by LJ Evans
I put your bag on the passenger seat before opening the shitty Bug’s driver door for you. Little did I know that the stupid car would cause us so much pain later. But, even that first day, I didn’t want to see you in a rusted out piece of trash like that. And, when it took three tries for the engine to cough and sputter to life, I was ready to hand you the keys to the Porsche.
“You need a new car,” I said matter-of-factly.
“I need to pay the rent more than I need a new car,” you said back with some of the sass from when I first met you. It wasn’t there as much now that I’d pulled back the first layer of your skin. I realized that you used it for protection. Just like I used my wall of ice.
“You’re going to the hospital first?” I asked even though you’d already told me this.
“Yes. And then back to the apartment.”
“Text me when you get home, and I’ll call you,” I said, and I reached in and kissed you again. I went to pull back, but you tangled your hand in my t-shirt and held me close, looking into my eyes with unsure ones.
“You promise?”
“I promise,” I said gruffly, not understanding then your history and how much your doubts filled you.
You let me go, and I closed the door and watched as you drove away. My heart was going for a ride along with you. I stared at the empty street for several minutes.
I ran a hand through my hair, looked down at my pajama clad body, and decided to go for a run. I changed and took off down the beach. I ran down to the pier and back. I was sweaty and hot when I reached my deck. I wanted to break something when I saw the teenager from two doors down waiting for me by the stairs.
“Hiya Seth,” she said with a smile that I knew would have gotten me all the way into her pants when I was seventeen, but now just made me shudder.
“Randi.”
“Your sister visiting you?” she asked with a fake smile that she’d already learned from watching too much Freeform and YouTube.
I’m not very nice. You know that. Not sure the teen did, but I sneered at her anyway. “Would be pretty gross if my sister and I had been engaging in all that tonsil hockey.”
She was shocked by both my crassness and abruptness. But I didn’t care, I needed her to go away. I certainly didn’t need any jealous daddies thinking I was banging his underage daughter.
I’m not writing this now to make you jealous. I’m writing so that you can see, that I didn’t care about anyone else. And so that you can see that being an asshole was just part of my DNA until you walked into my life. Not even Cam had been able to make me less of a jerk. You. I’d do anything for you. And you have tamed me. Brushed off the corners of my roughness so that it’s more smooth glass than jagged edges.
I moved past the girl up the steps to my deck, slammed the French door behind me, and went to take a shower. The tangled sheets in the bedroom made me pause. I looked down at the clock on my bedside. You’d only been gone an hour. Which meant you’d barely had time to get to the hospital and see your family, but it had been an eternity to me already.
I texted you.
ME: Teenage mutant witch gave me the third degree about you.
It took you a minute, but then I could see the dots that indicated you were responding.
BELLA: I’m sending over the hitman now.
And it made me grin.
ME: No need. She scuttled away with rejection.
BELLA: Good. I’m not ready to share.
Relief filled me. Relief that you didn’t seem to care that I was texting you already. Relief that you were staking your own claim in me.
ME: Me either. When will you be back?
BELLA: I just left.
ME: It’s been days.
BELLA: It’s been an hour.
ME: Are you sure?
BELLA: Yes?
And I smirked at the question mark. It made me feel better. That maybe you were missing me too.
ME: I’m off to hit the shower.
BELLA: That’s so unfair.
ME: ??
BELLA: Now all I can think about is you in the shower. Wet.
ME: Damn girl. Come back home.
You didn’t respond right back. I reread the text and realized I’d used the word home. I wondered if I had completely freaked you out. But I felt like that already. Like you needed to come home.
BELLA: I’ll text when I’m back at my apartment.
And I realized even then that you’d never called your apartment your home. Not once. Not even when you’d been talking about living there with Claire.
I tossed my phone on the bed and headed for the shower. When I came out, rubbing my hair with a towel, it was ringing. I picked it up, heart thumping, and answered without looking at it. “PJ?”
Silence. Followed by Locke breathing out in unhappiness, “No, it’s Locke.”
I couldn’t help my smile. It was my new favorite hobby. Tormenting Locke about you. Because I’d been briefly tormented about him and you.
“What do you need, Locke?”
“A couple things.”
“Business or personal?”
“Both, damn you.”
“I’m not just screwing around with her,” I barked at him.
“That makes it worse!”
“How do you figure?”
“She’s like a sister to me. I wouldn’t want my second cousin twice removed hooked up with a jerk like you, let alone my sister,” Locke replied, honest as always.
It was the honesty I respected, but now it stabbed me in the heart because I also knew it was the truth. I already knew that I wasn’t good enough for you. Could never be good enough for someone like you, but I couldn’t help it. I wanted you.
“That isn’t for you to decide,” I tossed back at him, trying to control my desire to throttle him.
Silence.
“I know. But, she’s been through the ringer enough in her life. I don’t want her hurt again even if it’s because of her own damn mistakes,” Locke said vehemently.
