Without Scars

by Jones, Ayla

  After a peck on my forehead, she bounced across the floor to her closet. I loved seeing Nikki like this. My worry, though, was whether she would try to work things out with her family. It wasn’t my place, so I didn’t push it, but I suspected she was only playing tough girl right now, and burying her hurt deep enough for it to not affect her.

  “I’m taking her to The Fat Pony. Wanna come?” Nikki was piling clothes on the bed, kicking off her shoes, tearing her hair out of a bun, and stripping all at once.

  “Nope. Go have fun with your old friend.” She lifted two dresses, one blue, and one black. “Wear the other one,” I said when she put the black one against her body and pivoted toward me with a questioning stare.

  Her eyebrows shot up. “The shorter one? Really? To one of the most popular nightclubs in Miami?” She dropped a hand on her hip.

  “Yeah. You could’ve had anyone in the world, Nik. Anyone. You chose me. You keep choosing me. What the hell do I have to be jealous about? Go wherever.” I shrugged. “You’re still coming home to me, right? That’s what matters. I’m gonna go meet Darla.”

  She pursed her lips, disapproving eyes climbing my body when I stood up. “Put on clothes first. I happen to be the jealous type,” she said. I stumbled, and Nikki braced her hand against my stomach. “Whoa. You must be really exhausted.”

  “Yeah…” The room tilted but readjusted itself after a few blinks. Shit. I couldn’t wait for this feeling to go away. I jumped into a pair of jeans and put on a shirt. Nikki wriggled into the blue dress, and I laughed as her arms flailed overhead. I had to yank it down. It was snug but I loved how it showed off her shape.

  “Braless?” I asked.

  She grinned. “Would you rather I lose my panties?”

  “Yeah. Toss ‘em on the bed. So I can smell them when I rub one out later.” I smacked her ass.

  “Charlie!”

  “Okay. You’re right. I jerk off to you enough. Jerk off on you, too—”

  “Oh my God. Go meet her already. Tell her I’ll be out in a sec. I just need to put on shoes!” she called after me as I left the room.

  Darla Lyons was exactly as I pictured: hair in a bun so tight it was giving her a facelift, incredibly skinny, and kind of prissy-looking. She was definitely not dressed for a Miami nightclub, but she wouldn’t have a problem getting in; she was pretty. After some small talk that dragged on for ten minutes, I went to find out what was keeping Nikki. When I opened the bedroom door, she was leaning against her desk chair with her arms across her chest, a hint of controlled anger in her eyes. Alarm bells were clanging one after the other in my head, and a chill hit my spine.

  “What? What happened?”

  “Fallon. She texted you.” Her acidic tone made me grimace. “Said she got your message and had someone who was willing to sell you more, and I quote ‘at the same price she promised comma so don’t worry if Elliott can’t right now.’”

  “You went through my phone?” I asked defensively; it was all I had. My cellphone hit the space between my ribs a second later when she threw it.

  “Are you fucking kidding me? You’re going to pull the ‘your invasion of privacy is worse than catching me in a lie’ strategy? It fell out of your goddamn pocket when I picked your jeans up from the floor. Your shit is everywhere, Charlie! The text kept pinging and I fucking looked at what flashed on the locked screen. Big fucking deal. We’ve answered each other’s phones a million times.” She sighed. “You’ve tricked me into changing the subject, so we can’t talk about the fact that you’re still taking those pills. I used to do stuff like this to other people, you know. So, you aren’t taking what happened to me seriously. Let me guess: you’re not me? You’re stronger?”

  “They help me write. And does any of this look out of control to you?”

  “Ah, okay. Because I was out of control. You do think you’re stronger.”

  I walked in a little farther and sat on the bed. I just let gravity take over. “Can we talk?” Stupid thing to say. So fucking stupid.

  “What the hell can you say?” The look on her face shattered me. It was cold, merciless. I’m losing her. I’m fucking losing her.

  “I can say that I love you. Because I love you so much, Nicole.”

  “I didn’t believe you for a while, you know, when you said you were done. And I felt horrible because I thought that made me an asshole.” She was putting on her shoes.

