by Anna Paige
Ali glanced over her shoulder at me but didn't turn. "I don't believe you. Clay wouldn't do that, wouldn't think that of me. You're making things up again, Lauren. Like your trip to Virginia Beach the weekend my apartment got trashed. You lie so often, you're starting to believe the shit you make up yourself. Try peddling your stories somewhere else." Ali reached behind her seeking my hand, which I gave with no hesitation. Lauren had totally misrepresented my intentions. If I could get Ali alone, I could explain everything and make her see that there was never any malicious intent.
I just didn't want to be the focus of town gossip.
Didn't want people talking about how I'd ended up with the land.
We stepped past Lauren, whose delighted smile made me livid. Just as we neared my truck, Lauren called out, "Ask him where he first saw you. See if he'll at least be honest about that."
Son of a bitch! This couldn't be fucking happening. It had to be a dream, a nightmare.
Ali dropped my hand and turned, scrunching her brow in the glare of the afternoon sun. "Why don't you tell me, Lauren? I'm sure whatever you've made up is far more interesting than the truth."
I kept my back to Lauren, Ali standing just inside my peripheral vision as my worst fears came to life. "Oh, it's the truth, Ali, whether you like it or not. Allow me to jog your memory." Her voice got closer with every sentence. She was enjoying this and wanted a fucking front row seat. "You made a little trip to the ER last year, remember? Driving all the way to Fredericksburg to be sure you wouldn't bump into anyone you knew?" Ali stiffened beside me, and my heart fell to my knees. "Claimed that you'd fallen down some stairs, I believe, but we both know you antagonized your fiancé into a fight and then couldn't handle it when you got what you deserved." My fists clenched so tight that my knuckles cracked, but I said nothing, knowing exactly what was coming. "Do you remember some jackass trying to play the hero in the parking lot, picking up your boyfriend and slamming him against a car while you scurried off into the darkness like a cockroach?"
From the corner of my eye, I saw Ali's slow turn in my direction, felt the accusation in her gaze and the humiliation rolling off of her like ripples of heat on an asphalt road. She ignored Lauren's snickering, focused only on me. I was too ashamed to face her, so I stood there as she whispered, "He kept calling you hero. That night at the gala, Keith called you hero, just like he did that night outside the hospital. He was letting you know he recognized you, wasn't he?" I closed my eyes against the sting caused by the anger in her voice. I'd known better than to think I deserved her, told myself this would happen, that I'd hurt her and lose her because I was too fucking selfish to walk away.
When I didn't answer, she shouted. "Wasn't he? He was enjoying watching you parade around with his broken, discarded toy. It must have been especially fun for him to know I had no goddamn clue who you were." Her tone was accusing and angry but laced with despair. "Did you know from the beginning? That day at the lake, did you recognize me? Was all this about you feeling sorry for the poor little waif who you thought couldn't defend herself? Did you think you needed to play the hero some more? Fix me? Rescue me? Fuck me just to prove you were better than him?"
Lauren chuckled, and Ali was suddenly gone from my side. I turned just in time to see her backhand Lauren with enough force to spin the woman around. The sound was sharp and oddly satisfying. Lauren whipped around, one hand on her cheek and Ali slapped her again, this time on the other side. When I saw Ali draw back her fist to continue her assault, I leaped over and grabbed her arm. "Alison, stop. That's enough."
She wrenched her arm away without acknowledging me as she looked at Lauren and spat, "Your work here is done, bitch. You did what you came to do, now carry your sorry ass over and help your uncle before I clue him in on just what a spiteful piece of trash you really are." Despite being a total bitch, Lauren seemed to genuinely care what Teach thought of her, the one person she had any affection for.
Lauren's venomous glare slipped a fraction as she considered that. "And what do I tell him about my face? My lip is swelling, and I'm sure there's gonna be a bruise. How do I explain that?"
"You could tell him you're a heinous bitch who got what was coming to her," Ali suggested with a snarl, then smirked. "Tell him you fell down some stairs. It's always worked for me. And it worked for Keith that night he broke my ribs." She looked between Lauren and I with equal amounts of loathing.
