by Teresa Hill
He said it like he absolutely hated himself. How could someone like him hate himself?
"Well, sometimes, no matter what you do, it just isn't good enough." She certainly knew that, but she didn't hold people's lives in her hand, which had to be so much worse.
He sighed and walked over to the table for his drink. His steps weren't quite steady and the words were definitely slurred. She'd never seen him drunk before. He picked up the glass and took a long draw on the liquor, then stood there staring at it in his hand.
"I know you don't really think that's going to help," she said.
He gave her a disgusted look, then flung the glass against the opposite wall. It shattered into pieces, and she flinched at the sound of the glass breaking and the smell of the booze, too many old, bad memories coming into play. An edge of danger swirled around them that she didn't understand. She could never be afraid of this man, could she?
He swiped a hand through his hair, took a deep, deep breath, and faced her once again. "I really think you should go."
"I can't do that. You... You've helped me so many times. I couldn't even count them all, and I've never done anything for you."
"Well, this isn't the time to start," he said.
"It's exactly the time."
Determined, she took a few tentative steps toward him. He turned away from her, his head falling forward, back bowed, as if he could hardly stay upright, the pain was so staggering.
She walked up to him and put her hand on his shoulder. Heat rolled off his body like he had a stoked furnace inside. Her hand tingled at the contact.
He stiffened at her touch and warned, "Stevie isn't going to like this. He'll find out you were here again and blow his top."
"I'll probably tell him," she said, daring to rub his back a little, determined not to give a moment's thought to how it felt. She feared that what she really needed was to put her arms around him and make him hang on. When she'd been hurt, she'd always wished for someone to hang on to. "I'll get my dose of Zach-truth-serum and... Did I ever tell you about that?"
"No," he said softly.
"You have the oddest effect on me. I can't seem to lie to you, no matter how hard I try. And the effect seems to linger after you're gone. That first night when I came here to talk to you, Steve had called before I got home. What should I have done? Told him I was in the shower. That would have been it. No problem. I would have married him, and everything would have been fine."
"You're lying to yourself now, Julie."
She nodded. "I guess I am."
She slid closer, resting her head against his back, encircling his waist with her arms, holding him tightly. There. That was surely what he needed. He was trembling and seemed every bit as miserable as she was.
"Sometimes it all just seems too hard, you know?"
"Yeah, I know," he agreed.
"Sometimes it seems like nothing will ever get any easier or any better. You probably don't have a lot of experience with those kinds of feelings, but I do, and you can keep going, you know? Things are bound to get better eventually."
"They won't for Tony," he said.
"You don't know that. Anything could happen—"
Zach whirled around to face her, breaking the gentle hold she'd had on him. She backed away, giving him some room, waiting to see what he'd do next.
"Oh, hell," he said finally, sitting down a bit unsteadily on the coffee table.
She sat across from him on the sofa, her knees pinned in by his. He drummed his fingers on the surface of the table, playing a little percussion solo, his agitation painful to watch.
She dared to touch him again, finally took his hands in hers to still them, hoping to soothe him a bit. "Tell me," she said. "Anything at all, and I'll listen."
"Nothing good has ever happened to Tony Williams," Zach said bitterly. "He lived a shitty life to this point, and now it's going to get worse. Day in, day out, he'll be with people who make his father look like a grade-school bully. He'll get even more scared, and then he'll get angry, and before long, he'll wish for the day they finally execute him. And there's probably nothing I can do to save him from that."
"Then you'll go and save someone else," she said, holding on to his hands when he would have pulled away. "I know it's not what you want to hear. I could see that he means a lot to you. But I know you did all you could. I bet tomorrow won't be quite as horrible as today. There are lots of people you can save. You do so much good."
"It doesn't seem like enough." He shook his head.
"I know. Sometimes nothing we do is enough, no matter how hard we try."
And some people didn't even try. Like her. Some people just walked away. It had all seemed so easy, so smart, before Zach had come back into her life. Maybe that's what she could give him. She could teach him to walk away. Maybe this job was just too hard and he couldn't do it anymore. Not if it did this to him every time he lost.
But he wouldn't give it up. He wasn't the kind to walk away from anything.
Suddenly she was so ashamed. She had no idea what she was doing here. She went to stand up at the same time Zach did. But the table was low to the floor and he was so tall. His knees bumped into hers. He tried to step around her and misjudged the placement of his foot, stepping on her toe instead.
"Ow."
"Sorry." He jerked his foot away, and then, off balance, slid around, fell to the floor, and sat there.
She waited for him to try to kick her out again, but he didn't, so she sat down on the table, where he'd been a moment ago. He leaned against her side, slipped his hand along the back of her calf, and pressed his temple to her knee.
Oh, Zach. She put her hand over the side of his face, then bent her head until it lay against the top of his.
" I'm the last person who should ever be telling anyone how to deal with his problems, but... I'm the only one here. So I guess you're stuck with me."
"There's nothing you can do, Julie. Nothing anyone can do."
"Can I just stay here? Please? So you're not alone?" She couldn't leave him alone. She wasn't sure what would happen if she did. She was that scared for him.
