Behind the Bars

by Brittainy Cherry

  She laughed. “Yeah, my parents would love that. They are already super pumped that I’m marrying a democrat.”

  “True, true. Okay, no eloping.”

  Kelly pressed her hands to her cheeks and shook her head. “Oh gosh, we’re talking too much about boring basic people stuff. Sorry, you guys.”

  Jasmine just giggled, because Jasmine was drunk. It seemed that every time she didn’t see what she was hoping to see on her phone, she’d take another shot.

  Blame it on the eggnog.

  “Okay, okay, no more wedding talk. Let’s do something fun! Let’s play Never Have I Ever,” Kelly said, clapping her hands together.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  Jasmine’s eyes widened. “You’ve never played Never Have I Ever?” she asked, stunned.

  “No?”

  She smirked and giggled. “Is that a question?” She was a giggly, smiley drunk, and it was the most adorable thing I’d ever seen. Her cheeks were rosy, her eyes doe-wide, and she also became extremely touchy-feely.

  I wasn’t complaining.

  She kept smiling and giggling. “Don’t worry, I’ve never played either.”

  “Never Have I Ever is a drinking game where someone says, ‘Never have I ever’ then they say a simple statement. Anyone who has done that thing at some point in their life takes a drink. Then we go around and around in a circle until we pass out from drinking,” Kelly explained. “You go first, Jas.”

  Jason nodded. “Okay. Never have I ever skipped school.”

  We all drank.

  “Never have I ever cried during a Disney movie,” Jasmine said.

  She, Kelly, and I drank.

  Jason cocked an eyebrow toward me. “Dude.”

  “Have you never seen Brother Bear?” I choked out.

  “Oh, shit. Yeah.” Jason took a drink. “You’re right.”

  “These questions are too boring. Let’s get real. Never have I ever had a threesome,” Kelly said, raising the bar.

  When I turned to Jasmine, her eyes were on me, and when I didn’t drink, her lips curved up.

  Jason jumped in. “My turn—never have I ever lost my virginity on a dude ranch in the back of a shed that had five purple umbrellas hanging from the ceiling.”

  “That’s awkwardly de-de-” I paused and shut my eyes. Descriptive—say it. Say the word. “De-de—” My blood pressure built, embarrassment from feeling like a damn fool for being a grown man and still being unable to say such words. It felt as if everyone’s eyes were on me, waiting for me to push out the syllables, waiting for me to figure out what I was trying to say. Right as I was about to have a breakdown, I felt a hand find my thigh under the table. I looked up to see Jasmine giving me a gentle smile, and I took a breath. “That’s awkwardly descriptive,” I pushed out.

  I placed my hand on top of Jasmine’s and lightly squeezed. Thank you.

  She smiled as if she’d heard me, and replied, You’re welcome.

  Kelly cleared her throat and nonchalantly took a sip of her drink. “It was during Bible camp, and it wasn’t a shed, it was a stable, and there were two horses watching the whole time, thank you very much.”

  Everyone started laughing, and then the game went on. I noticed Jasmine’s hand still resting against my thigh. Her fingers kept kneading my muscles, moving closer and closer to my inner thigh, and my breaths grew deeper.

  “I have one,” she said, holding her glass up with her free hand. “Never have I ever fallen in love while covered in horse shit.”

  I laughed out loud.

  Actually laughed out loud.

  Jason’s and Kelly’s eyebrows were cocked high and their stares were bewildered, but I ignored them as I lifted my glass, clinked it with Jasmine’s, and we both took a sip.

  “Um…what the actual heck?” Kelly asked incredulously.

  “You two had a really fucked-up friendship, didn’t you?” Jason remarked.

  The night went on with more shots of tequila and more laughter. Jasmine became more and more touchy-feely, and even though I knew I wanted her, I was also fully aware of how intoxicated she had gotten.

  “I think it’s time to call it a night.” I smiled at my friends.

  Jason agreed. “Sounds like a plan. I’ll get us an Uber,” he told Kelly, who was giggling with Jasmine over something only they understood.

