Paper Dolls [Book Five]

by Blythe Stone

  “I get that. It was just a very jarring thing to walk out to after what had just happened. I got a little dose of what it was like when you saw Skylar kiss me.”

  “When Skylar kissed you it was so fucking different, Avery,” Olivia spat bitterly. “That came right after your bout of being completely vacant with me for months. You’d been seeing her every day and way more than you’d been seeing me. Not only that, you’d been more present with her. Your kissing her was like a nail in my coffin. It was the last thing you could possibly do to intentionally chase me away. You don’t even understand. Even now you don’t understand.” She was getting upset. She pushed off of me and gasped, moving to get up off the bed and leave since her tears had returned.

  “I didn’t kiss her, Olivia. She kissed me and I immediately backed away. I am well aware of the differences. I wasn’t comparing them directly. I was saying that I had a small idea of how painful that was for you now.”

  I pushed the covers away and closed my eyes, bringing the heels of my hands up to my forehead. I rubbed hard and then pressed into my eyes. The headache was coming on. I was dehydrated and tired. Mostly, I was just hurt.

  She’d hovered at the edge of the bed for a second since I was talking at her. When I stopped, her body shifted, all her weight moving from one side to the next. I could feel the indecision in her.

  “Intentional or not, you can never know what that felt like,” she gasped out, hurt. Next thing I knew, she went into the bathroom and shut herself up inside. I heard water running.

  I smacked the bed with my hand and got up. I was still making it worse. Maybe removing myself from the equation was best. I walked through to the living room and out the French doors to the pool area.

  I felt like floating. Not swimming or moving but laying in the middle of water and feeling it hold me. I felt like I could never see the waves coming and they just rolled me under, tearing me up inside.

  I just stripped down, checking out the main house to make sure that Liz and Mr. Holbrook still weren’t home. I jumped in, going down almost to the bottom, letting my body float back to the surface where I turned on my back and looked up at the sky.

  Water was an old friend. It let me float along. It was my retreat. She could be right. I could never know what it was like to see what she’d seen but it still hurt to see her kiss someone else. She had to get that. No matter how well-intentioned the kiss was. It was a kiss.

  That was tonight, the ruination of good intentions. I wondered what it would feel like to sink to the bottom of the pool and just let the water invade me, pouring inside until I was full of it. It could be a relief to let it push all the dark thoughts and fear out and dissolve it into the liquid.

  I took a deep breath and flipped over, floating on my stomach and looking down at the bottom of the pool. The strong underwater lights threw shadows everywhere on the concrete and the surface of the tile looked like it was rippling. It was comfort.

  I flipped back over and just floated again, trying to count the stars. It could be good that we were getting all of this out now. We were about to get married. Natalie would have always been something unresolved and so would Skylar.

  I should have gone after her but I didn’t want to make it worse again. Sometimes she needed to cry it out and I had to respect that. So, I would stay here with my solace. I loved not hearing things. The way water muted sound made me relax.

  I kicked once in awhile and got lost in the water. My mind drifted from a place of conflict to one of nothing. My mind unwound like a backwards twister. I felt the strands of feelings and thoughts falling into a mess of garble that had no meaning.

  My eyes were closed and I felt the cool night air above and the warm water below. It took me somewhere that fear had no place. It was a sleep like state, some form of catatonia or meditation. I found the center of myself and stayed there, trying to feed a balancing force.

  I didn't hear her until she’d raised her voice high. I panicked and pulled my legs down. For a second everything was blurry and then I saw Olivia on the edge of the pool looking down. My heart slowed little-by-little and my breath caught up with me. I’d been somewhere else and now it was painful to come back.

  “Sorry. What?” I hadn’t heard what she said.

  “You’ve been out here a long time,” she said worried.

  “Have I? I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. I just wanted to try and calm down and I didn’t want to bother you.” I said, swimming to the side.

  “I’ve been watching you for over an hour,” she said.

  “What?!”

  How had I lost an hour?

  “I didn’t realize. You should have said something sooner. I would have gotten out.”

  “I didn’t want to push you,” she said. “But you scared me.”

  I nodded. “Sorry.”

  I hoisted myself out of the pool and shivered in the night air. It was so much colder out of the water than in. My teeth chattered as I wrapped my arms around my body and started for the house. I could get my clothes tomorrow. Right now I just needed to get warm.

  I waited for a minute till most of the water dripped off before I opened the door and made a mad dash for the bathroom. When I got there I covered myself in a towel and dried off, stripping my underwear and bra down and hanging them over the tub. I took another towel for my hair and wrapped it up.

  When I went back into the bedroom she was sitting there on the bed. “I’m so cold.” I ran for the bed and jumped in the bed and pulled the covers of me, scooting over so I could bend my body around her back.

