by W. Winters
I just wish it didn’t hurt so much to be here hearing how much they missed me and being reminded over and over that I was gone. Being reminded of what happened.
Suddenly, the music feels like an assault, and the crush of their bodies close to mine, and the heat of all that skin so close by. The autumn night can’t compete with the number of people here and it’s too much. It was easy to be irritated at Zander before, when he kept pointing out that we could leave any time, when he insisted on going over our signals again and again, and now it turns out he’s right.
I hate that. It feels like a rock at the pit of my gut to be wrong about this. But if I’m being honest, it’s not the party that feels like such a raw, open wound. It’s him. I had him in my bed, where I thought he belonged, and he didn’t choose me.
Tears prick at the corners of my eyes but I blink them away before they can fall.
“You need another drink.” Trish’s face swings in close, her eyes bright.
“Hell yes I do.” Zander’s order be damned.
She throws her arms over her head and cheers, and I echo it. My voice is too weak to do it justice but it doesn’t matter. The music is loud enough to cover it up. The music is loud enough to cover everything up, except Zander.
I can feel him watching me. His eyes on my skin are a palpable burn, even when I can’t see him through the crowd. I know he can see me.
I don’t look at him at all. It’s one of the more difficult challenges of my lifetime, keeping my eyes away from his. Screw him. I don’t want to look back at him and see all that emotion in his eyes. It’s bullshit. It’s not for me.
Trish comes back with two shots and we knock them back together. Oh, it’s a bad idea. She pulls me into the circle of friends and into an argument about which shots are better, and who would rather have a full mixed drink, and who’s really a wine girl.
“Wine,” I hear myself say. “I know I just took a shot, so it doesn’t make any sense. I love wine at the end of the day.”
Trish agrees with me, and it becomes reality—I’m still a woman who loves a glass of wine at the end of the day. It’s a lie. It’s not true. There’s no wine in my house, and even if there was, drinking too much of it makes my throat hurt. I love the idea of having wine at the end of the day but I don’t love the reality. Which thing is more real?
I love the idea of being with Zander but not the reality of him rejecting me. Of him choosing to guard his heart over protecting mine, or his past over me, or whatever he’s choosing.
Maybe he loved Quincy so much, he’ll never love again.
Maybe I should be like that. Maybe James should be my one and only love.
“Another shot!” Kelly calls out and I don’t hesitate to down it.
I thought Zander would choose me. I thought he wanted me. I’ve been over his lap, I’ve had his hands everywhere on my body, I want it now.
I want it now.
I want all of it. The conversation floats around me and none of it sinks in. I’m pushing past comfort for my voice, so I stop answering questions and put on a big, fake smile.
No one notices.
Not a single person notices that I’m broken, and that I’m desperately sick of being broken. I’m so tired. It’s a tiredness that sinks into my bones and weighs me down to the floor. I’m so damn heavy with it.
“Hey, sweetheart.”
John. My ex. He’s not like Zander, not dark and handsome. He’s blond and beautiful and an all-American kind of guy who could be in a men’s magazine. I tip my face up to look at his. “Hi.”
We broke up a lifetime ago, right after college. Two different people going two different directions, we said. It took me by surprise, though. I’m always the one who’s surprised. I never see it coming. But who cares about all that? He’s standing in front of me right now, and Zander’s not. Zander didn’t want to be in that place.
“It’s been a while since I’ve seen you out. How are you?”
“Better now that you’re here to talk to.” I touch his wrist, a little flirtatious touch, just so Zander will see. “Some of these conversations.” I roll my eyes.
“I know.” John shakes his head.
This is how we were. Other people had conversations, and we were better. Up until the day John decided he was better than me. Times are different now. I’m the one with all the mystery. I could cry from how ironic it is. The worst things in your life end up making people more curious about you. I had money before, but now I have whispers and rumors and the ability to turn heads just from walking into a room.
“You look like you could use a drink.”
“I do need one.”
Another lie. Lies on top of lies on top of lies. When is Zander going to step in? When is he finally going to choose me? I know I’m pissing him off every time I put a glass to my lips. I know it, and he’s not doing anything at all about it. I edge closer to John and let him take me to the bar for another shot. I let him lift it to my mouth for me and put my arm around his waist when he tips it up so I can drink.
Choose me.
Just choose me.
He doesn’t.
John starts talking to me about his job, about all the bullshit conversations that go on there, and I make up a story. I make up a story where I’m not under care in my own home, and I’m not struggling every day to keep my head above water, and I’m not suffering through this party with a broken heart because Zander didn’t want to be with me the way I want to be with him.
Zander doesn’t enter into it at all. I never mention his name. I don’t say that he’s the man who’s been watching me this entire time. I don’t say that it’s foolish of me to want him the way that I do, because it’s not allowed. Because he’s always been forbidden. I don’t say any of it.
I bottle it up and touch John’s arm and his waist and I throw my head back and laugh at his stupid jokes even though it hurts my throat to do it. I take another shot even though I’m already too drunk, already past the point where I should have stopped and gone home.