I didn’t respond. I didn’t want to be your mistake even though I probably was which just pissed me off more.
“What can I do to make you back off?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
“I could stop representing you.”
“Go ahead. I’ll find another brainless agent.”
“I know you don’t really feel that way,” Locke said with his own anger showing.
“She’d win any time you made me choose,” I said as I slammed my way into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator door, aching for a beer and reaching for the orange juice instead.
“That’s saying a lot then,” Locke said with resignation.
“I’m not giving her up,” I told him forcefully.
Locke sighed. “If you mess with her, I’ll personally find someone to gut you in a dark alley.”
“If I mess with her, I’ll gut myself in a dark alley.”
We let that set between us for a moment.
“What’s the business you wanted to discuss?” I asked changing the subject.
“I have a buyer for the waterfall.”
“It isn’t for sale.” I told him bluntly.
“Hear me out—”
“No!”
“They offered a million.”
I stopped, glass almost slipping through my fingers. “Dollars?”
“Yes,” Locke snickered.
“You’re shitting me, right?”
“I never kid about money.”
It was my turn to be silent. Why am I writing about this now? Because, it led to what happened later. This was the beginning of that horrible night. It was also the reason you started pushing me away as if you had to compete with the zeroes in my bank account. But, right then, I couldn’t quite wrap my head around the fact that someone was willing to pay that kind of dough for my piece of junk art.
“I need to think about it,” I offered back. I’d swore I’d never get rid of the waterfall. Not only was it one of my firs
t major pieces, it was what got me into art school, it was what was left of my time in Tennessee. It was the beginning of my new life.
“Jesus Christ,” Locke said.
“I’m not trying to be difficult. It’s just…”
“Sentimental,” Locke finished for me.
“Something like that.”
“You know, I’d swear you really were a soft-ass nerd from the valley instead of a tough-as-nails kid from the Bronx.”
And in the past I would have hated him for that, but instead I found myself teasing back. “Maybe you’d let the soft-ass nerd from the valley date your sister.”
“Not ever. That’s worse than being from the Bronx.”
I chuckled, and we hung up.
I made my way into my studio and stared at the chair with the purple satin. It wasn’t right yet. I’d taken the legs off earlier so that I could etch it with grooves. Like the grooves in your heart that I’d come to see and understand over the last twenty-four hours. At that moment, I wanted people to see that it wasn’t broken. For you to see that you weren’t broken. That you were just scarred a little, like most people who’ve lived at all. Later… well, I realized we were both broken but that it didn’t matter. That it would make us into something unique and beautiful.
I took the legs to my bench where I worked for several hours trying to figure out the right notches so that it would express exactly what I wanted. Most of the time, art came easy to me. But for some reason, I was struggling more than usual.
The sun fading changed the light in my studio and brought me back to the real world. I’d forgotten my phone out in the kitchen. My mind leapt immediately to you. To your fear that I would walk away after we’d made love and you’d gone home.
I threw the chair leg down and went for my phone. But there was no text from you. You’d said you’d text when you were back at the apartment. My brain went to crazy places. Had you had an accident in that piece of crap car? Had your family and friends talked sense into you? Had you decided that you didn’t need me like I needed you already?
I cussed at myself for being that insecure. I told myself that I wasn’t insecure. That I just needed you like I hadn’t ever needed anything in my life. Like Coke needed bubbles, I felt flat and empty without you.
Fucking wuss. I heard my dad’s voice in my head.
I grabbed a bowl of leftovers, heated them up on the stove, because I hate the microwave, and then sat on the couch where we’d been tucked up together twenty-four hours before.
I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I knew my phone was ringing.
“Bella,” I greeted. My voice was deep with emotion that I was sure you could hear and rough from sleep.
You hesitated at my greeting. “Sorry it took me so long to call. Justice and Liv needed some things, so I ran out to get it for them and then when I got back to the apartment all hell was breaking loose with our roommates, and on top of that Claire gave me the third degree.”
Relief flooded me. At least you hadn’t been discouraged from contacting me again.
“Can I come see you?”
It took you way longer to respond than I was comfortable with. “I’m not sure that would be a good idea.”
“Why?”
“I have a lot to do tonight.”
“You have to eat. Let me come take you to dinner?”
You were quiet again. “We just spent more than twenty-four hours straight together. Don’t you think we need a little space?”
“No.”
“Are you always like this with the people you date?”
“No.”
“You’re so exasperating sometimes.” And I knew by then that your sigh was accompanied by a little crinkle in your forehead right between your eyes. I wanted to smooth it out with my finger and then kiss it.
“Just dinner,” I said trying hard to keep the begging out of my voice and still not make it a demand. I wanted to demand. I wanted to tell you that I was going to drive over and throw you in the car whether you liked it or not, but somehow, now that you’d moved out of my world and back into your own, I knew I couldn’t push you like that.
