Faded Perfection (Beautifully Flawed Book 2)

by Cassandra Giovanni

  “We should take the elevator,” he said.

  I nodded, afraid to open my mouth and let the air of death into my lungs. It was irrational, but all I could feel around me was death, pain, and loss. It was palatable as if I breathed it into my soul and now it was a part of me; a part of me I could no longer change or remove. I stepped into the elevator, and Adam moved behind me wrapping his arms around mine and resting his head on the top of my own. I tried to concentrate on Adam’s breathing behind me, but the red numbers flashing the floors drew me in, and I found myself watching them as they slowly flicked by. Each one jogged a breath out of me as we moved closer and closer to Tara in God knew what state. When the door opened, we didn’t move. Instead, we stared down the dull white hall as the noise of machines flickered in and out.

  Another couple stepped into the elevator and looked at us expectantly.

  “What floor?” the man asked.

  I shook my head as if I could rattle my brain back into functioning. It didn’t work, but Adam seemed to be still able to function because he stepped around me and stuck his arm out so the elevator wouldn’t close.

  “This is us,” Adam said more to me than the man as I stood holding my elbows.

  Adam cocked his head at me, his eyes searching mine, and I swallowed before I forced my legs to move forward. Once they were moving, I couldn’t stop them, because I knew If I did I’d dart back onto the elevator and hit the ground floor key until it broke. Adam’s footsteps jogged up behind me as I stopped and stared at the door in front of me.

  This is it.

  I kept my eyes down as my hand clasped around the cold knob and then let the door slowly swing open. My eyes found the bed where Tara lay, black and blue with an intricate web of wires dancing over her embattled skin. I could feel my lip trembling as I stood there without breathing. Bobby hadn’t lived, but I couldn’t imagine Tara was alive from the way she looked. My stomach rolled.

  Bobby probably wasn’t recognizable.

  I lurched into the room and grabbed the trashcan by the bed, burying my head in it as my stomach heaved but nothing came out. There was nothing left in my stomach after the cemetery. Again, Adam’s fingers ran over my back, trying to comfort me as the tears streamed down my face and into my open mouth. I put my hand on the bed for support and jumped back screaming as my hand touched Tara’s cold, lifeless one.

  Adam grabbed my shoulders and whipped me around before I could look at Tara.

  “River!” Adam’s hands shot up to my face and held it there. “Calm down.”

  Bobby’s face flashed in my mind, but it wasn’t his. It was purple and blue; his lip was busted showing his teeth as his unseeing eyes bulged.

  Oh, God.

  I could feel myself screaming, but I couldn’t stop it. My reaction should’ve been this way when the doctor told me Bobby was dead. I was coming apart.

  “River!” Adam’s voice knocked into my head. “You need to calm down!”

  The screaming that once was inside my head and was now coming out of my mouth turned into a strangled sob.

  Adam’s voice cracked. “Please, River! Please, calm down.”

  My head jerked back as I opened my eyes, locking them on him. I sensed there was a crowd of nurses at the door, but I kept my eyes on him.

  His eyes raced over my face, panicked. “That’s it, breathe.”

  “This was a bad idea,” I said, and my voice sounded as raw as my throat now felt.

  “It’s okay. We had to do it sometime, now turn back around slowly,” Adam said, and his hands slipped down my body to my elbows, applying pressure to make me turn.

  “I can’t, Adam,” I whispered. “She’s…God…how’s she still alive?”

  “God, that’s how.”

  I closed my eyes and turned slowly. My eyes flickered over her, and I clasped them shut again.

  “Is there any part of her that’s…normal colored?” I asked, and I wondered if he heard me because I could barely hear myself.

  “Not that I can see,” Adam said, his voice catching as his hands tightened on my arms.

  I opened my eyes again and looked at her fully. Next to her hand was the white rose. I blinked several times before reaching forward, my hand hovering before I swallowed and wrapped it over hers.