A dark-haired woman who looks put together and not very drunk at all steps between John and me, getting his attention. She has perfect red lips and a dress that’s cut low in the back. She looks hot, and I’m a mess. I’m a mess who wants Zander and wants her life back and maybe I’ll never get it. Maybe I’ll only have Zander in my bed and I’ll never get to have him and I’ll always be this person who wants what she can’t have. Who wants it so badly she breaks her heart every day of her life thinking about it.
“Sorry about that,” John says. “You all right?” he asks with humor in his tone and a short laugh. He cups my chin, and his touch is warm.
“I’m fine,” I whisper and then clear my throat.
“You look sad that I left you.”
I lie. “I was.”
His shoulders rise with a pride and wanting I’ve seen from him before. He leans in close to whisper in my ear. “I guess I shouldn’t leave you alone again then.”
Alone.
Zander’s so far away that he left me alone.
My heart tinks.
“I need some fresh air.” The air in this covered patio isn’t enough for me. It’s too warm and too full of other people. On one end of the bar there’s space. The gap between the bar and the railing is so narrow here that the bartenders can’t fit on this side. Oh—one of those L-shaped bars. I see it now.
“Remember how we used to let it all go?” I ask him, eyeing the edge of the railing.
John grins and asks, “You want to?”
I only nod, feeling my heart race.
It was a different time and for different reasons. But right now, it’s all I want to do. Let it all go.
John helps me hoist myself up on the other side, abandoning the shot glass I’ve been holding, and stand up.
I’m so hot, and I can’t be hot anymore.
“You ready?” he asks at the same time that I hear Zander shout out. As I close my eyes, he’s there, staring from so far away.
All it takes is two steps.
One step to the edge of the bar. The next step to the railing.
Two steps. One jump, and I’m sailing through the air, off the side of the railing, going down fast.
Zander
“Ella!”
She disappears.
Drops out of view.
One second she’s there, the next she’s gone, and I lose my mind. I don’t know who it is that I shove out of the way. One guest, maybe two, and then the bartender.
“The fuck are you?” some prick questions as I fist his shirt and shove him back. He’s the one who helped her up, some asshole she decided to punish me with.
No one’s screaming around me. The air isn’t filled with terror. They’re cheering. Pure delight electrifies the air.
My heart is in my throat, caught there along with my voice.
I can already see the blood when I reach the bar and hurtle around. My legs slam into the railing on the side of the balcony. My hips connect. I lean out over the drop—I have to see if she’s still alive, and …
It’s a pool.
There’s a pool down below. Ella floats in the middle of the pool, kicking her feet and pushing her soaked hair back from her face.
My beating terror screams itself into anger.
“It’s a fucking pool, man.” The asshole who helped her up dares to fucking speak to me.
Gripping his collar with both of my hands, I look the son of a bitch in the eye and warn him, “If you ever touch her again, it’ll be the last thing you do.”
What the hell was she thinking? My hands shake as I storm my way down, ignoring the gasps and onlookers.
I was already counting the ways I’d redden her ass. I was already cursing myself for taking it too easy on her. For not being more forceful. I’d let her push and throw her tantrum. I’d let her get it out of her system and when we got back home … I’d show her who she belonged to.
If she wants me to say it, I’ll fucking say it. I want her, I need her. I have love for her that I don’t anyone else. I can’t lose her. Yes. I’ll tell her I love her.
My blood rushes in my ears. My hands fisted and every muscle in my body is coiled.
I let her get away with too much all because I was waiting on Damon or Cade to get their asses here. Why the fuck did I listen to Silas and wait for The Firm?
She’s mine. She misbehaved. I’ll be damned if I let this situation get in the way again.
Taking the stairs as fast as my feet will carry me, not a single thought in my mind is spared for anyone else at this hellish party. Not one. All I care about is getting to Ella. I need to secure her safety, I need to get her out of here, and I need to punish her for what she’s done. I need to make her understand what she’s done to me.
It’s cold out by the pool, with heat from the water rising into the air.
And I’m not the first one to arrive.
I don’t know how the hell that fucker got here, but there he is, helping her climb out of the pool and laughing. Peering up at the house, I see an iron spiral staircase down just on the other side where the bar was.
The two of them laugh like this is funny, like my heart hasn’t been ripped out of my chest and beaten. They’re a pretty match like that. A young couple, in each other’s arms, pretending that life is a joke. One of them hasn’t been wounded. One of them doesn’t feel like a madman.
None of it matters. I can’t stop. I get there just as he’s leading her away from the pool and take her by the shoulders.
“Fuck off,” I spit out. “I told you to stay the fuck away from her.”
“Hey man,” he says and reaches for Ella who doesn’t spare him a glance.
“I thought you didn’t want me,” she says. As if I’ve ever not wanted her.
His eyes go wide, darting between us. “Have you fucked him, El?”
I’m dimly aware of cameras around us. Cameras and phones. Recording. We need to get the hell out of here. “It’s not like that,” Ella says. Her voice is soft at the margins. She’s been drinking.
