“Stop saying that,” I whispered.
“I can’t because that’s why you can’t see it. I see it because I’m not a good person. I see it because I can spot the darkness in people. I can see the worst while you can only see the best. This is why you can’t see it.”
I huffed. “You’re calling me naïve?”
“No.” He narrowed his eyes as if baffled by my question. “I’m calling you a good person.”
“You’re saying it in a condescending way.”
“I’m not. It’s just the truth.”
“You’re basically saying that I’m too stupid to realize that my closest friend is hooking up with my boyfriend.”
“I never called you stupid, Stella.”
“But you did! You are! I just don’t… I…” My words were getting jumbled up as my mind tried to wrap my head around what Damian was accusing. Why would he do this? We were getting to such a good place. We were building a friendship, at least I thought so. But now, why would he do this? “I’m going back inside.”
He grimaced and parted his mouth to speak, but no words came out.
What, Damian?
Say it.
Say anything. Apologize. Take it all back.
His unspoken words were enough to signal me that the conversation was over.
I turned to walk back inside when he called out.
“Ask Kelsey. Straight out. She’ll tell you. Maybe not with words, but with her eyes. Jeff is a talented liar. He’s heartless, and guilt isn’t something he holds within him. But Kelsey… she’ll tell you the truth, solely with her eyes.” The corner of his mouth twitched, and I saw more emotion in those eyes than I ever had before. “I don’t think you’re stupid, and if you took my words that way, I apologize. I know I’m blunt. I know I don’t know how to say things right, but when I speak to you, it’s with nothing but my fullest level of respect. I don’t want to hurt you. If my words ever do that, then I will apologize because you’re my friend, Stella. You are my friend, and you are far from stupid.”
With that, he turned and left me, feeling lost.
When I got home, Damian was already in his bedroom with his door closed. When I headed to my room, I still felt knots in my stomach from our interaction. I couldn’t stop overthinking everything Damian had mentioned to me about Kelsey, about Jeff.
I held my hand over my face as I lay in my bed, feeling nauseous as I typed and deleted messages to Kelsey and Jeff. I couldn’t build up the courage to send the messages to accuse them of something so cruel. Then again, I knew I couldn’t do it via text messages anyway.
I had to see their eyes.
At least Kelsey’s.
Around midnight, I pulled myself from my bed, tossed on my tennis shoes, and headed out of the front door. Within twenty minutes, I was standing on Kelsey’s front porch, knocking repeatedly.
As she opened the door, she looked surprised to see me standing there. Her lips turned up into the warm smile that I’d known for so long, and I couldn’t for a second believe that she’d betray me in the way that Damian was claiming. But then again, why would he lie about it?
What hurt me the most was knowing at least one person out of three that mattered to me was a liar of some sort.
“Stella, hey. What are you doing here?” she asked as she crossed her arms.
A cool breeze brushed against my skin, creating chills throughout my body. “Are you sleeping with Jeff?” I blurted out.
He was right.
It was her eyes.
They shifted.
They told the stories that her mouth couldn’t speak.
“Oh my goodness,” I said, stumbling backward.
“Stella, wait, I, I mean, I…” Her eyes filled with emotions as her hand flew to her mouth, and she covered it, shaking her head back and forth. “I’m…”
Deep breaths. Shaky body. Guilty body. Guilty friend. Friend. Kelsey. No…
“I’m so sorry, Stella. It was only supposed to be one time. I went to one of his gigs. And then, well, we drank too much,” she confessed, tears streaming down her cheeks as if she were the one who was betrayed. As if she was the one hurting. As if she wanted me to comfort her. “But then, feelings grew, and well… Jeff felt guilty after a while and told us we shouldn’t… and we haven’t! Not since Kevin died, I swear to you, Stella! That’s why I thought dating Damian would put a stop to it, and it did. Jeff and I are over. I promise.”
Promises.
What did a promise mean to her?
“How long?” I breathed out.