  “Tara, girl…I need you to wake up,” I said, keeping my eyes on her hand. I glanced over my shoulder at Adam. “How can she survive this?”

  Adam’s gaze was locked on Tara’s face, and his thick lashes moved in rapid succession against his cheeks as he shook his head. “She has to.”

  Chapter 5

  I cracked my aching eyes open, blinking them as if it would help the dryness that set in when all the tears were gone. I cried myself to sleep in Adam’s arms after seeing Tara, but now the space beside me was empty.

  “Adam?” I asked as I sat up, cursing as pressure pushed hard against my temples. I squeezed my eyes shut as I placed my hands on my temples, rubbing them as if it would help the horrible ricocheting in my head. I fought the urge to throw up yet again as I stood, putting my hand on the headboard as I rocked on my feet. “Adam?” I called again as I stumbled forward. I made my way to the bedroom door expecting to see him on the couch, but he wasn’t. My heart started beating to match my headache. “Adam!” I said, looking around the empty apartment as my breathing heaved.

  I heard a soft moan from the kitchen and rushed towards the island, sliding on my socks around it. I grasped the corner to slow myself as Adam came into view slumped against the cabinets with an empty bottle of SoCo. I bent down and tilted his head up. I knew he bought the bottle for New Years, but he hadn’t touched it until now.

  “Adam…Did you drink that whole thing?”

  “Head hurts,” he said. His words slurred as his head fell forward into my chest. “Hold me.”

  “Come on,” I said as I attempted to pull him up.

  “Head hurts,” he repeated, supporting his weight against mine. My head still pounded, but I was too busy concentrating on not dropping him to focus on it.

  “Can you somewhat walk?” I asked as I leaned against the counter.

  His head rolled from side to side. “Sure.”

  I doubted his response, but somehow we managed to stumble our way to the bedroom where I dropped him on the bed and collapsed next to him. The pounding in my head rushed back, and I found myself breathing rapidly as the waves of pain squeezed against my skull.

  “You okay?” Adam asked as he cuddled into me.

  Not really.

  “You shouldn’t have drank that whole bottle,” I replied.

  “Mhmm…tell me about it,” he said, tucking his nose in my neck and letting his alcohol filled breath wash over me.

  I gagged, turning my head away from him and staring at the wall of guitars. I wished he chose to play one of them to distract himself instead of getting drunk, but I imagined it was easier to open the bottle and tip the liquid into his throat to numb his mind. A part of me understood the urge to drink, but for me, it just wasn’t strong enough. I sighed as I turned and wrapped my arms around him, letting my hands drift over his arms until it lulled us both to sleep.

  When I woke my eyes didn’t hurt as much anymore, but the feeling of weight inside my chest hadn’t lifted. I rubbed my face before rolling over to see Adam sitting by the window. His face was painted in pale moonlight, and his eyes filled with the sadness that seemed to have become a part of us. He didn’t stir as I crawled out of bed and moved towards him. His chest rose as he sighed and moved to pull me into his arms. He rested his head on my shoulder, and his arms snaked around mine until our fingers were intertwined. “How do we move forward?”

  I let my body sink deeper into his arms. “We just do.”

  “You say that as if it’s the easiest thing in the world,” he answered, and his chest rumbled with a sarcastic laugh.

  I swallowed and pulled away, looking down at him as I turned in his lap. “I didn’t say it was going to be easy.”


  “Riv,” his eyelashes fluttered; “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  He pressed his fingers to his temples, and I felt my heartbeat slow as I watched him struggling to explain how he was feeling. I put my hands on his shoulders, letting my thumbs brush his neck now stippled with a heavy five o’clock shadow.

  “I know… I just don’t think there’s a secret to getting over this,” I replied, letting my shoulders rise and drop before continuing; “I don’t know there is a way to ever get over this. We just have to move on from it.”

  Adam’s hands dropped over mine, and the warmth of his touch spread up my limbs until I felt a small smile tugging at my lips.