"Or did neither of you know about that? Oh yeah, I lost the first round because I didn't see it coming but, when he followed me back to our condo, I was ready. No man raises a hand to me. He got away with it once because the coward attacked me from behind but he was stupid enough to confront me head on the second time. When he raised his hand to me that time, I beat the ever loving shit out of him. He fared far worse than I did, I can promise you that. While I was moving my shit out of our apartment, he got to make a trip back to the ER, spitting blood and praying someone would be able to go in and find those puny little raisins he calls balls." She glowered at Lauren and me. "So don't either of you think I can't take care of myself, or you'll live to regret it."
Lauren finally left, not turning her back to Ali until she was nearing the corner sidewalk that led to the booths.
Once she was out of sight, Ali turned to me, devastation in her eyes as she avoided my gaze. "You should go, too. I'm going back to the apartment. I can walk from here." My heart seized in my chest as she went on in a monotone voice. "Talia will be here this afternoon. I'll have her pick up my things from the cabin." She nodded toward my truck. "If you'll just unlock it so I can get my purse, I'll be on my way."
I wanted to plead with her to listen, to let me explain. I wanted to crush her to my chest and tell her how much I loved her and that I'd never meant to lie.
But I couldn't do any of that.
She'd trusted me, loved me, and I couldn't even find the courage to tell her who I really was, what I'd done. I should have done it from the beginning, but I never expected to get this close to her, to anyone.
By the time I realized that I loved her, it was too late.
Going into this I knew I'd end up hurting her, but some tiny shred of hope still existed deep down, and I risked wondering what it would be like to spend my life with her.
Stupid and reckless. I had to stop holding onto something that was never meant for me. Happiness wasn't in the cards, even if I'd managed to get dealt a hand full of hearts.
I pulled my keys from my pocket and thumbed the fob, the headlights flashing to signal that the truck was unlocked. Without a word, Ali walked over and opened the passenger door, leaning down to retrieve her bag from the floorboard. I turned my back at the sight, knowing it would fucking break me to watch her walk away.
When the door clicked shut a minute later, I closed my eyes and listened to the sound of her footfalls as they grew fainter with each retreating step. I stood there like that long after the sound had gone, feeling the crushing weight of my failure bearing down on me. I'd known from the beginning that this would end badly but goddamn, I never imagined this.
I stood there for a long time trying to figure out what the hell to do next. Where would I go? What would I do? I was lost, completely and utterly lost.
I couldn't go home without her, couldn't face the emptiness alone.
Home.
I'd never thought of any place as my home until that moment. It wasn't the cabin that the word brought to mind, it was her. The scent of her peaches and cream body wash wafting in from the shower in the morning, silently sharing a cup of coffee on the balcony before work, the feel of her body tucked snugly against me as I slept. All those things I'd stupidly taken for granted, now only a pain-laced memory. I'd lost my heart, my soul, my home.
There was nothing left for me in Denson.
Steeling myself for what came next, I pulled my phone from my pocket and called my business partner. He answered on the third ring. "Hey, brother. How's the Denson job coming? Sick of country living yet?"
I FINISHED MY CALL with Brant and booked a room at the dingy little motel on the edge of the Denson town limits. I couldn't go back to the cabin, couldn't bear the thought of being there without her, but I wasn't ready to go back to my house in Richmond, either. I palmed my room key and walked across the street to the ABC store for provisions, where I spent a considerable amount of money. Funny how your whole fucking life could crumble in a matter of seconds like a goddamn wrecking ball came through and wiped it all out in one whack. Returning with my packages, I briefly wondered which came first; the run-down lodging or the conveniently placed liquor store. In my experience, the two often went hand-in-hand.
My phone buzzed incessantly in my pocket, and I knew Brant had called the office. Spencer would probably want to say 'I told you so' before someone else beat him to it. If anyone had earned the right, I supposed it was him. The bruises from the punch he took had lasted for a while, taking a couple weeks to fade from garish to vaguely discolored.
