by R. J. Lewis
“You always made it clear,” I replied quickly. “It wasn’t your fault. It was my own.”
“No, Leah, it wasn’t your fault at all. You were right before. I need you more than you need me. It’s always been that way, since the first time I saw you, sitting on your porch. I saw your blonde hair and it reminded me of my mom, and all I wanted to do was look at your face. When you turned to me and your cheeks went pink, I thought you were beautiful. I’d watch you sometimes. You always stuck out. Always alone, sitting by yourself, doing your own thing. I remember watching you attack Graeme. I’d sort of hoped he would pick on you just so I could come swooping in to save the day. The last thing I expected was for you to jump him like that. It was incredible.
“I miss how we were back then. I miss our innocence. Things were shit, but life was simple, and now those days feel a million miles away and I want that nostalgia back. I need to feel like I deserve sitting next to you. I hurt you. I’ve always hurt you, and I’m a piece of shit for it.”
“We’re young,” I muttered just then, staring at him closely as his blue eyes looked into my brown. “We’re stupid… and we’re really wrong for each other.”
His chest gave out beneath me as he exhaled slowly, his eyes glistening. He knew I was right. I was coming to peace with it.
“You’re not where I am yet,” I continued, sniffing. “You’re not ready to open up. I’ve reached the point where I realize I can’t help you. Only you can do that.”
He didn’t say anything. He just listened, and the pain on his face burned me.
“It’s okay,” I said, holding back a cry. “I pushed you. I took you however way you’d give me, and I realize you’ve taken over my entire world. I… I don’t even know who I am.”
“You’re going to be amazing.”
I nodded. “One day. So are you. And… maybe one day after you’re gone, we’ll see each other again and on different terms. Maybe… we’ll be able to have a friendship again, and it be just that. Friends. But not now.”
“We can try,” he pressed me, pleadingly. His hand went to my face and his finger skimmed my lip. “I want you with me. I want you to come. I’ll take care of us. I’ll… I’ll do whatever it takes. Just come with me. With the band. It’ll be a new start. And we’ll be friends. True friends, Leah. Please.”
I smiled sadly, and pulled his hand away from my lips, motioning to it. “No, because it would mean you can’t touch me like that, Carter.”
His jaw tensed and he shook his head in denial. “I can do that. I’ll –”
“We’ve depended on each other in two different ways, and we need to find our own selves,” I told him. “I have a future here, and yours is out there. That’s the way it has to be. That’s the only way it’ll work. Otherwise we’ll ruin all that we are, until there’s nothing left but the bad, and I don’t want that to happen.”
I shut my eyes to stop the tears from falling. Even closed, they found a way out. I heard his breaths, hard and shaky, and when he grabbed me again, I moved into him, burying my face back into his chest again.
“You’re saying good bye, aren’t you?” he managed out, devastated. “Fuck, you’re saying we’re done when I go, huh?”
“Just for now.”
“I can’t live without us, Leah.”
I wiped another tear. “That’s the problem, Carter.”
I learned I couldn’t show him that he wanted more. I couldn’t force it out of him. Maybe, in the end, I just wasn’t the right person to do it. Maybe, someday, he would meet a girl who opened his eyes and made him want to be more.
Letting go was the only way to salvage us.
He needed to follow his dream, and I needed to follow mine.
It was hard, and we were going to be lost in the start, but if we learned to look within, we’d pave our own paths. And maybe one day those paths would intersect. Either way, that wasn’t the point. The point was to work on ourselves. To love who we are before we love someone else.
I’d miss him. I’d probably love him forever. At the end of the day, I learned a harsh lesson, and it would change me forever.
An uncommitted love will always end in heartache.
Twenty-two
I remember our goodbyes like it was yesterday.
It was bittersweet.
We’d spent two weeks together, trying to prolong the last remnants of our friendship. I could feel the buzz in him. The excitement he shared with the guys was infectious. They packed their things and got ready to take off one early morning.
Carter’s hopeful face was permanently embedded in my memories.
There was also heartbreak in him too.
Out front, beside Rome’s jeep where the rest of the boys sat, Carter took me into his arms and hugged me tight. He didn’t say anything for a while. Everything important had already been said. I was too choked up for words.
Then he pulled back. He took my face into his hands and he looked down at me.
For the first time in my entire life, I watched a tear fall from his eye.
“I don’t know if I’m making a mistake,” he whispered. “And the problem is, if I am, I’ll probably be too late. You’ve always been wiser than me, Leah. More mature. I’m jealous of you for that. For always being so tough, and for always believing in me. I’m never going to forget that. You’re the only person that’s ever looked at me and saw worth. I’ll be thinking of you every minute I’m gone. I…” He stopped and took a few breaths.
“It’s okay,” I whispered.
He nodded stiffly and just as I went to pull back, he took a step forward and dropped his face to mine. He kissed me, softly and slowly. It felt like our first kiss. Exciting enough to make my blood run faster, but tame enough to feel the line that was drawn.
“I’ll see you,” he told me with conviction, pulling back to look at me.