  When Jason and Kelly headed out, Jasmine turned to me, tripping over her feet a bit, and smiled. I caught her before she tumbled. She blushed and pressed her hands against my chest. “Can I stay the night?”

  “Of course, if you’d like. I’ll sleep on the couch.”

  “Orrr,” she sang, tracing her finger along my chest. “You can sleep with me.”

  I chuckled, shaking my head. “You’re drunk.”

  “Yes, but rumor has it that I’m much more flexible when I’m drunk.”

  Oh, God.

  She was beyond drunk.

  “If you heard what you just said and were sober, you’d probably be ten shades of red. C-come on, let’s get you to bed.”

  Her eyes were heavy, and she pulled on my shirt. “No, let’s do it here,” she begged, pleading for me to take her right then and there. Her hands wandered down to my crotch, and I eased them back up higher.

  “Jasmine.” I grimaced. “You’re drunk.”

  “Please, Eli. Please…I want you,” she whispered, slowly starting to unbutton my shirt. “Don’t you want to feel me, taste me, have me?”

  God, yes.

  My body reacted to every touch she gave me, craving her in every imaginable way. There were so many nights I’d imagined what it would be like to be on top of her, beneath her, behind her, inside… Jasmine was everything I’d ever dreamed of, physically, mentally, and emotionally. She was the one I wanted at the beginning of each day and at the end of each night, but she wasn’t ready.

  “Come on, Elliott,” she said softly against my ear. “Please?”

  I took a breath.

  No.

  She wasn’t in her right frame of mind. She couldn’t truthfully express what she needed. She was only there offering me the physical when I needed the total package. I needed Jasmine—mind, body, and spirit.

  I needed her to be fully aware of what she was doing.

  Otherwise, the sex would be just like all the other men she’d been with in the past—hollow.

  “We can’t,” I told her as her lips grazed my neck. My eyes rolled to the back of my head, and my skin crawled as she touched me. “Jazz, don’t.”

  “Just…please, Eli…”

  “No.” I finally forced myself away from her. I shot myself across the room and shook off the effects of the drug she’d forced into my being. “We can’t.”

  “Why?” she asked, clearly embarrassed, though she tried to hide it with a fake confidence. “I know you want me.”

  “I do.”

  “Then why won’t you sleep with me?” she questioned. “Why won’t you fuck me?”

  “Because I care about you.”

  Her eyes glassed over and she shook her head. She then said the most heartbreaking thing I’d ever heard in my life. “People don’t care about me, Elliott. People just take pieces of me and then throw the rest away.”

  In that moment, I witnessed the storm behind her eyes.

  How long had it been there?

  How long had it been building in her heart?

  She lied about being happy because it was easier than acknowledging how sad she’d become. Some days it was better to lie than to face the darkest truths.

  Her heart was broken, and I hated that I hadn’t noticed until she was drunkenly stumbling around in front of me.

  She pressed her body against mine and begged me to touch her, to love her, to pretend I didn’t see the storm dancing behind that chocolate gaze, but I saw it. I saw her, and it broke my fucking heart.

  “Kiss me,” she whispered.

  “No.”

  “Fuck me,” she begged.

  “I
can’t.”

  Tears filled her eyes, and she started pounding her hands against my chest. “I hate you!” she shouted. She hit me harder and harder. I held my hands up and let her hit me, because I knew it wasn’t me she was shouting at. It wasn’t me she was hitting; it was the demons she pretended weren’t even there. Alcohol had a way of doing that—pulling out the parts of you that you didn’t want to see.

  After a few more seconds of pounding, her anger shifted to pain. She started crying softly at first, and then she slipped into heavy sobs. Her hits slowed down, and she fell against my chest. She started pulling on my shirt, and my hands were still in the air. As she cried, I wanted nothing more than to be her comfort. I wanted nothing more than to wrap up all her hurts and put them into my own soul.

  “Tell me what you want, Jasmine. I’m here. Tell me what you need me to do.”

  “Hold me?” she whispered.

  “Yes.”

  “Love me,” she begged.