“Tomorrow,” you said quietly.
“No.”
“It’ll have to do, Seth. Really. I have a ton to get done. I just need to keep my head on straight for a few hours.”
That made my lips twitch. “You can’t keep your head on straight around me?”
“You know I can’t,” you said, and I knew there was a sparkle in your eyes that would make me growl and pull you to me if we were together. I sighed. Maybe you were right. I needed to get my head on straight too. I needed to work on the pieces that were flying through my mind like a movie montage.
“Fine. Tomorrow.”
“I’m going to be at the gym from one until seven.”
“Bella…” I rumbled impatiently.
You just laughed at me. “We can do lunch before or if you don’t mind eating late, I can come by after I’m done.”
“I’ll pick you up at the gym.”
“Fine. But not before seven, Seth,” you said trying to put on your professional tone that just made me long to caress it away.
“Seven. At the gym.”
“Okay.” There was a long pause as if you were trying to figure out how to say goodbye to me.
“Goodnight, Bella. Sweet dreams,” I said.
“You too. See you tomorrow.”
And you were gone.
I rubbed my hand over my face and took the phone with me back into my studio. I grabbed pieces from all over and threw them into a pile in the middle before I reverently moved the chair with the silk scarf to the side. I wasn’t done with it yet, not by a long shot, but I needed to get the other images in my head out.
I turned to the hodgepodge of pieces I’d thrown in the middle. I could see a shadow box full of the images that I had flashing through my mind from the last day and a half with you. I wanted to put the desire and longing and desperation on display in the same way that I felt my heart was. I looked to the corner and the silken scarf more than once. I knew then that you were going to be the inspiration for many more pieces before I was done. And it’s true, you are still demanding pieces out of me. Some broken. Some caged. Some free. I’m hoping you’ll see them someday. Someday sooner than later. I’m sorry. I said I wouldn’t ask you to come home. That I wouldn’t beg for you to be here. I’ll try not to.
* * *
The phone ringing on my bedside table woke me from a deep sleep. It had been very late, or very early depending on your take, when I’d crawled into my sheets that still held the bubblegum scent of you. I’d buried my head into the pillow you’d used feeling decidedly unlike myself in the process. Fuckin’ wuss.
I grabbed the phone and saw Locke’s name flashing across the screen. “What?”
“I wanted to touch base again on the waterfall,” Locke was accustomed to my bark and was frequently immune to it. Not many people in my life have been.
“I don’t have an answer for you yet.”
“Damn it, Seth. We’re talking a million dollars.”
“And you know that I don’t give a rat’s ass about the money.”
“Have you thought that maybe I do? That maybe I have a business and a life to support.”
“You aren’t married. Don’t have a girlfriend. You practically live at the gallery, so, no, I haven’t really considered it.”
“Don’t rub it in.”
We were quiet for a few minutes. Then Locke changed the subject, “PJ said you were working on a new piece.”
“Several in fact.”
“Really?”
“Yes. It’s been an inspiring weekend.”
Locke sighed. “God, I want to hate you.”
“You can’t have her.”
“Please. I’ve already told you. She’s like a kid sister. You give me the willies even saying it. I just want to hate you for what you’re going to do to her in the end, but if you’re turn
ing out pieces like that, I know it’s a good thing.”
“Hanging up now.”
“Shoot me some pictures of what you are working on.”
“Will do.”
I took another run after hanging up with Locke, worked for a couple more hours in the studio, ate lunch on the porch while Becca cleaned the house, and then went to shower so I could pick you up at the gym.
Becca, as you know, is well past the time of retiring, but she likes to mother me. She looks like a mother with her greying black hair and wrinkled brown eyes. She’s always taken a strong interest in me for some reason, and I’ve always let her.
Becca’s been mothering me even more since you’ve been gone. Maybe she’s afraid I’ll go off the rails. I don’t know. Believe me, I’ve been attending meetings more than ever because the temptation is there.
I didn’t write that to make you feel guilty. This isn’t your issue. It’s mine. It’ll always be mine. Not a battle that you can cause or fight.
That day Becca was shaking her head at me when I entered from the deck.
“What?” I groused at her.
She waved a pair of your panties at me. I honestly don’t have a clue where she found them. I wouldn’t have recognized them if I’d had to identify them in a police line-up, I’d had you out of your panties before registering them every time.
I took them from Becca’s hand with a slow smile.
“You’ve been very naughty,” but she was saying it with her own pleased smile.
I shoved the panties into my back pocket.
“Tell me about her,” Becca said as she made her way into the kitchen to pour us each a glass of sweet tea like she always did before she left.
I just sat at the counter in silence. I wasn’t sure what to say. I didn’t want to speak about you aloud in case you became a figment of my imagination and melted away into nothingness. The only reason I talked to Locke about you was because he didn’t give me a choice.
“She must be special. You never bring girls to the house,” Becca continued.