  I managed to stand again and walked straight up to her. “Please. Please, don’t leave mad. Or. Or…or…maybe just stay… Tell her I don’t want you to go out anymore. Pull some kind of jealous boyfriend card. Please. Stay.”

  “Darla,” Nikki shouted, an empty stare focused on me, “sorry, I can’t find the pair I want to wear. Give me a few more minutes.”

  Fuck. She was going to leave. She was going to leave me. “Please stop looking at me that way.” I cupped her face. “I shouldn’t have…it was stupid to not tell you I was still using them. I’m sorry.” From the corner of my eye I saw my forearms shaking. My chest folded internally and it hurt to breathe.

  Her determination cracked just a fragment, for just a second. “You think that’s the worst part? That’s the worst part to you?” She groaned and shook her head. “I want to go out with my friend now, Charlie. I’ll see you later.”

  “Okay. Okay, if you’re gonna go, kiss me before you leave. Please.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Get. Off. Me.” She yanked my hands away, and I just let them fall to my sides. Without looking back, she grabbed her wallet and my keys from her desk and walked out of the room.

  ****

  It was after four A.M. when Nikki and I entered her apartment, and both of us were wide-awake. I peeled my shirt off right away. I’d finally gotten a chance to smell how much we reeked from the nightclub; my jeans were covered in beer, too. I hadn’t wanted to go out, but I couldn’t risk all these hours going by, and Nikki’s anger having time to build some more while we were apart. So I ambushed her in the living room by asking Darla if they’d wait a few minutes for me. Darla happily agreed. Nikki was seething. I didn’t give a fuck because it was pure sabotage to save my relationship. She needed to see that I was willing to fight for us. We were civil at the club and kept our tension to a minimum, but probably because she wanted Darla to have a good time.

  “You looked really pretty tonight, baby girl,” I said.

  “Thanks…” Nikki ambled around the living room, rearranging things. She would have to come to bed eventually, so I ignored the urge to say anything more right then. Plus, I needed this night off me immediately. I hopped in the shower, and I plotted what to say—how to fix it—before I crawled into bed.

  What was there to say, anyway? I couldn’t write without them now? I didn’t believe in my work unless I was on that shit?

  Five. Ten. Fifteen agonizing minutes went by. She was still in the living room. Finally I got up and found her lying on the couch, eyes trained on the ceiling. She didn’t even look at me when I stood over her. My heart had been hammering all night—hummingbird fast—and my brain finally caught up to it. I was fucking terrified. But we were going to get through this. We waited too long to get here, together, as a couple. We had gained so much. If I lost this…if I lost her…

  “Can’t sleep on your couch when you have a bed.” I held my hand out.

  “I’m fine here.”

  “Well, then I’m fine here, too.” I lay next to her. We were face to face, and I hugged her close to me. With our fingers intertwined between us, I clasped her hand tight against mine.

  “Don’t do that,” she whispered.

  “What?”

  “Touch me. Don’t do that thumb thing on my thumb. Don’t…just don’t.”

  “You really expect me to lie here and not touch you?”

  “Actually, I expected you not to lie. I expected you not to be so dumb. God, I should be compassionate—me of all people and because you are so good to me—but I’m so fucking angry with you, Charlie. You should
know better.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I never should’ve gotten involved with you when you took those pills out of your pocket by accident. But I couldn’t stay away from you. I couldn’t not want to be with you. It was easy to agree to you abusing yourself because I wanted us so much. I’m so stupid. I enabled you.”

  “You’re not, Nik. And you didn’t. I need them to work.”

  “No, you fucking don’t.”

  My head was spinning. Too fast. I kissed her and her face was wet. “I love you…” I said.

  “I love you, too.” Warm palms landed on my neck and her tongue moved between my lips. My hand went haltingly up her thigh, and she adjusted so that my fingers could slip into her underwear. I slid them into her; she was breathing so hard into my mouth. “Oh…fuck…Charlie…” Her nails pressed into my back and her teeth grazed my ear.

  I dropped my lips to the curve of her neck and put myself between her thighs. Nikki unbuttoned my jeans and pushed me into her. “We’ve got a good thing. You are the best thing,” I whispered. Gripping the arm of the couch above her head, I fucked her until she bit my shoulder as she orgasmed. I came as soon as she said my name.