  Always.

  My arms quickly dropped around her frame, and I pulled her darkness against me. I held on to her for what felt like forever, and still, it wasn’t long enough.

  I carried her up to my bedroom, laid her in bed, and tucked her in. She wiped at her eyes, which looked like raccoon eyes with her smeared makeup. “Are you sure no sleepover?” she murmured, making me smirk.

  “Maybe tomorrow.”

  She turned in the bed and hugged a pillow as I went to turn off the light. “She didn’t call me, or email.”

  I leaned against the door and raised an eyebrow. “Who?”

  “Mama,” she whispered, her sobbing coming back. “It’s Christmas, and she didn’t write me. She never writes me back. I’ve written her every day since I came here, and she never writes back.”

  “She’s a fool,” I told her.

  She laughed, hugging the pillow tighter. “You didn’t write back either.”

  “I’m an idiot.”

  “It’s okay, Elliott Adams. I don’t get why Mama won’t write me, because I’ve always tried to make her happy, but I get why you didn’t write back. It was because I’m the reason Katie died.”

  My chest tightened and ached. “What did you just say?”

  “They bullied you because of me.” She yawned. “If I weren’t alive, none of that would’ve happened. Maybe Mama was right—maybe she should’ve never had me. Then everyone would be okay.”

  Before I could reply, she was out cold, lightly snoring.

  Why would she think that? Why would she think Katie’s death was on her?

  My heart broke for Jasmine. I couldn’t imagine what she’d been through, dealing with her mother’s scorn, having a mother who wished her own daughter dead.

  My mother would have given her own life to have her daughter back.

  Over the past six years, I’d been dealing with my own storms, never once thinking of the pain anyone else around me was going through.

  Jasmine was broken, too, just like me.

  Only normally she hid it behind her smiles. Now she’d shown me her darkness.

  She was sleeping, but I didn’t leave right away.

  I smiled her way and tried to be the bravest man I could be. I told her none of this was her fault. I told her she was the definition of love. I begged her not to blame herself for something the devil had laid on her doorstep.

  Then, I fell asleep right outside the bedroom door, because I selfishly didn’t want to be alone.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Jasmine

  I woke up alone in Elliott’s bed, feeling like a fool. I had a splitting headache and felt beyond nauseous. Too much eggnog, too much wine.

  “Ugh.” I pushed myself up to a sitting position and smoothed out my wrinkled dress. I tried my best to tame my hair, but not even a hair tie and a high bun could make the monster on my head less wild.

  My eyes met the nightstand beside me, and when I saw a glass of water, crackers, and two Advil, I silently thanked Elliott for putting up with me the night before. I wished it was one of those drunken nights where I forgot everything I said and did, but unfortunately, it wasn’t. I remembered everything, every embarrassing thing I’d done and every embarrassing thing I’d said—throwing myself at Elliott…begging for sex…humiliating myself.

  I remembered the way I told him to fuck me.

  Oh my God, I told Elliott Adams to fuck me.

  I remembered the way I fell apart too…

  After popping the Advil into my mouth, I stood up. I collected all my stuff, and when I opened the bedroom door, I began tiptoeing to the front door, thankful I didn’t see Elliott.

  I wasn’t ready to face him.

  “Avoiding me?” Elliott said, walking out of the bathroom right as my hand landed on the doorknob.

  I turned around to see him shirtless, drying his hair with a towel. I gave him a tight, uncomfortable smile. “No, no. I was just going to go check on TJ.”

  “I called my mom—he’s okay.”

  “Oh, okay. Well, I better get back to my place to help Ray clean up after yesterday. It was a mess.”

  “Jazz…” he started, his eyes growing so soft. “Last night—”

  “I drank too much,” I cut in. “I never really did good mixing alcohol, so I’m really sorry for anything I said or did.”

  “You did nothing wrong.”

  “I did. I made a fool of myself, and, I’m sorry.”

  He stepped closer, and the hairs on my arms stood on end. “What happened?”

  “What…what do you mean?”

  Closer.

  “What happened to you?”

