Unbreak Me

by Alicia Cicoria

  “I haven’t even touched you.” I breathed, making her confirm what I already knew.

  “You don’t have to do anything. Just thinking about you, I get this way.” She rubbed her body into my hand, tossing her hair behind her shoulders. Her mouth gaped open and she bit her lip. I had never seen anything more seductive than what she was doing right now.

  Using me to pleasure herself had to be the hottest thing I had ever seen. Lucas would swear seeing two girls going at it was the hottest, but he didn’t have his hand down Amberly’s jeans, watching her move her hips faster and faster. Without warning, she stopped. She never let herself go over the edge. She would get close to an orgasm and stop. It happened every single time. I didn’t know what she was waiting for. I wouldn’t object to her reaching an orgasm, leaving me behind.

  She tried to catch her breath as she dotted my face with her lips. Kiss after kiss, her breathing slowed to the point where you wouldn’t have even known the last five minutes had happened.

  Chapter 19

  RollerCoaster

  Amberly

  “Why are you torturing yourself? Just fuck him already.” Cricket was fumbling through our refrigerator, trying to find something to eat. She tossed me a bottle of water and opened one for herself.

  Chugging the water, I shook my head. “I don’t want to fuck him. What happens if it’s not as good as I think it’ll be?”

  Cricket laughed and plopped down on the couch, turning the television on. I hadn’t been able to talk to her because things had been so crazy for the past couple of weeks, so when she informed me she would be staying the entire weekend at the apartment with me, I confessed everything. She’d joked, called me a slut, then asked for more details.

  “The sex is never as good as you think it’ll be. Trust me. Doesn’t matter who you sleep with. The longer you build yourself up with all this teasing, the more disappointed you’re going to be. How do you know your feelings aren’t being driven by how bad your vagina wants to connect with his dick?”

  I was falling for Bryant Kessler. Every second I hung around him, I was falling further and further down. My body craved his touch if he was more than a foot away. My ears longed to hear his voice if I hadn’t heard from him for longer than an hour. He made me smile more than I ever thought I could. He said all the right words at the right times and he never pushed me further than I allowed. Every time I was around him, my mind got foggy, and I couldn’t rip my eyes away from him. I spent more time staring at him than I did touching him. I didn’t want to miss any flicker of emotion that would build on his face. I yearned for the little winks he threw my way. The first time he had ever done it to Haylie, I remember wishing it was me he was winking at. Then, when he finally did I couldn’t contain myself. I wanted to pounce on him right after. I was ready to sleep with him right then and there.

  “I don’t. But, Cricket, this is the closest I’ve gotten to feeling anything…...other than empty.” I sat beside her on the couch, twisting my body to face her.

  Cricket wiped her lips with her forearm after taking another swig of her bottled water. “The only time the sex is better is if you’re in love with him. So, let yourself fall for him before you fall under him.”

  “Where’d you steal that saying from?” I joked.

  She feigned offense before letting her body fall against the cushions of our hand-me-down couch. We could buy furniture if we wanted to, but we spent all of our money on other useless things. This weekend, we planned on buying as much ammo as the shooting range would sell us.

  “I confiscated that one from my ass.” She changed the subject. “Any luck on looking into the wreck?”

  A lump formed in my throat and wouldn’t budge until I swallowed several handfuls of water. “I’ve got a few things that I had kept from that night. I put them in a shoe box. It’s just a few clippings from the story in the newspaper.”

  “Are you going to consider opening the investigation back up?”

  I shrugged, turning to face the television screen and propped my feet on the coffee table. “It wouldn’t matter anyway. It’s not like they can give the driver a field sobriety test now. They’d have to rewind time to gather that to present it as evidence. It wouldn’t hurt to find out who the person was. I don’t even think I can remember if it was a man or woman driving the other car.”

  Cricket capped off her water and waltzed into the kitchen to toss the bottle in the trash can. She slanted her body against the kitchen counter, folding her arms and she bored her eyes into me. “Do you think doing this is going to open old wounds? I kind of prefer you being a little happy.”

  “For your sake I shouldn’t do this?” Cricket wasn’t a selfish person. Not normally. But, now I felt she was being a little selfish. She wanted me happy, hell everyone around me did. I had to think about what Bryant said. He’d be my paper weight and help me through all of it, right?

  Cricket removed herself from the confinements of the kitchen and gave me a playful punch in my shoulder. “You know I didn’t mean it that way. I mean, you’re so happy right now. I’m sure I’m not the only person who has noticed this. If you reopen all of this, you won’t be able to keep the memories at bay. I don’t want you to go through countless nights of waking up in your bed not recognizing where you are again.”

  In a way Cricket was right. Opening it all back up terrified me, and I had been through the death of my own child. Here I was, breathing and trying my best to remember what it was like to live.

  “What if it’s the closure I need to heal my heart?” Was revenge the best form of healing? How much easier would it be if you could purchase it at your nearest grocery store?

