by True, Holli
“I mean, why do you have one for me?”
“I’ve had it for weeks. It just wasn’t necessary until now.”
“And you just happened to bring it with you tonight?”
“If there’s one thing I learned from my dad, it’s to always be prepared.” Shayne turned and flashed me a broad smile over her shoulder, “You’re welcome.”
“Thank you, I guess.” I turned it over in my hands again, examining the details closer. My new age was twenty-three, according to my ID. I was grateful to see that my July fifteenth birthdate had remained in tact and only the year had been altered. That would be easy enough to remember, should a bouncer ask me about my birthdate. Would they ask? I honestly had no idea.
This is a bad idea, said the little voice in my head.
On most nights, I would have agreed with that little voice. But not tonight. I needed a night out. A night off. I had to break free of the endless fog that seemed to surround me at every turn. If I didn’t break free, I feared it would wind up swallowing me whole.
“How much do I owe you?”
“Nothing. I called in a favor.”
“Are you sure?” Given the high quality of the ID and the attention to detail, there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that it had cost a significant amount of money.
Shayne turned on her three inch heels and gave me a wink. “Promise. He gave them to me as a thank you present. Besides, he works at a print shop, it’s not like it actually cost him anything. He has access to all the paper and laminates needed.”
“He who?”
“His name is Julian.”
“But why?” I asked lamely.
Shayne bit her bottom lip to suppress the obvious smile that was forcing it’s way to her mouth. “Let’s just say it was one of the most intense weekends of my life. Julian has the biggest—”
“No, no,” I said quickly, holding up a hand to halt the discussion from going into further detail. “Please forget I asked.”
“I was going to say apartment. Get your head out of the gutter, Covington.” Shayne laughed in her usual carefree way. “He did a great job, though, don’t you think?”
“It definitely looks real,” I agreed.
“It’s way better than my Nevada one, that’s for sure.”
“You have another one?”
“Please,” Shayne accentuated the word into two syllables. “This is like, I don’t know, my eighth?”
What? “Why would you possibly need eight fake ID’s, Shayne?”
She shrugged, “They’re my state souvenir of choice. Beats a magnet, right?”
My mind was blown. “My mother would kill me if she knew I had one of these.”
Shayne erupted in laughter, “In our house, it’s like a right of passage. On my sixteenth birthday, I got two ID’s. One from the DMV and one wrapped in a little, sparkly box from my sister.”
“Are you serious?”
She nodded. “In my family, when you turn sixteen, you become the official designated driver. There’s a few perks that come with the title.”
I was absolutely speechless. Yet another example of our vastly different upbringings. I could only begin to imagine what some of the other so-called perks were, but I didn’t ask because I didn’t really want to know.
Thirty minutes later, we were climbing out of Rebecca’s 4Runner, ready for a proper girls night out. I was a nervous wreck waiting in line outside the club, but I tried not to let it show. My worries were quickly cast aside when the bouncer took a quick peek at the faux ID and then promptly stamped the back of my hand. We were in.
Shayne wasted no time, ordering us two rounds of shots. She returned to our table, setting the tray of liquor down before us. As we each picked up our first glass, she waved a finger at me, “Tonight you’re living by my rules.”
“What rules?” I quipped.
“Exactly,” she said, her eyes blazing. “To good luck,” she said, as we raised our shots above us, clinking them together.
I emptied my glass, trying not to gag. As I was still recovering from the first shot, Shayne was already raising her second, completely unaffected. She and Rebecca were obviously more accustomed to the taste than me. With much reluctance, I raised my second glass.
“And to getting lucky,” Shayne concluded with a wicked smile.
I forced the alcohol down my throat, ignoring the burning trail it left on it’s way down. “Okay, what was that?” I practically spit.
“Jager Bombs.”
“Fitting,” I mumbled, “because they definitely feel like they’re exploding inside of me right now.”
It didn’t take long for the alcohol to take effect. Two more shots and five songs later, we found ourself on the dance floor, laughing and moving to the blaring music. It was crowded and chaotic on the floor, but I was having the time of my life.
Shayne and I had just located a new table to sit at when Rebecca returned from the bar, clutching only two beers. Before either of us could question where the third beer was, a tall, copper haired guy stopped at her side— holding two beers. Rebecca, as sly as ever, slid into the seat next to Shayne, handing her a beer before gesturing to the seat beside me, looking up at the guy.
He took the seat beside me and then turned to hand me my drink, smiling. I returned the smiled, but it was forced. From the corner of my eye, I caught Rebecca grinning as she watched our exchange. Was she seriously trying to set me up right now?
“So, this guy,” Rebecca said, leaning in on her elbow, using her thumb to point at him, “is Logan. He’s a total pain in the ass. But he did buy us a round, so I figured he couldn’t be that bad.”
“Gee, thanks, Sis,” he said, shaking his head at her.
She erupted in giggles, “Oh, and he happens to be my baby brother, too.”
Thank God, I thought to myself, immediately letting my guard down.
“This is Shayne and Hailey,” she said, gesturing to each of us.