  “I love you. I won’t ever stop saying it.”

  “I know,” she said. Nikki climbed out from under me, and I heard her shift her dress back down. The thick darkness of her living room didn’t stop me from knowing exactly what her face looked like right now. Things weren’t going to be the same.

  She went to the kitchen and poured water into the Keurig, cursing quietly the entire way. “Are you coming to bed soon?” I asked.

  Nikki spun and leaned against the counter. “Charlie, we need a break.”

  Fuck.

  “Why?”

  “I can’t trust me to do the right thing.”

  “Which is?”

  “Clear my head.” She went into the bedroom. “Not fuck you when I’m fuming. Not enable this shit.”

  “Bullshit.” I followed her. She was already grabbing my things and piling them on the bed. I picked everything up and pushed it back into her arms. “No fucking way. No. This is fucking bullshit, Nicole. I’ve been here through it all with you. Did I want to take a break when you told me what really happened at the accident scene? When you took my car? When your brother flipped out?”

  She narrowed her eyes, which were dark with a look of betrayal, and flung my belongings to the floor. “Oh, we’re going to play who’s better at accepting whose problems and mistakes. Awesome. Gold star for you then!”

  “What the hell is a break, baby?” I asked anxiously. I held her by the waist, tensing up, expecting her to tear my hands off. “A few days? A week?”

  “That’s up to you.”

  “Let me do this on my own time.”

  Nikki’s eyebrows shot up, irritation pumping into her face. “Okay. Go do it on your own time then. But I can’t be around you while you’re shoving handfuls of pills down your throat, and pretending it’s okay. It’s not good for you. Or me. It stresses me out. It worries me. And that makes me susceptible to going back down a road that I don’t want to go down! My goddamn family hates me. I’ve been going to meetings—adjusting—you know, so I don’t fall into a handle of vodka or something. And now this. I just…I can’t, Charlie.”

  “You can’t what, Nik? You can’t fucking do us? This is one thing! How many times have I given up on you? How many? Did I ever walk away?”

  “Oh, right. I’m the fuckup in the relationship. Tally all my shit up. Compare them to the fucking golden boy.”

  “Golden boy? Really? Wow. I have never looked down on you in our relationship, Nik. Don’t do that,” I spat. “Don’t even fucking do that.”

  Nikki put her hands on my chest. “Okay, no. If we keep going back and forth we’ll both end up saying things we’ll regret. So, we need a break. You don’t have to take your stuff tonight but please leave.” After taking her dress off, she yanked on a pair of sweats and a tank top, and ran into the bathroom. The door slammed.

  I walked over and pounded on it once with my fist. “Hey, Nik. Fuck your break,” I said. “Fuck your break.”

  ****

  Fuck her break.

  I slammed my laptop shut. I nearly threw it across the room. I was supposed to be writing the end of a familiar story. Boy meets girl. Boy falls for girl. Boy spends the rest of his life regretting it because he didn’t know the cruel truth then. Love? It only told of the possibilities of happiness; it never promised actual happiness. If he could go back to the beginning? He would warn himself about how often he’d love from afar, unrequited, and how his heart would suffer irreparably. Now if he was going to survive this, he had to learn to live without her.

  His greatest joy. His greatest pain. La douleur exquise.

  Someone knocked on my bedroom door. The television in the living room boomed to life and then got turned down. Two squeaky cartoon voices argued. People laughed out loud. There was so much noise in my fucking apartment. I turned around and told whomever it was they could come in.

  “Got the perfect girl for you to get over the other one,” Ghost joked, holding up a Ziploc bag of weed when he stepped inside. “For Medical Use” was stamped on the front, like that somehow made it less illegal in Florida. “White Widow. I told a friend of a friend that you were in need. It’s just for you, man…” He laughed. He was already in the clouds. I caught the bag when he threw it and swung back around.

  “Just having a little disagreement with Nikki right now. I don’t want to get over her.” It was just a break. It had to be. She’d cool off and we’d be okay. I loved that girl too much for this to be the end. For her to not be my end.

  “I know, man. I figure if I get you high, you’ll get hungry and then leave your room, because you’ve been in here for the four days you’ve been back.”

  “Well it is my room, Ghost.”

