Need Me (Truthful Lies Trilogy Book Three)

by Dunning, Rachel

  Watching them kiss now reminds me deeply of that Sexy Movers incident at her apartment...

  Damnit! So much for my theories...

  Vikki and Skate really freaking confuse the shit out of me when I try and learn from what happened to me in the past!

  -3-

  We’re still in a flashback here, still covering background, but it’s important, so bear with me.

  I told you there had been more. And there was. So much more.

  A love that burned as hot and savagely as that which Deck and I had doesn’t get quashed by a few little cans of sprinkly water. It takes something like the Atlantic Ocean to kill it.

  Gina Moretti, Deck’s once-upon lover, was a part of that calamitous ocean.

  You see, Gina and Deck had had more than just a little “thing” for each other back in their day, long before I’d come along. They’d downright done it almost every day of the week for three months when they’d gone out. This was all way before I’d met him. But Gina had gone psycho on a bad LSD trip and was spending her time in a home called St Dymphna’s over in Crown Heights. Deck, however, was now visiting her as part of her therapy three times a week.

  This is how the time-frame works out: January of Year Zero, two weeks after we’d started dating, I get those photos from Tatiana. It takes me until March to be able to make love to Deck again, after many weeks of learning to trust him again. In all that time, Deck had been seeing Gina, mostly five minute visits at a time, purely medical, three times a week. Then, in May, she snapped out of her trance, actually broke through it just as the doctors said she might if Deck kept on coming by! He was her final reminder of “the normal world” before her mind had snapped, and they figured his presence would pull her out of whatever she was stuck in. It had been rough going for Deck, he’d been having nightmares every night until May. Gina had thought he was the devil or some other hallucination, and his sleep had been rough, disturbed.

  When she broke through, his sleep became easier.

  And after she broke through, his visits to her became longer...

  Remember, Deck and I split up in August of that year. (There was something else that happened, something major, something catastrophic, in June, which finally pushed everything over the edge. But we’ll get to that shortly.)

  Now, don’t get me wrong, a loon with a bad case of the jitter-bugs ain’t no threat to me, and even back in February, March, and even April, I hadn’t considered her as a potential spouse for my man. But the whole Tatiana thing had set my mind in motion, destabilized me, even if I hadn’t known it consciously. Or maybe I just wasn’t thinking straight because I was in love. I don’t think anyone ever thinks straight when they’re in love, or when they’ve lost so much. It’s just not built into us to keep thinking straight when you’ve been socked and stomped on by life so roughly that your knees are not only grazed permanently, but you’ve got an eternal limp.

  Connected with Gina and everything about her was also Dino Moretti, her brother. Dino had pretty much nearly killed Declan in January. There’d also been an arson incident at my building which Deck had been pretty sure was Dino, but which the cops couldn’t link Dino to at all. Dino was finally linked to the crime in April (a month before his sister popped out of her zombie-state), but he was quickly out on bail and was only convicted and sentenced, finally, long after Deck and I had split up. That fear, however, that Dino might try something, was indeed a real fear. Dino had nearly killed Deck because of Gina, and he was also the reason Trev got kicked out of college. He was on the loose. Skate was watching me a lot of the time when Deck was away, but in my mind I feared for Declan’s safety by him seeing Gina so often. If there was one thing we knew about Dino Moretti, it’s that he didn’t like Declan around his sister. He didn’t like it to the point where he’d probably kill for it.

  The fear was real.

  My mind, however, was purely in a panic about it all. Seeing Gina became linked with Dino became linked with fear became linked with fire became linked with anxiety became linked with...

  And so the feelings went. Constant panic, constant terror. Constant confusion. And I was not able to place it fully, to put my finger on it all, unable to see the connections, to clarify the Real Fear from the Irrational Fear.

  You could say I was a bit of a mess.

  Just as an FYI, Dino’s currently serving time up at Stenkton Correctional. He’ll be out in about a year after serving just a little over the minimum of five for attempting to set fire to my building. For good behavior, he could be out any day now... His mother, the crazy and Joizy Shore Miranda Moretti, hired the best lawyer favors could buy, which means Dino will be out terrorizing the world in only a little while.