“Thanks for the beer,” I said, feeling guilty about the ice cold welcome I had initially inflicted upon him.
“Anytime,” he said, glancing sideways at me. Seeing him up close, I could now see that his warm, brown eyes matched Rebecca’s perfectly.
“So, does mom even know you’re in town?” Rebecca asked him from across the table.
“She will when I stumble through her door in a couple hours,” he said with a laugh.
“Won’t be the first time,” she teased. Then she turned back to us, “Logan goes to Stanford.”
“Really? What year are you?” Shayne asked, looking impressed.
“Junior.”
“And what are you studying?” I asked.
“Bioengineering,” he said.
“You wouldn’t know it by looking at him, but he’s a total science nerd,” Rebecca interjected.
She was right. I never would have pegged him as the science type. He looked more like the kind of guy who would be chasing waves in California- not experimenting in labs there.
“In middle school, he turned our garage into his ‘lab’,” Rebecca continued, using air-quotes, “where he managed to nearly burn down our house— twice.”
“Minor mishap,” he said, waving a hand at her.
“And this scar right here,” she added, pointing to a faint two-inch line on her forearm, “is from a 60 gallon glass jug that he managed to blow up.”
“You were standing too close,” he countered. “And it was an accident!”
“You impelled me!” she laughed.
“I was twelve!”
“I’m sorry, can you repeat that, Logan-the-Great?”
We all burst into laughter, expect Logan, of course.
He narrowed his eyes at her, looking half appalled, half amused, “I so hate you right now, Rebecca.”
She shrugged her shoulders. It was clear that there was a fun, light-hearted dynamic between the two of them. As an only child, I had never fully understood sibling rivalry, but having a front row seat to it was giving me s
ome great insight.
“We need more beers,” Shayne declared, standing from the table.
“I’ll help,” I offered.
“I got it,” Rebecca said lightly, already on her feet. “Keep an eye on her,” she said to Logan, all seriousness.
“Keep an eye on me? What is she afraid will happen?” I asked, more to myself than to him.
Logan glanced over at me, “A girl like you in a place like this? A lot could happen.”
I gave him a strange look before peering around the area. Everything seemed pretty safe to me— blurry— but safe. “If you say so.”
“So, Rebecca told me you two work together?”
“We do.”
“She also mentioned that you grew up in Bend?”
I nodded, “Lived there my whole life.”
“And you’re going to Oregon for Journalism?”
Geez. How had she managed to fill him in on all of those details that quickly? And then it dawned on me. Rebecca had mentioned her brother to me a dozen times before, surely she had mentioned me to him, too.
I raised an eyebrow at him, “What else did she tell you?”
“That you’re getting over a nasty break-up, which is why you’re here drowning your sorrows, and that you’ve always secretly wanted to hook up with a hot scientist.”
My jaw dropped open. Why would she tell him all of that? Yes, I was dealing with a break-up. But no, hot scientist hook-ups were not on my agenda for the night.
“I’m only kidding,” he said, laughing at my shocked reaction. “I made up the last two things. Unless you really do want to hook up with a hot scientist?” He pointed a finger at himself, wearing an infectious grin, exposing the deep-set dimples in his cheeks.
I burst into laughter, “Holy crap! I was ready to kill your sister!”
“Good plan, can I help?” he joked.
“You had me going until you mentioned the hot scientist thing. I can honestly say, hooking up with a nerdy scientist is not something I’ve ever even considered.” The alcohol was definitely talking for me, because even my own head was screaming at me to stop speaking. “No offense or anything.”
He looked more humored than offended.
“Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against nerds, not that you actually strike me as a nerd or anything. So...” I sighed softly, mentally kicking myself for my rambling.
“Hey, science is cool.”
“Ooh. There it is,” I said, sucking air in through my teeth. “I take it back.”
Logan laughed with me, “What can I say?”
We fell silent, so I focused my attention on the beer bottle in my hand. I couldn’t help but think about my date with Jonah and how intimate it had felt sitting beside him at a table full of people— and how different it felt in the same scenario with Logan. Oh, how I missed the way he made me feel.
“You were half right, though,” I said softly, my finger picking at the label on my now empty bottle.
“Nasty break-up?”
I nodded.
He tilted his head back and emptied the remainder of his beer into his mouth before slamming the bottle down on the table. Then he turned to me with a broad smile, grabbed my hand, and pulled me out of my seat. “Come on,” he said.
“Where are we going?” I asked, trying to keep up with him. The alcohol pumping through my body was definitely changing how I felt on my feet.
“To forget your ex,” he hollered over his shoulder.
I had no idea where we were headed, but on our way, we ran into Rebecca and Shayne, who were headed back to our table. Logan swiftly reached out, swiping both beers from his sister’s hands, never missing a step. She watched, wide-eyed and smiling, as we continued past them, toward the dance floor. He handed one of the bottles back to me, looking at me with mischief in his eyes.