  “True. Anyway, we’re all gonna play Hold ‘Em…just come out.”

  If I played, it would give him a reason to leave me alone for a while. I sighed and stood up to stretch. After dropping a few pills on my tongue, I grabbed my phone—in case Nikki called—and trailed him out. Shaw and Brody were already sitting at the dining room table, and Shaw was shuffling the deck of cards. “Fifty-dollar buy-in,” he informed me.

  On my way back from grabbing my wallet and the pot I promised to sell for Fallon (I figured it was as good of a time as any to get rid of it), Deacon and I collided in the hallway. “Whoa…forgot you still lived here. Got cured of Pussy-Whipped finally?” he asked.

  “Not in the mood, Deacon.” We took the empty chairs at the table, and Shaw tossed chips at us once he collected our money. “Just so you all know, Nikki and I broke up. Kinda. I don’t want to hear about it, and I definitely don’t want to talk about it,” I announced. Two heads nodded in my periphery. “In fact, I’d rather you guys just buy some of this pot right now.” I set down three pill bottles stuffed with a few grams of weed each. Ghost smoked so much he could eyeball a measurement, so I’d trust him to help me divvy it up.

  “Now he’s got something else trivial to bitch about,” Deacon said, nudging Ghost. Spite burned my gut. He’s goading you. Don’t fall for it. Grabbing one of the beers, I uncapped it on the edge of the table, nearly breaking the neck.

  “Don’t do it, D. Don’t mess with him right now,” Ghost pleaded.

  After glaring at Deacon, Brody said, “Sorry, man, but I gotta say this. I liked Nikki a lot. Cool chick. I’m sorry it didn’t work out.”

  I glowered at my cards. “Fuck her.” I didn’t mean it.

  “Someone will, don’t worry,” Deacon muttered. He smiled but soon covered it up with a Solo cup. Part of me wondered if Deacon was born with his brain-to-mouth filter broken or if he just had Tourette’s that was specific to me.

  “D, don’t fuck with him.”

  “And they won’t wait as long as you did, either.”

  No one moved. “Don’t say shit else about my girl, De
ek,” I warned him. Anger cut through me and I pushed away from the table, causing everyone’s stacks of chips to tumble. I went to the freezer and took out ice for my beer, but I had a feeling—with absolute certainty—that one of us was going to need it for something else in a minute, if this conversation kept going.

  Actually.

  Fuck it.

  I went for Deacon’s throat. Then his nose. Self-fulfilling prophecy and all that. They were sucker punches, I admit, and he had no time to react. I decked him as hard as I could both times. Chaos erupted for a few seconds, and then it was hard to focus on anything beyond how much my fucking hand was throbbing, but knowing my friends well, it went something like this:

  BRODY panics and grabs CHARLIE.

  GHOST is conflicted. Fighting means potentially scarring his face.

  SHAW moves the fuck out of the way.

  DEACON…

  Well, Deacon was screaming and clutching his face, his back against the bookshelf. A few objects had fallen to the floor. Nothing broke. Other than a single chair, the furniture was mostly in the same place.

  “Don’t say shit else, D,” Brody warned him.

  Deacon doubled over. “That motherfucker just hit me over a joke, and you’re explaining shit to me!” Upright, he wiped the blood from his face, and I flexed my fingers. This was what it was like to hit someone? Fuuuuck. My knuckles were burning. I’d punched him in the mouth, too, apparently, and his teeth had left an impression in my skin. A fight bite.

  Plot twist! We’d both need the ice!

  “I hate this shit…I fucking hate this shit between you two,” Ghost yelled.

  “Well, he has a problem with me.”

  “You’re a fucking pussy who can’t take a joke.”

  “Honestly, D, you go at him a lot.”

  Deacon threw his smeared hands up, and blood ran from his nostrils. “You’re siding with him? He did one thing for you forever ago, but I’m the one who was there during the fucked up stuff. You’ve forgotten that part?”

  “We’re done, Deek. I’m holding on to something you don’t want anymore, so we don’t have to be friends. It’s been a long time coming, anyway. We can’t live together anymore, either. One of us has to go. Fuck it. I’ll go. I’ll go to my parents’ place. But that’s the problem, right? That I have my parents? Isn’t it?”