  Sensing my unease, and probably even sensing my irrational concerns regarding any particular romantic relationship with Gina, Deck took me to see her once. This was in April.

  It was disturbing, and my heart warmed for Deck after seeing how bad off she was. Because it was also scary. She would jitter and chatter and her teeth would shake every time she saw him; her eyes, endless blue, but looking like black pools of dark death, complemented her lanky pitch-resin black hair which stuck to her pale cheeks and temples like licking tendrils of demented hate. Those eyes would shake and tremor and quiver and I even thought I could hear them, the eyes, yowl with frenzied terror when she saw us.

  She got better. Eventually. Over time. Because of Deck. May, Year Zero. Deck started spending more time with her, and now I didn’t go with him. The visits got longer, just by a few minutes. But sometimes those few extra minutes would mean he’d get stuck in traffic, which meant he’d get home thirty minutes later. Of course, the doubts, the distrust, the mind-tricks, would roar and wail whenever that happened.

  He told me the doctors said he should stay with her a little longer each day because she was now actually communicating. Before, she would just see him, scream, and then the visit would be over. There was nothing to worry about, Deck had told me.

  I didn’t believe him.

  And we’d fight. We’d fight hard. We’d fight like sharks for blood. And sometimes it felt like blood actually came.

  I’ve told you already that, at the time, I didn’t know what was happening with me, why I was over-reacting. I can even tell you that the fights we had were probably not even about Gina Moretti! Yeah, can you believe it? He’d be late, I’d freak out and rip his throat apart like some vampire to the neck for a meal, and she wouldn’t even come up as a topic.

  The mind plays tricks, tries to protect you.

  Subconsciously, I was terrified that something would take him away from me. Subconsciously, I was probably afraid of Dino. Perhaps that fear was actually quite justified—a car accident, the crazy murderess that took his own father’s life in front of his eyes a few months earlier, my past filled with boys wielding Ruger revolvers or hands that crawled up loose blouses. There was plenty of reason to be fearful, sure, but the mind plays tricks. And all it does is try to slam you away from loss and pain and suffering. Subconsciously, I was afraid something would take Deck away from me. So, looking back at it, it played like this: He was seeing Gina Moretti. He and Gina had once fucked voluptuously for months. She’d been hot back in the day. He was now “seeing” Gina Moretti. Savva was smiling at me, only Savva was dead. Where is he? Is he OK? Isn’t he with his girlfriend? Where’s Dino? Is he out on bail? Where’s Tatiana? Who’s Tatiana? What time is it? And then that feeling would start, under my sternum—buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz—like crickets gnawing at bone. And, to be honest, I think it was that feeling that made me go so irrational.

  Because I hated that feeling. I hated it more than Savannah’s smile.

  The feeling had made me nervous, made me anxious, made me want to bury my soul in vodka with Vikki and snuff out my emotions with hard liquor. I’d do anything to get rid of that damned feeling! It was like a slow knife oozing down my chest and leaving a small slit, tiny blood crawling out, gently, just a little, not enough to bleed
to death, but enough to make me feel weak.

  I hated that freaking feeling. It was worse than anxiety, worse than panic. I gave it its own name: It was the “Declan’s Not Here” feeling. The feeling would conjure up car crashes, explosions, tornadoes, smashed houses and flooded waters in my mind. I’d start to lose breath, start to exhale faster, my legs would go weak, I’d break out in a sweat...just like I do in my dreams. I’d sit, I’d stand, I’d fan myself, swallow, see the smile, see the smile, the eternal smile, that endless black and blue smile, pace, walk, breathe, breathe, where are you Declan Cox?, where are—

  And then he’d walk in the door and: “Where the fuck have you been!”

  Relief would slam at me so hard...that I’d mistake it for a physical punch, actual factual pain.

  Irrationality. The mind plays tricks. And so I turned him away, pushed him away. No, I pushed the Fear away. I didn’t want to be near The Fear, I didn’t want that buzz-buzz-snip feeling at my chest, hated it, loathed it, was terrified by it.

