I tug out my headphones, and she asks, “Did he hurt you, child?”
“No,” I reply, slobbering. “He did exactly what I wanted him to do.”
“Then why are you leaving?”
“Because he deserves more than what I can ever give him.”
Her fake gold and gemstone ring-laden hand presses against my dampened cheek. “Everything in its own time, sweetheart. Close your eyes. Rest your heart.”
I wake up as we stop in Los Angeles.
The kindness of a stranger pulled me through the first hours of my detox from him, but the worst moments were still ahead of me. I have a two-hour wait before my flight. I roam through the airport. I rummage through stores, not buying anything.
I scan over the book section in the gift store. Romance titles etch like hieroglyphs onto the walls of my chambers as I sniffle. The cashier asks, “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I just left my boyfriend.”
I called Jynx, my boyfriend.
But what was he?
“You’re young,” she replies, offering a tissue. “You’ll get used to them breaking your heart.”
I broke my own heart long ago.
I smile and buy a bottle of water. “Thanks.”
“Take it easy.”
“You, too.”
The activity in the airport plays out like a movie I don’t want to be cast in. I haven’t earned the right to be a leading lady. I certainly don’t want to be an extra. I take a seat and wait as I stare at a young couple holding hands.
He always held my hand.
Monsters come in all forms.
Sometimes even tall, well-kept gentlemen with wavy brown hair and a smile to steal your breath away. I eye my phone, knowing he must be aware of my absence by now. I close my eyes as it takes every ounce of willpower I have not to unblock him.
As I hold my phone, Selia messages, “Are you okay?”
“Yes.”
“I went and bought lots of alcohol, cigarettes, chocolate, and tissues.”
I smile through my non-stop stream of tears. “Thank you.”
“I got you.”
“I know.”
Thank God someone does.
Because I have to get over him.
Or maybe Deacon was right—I have to get over myself.
Jynx
Sitting in the chair, I stare at the bed without any linens and grip the whiskey bottle in my hand. I bring the shirt she had on last night, which she threw onto the floor and forgot to pack this morning, to my nose. I inhale her scent and long to wrap my arms around her again.
“God! Fuck!” I roar, gripping tightly to the fabric. “No! Abby! No!”
My face twitches as I attempt to swallow the fact that she is gone. She cannot be gone. She must be here somewhere. I toss on some clothes and walk through the hotel. I ask the ladies at the front desk, showing them her picture. I interrogate the bellman, the cab drivers, and random guests.
Has anyone seen this girl?
She belongs to me.
I try her number again and again as I smoke outside by the empty pool. I call Selia, and she answers, saying nothing.
With a shaky voice, I demand, “Where is she?”
“Jynx…she is done,” she informs with a fierce tone. “You need to let her go.”
“Where is she, Selia?” I rally, begging for the return of my possession. “I need to talk to her.”
“You only want to talk to her to con her into coming back.”
My eyes shutter closed as I pick myself up and keep fighting through the battle. I’m damaged, wounded, and confused. “Echo Maines belongs to me. I seem to have lost her. If you find her, can you please tell her to return to me?”
“Not a fucking chance in hell, asshole.”
Click.
I throw my phone, shattering the screen on the pebbled walkway surrounding the pool just as Axel walks out. He picks up the phone, handing it back to me. “… You okay, bro?”
“No,” I steam, fuming. “She left.”
“That would be, she escaped from the clutches of a deranged lunatic.”
“I was trying to be better.”
“Yeah, well,” he assesses, swiping a smoke from my pack. “You cannot change what has always been.”
“Do you have a purpose here other than aggravating me?”
“Yeah,” he says, dropping the lighter on the glass top table. “Actually, I do. Wang is coming in from Chicago. He wants to know if he should catch a ride or if we’re picking him up. He’s been messaging you, but you’ve been non-responsive for twenty-four hours.”
“I’ve been a little busy,” I harshly remind. “Assuring he and everyone else that was involved with Monroe Consulting has future employment at Dower.”
“I’m not the enemy.”
“We aren’t friends,” I state, not caring.
“Eventually, you need to forgive me for all the shit that went down,” he callously remarks. “I wasn’t there when Celeste died.”
I give a disdainful glance over to him. “No, but you knew what they were doing. You knew what they were doing and you didn’t stop them, which makes you just as guilty as Chuck Tullen.”
“I didn’t rape or murder that girl,” he says, stubbing out his smoke and standing up. “And I’m not the one who brainwashed a twenty-two-year-old girl and convinced her to move in with me. You played her ass and you lost.”
“Fuck you.”
“You don’t want to hear this, but the truth is—you kidnapped Echo, making her believe she was in love, but all the while, you were toying with her emotions. You need to take a good long look in the mirror. She outplayed you and you’re pissed. But you wanted the same thing you always do—complete control—to have your way with her—heart, mind, and body. Don’t take your anger out on me. Tell me, was her tight, wet snatch worth it?”
Everything turns red—blazing hot, bubbling with fury and pent up rage.