I forced a smile as he turned away. I caught the look of panic in his eyes, and my being shook. I kept myself rooted there, ignoring the way my heart screamed for him to stay. That sick need inside of me rose to the surface, begging me to keep him. That I was wrong.
But I wasn’t wrong. We needed this.
He climbed into the front seat beside Rome, and he didn’t look at me once as he put his seatbelt on. He kept his face forward as Rome honked his horn at me and waved.
I waved back and watched them drive off.
Carter took my heart with him, and it would be a very, very long time before another one grew back.
“You did the right thing,” Melanie told me later that day. “You let him go because he wasn’t ready. That was selfless of you.”
“I’ve spent too long being selfish,” I replied, already wrapped up in a warm blanket of numbness. “It’s time for him to live now.”
“Do you think he’ll still be punching people for being dicks?”
I smiled wistfully. “I bet you he’s punching someone right now.”
Carter
Months would pass before I realized what she meant about wanting more.
Years would age me before I learned just what she meant about love.
And at the end, I would realize I was a complete fuck-up piece of shit for letting her go.
END OF BOOK ONE
Thank you
Thank you for reading!
Book Two will be out in a few weeks.
All comments/reviews are welcome and appreciated!
Thanks to my amazing street team for their continual support, and for every single reader for taking a chance on me time and time again!
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Sneak peak for book two is a page away!
-RJ
Sneak Peak to Book 2
Prologue
Carter
The first thing I felt was ice cold water against my legs.
My eyes flew open, but I saw nothing. I blinked rapidly and tried to shake my aching head to gain some clarity. But everything was black.
I was hysteric
al. I flailed my body, feeling constricted and in shock. I tried to make sense of all this, but I was too disoriented to string a single thought. I couldn’t understand. My brain wasn’t registering. I felt short-winded and terrified, trying to piece one and one together in complete darkness.
I heard the sound of metal groaning above my head, and the freezing cold water moved higher, sitting now at hip level in my seat. My seat. I was in a fucking seat. I remembered that much. My hands shook as I tried to undo my belt, and my breaths turned to short pants. What the hell was happening? I didn’t know. I opened my mouth and shouted out a bunch of gibberish as the hysteria from within climbed to dizzying heights.
I can’t see.
I can’t fucking see.
I didn’t know what I was doing.
I couldn’t even undo my belt.
I felt claustrophobic and trapped.
I’m helpless, and I’m going to die right here.
“Here, I got you,” said a familiar voice. I recognized it as the flight attendant that’d offered me peanuts before take off.
Julie.
That’s what she said her name was.
It was a relief to my ears.
Hands touched mine and I heard the belt snap open.
“Move,” Julie cried out. “The water’s getting higher. We have to go. Now, now, now!”
“I can’t see,” I choked out, hardly able to believe the vulnerable sound was coming out of my own mouth. “I can’t… I can’t see. Everything is black.” I let out another trembling breath. “Don’t – don’t leave me.”
Her hand gripped my arm, pulling me up and out of my seat. I could hardly stand straight. I felt like I was tilted at an awkward angle, and all my body wanted to do was fall forward. But the water rushed all the way inside, climbing within seconds to my face.
“I’ve got you!” the woman screamed. “I’ve got you! Don’t let go! Hold on! We have to swim out of here!”
I took a deep breath and did as she said.
I was disoriented. I couldn’t see, but the hand around mine meant everything to me, and it was taking me up and up. I kicked and swam, but I felt scorching pain in my other arm. It was broken. That was the only explanation, and it hurt. Fuckin’ hell, it hurt more than anything.
Suddenly, something large passed between the link to my only hope, and I was torn from her. Jolted back without warning, I scrambled to have that hand back on mine. I extended both hands out in every direction, waiting for that grip in the darkness to come back to me.
But as the seconds passed, there was nothing.
Nothing but the screams I felt from within.
The fear of death washed over me. I kicked and swam, not knowing what was up and what was down.
Had I swam in circles?
My lungs ached, my head was dizzy, and my body felt like it’d been pounded by the icy cold water. I was moving nowhere. God, I was probably swimming in the wrong direction. Deeper and deeper into the water.
I’m dying.
I’m dying.
And the worst part of all was I had nothing to think of that could soothe me in death’s arms. Nothing but… her, but she was gone now and it was all my fault.
I’ve got nothing.
You couldn’t take money to your grave. You couldn’t take awards or fake bitches vying for your attention for the sole reason of being in the spotlight. None of that meant anything to you when you were knocking on death’s door.
I was going to die a lonely man with a life filled with regrets.
Regrets I would never fix.
What could I have done differently?
A vague curtain of light took over my senses and a sharp breeze whipped past my face. I immediately realized I’d surfaced from the water, and I desperately gasped in the air and coughed. I taste blood in my mouth, and I swallowed the coppery taste down as I shouted incoherently and spun around in the still water.
I still couldn’t see, but I was out.
I’m alive.
Chapter One
Leah
2013
24 years old
“I’m leaving you.”
Standing behind the couch, I could do nothing but blink at him. I sort of figured that out like ten minutes ago, but whatever.