  “We have each other,” I said.

  Adam’s eyes drifted from my lap, up my body until they met mine. “That’s all we’ve ever really needed, isn’t it?”

  He licked his lips, and I felt the inevitable pull of my body towards his. He lifted his hand and let it caress my cheek, before slipping it behind my neck and moving me towards him until our lips touched. It started with a soft kiss, but desperation sunk in as I leaned my body closer, and his hands drifted down my spine to grip my hips. His lips crushed into mine, spreading them, so his tongue met my own. I tangled my fingers in his hair as he moved my legs and stood, carrying me to the bed without his lips leaving mine. I pulled away gasping, and he tucked his head into my neck, his tongue washing over my bare skin as he slipped his hands under my shirt and then lifted it off. I knew we should talk, but words were always useless with Adam and I. Instead, I let the physical consume me and settle the pain that rose inside my soul. For that moment, it overrode the doubt that all we needed was one another.

  Chapter 6

  I looked down from the book I was reading to my cell phone vibrating against my leg. Reading was my only reprieve from the violent and painful thoughts catapulting around my brain, and the number on the cell phone brought them all rolling back over me. My jaw clenched as I stared at the number.

  “They’ve called me twenty times today,” I said, and it was not an over-exaggeration; proven by the fact the screen flicked to MISSED CALLS 25. “How many times have they called you?”

  Adam looked up from his tablet, his finger hovering over the screen as he exhaled. “Enough times.”

  His cell phone began buzzing across the coffee table and both our eyes went to it before he continued playing what I could only assume was Angry Birds from the sounds emitting from the device. “I guess she should’ve thought of what she was saying before she said it,” Adam said as his finger slid across the screen.

  I leaned forward and kissed him. “I’m sorry.”

  He looked up, and his jaw clenched before he replied, “It’s not your fault they’d rather have me dead.”

  My throat tightened. I wanted to deny his words and tell him it was all a misunderstanding, but I didn’t feel like it was. I heard what she said and the way she said it.

  All we have is Adam.

  “If they didn’t care, they wouldn’t be calling,” I said, running my fingers through his hair, so his eyes fluttered shut. They opened as his cell phone vibrated yet again, tittering on the edge of the coffee table it finally reached.

  I looked at the ceiling before grabbing it and swiping my finger across the screen. “Hello?”

  “River?” Vickie’s voice hammered into my skull and sent my skin prickling with unease. The anger built in my body, and I felt myself begin to tremble as Adam’s eyes raced over my face. It seemed he was as unsure of what I was going to say as I was.

  “Yes,” I replied.

  “Adam won’t return our calls,” she said.

  “I’m sorry to hear that. We’re both not interested in talking to anyone right now.”

  Especially you.

  “Even your mothers?” Vickie asked, reminding me that several missed called were from Mom. Her voice was innocent as if never did anything wrong.

  My fists curled causing my nails to bite into my palms. “Right now, we need space and time.”

  “Why?”

  My voice was shaky as I repeated her question, “Why?”

  “Yes, darling,” she said, and my whole body tensed at the strange mix of soft word and hard tone. “Why?”

  I swallowed as I looked straight ahead, and Adam leaned into my line of vision. He put his hand on my knee and squeezed, mouthing the words hang up.

  “We have our reasons, Mrs. Beckerson. We’d appreciate it if you gave us some space,” I replied, and I was shocked how I held my calm when I wanted to yell at her; to tell her what a shitty parent she always had been. But she was still Adam’s mother, no matter how cruel she was to us. I wondered how he dealt with it his whole life when I could barely manage to deal with his parents for more than a ten sentence conversation.

  She heaved an exaggerated sigh. “How long do you need?”

  “Adam will reach out to you when he’s ready. Until then, we’d appreciate our privacy. Goodbye, Mrs. Beckerson,” I said. I pressed the end button before she could reply and leaned back to look at the ceiling.