“Stella pleas—”
“How long?!” I snapped, feeling rage shoot through me or sadness. Maybe both? Confusion? Anxiety? Hurt? Every feeling that was the opposite of joy raced through my system.
“I… uh, three years.”
Three years.
Three years of holidays together. Three years of celebrating birthdays. Three years of a secret affair behind my back while looking me in the eyes and telling me they loved me.
I took a step backward, and my ankle bent as I missed a step. I tumbled, falling down the five steps of her front porch, hitting the concrete at the bottom with a hard thump, cutting up my hands as they slid across the ground.
“Stella! Are you okay?” Kelsey remarked, rushing toward me. “Your hand is bleeding.” She bent down to help me up, and I shoved her hand away.
“Don’t touch me. Don’t talk to me ever again. I’m done with you,” I said, pulling myself up from the ground as my ankle throbbed uncontrollably. I walked off to my car and drove home, wanting nothing more than to be a girl who was not able to feel everything so deeply.
19
Damian
* * *
When Stella left the house, I couldn’t stop wondering about where she’d gone. Instead of sleeping, I ended up going into my home office to work. I had a lot to catch up on, anyway.
I heard her when she came home. I didn’t go check on her because I was certain she wouldn’t have wanted to see me after what I revealed to her. I felt shitty for even telling her what I realized as I hung out with Kelsey. The subtle commentary she made about Jeff here and there made it clear as day. I was a master at learning people, realizing why they were the way they were. Realizing small things that they hadn’t even realized about themselves. Realizing their deep dark secrets before they’d ever spoken on them.
Most people didn’t speak about their darkness. I had a gift at uncovering it.
Connor called me the gravedigger since I was so great at uncovering anything about anyone. Yet, with Kelsey and Jeff, I knew I needed concrete proof of their scandal. I would’ve never broken Stella’s heart if there was a chance I wasn’t right about my beliefs.
So, when Kelsey left her cell phone on the table when we went out to dinner, I grabbed it and checked her text messages to see if there were any from Jeff. Unfortunately, there were hundreds. Pages and pages of conversations, confessions of their affair in detail.
I felt sick reading it.
When Kelsey came back, she hadn’t even known I’d hated her. She hadn’t known that I thought she was the biggest scum on the planet. Anyone who had enough nerve to hurt a woman like Stella was worthless in my mind.
Still, I kept my poker face. I didn’t want her to know what I’d known until I had the opportunity to notify Stella of what I knew.
Clearly, I could’ve announced it in a better way.
Around two in the morning, Stella barged into my office.
“You really think I’m good enough?” she asked with a glass of wine in her grips. Obviously, she’d been a bit intoxicated because sober Stella would’ve never barged in without an invitation. Plus, her question seemed to be extremely random, as if she pulled it out of thin air. But I knew how thoughts worked. She’d probably been overthinking that for hours now.
“Yes,” I replied.
“Why?”
“It doesn’t matter why I think you’re good enough. It matters that you think you’re not.�
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She sat across from my desk and slouched over in the chair, making herself ridiculously comfortable as she sipped at her wine.
“Why do I think I’m not good enough?” she asked me.
“I don’t know. Most of the time, those kinds of thoughts come from listening to other people’s opinions.”
“Have you ever felt that way? As if you weren’t good enough.”
“Most of my life.”
“How did you overcome it?”
“I changed the type of people I surrounded myself with.” I shrugged. “I met a person who told me I was good enough. And he kept doing it until I started to believe it myself.”
“Connor?”
I nodded.
“He’s your best friend.”
“He’s my family.”
She smiled and thumbed the rim of her glass. “How was he able to get close enough to you to the point that you trusted him? You seem very hard to get to know.”
“He was a relentless pain in the ass who didn’t take no for an answer. When I tried to push him away, he moved in closer. He didn’t give up on me, even when I gave up on myself.”
“A UB.”
“A what?”
“A universal blessing. It’s something Grams made up. It’s a person or thing that feels like a gift from the universe. Something that’s almost too good to be true. It’s the brightest of bright spots in someone’s life. A universal blessing. That’s what Connor is to you.”
