Heartfelt Lies

by Kristy Love

  “Fuck, Cassie.” His whole body went still and stiff, his head buried in my neck. “I think I’m going to die. Right here, right now. If I wake up tomorrow and this was a dream, I don’t think I can go on with life.”

  “It’s not a dream, Jax. I’m here, with you.”

  He regarded me and the pain in his eyes caused my heart to squeeze painfully. It seemed as though he was about to say something, but instead, he devoured my lips and slipped a finger inside me. I arched my back, ripping my lips away from his. The sensation, the feeling, it was so much. Too much.

  “God, you feel so good.” He buried his face in my neck again and kissed, licked, nibbled it. My mouth was wide open, as were my eyes, as he moved his fingers inside me magically. I couldn’t think about anything but the feel of his fingers and the way he was playing my body like a guitar. He still knew exactly how to touch me in such a way that, before long, my hips were bucking against his and I screamed out his name.

  He slipped his hand out of my jeans, moving up to brush my hair out of my face. He studied my face as though he’d never see it again. My mind was still coming back down to Earth as he helped me put my bra and shirt back on. Before I knew it, he was sitting next to me, pulling his shirt on. He kissed my lips, long and passionate and so amazingly. I wanted his hands on me again, even though they’d been gone only been a few minutes.

  “I don’t want to leave you, Cassie, but if I don’t leave now, we’re never leaving this parking lot,” he said, then pressed a kiss to my forehead.

  I wrapped my arms around his neck, kissing him. I never wanted this feeling to end. I wanted to stay here with him, wrapped in this cocoon of happiness and all the feelings that were between us were good and amazing and so fucking intense. “I don’t want you to go.”

  “I know, but you have to get home to Ben.” He kissed my forehead again, as if he couldn’t keep his lips off me. He stepped out of my car and helped me out, opening the front door for me. When I was behind the steering wheel, he leaned down, kissing me softly. “I’ll see you soon.”

  I nodded. He closed the door and walked toward his truck. I turned the defrosters on, hoping the steam would dissipate from the windows quickly.

  As soon as he was out of sight, reality slammed into me. What I’d just done hit me. Regret and embarrassment made the food churn in my stomach.

  Fuck, what had I done?

  “THIS GAME SUCKS,” Chase said. He got up and went to the kitchen. I heard him open the fridge and rummage around in there for a couple minutes. He came back out and handed me a bottle of iced tea.

  “It does.”

  I was hanging out with my good friend, Chase, who I met in rehab. When I relapsed and went back in, he was still in treatment and helped me stop beating myself up for failing. The easy route would have been to continue drinking and deny I had a problem—it was harder to pick myself up and go through the program again.

  I liked hanging out with Chase. It was easy because there was never any alcohol involved. The fact that we were watching football and drinking only water wasn’t weird. It just was what it was. I liked it that way. Often, when someone knew I struggled with alcohol, they got weird or tried to tell me just one would be okay. One would never be okay. I’d fought too hard and lost too much to go back.

  I had no idea why we were even watching football. Neither of us really enjoyed it, but Chase had asked me to come over to talk. He needed the distraction and company to stay strong. His story was tragic, way more than mine. One night, while coming home from a bar, he hit a van carrying an entire family. He wasn’t going fast, but he paralyzed the mother from the waist down. She also lost the baby she was carrying. Her three other children and her husband walked away fine. He was brought up on charges and the judge ordered him to rehab. Unfortunately, his wife left him and took their two sons with her. She moved across the country, filed a restraining order, leaving him with nothing. Five years later, he was still trying to pick up the pieces.

  He remained longer in rehab and Silver Springs, a sober living facility, because he wasn’t sure how he’d avoid the bottle. He also had nothing to go home to. Nothing to stay sober for.

  In that way, we bonded. I may have had Ry, but there was a time when I’d lost her. I wasn’t sure if she was going to forgive me and accept me back in her life.