  “I’m sorry, baby.”

  It covered so many things. The fight and scaring her, the entire night really.

  “You sure you don’t want a hot shower or a bath?” She asked, side-stepping my words entirely. “I can run one for you,” she added on.

  “I just want you but I probably should take a shower.”

  I pushed my hand under her shirt once it was reasonably warm.

  “You’re taking care of me even now,” I said, soft and low.

  I was so afraid that I would break her someday. It hurt to think of being the one to do that. I’d break myself first. That would do it. If anything happened to me, it happened to her too. I was sensible of that but I was still finding my way. I didn’t know if I could sidestep all of the dangers.

  “I love you.”

  That was the one solid truth of the night.

  “I love you too,” she said softly, moving her hand over mine beneath her shirt and holding it.

  “You’re hurting. I hate it and I did it.”

  “I can’t talk about it,” she whispered carefully.

  I took my hand from under her shirt and hugged it to my body. I didn’t deserve to touch her. I wasn’t strong enough to fight the thoughts that came crashing in. The wish that I’d let myself sink. That selfish need to disappear stabbed at me until I wished I was laying in the Earth instead of in our bed.

  I should fight. I should draw myself back up and be good, do whatever I could to try and make it better. It was far away, that willpower.

  “What should I do?” I whispered.

  “You’re doing well,” she said, scooting her body back into mine.

  I didn’t know what I should do still. So, I left my arms where they were.

  “I feel like I should be punished,” I told her.

  “What do you mean?” Olivia asked carefully. I felt her arms pull at mine, to make sure I was tight against her and holding her now.

  “Touching you makes me feel good. I shouldn’t get to feel good. That’s what my brain tells me and it’s hard to shut it up.”

  Olivia turned in my arms until she was facing me. I felt her eyes search me, exploring my surface.

  “I got it wrong. I didn’t do the right things and I said all the wrong things. That means I get punished. That’s how you learn.”

  “No,” she said, tugging at me, pulling me into her. Next thing I knew she was kissing me deeply, for
cing me to feel her. “Kiss me,” she said, asking me. I felt her kissing my face and my neck, felt her touching me.

  Not even my mind had a way to keep up that ingrained training when she did this. I kissed her back and felt that need grow. I was tentative at first. I just let her touch me and then I started to feel her back. I wanted her clothes off.

  “Please,” she begged. “Love me,” she asked. “It’s okay.”

  I fumbled to get her shirt off and threw it away and then I pulled at her underwear until they were off and then I was at a loss. I could only cling to her and feel her body move against mine. We were forever coming back to these desperate moments.

  “I love you so much,” she said, tugging at me needily.

  “I love you too.”

  My mind shouted at me to ask her why and how. To love me was to commit to life chained to a mutilated mind. I didn’t know what I was doing until I was on top and kissing her, wishing she would scratch me with her nails that glided softly over my back.

  I broke the kiss, looking at her. “I want you to hurt me but I don’t know if that’s good or bad.” I gulped as she moved against my body, creating a friction.

  “Baby,” she cried needily, her nails digging into my thighs as I crashed into her.

  “Fuck,” I said as I landed and felt her nails dig in. I didn’t know if I should or not but I just moved her hand down, watching her as I did. She opened her eyes when her fingers met my folds and I stared into her as I pressed her fingers inside of me and nearly cried with the feeling.

  She gasped out audibly, trying to help as she watched in near shock.

  “Shit,” she said, as I fell down into her unrelenting. “Yes,” she gasped, approvingly.

  I just went with it, feeling and not thinking. It was opposite of what I was programed to think I deserved. It confused me only far enough to lend an air of cloudiness on the outer edges of my mind. I ground onto her fingers and moved myself so that I could touch her as well.

  I felt her wetness and let my fingers linger in the warm wetness before I pushed two fingers into her and tried to keep my body moving against hers. I felt her so far inside me that I knew it would be over soon so I hurried to get her to where I was.

  “Babe!” She gasped pained, not expecting it. Her walls were so tight. It only made her push into me harder.

  I pressed into her harder and huffed in short little breaths until I was almost over the edge. All the tension and the emotion put me so close to losing it that I needed this. I moved my thumb up, stretching my hand. It kind of hurt but I wanted to touch her even more.

  I rubbed her clit and kept pushing in and out of her, feeling her shudder a little. She pushed her fingers into me hard and I started to fall, jerking my legs closed to keep her inside. It made it hard to touch her but I relaxed and felt her tense and cum a second later.

  I would never get over that feeling of her convulsing around me. I pulled my fingers out of her and collapsed onto her body and went slack. I closed my eyes and just reminded myself to breathe. My hand ached now but I didn’t care. I wiggled my fingers and then lay still.