  I closed my eyes. “Nothing. I’m sorry, really, but I’m okay. It was just too many shots.”

  “You’re not okay.”

  Closer.

  “Elliott…”

  “You worked with TJ, right? He trained you?”

  “Only for a little while.” I rubbed my hands up and down my arms. “Why?”

  “What’s your truth?” he asked me.

  I tensed up. “What are you talking about?”

  “Every person TJ has ever trained had to dig deep. They had to put a mi-mirror up every day to get to that place, to find their truth. It’s hard, and it’s scary to go to those places, but you have to find your truth.”

  I swallowed hard. “I can’t. I can’t do that.”

  He nodded once and slid his hands into the pockets of his gray sweatpants. “I get that. So, let’s box.”

  I snickered. “What?”

  He walked over to his living room and picked up a pair of boxing gloves. “If you don’t want to talk about it, at least get it out of your system.”

  “By boxing?”

  “Yup.” His stare stayed somber. “By boxing.” He handed me the gloves, then walked behind the punching bag, holding it still. “Ready?”

  I slid the gloves onto my hands. “This is ridiculous.” I laughed lightly. “I’m really okay, Elliott.”

  His eyes locked with mine, and his voice was low. “Ready?” he asked again.

  I stood up straight. “Ready.”

  As I began to hit the punching bag, Elliott coached me. “Whatever eats you up at night, hit it. Whatever drives you up the wall, pound it out. Whatever hurts, make it hurt back.”

  I started out feeling dumb, but the more he coached me, the harder I swung. Then it got to the point where I couldn’t stop. I hammered into the punching bag nonstop, my breaths uneven, my heart rate skyrocketing. I started kicking the bag as Elliott continued.

  “What pisses you off? What drives you nuts? What hurts?” he asked.

  Everything.

  Tears rolled down my cheeks as I kept swinging, emotions swallowing me whole, and it wasn’t until my legs started to give out that I stopped. I stepped backward, about to fall to the ground, dripping with sweat, when Elliott was there to catch me.

  “I got you,” he whispered, helping me over to the couch to sit. “I got you.”

  As I caught my breath,
he grabbed a glass of water for me. “Thank you,” I told him. “I actually feel…lighter.”

  He smiled. “Good. And just so you know, Jasmine, I’m always here if you need to talk.”

  “It’s really not that serious,” I told him. “I just spent so much time keeping things to myself to try to make my mother happy…I never really realized how sad it made me. I gave her my all and it still wasn’t enough.”

  “What made you leave?”

  I sighed, thinking back to it.

  “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” he sincerely swore, but I shook my head.

  “No, it’s fine, really. It’s not a big deal. You’re going to think I’m stupid.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  I combed my hair behind my ears. “We spent years going for a big record deal. I was ready to give up, but Mama said I just had to work harder. So, I did. I spent more time in the studio with Trevor, and I’d pass out in dance studios. I hadn’t been eating a lot, was hardly sleeping at all, but I wanted to make her proud. I wanted her dream to come true, and then it did.

  “This past July, we were offered a record deal, and it was huge. It was everything we’d ever wanted and more. Of course, we threw a huge party. Trevor rented out this club and invited everyone they knew—which was a crazy amount of people. During the party, while we were all having a good time, I headed to the bathroom. It was a one-person restroom, and, um, as I was washing my hands, the door opened, and it was Trevor. I told him to leave, and as I tried to walk past him, he grabbed me and placed his hands under my ass and squeezed it. I kept shoving him and saying no, but he was hammered—of course—and he wouldn’t listen. Then he groped my chest and I kneed him extremely hard then got away. When I found my mom, I was crying and shaking, feeling violated, and instead of her love, I got her anger.”

  “What?” he asked, baffled.

  “Yeah. She, um, backed him up and told me it was my fault.”

  “How could she do that?”

  “Ya know, if I didn’t dress like a slut, people wouldn’t treat me like one, that kind of thing. I wore the outfit they chose for me. I did everything they told me to, but still, it was my fault her boyfriend crossed that line. I was the one at fault.”