  I left rehab about a month before he did, but I had a sister and a brother-in-law to welcome me home. Chase had no one. I was there to welcome him home and I’ve been there every step of the way. He’d finally gotten the courage to date again. He found a woman who didn’t hate him based on his past, and who was understanding. They’d dated for a year before Chase started sabotaging the relationship in his own way. Eventually, she left him and now he was sulking. I considered it a victory that he called me instead of crawling back into a bottle.

  So, here we were, watching a shitty football game. The opponents weren’t teams I cared about, but I’d be here for Chase.

  “Want to go do something else? I’m antsy. I need to get out of this house,” Chase said, turning the TV off.

  “What do you want to do?”

  “What I want to do isn’t something I should. Come up with something and let’s do it.”

  I thought, trying to figure out what to do. Before anything came to mind, my phone rang. Looking at the display and seeing Cassie’s name, my stomach did weird twists and turns. Why was she calling me? On a Saturday afternoon?

  “Hello?” I said, answering the phone.

  “Hey, Jax.” She cleared her throat and I heard someone whispering to her in the background. “I was wondering if you’d want to join us for the paintball session.”

  My eyes widened. “Paintball?”

  “Yeah. Ben and Roxie thought it’d be a good idea. To invite you, I mean.”

  I couldn’t help feeling slightly deflated. Of course Roxie had pushed her to it. I thought after what had happened on Thursday, she’d want to see me, but of course I’d misread everything. I couldn’t help the hurt that crept in. “I can’t right now. I’m hanging out with a friend.” I didn’t want to get into specifics, especially not with Chase sitting next to me.

  “Oh,” she said. She couldn’t fully mask the disappointment in her voice. As sick as it was, that made me feel better. Maybe she’d wanted me to come too, she just wasn’t ready to admit it to me or to herself. But she was ready to mess around with me in her car.

  Fuck this insecurity.

  “Well, I guess I’ll see you Monday then,” she said, though it came out more like a question than a statement.

  “Yeah. It’s your turn to pick. Text me when you make up your mind.”

  “Sure, yeah. Of course.”

  Silence filled the space between us, neither of us wanting to get off the phone. I didn’t want the connection between us to end. I wanted desperately to tell her I’d be there and go spend time with her, but I couldn’t be selfish. My friend needed me. Selfishness and stupidity had caused me to lose her in the first place.

  I wouldn’t make that mistake again.

  “Well, I have to go. I’ll talk to you soon, okay?” I said, not wanting to prolong the agony.

  “Oh, yeah. Yeah. I’ll text you later. Goodbye, Jax.”

  “Bye, Cassie.”

  I hung up and Chase punched me in the arm. “What the fuck was that, man?” he asked. Through our time in rehab and our friendship, he’d heard most of the details of what went down with Cassie and how much I hated myself for how things went down. I purposely hadn’t told anyone other than Ry about us reconnecting because I didn’t want this kind of reaction. I especially didn’t want to talk about what happened Thursday. She was certainly good at messing up my mind.

  I rubbed my arm. He could be a mean son of a bitch and he had a decent arm. “What?”

  “Was that Cassie? The Cassie?”

  “Yeah. What about it?”

  “My God, Jax, you’re a stupid fuck!”

  “I already knew that.”


  “Why’d you blow her off? If you say it was because of me, I’m kicking you the fuck out of my house right now. I like you, Jax, but I sure as shit don’t like you that much.”

  I laughed. “Oh, Ty, you found me out. I’ve been trying to get you to notice me for years. I’m so glad you finally have.”

  “Shut the fuck up. . Why was she calling you?”

  I picked out a photo on the wall and stared at it. “We may have been hanging out some.”

  “No shit. Monday.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Does that mean you’re back together?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Working things out? Something? I’d think you’d bring this shit up in AA. I mean, this could be a huge ass trigger for you.”

  Chase and I went to the same meetings. Mostly because he still didn’t have a license and he needed someone to drive him. “There’s nothing to say. We’ve had lunch a few times.” I wasn’t saying a fucking word about Thursday, though part of me wanted to. I wanted to know if he thought I was reading the situation wrong.