  I watched Adam stand from the corner of my vision, and I closed my eyes as his bare feet padded against the hardwood. I held my breath as I heard the refrigerator open and a cap unscrew. My body tensed, and my nails went in my palms again, this time so hard my skin shifted beneath them.

  Please don’t be that bottle.

  Adam didn’t drink before, well, not other than at special events. In the week and a half since that phone call, Adam consumed more Southern Comfort than all the years I knew him added together. I fought the rolling in my stomach as he sat down beside me.

  “You okay?” he asked, and I realized my chest was heaving. “River?”

  I breathed out slowly. “I don’t know.”

  Adam put a bottle of water on the table, and my tensed muscles loosened. Maybe I was just overthinking his drinking. He put his hands on my neck, his thumbs tucking beneath the edge of my hair as he leaned forward.

  “Me either,” he replied. “Sometimes I wish they were different people, and I didn’t feel this way about them. I mean, shouldn’t we all be supporting each other right now?”

  I felt my shoulders rise beneath his hands as I licked my lower lip. “They don’t know how to support other people…” I swallowed before continuing; “They’d just drag us down.”

  My body numbed as I watched a tear roll down his face, catching in his scar and splitting in two. As his eyes searched mine, I knew the answer to how he handled his parent’s abuse and even how I handled it. It was one in the same.

  The thing tearing us apart was the very thing that held us together–Bobby.

  Chapter 7

  Two weeks.

  Two weeks had passed since Bobby left us, and although my life felt frozen, I continued moving forward. I visited Tara every day for an hour or two and read books to pass the remainder of the time, but I needed to return to real life. I took a deep breath as I picked my cell phone up off the charger. The voicemail now flashed full, and I wondered if there were any from Mom on there, or if they were all from Vickie. I grit my teeth at the thought as I stared down at Adam lying in the bed curled into a ball with his pillow pulled to his chest.

  I wondered how he was comfortable.

  I doubted he was.

  I knelt down to pick up the empty bottle of SoCo from beside the bed, and walked to the door, picking up my stilettos as I did. I glanced behind me at Adam, my pulse rushing through my ears before going into the kitchen and dropping the bottle in the recycling. I gazed down at the handful of empty bottles of liquor and closed my eyes as I ran my hands through my hair. Adam was not dealing with the loss well, or at all really. I mentioned I was going back to work today, but I wasn’t sure he heard—or, what scared me the most, that he cared. I took a shaky breath as I slipped my shoes on and then headed to the door, grabbing my coat and slipping it on before looking back at the bedroom.

  He’ll be okay. It’s only been two weeks.

  I close
d my eyes, pinching the bridge of my nose before turning out the door. I kept my eyes on the red tips of my shoes as I walked down the hall and to the stairs. I hoped Adam would get out of bed and not just to go to the liquor store. I shook the thought from my head as it started pounding.

  “You can do this,” I said to myself as I began walking forward.

  I wasn’t sure I could. I was going back to work—the place I met Tara, and the place Bobby found an internship for me. My chest tightened as I opened the driver’s side door, slipping into the car and putting the key in the ignition. The car roared to life, but I found myself pressing my forehead against the steering wheel as my grip tightened and the leather squeaked. I couldn’t stop the memories from rushing in.

  Bobby had come to my dorm room with a paper in his hand, and one of those killer sideways smiles. He had waved it in my face as I shook my head and nodded for him to come in. My dorm mate had bit her lip as she stared at him, and I had rolled my eyes.

  “You know how you were saying you needed an internship?” Bobby had asked as he sat on my couch, throwing his arm around me as I sat down beside him.

  I curled my legs under myself as I cocked my head at him. “Yeah, but they’re all full. If it’s this impossible to get an internship in Boston, how am I ever going to get a job?” I asked with a frown. I narrowed my eyes as a huge smile spread across his lips. “Why do you look so excited?”