by Carmen Faye
He said the last sentence as a “by the way,” but it hit me in the face with more force than anything else he’d told me.
“You care for me.” I made it a statement, not a question.
He nodded slowly, as if it was a fact that he’d been forced to acknowledge. His words didn’t knock me that hard as I’d thought he cared for me all along. It was his face when he said it that got me. It hit me because he looked like it came as a surprise to him, and he wasn’t exactly delighted about it. It hit me because it seemed like it wasn’t what he’d expected to happen and it had caught him off guard.
Which led me to wonder what he’d been after, then, if he didn’t care?
I wanted to ask him. I wanted to know what he was all about. I didn’t want to press him, though. I wanted him to tell me. He was already here, bearing his soul. I wanted it to come from him.
We sat together, making small talk again for a while longer. The whole time it looked like Pax wanted to say more, like he was holding something back. It came to the point where I wanted to scream at him to just tell me and get it over with.
He didn’t.
When he finally got up to leave, he hadn’t told me anything more, and he looked like he had chosen to keep the rest to himself. I hated it. I wanted more. I wanted the relief that came with focusing on someone else for once. But I wasn’t going to press it.
The last thing I could deal with was the idea that whatever he was telling me wasn’t there from the start, that whatever we had, and had in the past, had been a bit of a game, or a lie.
“Take care of yourself, okay?” Pax said when I let him out through the front door.
“It sounds like you’re saying goodbye.”
He shrugged. “I’m not.”
He turned around and walked to his bike. I was glad it wasn’t goodbye, but I wasn’t sure how to justify or explain the fact that it sounded like a farewell anyway.
Chapter Twenty-four
The next day when I woke up, I felt like shit, but instead of turning around and pulling the covers over my head the way I’d done for the past week or so, I got up and took a shower.
It felt good to wash off the grime and the stale emotions that hung around me like a personalized stench. When I was done, and I looked at myself in the mirror, I didn’t recognize myself. I’d picked up some weight, and I had dark circles under my eyes. I still felt like I was in some deep morass, but I was getting fed up with being in this state.
The only thing that ever got me out of any kind of slump was that I first got bored with it and then irritated with it. I was there now. I was at a point where I wanted to get rid of it because it was doing nothing for me besides ruining my life.
It was still there, but I had to do something to change it, or I was just going to sit and rot in my house until there was nothing left of me.
I phoned Abby and asked her if she wanted to meet me for lunch. She was surprised to hear from me. I’d withdrawn from everyone, including her.
I was going to meet her at our usual coffee shop, and I was early so that she didn’t think I gave up on her halfway through.
When Abby arrived, she pulled me into a hug. “I’m so glad you called,” she said when she pulled away and sat down. “You look… better.”
I knew she wasn’t telling the truth. I didn’t look better at all. I looked clean, but that wasn’t the same thing.
“I think I need to get out of here,” I said, jumping right in with what had been tearing around inside my mind all morning.
Abby frowned. “What do you mean?”
I shrugged. A waiter arrived and took our order. We ordered drinks and food all in one go, and when he was gone, I tried again.
“I need to change something. I’m going to run myself into the ground if I carry on like this.”
Abby nodded slowly. “Okay, I can get that. And it’s good that you finally figured that out. But you’re not thinking of running, are you?”
I shook my head. I wasn’t planning for it to be permanent. I just needed a change of scenery—an escape.
“I think I need to clear my head, and I can’t do that around here. Not with everything that’s been happening, and everything that’s always the same.”
Abby nodded. “Where will you go?”
I shrugged. “No idea. Somewhere inland. I have to be able to drive there.”
Abby narrowed her eyes at me. “Away from the ocean.”
I shrugged and didn’t look at her. I wasn’t going to be able to explain to her how betrayed I felt by the ocean, by my one and only love. I had no way to tell her that it was because of the damn ocean that I was in such a mess now. Not directly, of course, but still.
The rest of our lunch together was filled with meaningless small talk and awkward silences that we’d never had before. When it was finally done, she couldn’t get away fast enough, and I felt the same. I knew she was worried. I knew it was my fault. I couldn’t do anything about it now, which was why I was going away.
I didn’t go home right away. If I was going to go away, there were a few things I still needed to do. One of them was to see if I could salvage what was left of my career. If I went into OIMB now and spoke to Mark, maybe I would still have a job to come home to. That’s assuming I haven’t already been fired, of course.
I knew it was going to be hard going back there. It was going to be embarrassing to face my colleagues after I went underground but walking into the lab and talking to Mark, that was going to be the hardest of all.
I drove all the way to the institute, but instead of pulling into the parking lot, I drove past then parked in a tourist parking spot that overlooked the bay, the institute, and the vast span of ocean that stretched toward Asia.