  “You are seriously one dumb fuck.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  “Did she just ask you to hang out and you blew her off? To what? Sit around with me? Feeling sorry for yourself?”

  “I don’t feel sorry for myself.”

  He slapped me across the back of the head, hard. “It’s official. All your brain cells are dead.”

  “Would you stop hitting me!”

  “Then stop being a pussy. You should be chasing after her, not blowing her off.”

  “What if this is all part of my master plan?”

  “I need to hear this.” Chase crossed his arms over his chest and quirked an eyebrow, already skeptical.

  “I don’t want to appear to have no life outside of waiting for her. I have to keep her guessing. I don’t want to come across whipped.”

  He laughed. “I guess you’re right, just don’t fuck it up. What’d she want anyway?”

  “For me to come play paintball with her, her son, and her sister.”

  “That could be fun.” He went over and picked up two controllers and turned the TV back on.

  “It could be, but I don’t know. I feel myself getting sucked back in and I don’t want to set myself up for the hurt. I’m not sure if I could come back from that, you know?”

  “It sucks, this being an alcoholic thing.”

  “It sucks a lot.”

  “What do you think will happen?”

  I shrugged. “I honestly don’t know.”

  “I can tell you one thing, though, man. If you don’t get off your ass and chase her, she’ll be gone and you won’t have anyone to blame but yourself.”

  I STARED AT my phone, Jax’s words ringing in my ears. He was busy. And why wouldn’t he be? He had a life outside of work, outside of our one hour a week lunch. Fuck. It hurt. What if he was with a girl? On a date?

  The thought made me want to vomit.

  That’s how Roxie found me, staring at my phone, my lips puckered as I tried to hold the puke in.

  “What’s up, sis? How’d it go?” she asked, hopping up on the counter. I turned toward her and her face fell. “What happened?”

  She’d convinced me to invite Jax out, as a friend. She said no pressure, just a group of people hanging out. Then we’d have even teams. Jax and Ben could be on a team and Roxie and I could be on one and it’d be fine. I’d never considered that he’d turn me down. And I hated that it hurt so much. I didn’t want to hurt anymore because of Jax.

  I was so conflicted over hooking up with him in my car. I was supposed to be more disciplined than that. I had a son, for God’s sake. I couldn’t go around turning into . . . whatever it was I’d turned into. I hadn’t mentioned it to Roxie. She’d flip out and believe everything was smooth sailing. It definitely wasn’t, especially when I couldn’t figure out what the fuck I wanted for myself.

  “He said he was busy.”

  “That’s no reason to look like you’re going to throw up, Cass.”

  “What if he’s going out with a girl?”

  Her lips twitched as she tried to fight a smile. “So what if he is? It’s not like you want to date him.”

  “That doesn’t mean I want him to date!” I wished I could suck the words back in my mouth as soon as they left. I did want to be with him, but it sure as hell wasn’t to date. I wanted to be with him. I wanted to be consumed by him, spend forever with him.

  Fuck, here I went again.

  “Oh, come on, Cassie. You’re not an idiot. Pull your head out of your ass. Fuck, how many times are we going to have this conversation?” She hopped off the counter and crossed her arms over her chest. “Do you honestly think he’s been waiting dutifully for you all these years? Do you think he’s been single? Hasn’t had a single one night stand? What? You thought you walked out of his life and he suddenly became a goddamned priest? Wake up!” She huffed out a breath, clearly irritated with me. “He’s fucking human, Cassie! And you’re acting like a spoiled brat! If I were him, I’d run the other way with all your head game bullshit.”

  “It’s not bullshit! I don’t know what to do! What do I do, Roxie? Just forgive and forget?”

  “I’m not discussing this a-fucking-gain. Here’s the deal. You either stop playing these bullshit games or you lose him. It’s that easy. Just because he wronged you in the past doesn’t mean you get to torture him forever. That’s not how this works. Wake up and smell the fucking roses.”

  “Why do you always think you know the answers?” I asked, only half-jokingly. She did always have good advice.