  Cricket studied me for a few more moments before giving me an answer. “What information are you looking for and what are you going to do when you get it? Even if you reopen the case and things seem fishy and there’s proof in front of you, they obviously ruled it as an accident. The brakes in the other car failed. There’s no evidence that’s going to support the opposite claim. They missed the mark when gathering what they needed to find out who was at fault.”

  Cricket’s words replayed over and over again. I let them sink in before I gave her an answer. “The least I want to do is know who it was. If that’s all I get from this, that’s all I need.” I opened up to Cricket, letting the words pour out of me like I was reading it all from a book. “I’ve been spending this last year angry about my life and the way it ended up. I married Eric right after high school. It was the perfect romance. Then, I got pregnant with Haylie and I couldn’t think of anything more beautiful or amazing. She was my little miracle and she completed my commitment to Eric. We had even talked about having another child. And I don’t know,” I stood up and paced the living room, tapping my bottled water against my thigh as I spoke, “maybe Haylie’s death was God’s way of saying I shouldn’t be having another child with Eric. As horrible as it sounds, it’s the only reasonable explanation I can give myself. It’s fucked up. More than fucked up. I’ve felt God played with my emotions the day Haylie took her last breath. If that wasn’t enough, I found Eric banging some chic in our bed. The bed we shared. The bed Haylie used to crawl up into when she was scared. The bed we made love in. The bed we had the conversation of possibly having another child.” I stopped and took a deep breath in before continuing, “I’ve held onto the resentment for so long, I’m ready to let it go. So, if I can find out who is responsible and forgive them, maybe I can move forward.”

  “I went to her grave you know.” I added, my eyes flickering to Cricket’s.

  “I know. Bryant called me to ask me where it was.”

  This admission from Cricket didn’t surprise me. “I said goodbye to her. For the first time since this happened, I said goodbye. And that helped. But, something is missing. I’m going to keep this thing open until I can figure out what it is.”

  “Amberly, I will be right here with you. If that’s what you’re searching for, then I’ll help in any way I can. I�
��ve tried for the last ten months trying to bring you back to life. If I would’ve known it took a guy to do it, I would’ve forced you on a blind date a long time ago.”

  I flopped my body down on the coffee table in front of her. “You think Bryant has something to do with this?”

  She lifted one of her shoulders and scrunched her nose. “Maybe. All I know is that if I would’ve taken you to the cemetery you would have murdered me. The day we tried, you freaked out. I think sometimes, a million people can come into our lives and do the same thing to help us get over things but it takes that ONE person to really get through. I think Bryant is your person.”

  I choked on the last droplet of water in my bottle. “Now you’re quoting Grey’s Anatomy.”

  Cricket slanted her body so she could see around me to aim the remote at the television. “They’ve got a marathon on, want to watch it?”

  I shook my head, letting tendrils of hair fall haphazardly out of the messy bun I had created. “I’ll watch a marathon with you if you help me with the clippings I saved.”

  “Deal, now get the fuck off the coffee table. I don’t want to have to scrub out your ass stains from the wood.”

  I didn’t even think about it, knowing ahead of time that Cricket could level me in one kick. I tackled her, taking her body down from the couch and into the section between the coffee table and couch. She twisted her body in a position where there was no question who was stronger.

  “I think you’re slacking on your work outs, Amby. Time to get your fat ass back into the gym.”

  My ass was smaller than it had been since I graduated high school, so I knew there was no malice behind her words. “I don’t think it’ll fit through the double doors.” I popped off, removing myself from the floor.

  “Maybe not. In that case, I’ll just have to make you run circles around the building until I can put vegetable oil on the doors and squeeze you through.” She hopped up and pushed the hair away from her face. “Now, get the clippings and I’ll get the popcorn. I sort of feel like we are playing a game of Clue now.”

  She couldn’t have known how right she was. Only, we both knew where it happened and what the murder weapon was.

  I dumped all of the clippings out onto the table and we went to work. The headlines were hard to read, almost as if they were slamming me back into the past as my eyes skimmed over the words.

  Young girl hospitalized after two-car collision on HWY 82

  Cricket’s hand fell over mine. “Are you sure you’re okay to do this?”

  I nodded. Revenge surged through me.

  Another box, that was I wasn’t familiar with, came into view. “I’ve been doing my own research, waiting until you were ready. I managed to print off a few documents that were public record and some articles from the news that were printed while you were in the hospital with Haylie. I haven’t really looked at all of them in detail so there might be some things that aren’t in relation to what happened.”

  I lowered the paper I was looking at. “Cricket…” tears flooded my eyes, “thank you.”

  When I had gotten up the courage to go surfing the net for any new information, I had come up empty handed, Haylie’s death long and forgotten. She was no longer news, no longer a topic of interest for reporters. There were no suspicions from the police or news anchors as they ruled Haylie’s death a mere accident. A sort of ‘wrong place at the wrong time’. They expressed how unfortunate it was that a brake malfunction had taken the life of a young girl, many people who had no business commenting did anyway. Some of them chalked it up to fate. Haylie’s fate was to die at a young age, I mean why else would a random woman’s brakes fail at the most inopportune time? Those comments made me angry, even while I tried to keep an open mind.