Everything looked so calm and so peaceful. I looked at the low white buildings that were spread out along the edge of the cliffs. Below the buildings were pools of natural seawater with gates that could be raised, where we kept marine life we needed to study or treat.
I walked along the trail that led to the beach then followed the waterfront away from the institute. I liked the taste of salt on my tongue and the almost-sticky sea spray that would get my hair into a terrible tangle, and make my skin feel foreign and natural all at the same time. The wind picked up, and I breathed in nostalgia and pain all in one gulp of fresh air.
I followed the beach toward the buildings again, and I knew it would come up to the tide pool if I kept going. I didn’t want to see the tide pool again. I didn’t want to think about what I’d found there. But I couldn’t stop myself, and then I was staring right at the spot where the black bag with the body had been stranded. In my mind’s eye, I saw the yellow police tape and the body wedged under the rock.
It was all gone now, and there was nothing there to prove that it had even happened.
But that had been the same with my father. Even after his body had been removed and the combine washed to remove the blood, every time I saw one working the fields, I could still see him hanging there, his arm shredded inside the machine to his shoulder, his head bent at a bizarre angle from the powerful machine trying to consume his entire body. I’d still been able to taste the despair, and with every combine, I saw I felt the stab of my loss.
No one understood that. They hadn’t then, and they wouldn’t now. That was why I had to leave. I had to leave everything behind and go away so that nothing from my past could find me. It had worked once before, and I hoped it would work again. Since I’d moved I hadn’t seen even one combine harvesting vast swaths of grain, and I’d been able to forget.
The last stop before home was Pax’s apartment. I’d only been there once before. After I’d chickened out of going to the institute, I felt like a failure. I wouldn’t have been surprised with myself if I couldn’t go through with this either. But it was different. This had nothing to do with the body. This had everything to with me and the life I was trying to save from total ruin. And Pax, as nice as he was, was another bad call in my life. I reali
zed that now. It took me a while thinking about it, but it all added up. I’d been attracted to him for a reason. I always picked out the bad ones when I was in trouble emotionally.
The only problem was that this one wasn’t a one-night stand. I had to tell him it was over and for him to go away. It wasn’t going to be easy, but it was something that had to be done.
I rapped on the door and stood up straight, my legs almost shaking. The front door opened and he smiled when he saw me.
“I’m so glad to see you,” he said.
Way to make me feel like a bitch.
“I need to talk to you.” It was ironic that I used the same words he’d used a couple of days before. He looked curious, not nervous. He should have been nervous. His curiosity made it look like he had hope and hope was dangerous.
“Do you want to sit down? Can I get you something?”
I was having a moment of déjà vu. I wasn’t going to sit down, though. I shook my head to all his offers, and finally, he gave up and stood in front of me.
“What is it? Are you okay?”
I shook my head again. I could lie to a lot of people, even though they didn’t always believe me, but I was going to tell Pax the truth. “I’m not okay. And I need to do something to make it right again.”
Pax nodded. “That sounds good. You’re being proactive. I like it.”
His liking it wouldn’t last. I took a deep breath. “I’m going away for a while. I need a change of scenery. I just need to get out.”
Pax frowned. This wasn’t what he’d had in mind; I was sure. “Where will you go? It’s not safe.”
I laughed without emotion. What did he know about safe? The things that bothered me weren’t going to worry about bars or locked doors.
“I don’t know where I’m going yet, and I don’t know how long I’ll be gone. But when I come back… we can’t carry on like this.” He looked at me with a face that suggested he didn’t understand what I was saying. “I think we should stop seeing each other.”
The words looked like they’d sunk in this time. Thank God. I didn’t want to have to say it any harsher than that.
“I don’t understand,” he said.
How was I going to explain it? “It’s not you, Pax. It’s me.”
He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I haven’t heard that one before, right?”
This was hard. Harder than I thought it would be. I’d been worried about how he would take it. I hadn’t thought about what it would do to me.
“You’re just going to run away?” he asked. I was suddenly furious, the blood under my skin boiling. Who the hell did he think he was to accuse me of something he didn’t understand?
“Do I need to remind you, Paxton, that we don’t know each other very well, and no matter what you think you know about me, theory isn’t the same thing as practical.”
He was angry now, too, even though I wasn’t sure why. I hadn’t done anything wrong except seriously dent his ego.
“Maybe you should just go,” he said. It hit me harder than his anger or his pain. The fact that he didn’t want me now that I was trying to take care of myself; kicking me out like a dog. That was what got me, and I didn’t know why. I was getting what I wanted.