Yeah, I thought as I filled an ice bucket at the dispenser outside my room, Spencer was right again. She was always out of my league.
I walked into my temporary refuge and frowned, noting the worn carpet and mid-seventies decor. Shit, even the hastily added wall hangings were probably older than me. The air was stale and muggy, causing me to cast a weary glance at the ancient looking air conditioning unit by the window, partially obscured by the thick, musty-smelling drapes.
I shrugged as I closed the door behind me. Soon, I'd be so hammered I wouldn't care whether this was a ten thousand dollar a night room, or the fucking gutter.
I turned my phone off and tossed it on the tiny dining table in the corner of my crappy efficiency suite, trading it for a plastic-wrapped cup that I promptly filled to the brim with bourbon. My drink of choice burned like hell on the way down, and I clenched my teeth with a satisfied hiss. Good. I wanted it to hurt. It was fitting that I'd chosen to numb the pain with cheap ass whiskey that tasted like battery acid, a new pain to mitigate the old.
Apparently, heartbreak brought out the masochist in me.
I left the television off and had the shades drawn, sitting in the dank room, sipping swill as I watched the room darken with the arrival of evening and lighten again with the new dawn.
I'd never in my life had so much to drink and still remained conscious.
It was like my body burned the shit off as fast as I swallowed it, refusing to allow me to dull the pain. Finally sick of trying, I threw the cup against the wall, the soft splattering sound nowhere near as satisfying as the sound of shattering glass would have been. Maybe I'd feel better if I started breaking the liquor bottles.
It occurred to me that I hadn't craved the destruction in a long time, that feeling of peace that always accompanied the swing of a sledgehammer, shattering, bending, and breaking everything in my path. Until that moment, I hadn't yearned for that sensation at all. Not since Ali. She had been my only craving, she had brought me peace.
Now all I had was pain.
And it was exactly what I deserved.
I replayed the look on her face over and over in my mind, the hurt, the devastation, the shame. God, the shame was the one that really got me. To see her eyes gloss over and fall to the ground as if she'd been the one at fault, had fucking ruined me. The Alison I loved had retreated, the confidence I'd seen blossoming in her whisked away in an instant.
I should have told her the truth long ago, but I was weak and afraid.
Just like before.
Ali wasn't the first person I'd let down, and unless I stayed in this crappy motel room forever, she probably wouldn't be the last. I lay back on the cheap floral bedspread and stared at the uneven ceiling tiles, warding off the past and mourning what was left of my future.
Too tired and heartsick to fight anymore, I let sleep and the memories overtake me.
IT HAD BEEN THE summer before my thirteenth birthday. I'd recently discovered girls, classic cars, and a few phantom chest hairs that no one else claimed to see. I stood on the pier by the lake, staring into the murky water and envisioning all the terrifying creatures concealed in its depths. My father had made me watch a horror movie marathon the year before, specifically featuring man-eating lake creatures, and I couldn't get some of the images out of my head. Gooseflesh covered my thin limbs in the late-July heat as I imagined long slimy tentacles waiting just beneath the surface, poised to pull me under the moment I entered the water.
I'd tried to learn to swim the previous summer, my mother forcing my father to take me to the YMCA for lessons. After the second afternoon of watching the instructor patiently try to coax me into the pool, my dad had gotten angry and tossed my rail-thin body into the deep end shouting, "Sink or swim, you little runt!"
The instructor had pulled me from the water, choking and gasping for air as I puked up chlorinated water. My throat and nose burned with every heave. Once everyone made sure I was alright, my father had been asked to leave, causing an awful scene. My mother had been too mortified to show her face there, so my lessons were put on hold, she said, until we could spend some time at our lake. That's how she always said it, 'our lake' as if it was mine and hers alone.