  The extra minutes at St Dymphna’s—Gina’s home—quickly became a half hour or more, an hour, two hours! That had made me jealous, afraid, fearful. And thinking about it later, believing he’d been cheating on me with her (I know now that’s not true), after my lease had expired and Deck and I were long over and I was now staying at Vikki’s place, made me cry into my pillow at night so much that Vikki would totter over from her room, snuggle under my blankets, and hold me all night. I lost count of the number of nights that she did that for me.

  It was good that I had to go to London and Berlin and Paris and Lisbon soon after that. Getting away was good.

  It’s crossed my mind afterwards that maybe his mind had played tricks on him as well. But what difference does it all make now? Because when I look back at it, all I see is me. I made my bed, so why bother blaming him for me lying in it?

  We haven’t spoken in over four years.

  A year and a half after we split up, he tried out for the NFL like Trev had been urging him to do. It had been Trev’s only hope after he’d lost his college scholarship. I’d stayed in touch with Trev as much as I could, still stay in touch with him, but not with Deck. There had been simply too much pain there.

  Deck had said once that our love had been a sick joke played on us by the Universe, simply to show us what we can’t have, because we’d done too many bad things to too many good people. It does feel like that sometimes. Savva’s smile...

  And after we split up, it was as if that statement of his was being proven scientifically. In the first two weeks of our relationship, the world had collapsed. His father had been murdered, a Molotov cocktail had been thrown into my building and Deck’s name had been mentioned by the thrower (later proven to be Dino Moretti), Deck was hit on the head and made to go unconscious, an ex of mine (Tolek, the dude who had the Ruger slammed up his throat by Xavier) had been on the scene again, causing trouble. Those first two weeks of our relationship should have destroyed us: It was as if everything had gone wrong with the world, but right with our hearts.

  What a Country Song that would make.

  And it felt as if things had continued to go wrong in the months that followed. Tatiana’s photos, Gina, Dino out on bail, and this final thing I haven’t told you about yet...

  But after we split up, the European club scene picked up for me. I started travelling. Dino was soon after convicted of arson, sentenced to five years. The single I had cut with Randy in July was rising in the small DJ charts. I started making money. A year later I released an EP which did pretty good as well, enough to pay the bills and buy me my car. It was as if the Universe, scientifically, was saying to me: Your love was not meant to be. See what I give you now that you’ve ended it?

  I guess things went good for Deck, too. I never asked Skate and Trev about him after we split up, except for stuff about the NFL. But he’s in The Giants now, so things clearly went well for him as well. I don’t understand why he gets into so much trouble with the press. And it worries me that he’s often caught boozing or in bar fights. But it’s not my place to ask.

  And it’s true that, the moment we let go, things started going “right” for us, for both of us. I’m no Guetta, not even close to as well known as Kaskade or Tiësto, but I’ll be cutting a full-length LP in the next eight months. I have more money now than I ever even dreamed of making. Not enough to drive around in a fancy Porsche but...plenty. Enough to send over to Mamah, to cover gramps’s medical bills in Poland, to take my friends out to an expensive French restaurant every now and then if they want to. (They never do.) My travel is paid for by the clubs who want me to play for them. Things are going “right.”

  Yeah, yay. And, over and above it and through it...I feel empty.

  But I’ve learned not to feel sorry for myself. I have what I want. It made sense that the Universe was indeed playing a joke on us! I’m...I’m...I’m even gonna go out and say it—keep a cool head about it and be an adult: Deck has all the women he wants (there, I said it!), he drives a slammer of a car (he did get the Porsche, and a few others), owns his own condo in Brooklyn Heights and even a property on the West Coast! (TMZ keeps everyone up to date on what properties Declan owns...)

  But it’s that emptiness, that constant, chasmic emptiness that beats me, the kind of emptiness I never see in Skate or Vikki’s eyes. They both come from rich backgrounds, and not one of them touches their inherited dough (except for the occasional diamond necklace which Vikki quickly makes Skate return!)