"I've been alone before," he said bleakly.
"Like this?"
He took a breath. "I'm not sure if I've ever been in a place like this before."
"Which is a good reason not to go through it alone." She lifted her head and stroked a hand through his thick, dark hair, trying hard to ignore the fact that she liked it, liked so much touching him this way.
When he didn't protest, she eased her hand down his neck and started lightly rubbing his shoulders. It was the oddest of embraces and the most intimate. She'd never felt this close to him, maybe to anyone. She'd never wanted more to take away someone's pain.
"I haven't had that much to drink," he said finally.
She'd gone back to stroking his hair, wanting him to stay where he was, hoping he would relax a bit. "Okay."
"Sorry about the glass."
"It's all right."
"No, it's not. It scared you, and I'm sorry. With your family history, I know the last thing you want to deal with is a short-tempered drunk."
"You're not either of those things," she insisted.
"Maybe not now, but someday... who's to say? I've got the genes of an alcoholic and a murderer running through my veins. Oh, and a battered woman. Can't forget her. A woman who fell in love with a man like that and then let him use her like a punching bag for years, and then turn on their kids."
"He hit you?" Julie asked.
"No. Given the chance, I'm sure he would have. But he got Emma once, and my mother finally decided to leave him before it happened again."
"You remember that?"
"Yeah." He laughed bitterly as he finally raised his head. "My earliest memory. A loud, out-of-control drunk hurting my sister."
"You're nothing like him," Julie said.
"I kind of look like him tonight, don't I? Lose a case, drown my sorrows in a bottle, and then throw some
thing across the room. Who knows what'll be next? Break someone instead of something?"
"You'd never hurt anyone," she said.
"Be nice to think I wouldn't."
"I know you wouldn't," she insisted.
He didn't say anything, just looked away.
"Zach, is that what this is all about? Him being out?"
"I hate having him out walking around. I wish I could erase every memory of him, every speck of his blood, his genes, everything. I try. And then I get a client like Tony."
"What does Tony Williams have to do with your father?"
Zach shifted on the floor until his back was against the sofa. He leaned his head back against the cushion and stared up at the ceiling.
"Not my father. Me. Tony and I started out just alike. Drunken, abusive fathers, battered women for mothers. The only difference between the two of us is that my mother managed to get me out of there, and I got lucky as hell with my next set of parents. The real ones. My life was completely different from Tony's from that point on. But what if my birth mother had never gotten me and Emma and Grace out of that house? What do you think would have happened?"
"I don't know," she said, because, really, how could anyone know? But she understood the possibilities, as he clearly did.
"But it's not that hard to imagine, is it? Emma wouldn't have let him hurt me, not if there had been anything she could do to stop it. I wouldn't have let him hurt Emma or Grace, and if I could have gotten my hands on a loaded gun... Who's to say who'd be in that cell convicted of murder?"
"You're not Tony Williams," Julie insisted.
"But I could have been. So easily, I could be right where he is today."
Okay, so it was what she'd imagined earlier. Guilt and obligation were at work here. He thought had a debt to repay for the blessings life had bestowed upon him, and he'd just defaulted on a major payment.
She could explain the flaws in that logic—that he no more deserved the terrible days of his early childhood than he should have to pay for the good days that followed. That he hadn't been rescued from that life only to leave Tony sentenced to it. She didn't know much about how the world worked, but it wasn't like that. Zach had just gotten lucky, she supposed, except she'd always thought he deserved it, that he deserved the very best, because he was such a good person.
How could she explain that to him?
"You're just one person," she said. "You can't save everyone. I'm sorry it ended up like this for Tony. I guess you'll just have to feel lousy about it tonight, but tomorrow you'll get up and start all over again, trying to help someone else. Don't you win more than you lose, Zach?"
"I don't keep score. They're not scores. They're kids. This is kids' lives."
"I know, but... you do all you can. You can't ask any more than that of yourself."
But the look he gave her said that he could and he did. His lips were trembling, and a muscle twitched at the corner of his mouth as he fought for control. He blinked once, and again, and then his eyes filled with tears.
He was coming completely undone, right there in front of her.
A big, strong man falling apart.
She saw the muscles bunch in his shoulders, saw him choke back a breath, and then his brows settled into a flat, unhappy line.
"It's all right, Zach." She slid to the floor beside him, facing him, wrapping her arms around him tightly, and she was crying, too, probably even before he was.
Sometimes hope was just too far away, so that you simply couldn't see anything but the bad. She'd cried like this, too. The only difference was she usually didn't have anyone to hold her.
So she did for him what no one had done for her. She hung on tight, trying to be his anchor in the middle of sheer misery. To hold him so he knew he wouldn't simply dissolve away into the agony of his emotions. Because sometimes it felt like the pain was so great it might literally consume her. She wouldn't let that happen to him.
Julie felt a fierce trembling rake through his body, all control gone.
"Don't let go," he said.
"I won't," she promised.
His arms clasped her around her waist, pulling her body flush against his, so that she was up on her knees, his face buried in her neck, his head cradled in her hands.