  I dug through the box Cricket offered. I found copies of the paperwork filled out by the police. I let myself devour the words, hoping something of importance would pop out at me. A full police report was the next item I came across. One of the officers had documented, in his own words what had happened.

  Chapter 20

  Get To You

  Bryant

  “Daddy, can we go look at the Christmas lights?”

  I turned the wheel, easing the truck out of Mac’s driveway. “I was thinking that we could go Christmas night since you’ll be with me.” I adjusted the rear-view mirror so I could catch a glimpse of Delia. Her chocolate brown hair sat piled in a tight bun on top of her head. She reminded me of a ballerina when Mac fixed her hair that way.

  An instant pout appeared on her face, her eyebrows scrunched down to the point you could barely see her hazel eyes. Eyes that matched mine, proving beyond doubt she belonged to me. She crossed her arms with intent, as though the motion would cause me to change my mind. She had perfected the art of ‘getting whatever you want by throwing a fit’, but it still didn’t work on me. At least, not yet.

  “Not fair!” She huffed, lifting her crossed arms up and hitting them back against her chest. She turned her face away, looking out the window. Her little forehead creased as though she were pushing the age of seventy, not the innocent age of seven that she was.

  An exasperated sigh released from my lips as I focused more on the road and less on how angry she was with me right now. “I’ve got something else we were going to do tonight.”

  The sentence seemed to peak her interest as she unfolded her arms and the wrinkles in her forehead decreased. “What is it?”

  “It’s a surprise but you have to be a good girl to get it.”

  Bribery. The ultimate answer in young girl’s tantrums. Bribe them with the unknown and they’ll ease their anger, hoping the prize is worth the effort of not throwing a fit.

  I did have a surprise for Delia, maybe not one she hoped for, but one that would have her smiling a little bit. She had been trying to get me to play a board game with her for a while and I was just now getting the extra time to do it. My weekends with Delia were always crazy. I was either working on a project at the house or helping someone with their own vehicle projects. It took up a lot of my time and while Delia liked to sit outside and ask me a dozen questions about how a motor worked, it was getting old to her. I could see it in the way she was reluctant to come with me on my scheduled weekends with her.

  I was trying to change that. To focus more on her and less on how insane my life had become.

  When Mac left, I wallowed. I begged. I cried. I pleaded. It was a vicious never-ending cycle. I missed her like crazy. All the negative aspects of our marriage never found their way to my memories. I could do nothing but remember the good times. The very first time I fell in love with her. The day of our wedding. The way she would smile at me for no reason at all. I stared at a picture of her for months. It had sat under the picture of Delia. I kept it there, hoping it was in some sort of magical picture frame that would force her to come knocking on the door, asking for us to start over.

  Then, I got used to sleeping alone. I would lay awake at night, a few of the hard times came into focus as I stared at the blank ceiling. We hadn’t so much as touched each other for six months prior to her calling it quits. She slept on her side of the bed and I slept on mine. There seemed to be a permanent line separating us, just as it had during our marriage.

  I threw that bed out and lit it on fire. When I watched it go up in flames, it was as though with every crackle brought more memories with it. More of the hard times that I had seemed to forget about. The way I surprised her one day by coming home from a trip early and the first thing she had said to me was, “You weren’t supposed to be home yet.” And, as I kissed her lips, hoping for some kind of passion, she pushed away from me and I read the annoyed look on her face.

  Roommates. We were nothing but roommates for years. It was sad as the reality hit me. It slashed me with its force. From that moment, I couldn’t remember the good times.

  It didn’t help that every single one of my friends came forth with stories about her, stories that explained so much. I couldn�
��t understand why they hadn’t told me sooner. Why I had pretended for so long to be happy and everyone else watched and mocked me, because not telling me or warning me about her behind-doors personality was mocking. They’d felt bad and said they didn’t want to be the one to ruin my marriage, they wanted me to figure it out on my own.

  I don’t think I ever would have. I was gullible. Which is exactly why the thing with Amberly scared the shit out of me. I didn’t want to fall down that road again. I didn’t want to be taken advantage of. I wanted her to be who I thought she was. No ulterior agenda. No hidden crazy. I wanted her to be the woman I saw in her.

  When we pulled up to the house, Delia unbuckled in seconds and skipped to the front door. I couldn't hide my excitement from seeing how her smile reached up to her eyes and how she was tugging on the hem of my shirt.

  “Calm down.” I chuckled through the words, knowing I didn’t want her to calm down because it was the first time in a long time she had shown so much energy.

  The house haunted her with its memories. The reminder that her parents weren’t together anymore. Today, she seemed to ignore the past that the house held within its walls.

  She tumbled into the house, her little giggle echoed in the quietness of the its walls. Her sketchers made a squeaking noise as she ran across the tiled portion of the living room. She was met with a game board and a plastic-wrapped movie. “Are we watching this tonight, Daddy?”

  I nodded and hung the keys on their place next to the front door. “Go put your jacket where it’s supposed to go.” I told her and she obeyed, skidding across the tile again.