Interesting concept from an interesting woman. “Something like that.”
“Maybe someday you’ll let me that close.”
I released a low chuckle. “Most people give up pretty early on.”
“Yeah, but I’m not most people.” She downed her wine and went to stand to her feet. As she did so, she stumbled a bit forward, and I reached across my desk to steady her.
“Careful,” I warned.
She giggled and repeated my words, looking down at my touch on her skin. “Careful,” she echoed.
My heart did a weird pulling thing.
That was odd.
I removed my hold from her, and she stood straight.
She looked at me as if she was trying to find answers about me to the questions she hadn’t even thought up yet.
She blinked and shook her head. “I’m clumsy sometimes.”
“It’s okay.”
“Jeff always said it was annoying.”
“Jeff’s an asshole.”
She looked at me, a bit stunned by my words.
I instantly regretted them, even if they were true. “Sorry,” I muttered.
“It’s okay.” She looked around and then leaned forward and began to whisper. “Between you and me, he’s kind of an asshole.”
I matched her level of volume. “The type with asshole tendencies?”
“No.” She shook her head. “Just a big bologna-headed asshole.”
I smirked. “Bologna-headed. I’ll be adding that to my list of insults for individuals.”
“If you’re interested, I have an array of tacky names for jerks. Like fart-face fucker. Butthole bastard. Pimple-popper pain in the ass.”
I laughed. “All of those are ridiculous.”
“I’m the definition of ridiculous.”
“It works for you,” I whispered back after a long round of whispering.
“Why are you whispering?” she asked with her tone still quiet as a mouse.
“Because you are. Why are you whispering?” I questioned.
“Because I’m drunk, silly.” Her words made me smile. She tapped her finger against my lips. “When I’m sober, can you do more of this with your lips?”
“More of what?”
She stepped backward, and I missed the feeling of her finger against my mouth. I had an urge to suck on it slowly when it was there, so it was probably best she pulled it away.
She gestured toward her lips and created a big grin. “Smile. I like your smile.”
“I like yours more,” I confessed, and it felt extremely vulnerable for me to say.
“I’ll trade you some of mine if you trade me some of yours.”
You have no clue what you’re doing to me, woman, I thought to myself.
My mind couldn’t create words good enough to combat her comments, so I stood still, uncertain what to do with myself when I was in front of her. Thankfully, she was too intoxicated to notice my awkwardness.
“It was there,” she said, staring my way.
“What was?”
Her eyes flashed with emotions. “The truth was in her eyes,” she mentioned.
“Kelsey.”
She nodded. “Yes.”
“I’m sorry, Stella.”
“I know. Hey, Beast?” she asked.
“Yes?”
“Do you want to go drink more wine with me by the ocean and count the waves?” She glanced down at my desk, which was covered with paperwork. “Unless you’re busy.”
“I do have a lot of work I need to catch up on.”
She frowned. I hated it.
“Okay, well. You know where to find me if you need a break.” She headed out of the room, and I sat back down at my desk. The only issue was now my mind couldn’t stop thinking about her. Stella was at the forefront of every thought that swept through my mind.
It seemed as if she left my office a long time ago, yet when I headed out of the space to go find her, she was still in the kitchen filling up her glass of wine.
“I think I might need a break now,” I said, startling her, as she jumped a little, turning around to see me. When realization found her, she cheered and clapped her hands together before grabbing another glass for my wine. She poured it to the rim, a heavy pourer. Which probably explained her stumbling.
“Here you go,” she said, spilling a bit of the wine as she passed the glass to me. “Oh! We should make a toast! You can make it.”
“I’ve never made a toast before.”
“Don’t worry. You can’t really get it wrong. Besides, I’m too drunk to really care.”
“All right then. Here’s to… you.”
“Me?”
“You.”
“Oh.” Her eyes swelled up with emotions as she held her glass up to clink with mine. “No one has ever cheered to me and me alone.”