She and my father didn't get along very well, mostly because of me. They didn't know I could hear them arguing through the vent in my room sometimes. Some nights I sat there trembling as I listened to how much my father hated me. He was angry that my mother hadn't gotten rid of me, said she could have been a star if she hadn't thrown it all away to have some stupid kid.
When she pointed out that I was his son he would always laugh and say I was a casting-couch baby. It had been a long time before I understood what he meant but, once I did, I realized that he didn't want to be my father, and I was surprisingly okay with the idea. I didn't want him either. I paid him only the barest amount of respect necessary to coexist in the same house. No more. If I weren't worried about my mother, I'd have spit in his ugly face.
Standing on the pier that day, it dawned on me that she never talked about him being a part of our life here in Denson. She'd showed me the blueprints, pointed out where my room was going to be, and talked about all the fun she and I would have at the lake but she never once mentioned my father. We'd planted the willow there together one weekend. She said she could picture me getting married under its shade, building a life of my own on the land when I grew up and started a family. I groaned my displeasure, rolled my eyes at her sappy ramblings as teenagers are wont to do, but she had lovingly stroked the sapling's thin branches, telling me all the while that we could put up a tire swing so that my kids would someday be able to swing out into the water and swim.
She saw us there, she and I, She even saw me there with a family of my own, but nothing in her visions of the future indicated that my dad would be around. It was such a glorious thought I didn't even mind the sentimental bent to her plans as long as he stayed the hell away.
From the corner of my eye, I caught a flicker of movement and heard a splash just as I turned toward it. The water rippled outward, small ringlets of ever-widening movement. My mother's head broke the surface a moment later, so close to the pier that I nearly jumped out of my skin. "Come on in, the water's nice and cool." Her sweet voice beckoned me to join her as she blinked away the water in her eyes. "I'll hold you up, help you learn to float. I promise I won't let go."
Something about her words made my chest hurt, but I shook my head and backed away. "That's okay. Maybe next time. I didn't bring my trunks."
She watched me for a minute, deflated. "Okay, baby boy. We'll save the lesson for next time." She leaned back and brought her legs up, floating across the surface with a serene smile. "We have all the time in the world, you and me. As soon as the house is finished, we can come here every day. No noise, no arguing, just my baby boy and me."
I
'd rolled my eyes at the pet name. I was turning thirteen soon, and I'd grown to resent being thought of as a baby. I had frigging chest hair, for Christ's sakes.
We left soon afterward, having only come for the day to check on how the house was progressing and I spent the entire ride back home trying to find a way to tell her I wasn't a baby anymore without making her mad.
The following Friday, I was on the phone with Spencer; he'd been my best friend for two whole years, and we were inseparable. Spencer talked excitedly about the race that was happening over the weekend, chattering on about his favorite cars. I wasn't as into it as he was, so I mostly tuned him out, sorting through my cassettes looking for something to listen to.
When he started laughing and telling me how his older sister had gotten grounded for missing curfew, all I could think was that meant she would be around all weekend. I hadn't told my mom yet that Spencer had invited me to stay over, but I was determined to go, even more so after I found out Stephanie would be there too.
Stephanie was fifteen; tall and athletic with a great smile and big boobs. Well, big by my standards anyway. I'd always avoided the pool in Spencer's backyard, but I was thinking that would change over the weekend if Stephanie decided to go for a dip. I'd never actually go in the water, but a well-placed lawn chair and my favorite sunglasses sounded like the perfect recipe for a great weekend.
Convincing my mother, however, had not been as easy as I'd anticipated. She reminded me of the swimming lesson I'd narrowly escaped for the fourth time the previous weekend, saying I had to keep my promises. I'd promised her at the beginning of the summer that I would at least try to learn, but I'd been too afraid to so much as dip one toe in the lake. After letting me slide all summer, she was choosing this weekend to dig in her heels? Really? I groveled, begged, and tried to barter my way to a 'yes', but she wouldn't budge.
"You'll feel so much better once you finally learn to swim, you'll see. The lake won't be so scary then." She promised as she ruffled my hair and started packing our cooler for the trip.