“What did you say to me?” I howl, clenching my knuckles and swinging as I come unhinged, unleashing years of suffering on my brother. His attempts to dodge my swings are futile and met with more abrasive aggression as I lash out like a relentless son of a bitch. “You will never fucking talk about her that way again!”
My fists don’t stop until cuffs click around my wrists.
Echo
On my bed, I curl in a fetal position with my head resting on Selia’s thigh. Petting my hair, she asks, “What if you’re wrong about him?”
I roll over and stare at her through the hazy glow of swollen eyes. “You mean what if he was really trying to change with me?”
“What if he is a genuinely nice guy with a bad boy history?”
“Then I just fucked the goose.”
Her eyes close. “And what if you regret it?”
“I already do,” I agonize through the loss. “But he deserves a whole person.”
Her intense stare lassos a noose around my heart. “Who the hell is whole anymore? Are you aware how absurd that sounds? If someone is whole and functioning, I want their hands to bless me.”
“It’s too much to ask of anyone,” I whimper.
“Everyone has a closet with skeletons. Yours and his, for that matter, may be a little darker than most, but it doesn’t mean shit. You need to stop placing the template of the past onto to the present. You’re not the graduating senior in high school anymore; he isn’t twenty-five behind bars.”
“Oh, God…Sel…”
“Do you need me to stay another day or two or a week?” she asks as I look out into the hallway at the bags and boxes she has packed for her new life tomorrow. I’m a horrible friend for doing this to her right now. She needs me now more than ever, and I’m crying like a newborn fresh from the womb I long to return to.
“You need to go be with Benjamin,” I reassure, squeezing her hand. “I will be fine.”
“You don’t look like a person who is any sort of fine.”
“I’ll do whatever is necessary to ge
t over him and move on with my life. I have to forget Jeremiah Monroe ever existed. He came into my world like a bomb and it’s my goal to recover from the blast.”
Her hand smoothes over my hair. “I know you’re associating Jynx with something terrible, but you needed a change—a dramatic one. He gave you that. He wanted to make you better. Don’t forget that.”
“… Are you on his side?”
“I’m on the side where love wins.”
“He didn’t really love me,” I argue, cringing through the words. “I was only a side project for him to notch his belt with. I was an accomplishment—swipe the girl, make her fall in love with you, and keep her forever. He didn’t truly love me.”
“Is that why he called me in a panic?” she asks, holding back tears. “That man on the phone was broken, Ek. I heard it in the tremor of his voice.”
His sexy deep command.
I could’ve done anything with that voice guiding me.
“He’s good. And I played right into him. I won’t go back to him. I can’t.”
“And all of the joy he brought to you?”
I blink as the tears drip from my eyes. “I let it go. I break up with happiness too. The light only wages war for so long up until the darkness consumes her every night. Just like he did me.”
Jynx
“What the fuck?” Wang asks, picking me up from the police station several days later. Despite my brother’s broken nose and two black eyes, he decided not to press charges. I plop in the passenger seat of his rental car. “Tell me what I can do.”
“I need a round of wings.”
Ninety minutes later, he stares across the table at me as half-empty baskets sit with the carnage of our consumption. The beer pitcher is mostly empty. Our scantily dressed waitress walks past and drops off the check.
“You’re in love,” he randomly blurts out. “Fucking Jynx Monroe is in love.”
“Even if I am, she left,” I sneer, sitting back. “And I never chase a bitch.”
“You’re telling me after all of that, you aren’t going after ad hoe?”
Don’t tread on the sacred.
“I can’t,” I stutter, snarling and shaking my head. “The incident with Axel proves that I’m out of control. And as you know…”
“You hate when shit is out of control.”
I lean with my elbows on the table and rub my lips together. I miss the taste of her kiss and the feel of her body beside me. “It’s time to get back to being me. I did what I needed to do. Maybe she listened and learned something about the bigger picture.”
“Jesus!” He rubs his face. “This is just…wild.”
“It’s been a hell of a summer romance, but it’s time to wind it down. Fall is coming. She needed to go back to school anyway.”
“Now,” he says, pointing. “You’re just making excuses.”
“It’s not though,” I implore, trying to believe my own words. “We were never going to work out. She doesn’t want a commitment. I’ll get back to the hard ass I’m known for—I have a reputation to uphold. Maybe in a few months or years, we can fondly look back on the weeks we spent in the sizzling South Carolina summer.”
He polishes off his beer and flops his credit card on the leather case. “You’re never going to get over her.”
“How do you know?”
With a brief smirk, he points out, “Because in the almost twenty years I’ve known you, I’ve never heard you talk about a woman for almost two hours. Your days as the bachelor you were are gone, whether she is here or not. She changed you, J.”
I look down at the mess of our table, avoiding the truth even though it’s the barrel pointing at my temple. I know Echo Maines changed me.
And I also know she left me.
29
Things We Need
Echo
I stumble through the next week in my pajamas, spending far more time on the bathroom floor and inside of my closet than ever before. I say goodbye to Selia, who was arguably the only rock I had left. She is so happy with Benjamin. I try not to think about how they’ll be in Houston, where he will be in October.