  “Why does that always work?” I gasped out a laugh.

  “You always feel good,” she said. I felt her hand swimming up into my hair as she hissed and tried to come down from me, tugging a little on my locks as her nails from her other hand scratched down my back.

  “Ahh,” I moaned when her nails hit the right spot. “You make me forget everything.”

  “I just want to love you,” she said.

  “You do and it makes me want to show you how good it makes me feel.”

  Chapter 18

  Olivia

  Back when she’d said that about the kiss she completely broke me. Even after ALL of our talks, she still had no idea how different the two situations were and everything about that was hurtful to me.

  I ran to the bathroom and cried out my world. I couldn’t cry like that in front of her. Not right now. It would break her. I couldn’t do it. So I ran.

  What I didn’t expect was for her to run.

  Every time she ran something bad happened.

  When I came out of the bathroom and realized she was gone I completely panicked.

  I ran outside and immediately saw her clothes and then her form in the water. Luckily she was floating face up. Her stomach moved. She was breathing.

  I clutched my chest, feeling as the air returned to my lungs and my head spun.

  She was okay.

  Momentarily, my composure came back to me. Then I stumbled two feet forward and retched near the palm fronds, my torso completely bending over as I did. There wasn’t enough food in my body to support the action so nothing came out of me and my throat just hurt after that.

  I balanced on the bench nearby, slipping down onto it to sit. My stomach still ached.

  Avery’s form floated peacefully out in front of me.

  She wasn’t up a tree. She wasn’t in a car. She wasn’t bleeding, that I knew. Blood would stain the water. I would notice blood. There wasn’t blood.

  She was just floating, just chilling out; just calm.

  I sat down off in the distance by the pool and waited, hoping everything was alright.

  I was still crying but I could do that quietly. It wouldn’t be a problem. It was cold outside and I hated that.

  I had no concept of time right now. No concept of right or wrong. No concept of how to fix this.

  When I talked she got upset. When I talked she said things that could break me. It hurt. It hurt to think of her comparing that kiss I had with Nat with the Skylar kiss that had so much more behind it.

  Avery kissed Nat! She had JUST kissed her.

  How the actual fuck did she even find a scenario in which I was the guilty party? It hurt me inside.

  I couldn’t understand how her brain worked. It wasn’t fair. I never would’ve kissed Nat if that hadn’t of just happened. I just wouldn’t have.

  But rules just don’t apply to us. I have to remember that. With us there’s just no such thing as a two-way street or a parallel path. I have to remember that sense cannot be had and patterns cannot be followed and no matter how hard I try I just can’t, I can’t catch a break with her.

  I already told her how that kiss with Skylar wasn’t even about one simple kiss. I thought she understood me. We had talked about it so much. It was about the situation. She’d pushed me away for months. She’d been vacant. She’d been flirting with Skylar IN FRONT OF ME and being more of herself with Skylar and I just had to watch for weeks upon weeks. AND THEN she kissed her. That wasn’t even about a kiss. It was about so much more.

  The comparison was hurtful. It was so so so so different.

  It hurt me so fucking much because it showed how little she knew about what she had done to me.

  I clutched my stomach and watched as she floated all peaceful in the pool.

  It was sick actually. It was sick to be watching her now while thinking these things.

  A huge part of me wanted to jump into that pool and just upset her fucking flow. I just wanted to hit her a few times or something, wake her up and get her to see me as a person, a real fucking person, a person she hurt.

  But then I remembered all she’d been through. I remembered what we’d talked about and where we’d been. Mostly I remembered Ben. What he did. That sobered me up right quick.

  I loved Avery far too much to see any moment of her peace as a problem.

  I gasped in the dark, anger causing cool air to enter my throat and coat it. I wished it could be simple but it couldn’t. I always had more to think about somehow. If I wanted to be the right person, I had to be better for her.

  In my heart I knew it was wrong for Avery to compare us like she’d done. My simple kiss with Nat was non-intrusive and open. Neither of us were drunk. It wasn’t something I was ashamed of or worried about. It came right after another kiss of Avery’s that should not have happened. It was about closure more than anything else. It wasn’t s
ome move on anyone’s part. I could explain it more but Avery’d gone a bit extreme and reminded me how much she couldn’t possibly understand.

  How was I supposed to brush over such a comparison?

  Even if I could, right before that she’d accused me of not listening. She wasn’t listening. I’d been trying and trying and she hadn’t seen. She just thought I was oblivious and openly flirting with Nat or something ridiculous like that. She wanted me to just agree it was her problem. It was our problem though. I could never agree to that.