Oh, Zach.
She wiped her tears away with the back of her hand and then pressed the side of her face against his forehead, nuzzling the tip of her nose against his temple, finding dark, slightly curling hair that smelled so good. He always smelled so good, and his body heat always felt so good. She noticed both every time she got close enough.
He held on tighter, his arms like steel bands wound tightly around her waist. Her ribs were crushed against his, her hair falling around them both. She felt him shudder once more and pressed his face against her neck.
"It's all right. I'm right here. I won't let you go."
His shoulders were heaving, his whole body, with every breath. It didn't seem to be slowing at all, this storm raging through him.
This was what happened when you cared too much. It ended badly, and you hurt like hell.
She didn't want anything to ever hurt him. She wanted him to have a perfect life, that illusion she'd believed in for so long. If anyone deserved it, it was Zach.
She ran her hands up and down his back, pulling at the tension here and there, trying to work out the knots. His breathing finally slowed. He pressed his wet cheek against her neck and her collarbone for a moment, and finally eased away, wet, weary eyes finding hers.
"Sorry," he said, staring at her.
His hand came out, brushing the moisture from her cheeks, the side of her jaw, his tears from her neck, her collarbone. He still looked like he was ready to shatter completely.
"It's all right," she said.
But it wasn't. He shuddered once more, took a gulping breath, and then hung his head. She pulled him back to her, nestled his head into that hollow below her chin at her neck. His breath was warm against the top of her breasts, and his cheeks were wet. A minute later he lifted her off the floor to tuck her against him on his lap and held on tight, lashing them together like they were facing yet another brewing storm.
This is what it felt like, she supposed, when the world just came apart, even though people had tried as hard as they could to hold it together.
"Don't leave me," he said in a harsh whisper she scarcely recognized. "Not yet."
"I won't. I promise."
She kissed his temple and then his cheekbone, wanting nothing more than to soothe him. His hands were trembling, but they were soothing, as well, working their way up and down her back, as if she were in need of comfort, too. His breath was warm, hot even, and her thin blouse was damp with his tears. She started to become aware of her body in a way... She couldn't help it. It was completely involuntary, completely inappropriate. She had tried so hard not to feel anything like this, especially not now. But she felt her nipple bunch up and tighten as he exhaled, his breath rushing across that damp spot.
She ignored it, thinking that he wasn't likely to notice, not in the shape he was in. A woman couldn't help what her body did in such close proximity to a man. It was nothing.
But he felt good. The side of his face was pressed against her chest, and all that warm air coming out of his lungs was funneling down her blouse, between her breasts.
She must be hard up when a man breathing could do this to her.
Much as she tried to block the sensation, it was there. Her breasts felt heavy and swollen. It had been a long time since morning, since he'd shaved. The stubble on his jaw was slightly abrasive against her sensitive skin, but in a nice way, in a way that makes a woman know a man is touching her.
He'd gotten very quiet, very still. The hands at her back were no longer moving. Hers had stilled, too. He still held her, but something had changed.
"Julie?" he whispered.
"Yes?"
She had no idea what he intended. Honestly, no idea. She just opened her mouth to answ
er him, and he lifted his head and pressed his mouth to hers.
She was so shocked she just sat there with her mouth open and let him do what he wanted. Which was to taste her in the most desperate way, a help-me-I'm-lost-and-about-to-drown kind of kiss, needier than any she'd ever felt before.
No one had ever really needed her. Not like this.
He was devouring her, pushing deep down inside her, with just a kiss. And it went on and on, like he had to know everything about her, just from this kiss. His mouth was hot and insistent, his tongue thrusting inside her mouth in a way that was purely sexual, shockingly so.
She'd tried so hard not to feel anything like this from him that night, tried most of her life not to feel anything at all. It was so much safer not to feel. It didn't hurt nearly as much, wasn't as scary or as sad to just be numb.
And here he was, blasting through every defense she'd ever built against feeling too much. He burned through all the barriers she'd ever erected between herself and the world, herself and a man.
She was still reeling from the insistence of his mouth when she realized his hands were on her breasts. She'd been aching for that touch. No way she could lie about that. Sometimes it felt so good to be touched.
At one time, that kind of need had made her do things she later regretted, just because she'd been so desperate to have someone touch her, hold her, for just a little while. To escape from life as she knew it.
Usually, it had made her feel lonelier and sadder in the end, but sometimes the only thing that mattered was making it through one more long, dark night. Maybe that's where he was.
And she was... Julie couldn't say exactly where she was.
He seemed to have scrambled her brain, left her with too many sensations piling on top of too many pleasurable sensations. She liked to be touched. What lonely, neglected girl didn't? It was something the grown woman never outgrew.
But it made her uncomfortable, too, being vulnerable to anyone, especially a man. She'd learned over time that she could let herself feel this sort of pleasure, that it didn't have to mean too much, be too important. It was sex. It was fine. It felt good. People did it. It was just a part of life, a normal woman's life, and she wanted very much to be a normal woman.