Morgan got wind of my return and called several times. She wanted to know if I was returning to my job. My counselor at school checked in to make sure I would be attending fall classes. My mother messaged to tell me Dad was doing better. The most surprising dialogue came from my brother. Brandon was fresh out of rehab and wanted to sell our old childhood home that held so many painful memories.
I didn’t answer any of it, but instead took to a steady pace of drinking. Not shitfaced, but a slow drip, numbing the pain.
Every afternoon at five o’clock hurts the worst because he’d appear with a smile on his face regardless of what he was doing. Hand-in-hand, we’d feed the peacocks and put away the horses.
I wonder what he is doing with the farm.
I wonder if he will sell the beach house.
I wonder if he’s happy that he’s free of the pest in his house, life, and heart.
I might not have meant anything to him as the grand scheme played off, set forth by me, brought into practice by him. I won’t take the blame alone for this mess that we’re in.
That’s assuming too much…
That would mean believing that he cared, and his recovery was nothing more than a memory taped over with a bandage and the leftover sticky on his skin was remnants of a past he couldn’t control.
We were through.
I had sex—sort of—but not enough to feel like I wasn’t sitting on the fence. I even managed to fuck up fucking. I needed the explosion at the end.
But it was never coming from Jynx.
He’d meet some new girl, probably closer to his age, settle down, have kids, and a happy life, making a wonderful husband for someone else.
But she won’t be me.
I curl up on the sofa in the glow of the television and flip channels. I quickly pass by all the romantic movies because I don’t have time for that nonsense in my life. I land on a nature show with each segment devoted to a different species.
Under my blanket, I peek out until the peacocks appear.
He tickled me with a feather, chasing me around the yard. His laughter filled the air as I skipped around the coop. We playfully bantered until we collapsed in the grass.
His intense kiss said everything as he mounted on top of me amidst the squawking and social mingling of the flock.
“Goddammit!” I yell, clicking off the television and tugging my blanket to the bedroom. I hysterically sob in the middle of my bed. “Where are you? Why did this happen? This isn’t real. He’s still here. I never left the hotel.”
Drool streams out of my mouth as I clutch the blanket around me.
“Come back to me. Please. God. Help. Me.”
Jynx
“Thanks,” I say to the pizza delivery guy at the hotel. I toss the box on the coffee table and swig back another shot of whiskey. The weekends will be the most challenging part to get through because it’s blatantly obvious I’m alone in the room. There is nothing but a vacant hole in my chest where she once stayed.
On the end table, my phone rings, and I lunge to answer it. “Hey…”
“How are you doing?” Deacon asks, flurried. “I’m putting you on speaker phone for a sec.”
I mumble, “Misery is sitting on top of me.”
“I knew a stripper named Misery once,” Sal chimes in as I hear pounding in the background. “You don’t want to know why they called her that.”
I shake my head and snort. “I can imagine.”
“You need to get moving. Go for a run. Go to the gym,” he suggests as I glance at the clock—almost midnight. “Burn some energy. Before the crazy burns up your brain.”
“Maybe I’ll go out tomorrow.”
“Nup, you will go.” The racket in the background continues. “No maybe about it.”
“What are you two doing?”
Deacon informs, “House shit.”
; “At this hour?”
“You don’t understand,” Sal replies, groaning. “It’s a fucking mess.”
“Tighten that. We’ll teach that bitch to stay, even if it means bolting her ass down,” Deacon professes with a sigh of relief. “Sorry about that, you’re off speaker. He’s right, you need to stop sulking.”
Stroking my chin, I snicker, “I can’t just bolt her ass down?”
“Well, you did drug her ass so anything is possible,” he laughs as a screen door slams. I smirk, recognizing the sound. I miss home. I miss her more. “But I wouldn’t recommend it in Echo’s case.”
“What would you do?”
“She’s young. Give her some time. Don’t push. Let her come back to you. If you chase her, she isn’t going to get any better. She’ll feel trapped like you forced her healing process. She needs to do it on her own.”
“Are you telling me to play hard to get?”
“I’m saying, give a lot of slack on that leash,” he offers, snapping his lighter closed. “If you need to check on her, then do it. But she needs freedom without you tugging her along. Or, you can just go abduct her ass again.”
I laugh. If he only knew how many times I considered doing that the last week. There isn’t much to think about behind bars. Caging Echo was better than anything else on my mind. “Do you think she is going to put the ad back up?”
He takes a breath. “It would be odd. If she does, you should forget her, because you mean nothing. Either way, you get to come here and help us. Fun shit.”
“I need a place for my cocks,” I snicker, grinning. “I can’t leave them behind.”
“Are you selling?”
“I haven’t decided. You know, Deacon,” I mutter, feeling a tad better about where I am. “You’re more like a brother to me than Axel.”
“Axel is a poon,” he chuckles, and I do the same. “He always was. Don’t be like him.”
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