I lean in, looking him dead in the eye. “She’s mine.”
“Z,” she says and her voice is broken. I know I didn’t say the things she wanted. But I’ll be damned if I don’t fight for her to give me a chance to make it right.
She’s fucked up. I’m fucked up, but together we work.
“We’re leaving.” I see the opening in the crowd and move us toward it with Ella tucked tight into my side, my arm across her shoulders.
Her pace barely keeps up with me. If I didn’t think someone would call the cops, I’d throw her ass over my shoulder.
“Zander,” she says, her voice barely audible over the noise from all these people talking, talking, talking. They make so much noise. “Zander, stop.”
“Not a chance in hell.”
It takes forever to get us through the house. The crowd seems to have multiplied and all of them want to be in our way. In my way. Ella’s not helping. Every time she turns her head, she sees someone else she wants to talk to and tell them it’s fine. I can’t find the words to make her understand the situation we’re in. She jumped off a second-floor bar and into a pool below.
She could have died.
She could have died.
Cade and Damon both said the same thing. Don’t make a scene. They said they’d be there after she took the first shot. A fucking half an hour and a goddamn heart attack later and they still aren’t here.
“Zander,” she protests as I pull her along, her long legs and heels not keeping up with my strides. I swear I’m two seconds from throwing her over my shoulder. I can barely contain myself.
I can feel myself falling into that old spiral. It’s the same thing that happened after Quincy died. I questioned every action I ever took, trying to figure out which one would have kept her alive.
I can’t do this again. I cannot fall into that shit again. It almost destroyed me the first time.
“We need our coats,” Ella says as we make it to the front entrance. “Coats!” she yells out and everyone around us takes notice. “You’re acting like a maniac,” she scolds me under her breath.
Soaking fucking wet, dripping from head to toe, somehow still gorgeous, she dares to tell me that I’m the one acting like a maniac?
My exhale is long and audible as I stare down at her. “We need our coats,” she repeats clearly and I swear I’ll lose my mind if I don’t get her out of here and across my lap in the next five seconds.
There are dozens of coats here now. Maybe over a hundred. I park Ella at the door of the coat closet and dig through them.
“We don’t have to leave,” Ella says from behind me, her arms crossed, onlookers watching her calmly berate me. I swear to God.
Cade and Damon’s directions about not making a scene are fucking hysterical by now.
My coat appears and I toss it in Ella’s direction. It’s another fifteen coats before I find hers. Step over to her. Put it around her shoulders. I take my own coat by the collar, and take Ella by the arm.
“Z,” she says and the single letter is a plea on her lips.
“I’ll deal with you when I get you alone.” I’m too loud and too obvious, and from somewhere nearby I hear the click of a shutter. I don’t care. Anyone who takes a photo right now is taking a photo of a bodyguard doing his job.
“Zander, please calm down,” she insists, her voice getting rougher. It’s been too much. This night out has been too much for her. At least the last round of shots were water, courtesy of the hefty tip I paid the bartender, but still. I should have put a stop to it earlier. The second she asked me if I loved her, the words slurred on her lips, we should have been out the door.
The only thing that kept me here was the fact that she needed this. She needed everyone to see her. It was going so perfectly. Fucking hell.
I guide Ella out the front door and down the steps. Maybe it will look like a jealous man taking a woman out of a party before she’s
ready.
I’m not jealous. I’m beside myself.
Ella doesn’t say a word on the way to the car. The cold is setting in. She shivers under my arm, wrapped in her coat. Her teeth click together as we reach the car. I bundle her into the passenger side and run around to mine and throw myself in. Start the car. Turn the heat all the way up.
The tires screech as I back out of the parking spot. I don’t bother to call or text a soul seeing as Silas is standing right there at the exit, watching us leave.
The radio plays along as I accelerate into the road and get us out of the neighborhood, thankfully, Ella reaches over and turns it off. I usually took city streets between the motel and Ella’s, but tonight I take the first available turn onto the highway that skirts the edge of town. Stars shine above the mountain in clear skies. What was she thinking, jumping off that bar? What the hell did she intend to do to me?
Ella huddles in the passenger seat, her teeth clicking together with her shivers. Her arms lock tight around her stomach. “I’m so cold.”
I try to turn up the heat some more, but it’s already at full blast. “That’s probably from jumping off of a balcony into the pool when it’s freezing outside.”
I don’t take my eyes off the road for even a moment and focus on not losing it. It doesn’t matter. I can still feel her watching me.
“Are you mad at me?” she whispers as the night whips by us.
Mad does not begin to describe what I feel right now. It’s such an intense storm of emotions that I hesitate to open my mouth. There are no words to describe it. Mad doesn’t encompass the terror and the relief and yes, the anger.
It doesn’t describe the need.
Because right now I am in a state of need. I need her to understand. I need an outlet for all these things I feel. I need to be in control.
I don’t answer, and Ella doesn’t ask again. She stares through the windshield as we sail through the night, headlights from the oncoming traffic gliding across her face at uneven intervals.
We pass the exit we’d have to take to go to her house.