“Yeah, maybe I should.” I felt cold and hard. If only it had been this easy to switch off my emotions before. I turned around and walked out without saying goodbye. It was for the best.
When I got into my car, it felt like I was going to shatter. I bit back tears because Pax wasn’t a man I wanted to cry over. I wasn’t going to cry over a man, not ever again.
I put my car in gear and left for home. I was going to pack my bags and get out of here, and I was going to stay away so long that, by the time I returned, Pax wouldn’t even know who I was anymore.
Chapter Twenty-five
She left me standing in my apartment feeling like I’d been punched in the gut. When I was new to the club, I’d had to fight a Demon Aviator for initiation. I’d grown up on the rough side of life, but I wasn’t streetwise in the way the club had taught me to be over the years. One of the things I hadn’t known was that, in a fight between two gang members, there were no rules. Anything was acceptable. I’d been hit over the head with a beer bottle, and when I’d seen stars, a punch I never saw coming had sent me tumbling to the ground.
The son of a bitch had kicked me when I was down, his foot forcing itself into my stomach over and over until I felt like every part of me had to be ruptured or broken. After that, I thought there was no way I would ever be accepted by the Venom Chasers. I was sure they saw me as a pathetic piece of shit. I’d passed out with the taste of my own blood in my mouth and so much pain I hadn’t thought I would make it through.
I didn’t know why I was comparing Leah’s dumping me to that night, but it felt the same. Not physically, obviously, because I was perfectly intact. It floored me in the same way. Like the bottle and the punch, I hadn’t seen it coming because I hadn’t known there were no rules.
I wasn’t trying to say that Leah had played dirty. She was by no means a cold-hearted bitch. If anything, I was the one that was the bastard when it came down to it. After all, I was the one that had been thinking of ending whatever it was between us. She was of very little use to the club.
Still, I hadn’t expected it from her. I hadn’t thought she would waltz in here, looking like nothing was wrong after I’d seen her at her lowest, and tell me that it was over. I felt cheated. I’d vowed to look after her because she’d been so fragile that she couldn’t look after herself. I’d let her cry on my shoulder because I’d thought that she wouldn’t be able to deal with her own emotions without crumbling completely. And now?
It turned out that she did have the ability to pick herself up after all. And the moment she didn’t need me anymore, I was discarded.
I left the apartment and got onto my bike. I took the main road and left the town behind, riding along the coast. The wind was salty and whipped my hair away from my face, tugged at my clothes, and brushed against my skin. The freedom was something I usually relished, but today it felt a lot like I was running away. I wasn’t a hypocrite, though. I wasn’t running away from my problems the way Leah had done before and the way she was doing again. I was facing my problems and dealing with the consequences of my failures. I knew there would be gang wars and I was going to face them. I knew that the club didn’t trust me like they used to, and I knew I was going to have to suffer the consequences or prove them wrong, instead of tucking my tail between my legs and running.
Running was pathetic. Running was weak. I was angry with Leah for what she’d done to me. I was angry that it bothered me this much when I was the one that was going to do that to her. I was upset that none of this was working out the way it had to. I’d always been the go-to guy when it came to Intel, and now I hadn’t only betrayed my club by not getting what they needed, but I’d also betrayed myself by developing emotions that wouldn’t just allow me to let her go.
And I was angry with her for beating me to it. I’d wanted to dump her. I’d wanted to be the one that came out on top if it came down to breaking off what I’d started. I was the one that was supposed to walk away unscathed.
I kept riding until the town was miles behind me. The vastness of the ocean stretched away from me on my right, and I was aware of how small I was and how little my life was worth. In the greater scheme of things, whether we ended up killing each other or somehow found peace, the world wouldn’t stop turning. It was nothing but little games. Dangerous games that claimed lives, but games all the same. There was nothing that I would be able to look back on one day and to say that I’d made it in life. I had nothing to show.
I didn’t have a family. I didn’t have friends that would trust me enough to believe that, even though I’d failed, my loyalty didn’t have to come into question. I didn’t have a woman I could go home to, who accepted me, and knew that it wouldn’t end after the next time we fucked. All I had was lies and deceit and power p
lays that carried on as long as both parties were alive to keep pushing them forward.
And the truth was, it was ridiculous.
I shook my head and tried to get rid of the stupid thoughts that were swirling in my mind. I never used to think like this before. I used to be content with the life I’d made for myself. Others thought it was all fucked up, but to me, it was home.
It was only since I met Leah that things had started going wrong. I blamed her for it all. She came along and ruined it all and then she left me to pick up all the pieces. I was going to have to deal with a war that she could have prevented if she just told me what the fucking body looked like.
I knew I was thinking all sorts of unfair things and that this was hardly her fault, but I was angry, and I felt used.