I watched Brett race around the room, packing away his X-Box and video games. I think I was sadder to watch those go than him.
“Why are you dumping my bestie again?” Mel asked from the couch, feasting on her popcorn as the commercials aired in the background. “I think I need to hear it out of your mouth because I’m a little stumped.”
Brett paused, shoving back his dark hair out of his eyes. He looked at us with exasperation and menace, like we were too thick to understand. Pointing at me, he said to her, “I know who she’s been with! That rock star all over the magazines! I can’t compete with that. I didn’t sign up for this dishonesty! I saw him at the checkout today, and I swear to God, he was mocking me. Telling me I’m nothing but second best!”
Mel glanced at me with wide eyes before she replied to him, “You saw him at the checkout?”
He stiffened for a moment and straightened his posture. Looking away, he muttered under his breath, “Yeah, I saw him.”
“The real him?”
“Well, it was the magazine, but he was staring right at me, so yeah, it was real in a different sense.”
When Mel looked back at me, I could do nothing but shrug. Honestly, I really didn’t care. I’d toughened it out with the guy for two months, which was a feat of its own. He was funny, sure, but in that too-awkward-and-need-to-be-pitied kind of way. He had some wicked video games, which made work nights on the couch pretty fun, and the sex….
…
…
Well, the sex was possibly the most important thing I would not miss about Brett the fucking Dentist. I still could not shake the memory of my first encounter with him in bed just two weeks ago – after weeks of kissing and unsatisfying make-outs – and the way he spread my legs wider than anyone had ever spread them before, until my bones ached. He settled himself between them and stared at me for a solid ten seconds. It was like he was trying to stare into my soul, but he wasn’t. Not even close. And when he finally entered me, his dirty talk was dirtier in the sense it rotted my brain cells just hearing it.
“You like that? Oh, yeah, I know you like that! Pull my hair, baby. Pull my hair!”
He didn’t have hair.
“Come on, baby, do it.”
I remember scratching at his head, pretending to pull, and the weirdo actually growled like it was seriously happening.
I cringed at the memory and continued to watch him tear apart my apartment, searching for his stuff, only he barely left his things behind. When he was finally done, he came to me, carrying a box of his games, and stopped in front of me.
“We could have had something, Leah,” he said, despairingly. “It could have been amazing had you not fucked up your past.”
“Technically, we could never have had something,” I replied, flatly. “Pasts sort of can’t be changed, Brett.”
He sneered. “Maybe. Have a good life.”
“You too.”
He stomped out of there after that, slamming the door behind him.
For a long moment, there was that thick silence in the air. Mel and I just stared at each other, unsure of what to say, trying to digest the lunacy of the situation.
“Leave it to you to find the fucking crazies, babe,” Mel snickered, dispelling the silence.
“It’s that goddamn dating website. I don’t know why I keep falling for it.” I made my way around and collapsed on the couch next to her, idly watching the television as I spoke. “They always seem so promising.”
“Stop going for the looks.”
I nodded, agreeing. “You’re right. Maybe I’m just shallow and my knight in shining armour is some six hundred pound janitor at a maximum security prison.”
“Well, look, if you hit the clubs again,
you can find some really good opportunities.”
“No,” I disagreed. “Those are usually one night stands, and I can’t stand to be that emotionally detached.”
“Better than a guy asking you to pull his hair during sex when he doesn’t even have one single fucking hair on his head.”
I considered that for a moment and nodded. “You’re right, I’ll give you that.”
“Then we’ll go out tomorrow and find someone.”
I sighed and shook my head. “Nah, can’t do tomorrow.”
“Why the hell not? It’s a Saturday. It’s bad enough we haven’t gone out on a Friday night after a week from hell.”
I looked at her and raised a brow. “It’s that time of the month, Mel.”
She paused and looked back at me. “Oh,” she said, slumping her shoulders. “Shit.”
“Yeah.”
“Isn’t she moving too?”
“Yeah.”
“When will you be back?”
“Not until late at night. I’ve got spin class, and I’ll be fucked by the time I’m back. Go out without me and have fun.”
She looked disappointed, but she nodded anyway. I grabbed my book off the coffee table and started reading just as she flipped through the channels. We were couch potatoes. Five years of being broke had forced us to depend on the god that was the television to dull the boredom.
We were financially better lately than we’d ever been before. She was no longer a waitress, but a bartender working at a high-end bar closer to the city. The drive was a bit brutal for her, but she said the tips made it worth it. I was a low level accountant, but my pay had done wonders compared to before. With more money to play with, we commuted a lot into the city for retail therapy. Being out of the condo meant distancing ourselves from the old stir-crazy days in front of the television. We were still in Abbotsford, in a nice, quiet condominium that had all the modern conveniences, and we were comfortable.
“Holy shit,” she suddenly whispered from next to me.
I looked up from my book and at the television. I immediately tensed at the images of Carter’s face all over the screen. He was walking out of some restaurant, his head down, hand wrapped around another that belonged to his latest piece of fluff.