, you’ve got to get it together.”

  Kensie shot her a look, one that said, my boyfriend confessed to sleeping with me to get revenge on his childhood best friend and I’ll cry if I want to.

  “I don’t mean you can’t be unhappy,” Jam raised her hands in surrender. “What I’m saying is it’s time to rejoin the land of the living. All you do is go to work and come home. The only excitement you get is Sunday dinner in Madison Park, binge watching eighties sitcoms with your dad.”

  “What’s wrong with that? All you do is work.”

  “I have a life outside of work. I go out. I have fun.”

  You have a husband, Kensie added mentally. “I just want to sulk.”

  “I already called Quinn. I’m going to change.”

  “Jam,” Kensie called after her friend.

  “Get dressed!”

  “Jam!”

  Silence

  “James!”

  She was going to strangle her.

  Forty-five minutes later, Kensie was dressed and found herself sitting in front of a blank canvas, regretting her decision to leave the house. Paint night, it sounded like a good idea. There was wine, and for once, she wasn’t drinking alone, but now that she sat around the large re
ctangular table, she wanted to die.

  They were in a small art studio in downtown, The Station. There was an adjoining gallery next door where the staff, comprised of local artists, sold their original works. On the studio side, they taught couples and drunk girls how to recreate classics, and hosted children’s birthday parties. The walls of the studio were lined with paintings of varying shapes and sizes, showcasing the many different options to choose from. Tonight, they were painting dandelions. A weed. A visual reminder of the sun’s power during the darkest days. A symbol of hope. Of course, even the painting was screaming at her to move on.

  Aside from Kensie and her friends, there were about ten other people at the table, two couples, a pair of sisters, and another group of women sporting Lithium Springs gear. Among them was one Rabbit Hole bartender and Fuckface’s former friend with benefits.

  “I can’t believe Tiff is here,” Kensie whisper-hissed to Jam.

  “I swear I didn’t know.” The blonde looked appropriately contrite. “I just wanted to do something I thought you’d enjoy, something different.”

  Tiff smirked at her, whispering something to the girl to her left. The girl turned to look at Kensie and sneered.

  “So did they,” Kensie snipped, grabbing the glass of wine the instructor set in front of Jamie and downed it. It wasn’t like Jam could drink it anyway.

  “Welcome to paint night,” a tattooed girl with violet hair greeted the room. “My name’s Maddy and this is the picture we are going to paint tonight,” she explained, holding up the painting of two dandelions blowing in the wind against a blue sky. It looked easy enough, but Kensie was only there for the wine.

  “First, we are going to start with the background, so taking your second to largest brush, you’ll want to dip it in the blue and with a light hand, gently brush it across your canvas.”

  Everyone did as they were told and the instructor went on, telling them which colors to place where on the board and which brush to use. Before she knew it, the first hour passed. They had a fifteen-minute break for snacks and wine refills while they waited for their canvases to dry.