“There’s a first time for everything.”
“Can we cheer to you, too?”
“Only if you want to.”
She held her glass up higher. “Here’s to me. Here’s to you. Here’s to us.”
We clinked glasses. “Here’s to us,” I agreed.
Us.
Something I’d never thought I’d have.
She smiled and led me out toward the ocean’s waves. She spent most nights out by those waves, and for the first time, she’d invited me to join her.
As she stared out at the crashing waves, something shifted within her. She grew a bit somber, and her eyes glassed over as she stared out into the night.
“Do you think he ever loved me, Damian? Jeff?”
“No.”
I said it too quickly, but it was the easiest no I’d ever had to deliver.
She didn’t seem bothered by my reply, but the few tears that scrolled down her cheeks told me she already knew about Jeff’s lack of love.
“I think he loved how much you loved him. How you bent over backward to make him happy when he didn’t even have to do the bare minimum for you.”
Her tears fell more than before.
I grimaced a bit and wrapped my hands around the neck of the glass. Her discomfort was making me uncomfortable. Her sadness was making me sad. I wasn’t one to feel others’ emotions. Most of the time, I felt as if humans were over the top and dramatic with their feelings. But, as I sat beside the crying Stella, all I wanted to do was take away her pain and feel it all for her.
“Do you think I love him?” she asked.
“Yes.” I said that without hesitation, either. “But that’s not shocking because
I think you love the whole world.”
“And how much of the world do you love?”
“None.”
That made her cry more.
“That’s really sad, Damian.”
I shrugged, not feeling much emotion to it at all. “It’s easier that way.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because if you don’t love the world, it cannot hurt you.”
“Yeah, but if you don’t love the world, it can’t love you back.”
“Exactly. Shit only gets complicated when love is involved.”
She picked up a stone and tossed it out to the ocean. “I’d rather love in a complicated way than not love at all.”
“To each their own,” I replied, chugging down my wine. I placed the glass down on the ground and felt a knot in my stomach. I wanted to ask questions that I had no business asking. I wanted to know things that were out of line. Normally, I would’ve kept my thoughts to myself, but I couldn’t help it. They were eating at me.
“Why were you with him?” I asked.
She raised an eyebrow. “With Jeff?”
“Yes. No offense, but it doesn’t seem like you have anything in common. And, well, he treated you like shit.”
“You’ve only met him twice.”
“I knew the type of man he was within an hour.”
“And what kind of man is that?”
“One who’s not good enough for you.”
“Because I’m good enough?” she asked.
“More than.”
“Then why don’t I believe it,” she whispered, with drops of annoyance in her voice.
I wasn’t sure what to say because she was clearly upset but also so deeply sad. I wasn’t good at consoling people. All I could think to do was go break Jeff’s nose, but I doubted that would’ve helped Stella in her current state.
“Who was the first person to make you feel unworthy?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do. You never forget your first heartbreaks. Trust me. Think hard.”
She lowered her brows before standing up to her feet. She walked down to the water, stumbling a bit, making it clear she didn’t need one more sip of wine. I “accidentally” knocked over her wine and poured mine out, too. She didn’t even notice.
“Stella, you must be a good girl, or Kevin will stop loving you,” she said as if quoting another person. She spoke as her hips swayed back and forth, unstable. “Sit down, child. Behave, child. Don’t wear that, child. Don’t speak too loudly, girl. Don’t wear a skirt that short, girl. Smile at that man, sweetheart. Don’t hold a resting bitch face. Engage with them. Don’t offend them. Don’t speak back. Sit. Kneel. Pray. Be quiet. Ladies are seen, not heard. Shut up. Speak up. Sit down, child. Behave, child. Don’t wear that, child. You’re too fat, Stella. You’re so ugly, Stella. You’ll never be enough.” She snickered to herself as she stumbled, and then she tripped over her feet and began her descent. The way her ankle bent made me cringe. It looked painful, to say the least.
Western Waves Page 16