  But they look happy, and full, and complete.

  Damn Vikki and Skate! Urgh!

  The truth is, I love Declan Cox, I have since the first day I met him. And I don’t know how I can live with myself after having let him go the way I did.

  THREE

  THE FINAL STRAW

  ~ JUNE, YEAR ZERO ~

  -1-

  Blaze Ryleigh

  But the final part of that quenching Atlantic, the final burst of passion-killing power which set the fuse going and which would ultimately destroy our once sizzling relationship, came in June.

  “I’m gonna get a tattoo of you. Right here.” I pointed to just above my waist, right-hand side, where the tattoo is now but wasn’t back then, and I looked at Deck next to me on my bed. It was June, the afternoon sun glowing in my loft like a peaceful painting of a country house. We’d just made love, we were spent, we were smiling. No matter the numbing terror that the vise of pain and fear had brought to my mind in my irrational moments, all was forgotten when we had sex, at least temporarily. The perfect opiate.

  Deck scowled, his famous mischievous half-grin was on his face, the one which turns the right corner of his lips just slightly up and cocks his right eyebrow just slightly down. He lifted his head off the pillow, looked down at my waist where my finger was pointing, then looked up at me. I almost cracked up laughing from the I’m Trying to Look Serious But Failing Miserably look he had on. “You know they say that’s a bad idea, don’t you?”

  “I’m gonna get it anyway.” I was feeling lighthearted that day. I’d been to Randy’s studio, had mixed a few songs and sets for several hours. I was filled with music, music was all that had surrounded me that entire week. And that always put me in a good mood. That hid the devils from my mind better than any drug I’d ever tasted or inhaled.

  The Fear was nowhere to be seen that day.

  Deck kept on looking at me. “Wait a bit, then get it.”

  “Why?” I asked, lighthearted, feeling like nothing could take me down this afternoon, like nothing could take us down!

  “Dunno, it’s just...something they say you never do, to get the name of someone you love on your body.”

  I poked him. He fell back and his half-smirk broke out into a rampant grin. “See, you were hiding a laugh!” I teased. That made him laugh harder. I jumped up and straddled him. He’d put his boxer shorts on and I’d slid on a t-shirt, but I rode him slowly anyway, just pushing against him below, feeling him, needing him. “I’m
gonna get it because I love you.” My words were breathy. Already he was growing, hardening, pressing up against me. I was tightening, wanting to feel him in me as if I hadn’t felt him in me for weeks.

  His eyes fluttered shut, and he tried to focus, tried to argue, even tried to speak, but he couldn’t. His lips parted, his glowing blue eyes eased closed, and the only words he managed to squeeze out were “Mmmmmmm,” said in a rumble so deep and sonorous that it reverberated up my trembling thighs and into and through every fiber of my chest and heart.

  He became hard.

  I wormed slowly over him, biting my lower lip, feeling the sweat form in a sheen against my skin while the sun beat down, beat down hard, and made me hot inside for him, as if I were breathing veritable flames of desire, wanting him, burning for him. Itching and needing and... “Mmmmm, Deck, what were we talking about?”

  He didn’t answer, only mumbled, “Hmmm?”

  His manhood flicked and pressed up against my entrance and I slid my hand down over his chest, grazed my nails across his left nipple, down, down, all the while rubbing against him. I slid my fingers down under his boxers, lifted my ass and dripping center, to slide his underwear off...when my phone rang.

  Still in ecstasy, still in that other world where nothing exists but the heat and need, I grappled with consciousness and tried to pull myself off him, struggling for air as if climbing from underwater, while my phone played Telephone by Lady Gaga so loud that the walls of my loft almost cracked. Frustrated, I said, “Fuck!”

  I started to lift myself off Deck, swinging to the side to get off my couch-bed and reach my phone on the kitchen counter, when Deck’s desperate hands latched onto my waist and pushed me down! “Deck, I can’t!” The words were spoken half-jokingly, half-seriously. Down below, I thrummed. Deck was shaking his head viciously.