Once on the floor, he wasted no time pressing his body against mine. It all happened so fast and fluid, it took me a moment to realize what was even happening. There wasn’t a sliver of space between us, which caught me off guard, causing my breath to briefly catch in my throat. With his hand on my hip, he kept me close, swaying me around with ease. At first I felt awkward in his arms because they felt different than the ones I had grown used to. But Logan knew how to move, he was a natural on the floor, which made it easy for me to let go of my inhibitions and surrender myself to the music.
By the third song, my arms were wrapped around his neck as our bodies moved in sync, our legs tangled together in all the right ways. I squealed with delight when he rocked me back, which caused both of us to laugh. It wasn’t until he tipped me back up and we found ourselves face to face, that things suddenly felt intimate and immediately intense between us.
Looking up into his eyes, I could see the way they shifted from excited to lust-filled. As he inched in closer, I knew he was about to kiss me. The realization of what was about to happen seemed to sober me up at once and before his lips could make contact with mine, I pulled away.
He looked shocked by my reaction at first, but then he seemed to make sense of it. “Hailey, I’m sorry.”
“No, I’m sorry,” I said, shaking my head. “I didn’t mean to...” I took a deep breath. “Thank you for dancing with me and for being so great, but... I can’t do this.”
“Hailey—” I heard him call after me as I walked away. But I didn’t turn around. I couldn’t.
- 10 -
let her go
JONAH
What would Sam think of the man I had become? It was a question I had asked myself countless times before— one I couldn’t seem to let go of or resolve on my own. Sam’s opinion had always mattered most to me. Even to this day, all I wanted to do was make him proud.
Up until a month ago, he would have been just that. But since then? I wasn’t so sure. After all, Sam was partially responsible for the moral compass that resided within me. He had been the one to teach and guide me in those early years, it’s how we had become so bonded. And why I still felt affected by his absence.
Sam had always lived by the code. No exceptions. So, my blatant disregard of it would have disappointed him, I had no doubt about that. In a lot of ways, going against it felt like I was actually going against him. Above everything, that was what had been eating at me for weeks. It was nearly impossible to accept the idea of letting him down.
He never would have understood the situation I was in— or how I had wound up there.
I could almost see his disapproving frown at that very moment. I could even hear the lecture he would have given me. No doubt it would have involved him telling me about all of the unnecessary dangers and risks I was exposing myself and Hailey to. He would have told me I was being foolish and selfish— and he would have been right. Because I had been.
But it was done. I couldn’t take any of it back, even if I wanted to. Which I didn’t. Despite everything, even feeling the way I was feeling in that very moment, I wouldn’t have traded my time with Hailey for anything. And if I could do it all over again, even with the same results, I would have. Without hesitation.
But I had to live with my decision of letting her go. It was the right one, after all. I never should have taken things as far as I did, it went against everything I stood for, everything I had been taught. Rationally, I knew it was best to just walk away and let her move on. It wouldn’t take long for her to bounce back from the distraction I had caused and continue on with the life she was meant to live.
Without me.
I knew I could never fully give Hailey everything she wanted and needed. It wouldn’t be fair for me to continue to weave myself into her world because I didn’t belong there. I was merely an imposter.
The past few weeks had given me time to reflect on everything that had happened between us. Although our time together had been short, it had impacted me in ways I never imagined possible. My world before her looked like dull shades of grey and white, an endless sea of monotony. Being with her had been like opening my eyes to a world of col
or for the first time, no longer just looking but actually seeing the amazing world around me.
Before Hailey, I had only existed. But now I knew what it felt like to truly live. And the hardest thing I had ever done was walk away from a life that I now desperately craved. With her.
I paced the available floor space of the dorm room, a narrow walkway between the two beds. The limited walking room was making me feel claustrophobic, like the walls were all closing in on me, caging me in. I sighed out of frustration and dropped to the floor, facing downward in a push-up position. Without thinking about it, I started raising and lowering myself repeatedly off the floor, I started counting my reps. But the distraction didn’t last long. My mind started to wander back to Hailey and I lost count around fifty. I gave up trying to keep track and surrendered my mind once again.
Over the past two weeks, I had considered on more than one occasion casually bumping into her. But every time I was prepared to do it, something or someone stopped me. Matt was as eager as ever to occupy all of Hailey’s available time, I had seen him walking with her several times. He was the last person I wanted her around, but what I wanted for her didn’t seem to matter anymore. She was ignoring every warning I tried to give her.
The time she was spending at the dance studio hadn’t gone unnoticed by me. If I had learned anything about Hailey, when she was emotionally unstable, she poured herself into dance, bending her pain into motions and movement. It was her form of expression. The only way she knew how to say what she was feeling when words would fail her.
This is what she was doing now.
Knowing the pain I had caused her was tearing at me from the inside. Pain was something I never wished to inflict on her, I only wanted to shield her from it. But I had failed her. And failing her was something I would never forgive myself for.
All my life I had never felt like a prisoner until now. Unknowingly, I had created my own personal hell and I was going to be forced to live in it. Shackled and bound to a life I desired, yet could never actually live. It was cruel, really. Though this was the exact reason why so many others chose never to entertain the temptation of their world. It had been my decision to enter it and now I had to suffer the consequences of my actions.