  “Because I do. Now, let’s go play paintball with your son and you can think about what you’re going to do. No more sulking. No whining. Get over it, sis.”

  And with that, she left the room. The rest of the day I spent doting on Ben, doing my best to keep Jax from my thoughts.

  I was successful.

  Mostly.

  I PURPOSELY DIDN’T text Jax about lunch. I couldn’t get my head straight and Roxie was right. I couldn’t keep jerking him around. I needed to stop messing around and decide what I wanted. The problem was, I couldn’t figure out what I wanted, one way or the other. I wanted him and I didn’t want him and I was such a fucking mess. He was all I thought about and everything I didn’t need.

  And I couldn’t stop thinking about his hands on my body, his lips setting my skin and my nerves on fire. I found myself daydreaming about taking things farther with him, feeling him again. I could hardly focus on anything else.

  But the question I kept asking myself was: Was it a good idea? Was it a good idea to open old wounds with Jax? Move forward? Forget the past? Could I do that? I’d almost been using the past as a shield, keeping everyone at arm’s length so I wouldn’t get hurt again, and it wasn’t fair to Jax to keep jerking him around this way.

  So I figured I’d skip seeing him this week to see how I felt. The problem was, I couldn’t stop thinking about how I was missing time with him, how much I wanted to see him.

  And it was screwing with my work now. Instead of organizing things the way I had been up to this point, the charts were in disarray and the office was behind schedule. I pulled the wrong charts for three patients in a row and the doctors had came and yelled at me. I went back to the break room and got a cup of coffee. Sitting in the chair, I buried my face in my hands.

  What was I going to do? That was the constant thought ringing through my mind.

  “Cassie?” Dr. Barbossa called. I sighed.

  “Back here,” I said.

  She walked into the room and smiled. “Here you are. Are you okay?”

  “I just have a lot going on.”

  “I understand that.” She sat across from me at the table. “The problem is you’re messing with the lives of children, Cassie, and I can’t ignore that. Is this something you need to work out? Do you need time off?”

  “No, no. I’ll be okay. I promise. I just needed to re
group.”

  “Good. Then I need you for something. We have a troubled patient coming in and I need you to come into the room with me.”

  I furrowed my brow. “Troubled? How?”

  She sighed and rubbed her forehead. “Skipping school, destroying property, theft, now he’s into drugs.”

  My heart dropped. “How old is he?”

  “That’s the tragic part. He’s only fourteen.”

  “Fourteen?” I exclaimed.

  “Yeah, young, right?”

  “Where are his parents?”

  “They’ve tried everything. Therapy, switching schools, punishment.”

  “Nothing’s working?”

  “Not a single thing. This may be our last chance to save his life.”

  I couldn’t imagine having a fourteen-year-old and having them be this close to the end of the line. How did he end up this way? Abuse? Neglect? Before I could ask, Olivia, another nurse in the practice, poked her head into the break room.

  “Dr. Barbossa, Nathan’s here.”

  “Thank you, Olivia.” Dr. Barbossa turned her attention to me. “Ready?”

  “Sure,” I said. I stood and took my cup to the sink and dumped it out. I’d come back after this appointment and clean it. “Is there anything I need to do?”

  “I just need you in there in case this goes bad and I need someone else there to offer support. Really, I just don’t want to do this alone.”

  “Understandable.”

  We walked down the hall to the exam room. Dr. Barbossa took a deep breath and opened the door. “Nathan,” she said, a big smile on her face. “It’s so nice to see you again.”

  Nathan looked different than I imagined he would. For some reason, I expected a big kid. Instead, he was short, petite, and had really dark hair, almost black. His eyes were a steely gray and his skin was pasty. Clearly, he didn’t spend much time outside. He held his arms crossed over his chest and his head was hung, as if he was already defeated. My heart broke. His mother and father stood in one corner of the room, tears already sliding down his mom’s face, and his dad’s hands rested on her shoulders, clearly offering support. They both watched Nathan with concern and compassion.