Know Me: A 'Me' Novel (Book 3) (A 'Me' Series)

by Jeri Williams

  ‘Like this?” she asked breathlessly as she licked her lips, watching me pump my dick faster and faster.

  “Play with your clit,” I barked out, imagining another set of eyes and bigger tits, my cock fully erect now. I watched her hand as she spread her legs wider, which was impressive in her heels, and she hiked her dress up far enough to show the black lacy thong. She pushed it to the side and slid her finger over her moist folds, letting out a moan.

  “Yeah, that’s it.” My head hit the stall again as I gripped the base of my cock and squeezed in an upward motion. I imagined Ember the last time I had her, before things went to shit. I could almost hear the sound of our flesh slapping as I pounded into her from behind. I loved fucking her doggy style; Ember’s ass was the prime rib of asses. Round and luscious and just right for slapping and fucking, in that order. I imagined her breathless moans as she told me she wanted it harder and faster. I’d grip her waist and lean over her to finger her clit, my fingers sliding effortlessly through her folds causing her to clamp down on my cock on a hard come.

  I was vaguely aware the blonde was making all kinds of mewling noises and begging me to touch her, but I felt the familiar tingle in my spine, and I knew what was coming. Before I thought better of it, I leaned into her and spilled myself all over her tits on a grunt, and before she could reach for me, I was already tucking myself back in and leaving the stall.

  “Wait, that’s it?” I heard her shuffle to her feet as I hit the door to go back to the bar and forget about how fucked up that whole thing was. Even though I shouldn’t, my mind wandered to Ember and wondered what she was doing and what would she think if I told her that even though I broke things off with her, she’d ruined me from ever having sex with anyone.

  What had I done?

  Chapter two

  Ember

  I didn’t know when I like everything to be perfect turned into everything had to be perfect. I didn’t know why I started feeling like if things were not perfect the world would fall apart. When I was younger, I somehow knew there was this perfect person out there for me, and I know people think that about falling in love, but I meant more than that. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that someone out there would complete me in every way, and we would grow old together still loving each other. I know this is why people get married, because they believed that person was it for them, but I’m talking about knowing, really knowing. I didn’t want the whole get together, break up, get married, and get divorced scenario for me. People believed in soul mates and that one true love, but for me it was more technical than that. It was about finding that one person that balanced you perfectly, who counter weighted you, and you them. Being perfect.

  I went from arranging my closet, color coded dark to light by shirts and jeans in sets of three because to achieve my goal, I had to start with even the smallest of things in my life, thus my clothes, to going out and buying one single apple to add to my two at home to make three because I had to have three, three. Am I OCD? No. At least I didn’t think I was. I like to think of myself as me, with OCD-esque behavior. Like the number three, for reason, stupid or totherwise I already explained and when I found my other three , we’d fit and get married and have one kid and be…perfect. Was this insane thinking? Maybe but it was me. I hadn’t realized Matt had clued into my obsession until he’d pointed it out. I was embarrassed at first when he started talking about my obsessive ways with the number three like it was no big deal.

  “Babe, I know the magic number,” he’d joked when I asked him to go to the grocery store and get three green apples and three red apples for a pie I was trying to make for us, but I’d wanted to make sure the pie balanced because you can’t have an unbalanced pie.

  “What do you mean ‘the magic number?” I’d asked even though my heart was beating a mile a minute. I had long since known that I had this obsession, but I had tried hiding it from him. However, apparently he noticed. I brushed my hair three times on the right then three times on the left then three times down the center. It usually took me 33 minutes to get from work to home and vice versa because all of that would help me balance. It was just as natural to me as breathing, but I hadn’t thought that anyone else noticed.

  “It’s cool, really. I know that you have to have things a certain way.” He had wrapped his arms around me after seeing my face, which must have showed my distress. It was stupid really considering how he liked to have things a certain way in bed, but whatever right?

  “It’s whatever, Rabbit; you’re still perfect,” he stated, kissing my nose before leaving.

  “I should have never told you that story,” I’d mock protested, regretting like always that I’d ever told him how I was teased for my big buckteeth and then teased after because of the braces. Secretly, the more he used it, the more I loved it; it was at that moment that I had truly fallen in love with him because he balanced me, name calling and all. He was my three, my balance.

  But now, I was unbalanced, and he was a dick.

  I was unbalanced, and I would be unbalanced because he was it and without him…I shook my head as if trying to get the thoughts to go away, but that’s the thing about thoughts, they stay and fester and remind you how stupid you are, or were, and I was stupid. I should have seen this coming; the signs had been all over the place, and I totally ignored them. I’d made up excuses for his actions, or non-actions, because out of everything he did, ignoring me was a dead giveaway that he had checked out of the relationship and I stayed hoping it would get better, because, well, love makes you have the crazies.

  There was something to be said for being ignored though; it’s nice sometimes to fade in the background and have people forget you’re even in the room. It’s almost like being an interloper. I used to relish this when I was made to attend some boring function or another for my father or some drab luncheon with my mother. But when you’re in a relationship, being ignored is a different thing entirely. I thought I had the best boyfriend; he’d smile at me just because and hold my hand, even if we were just sitting and watching television and our lovemaking was just, incomparable to anything I had ever imagined it would be and let me tell you, I did a LOT of imagining. But then little things started to happen; it’s always with the little things right? He started becoming distant at times, going to visit his mom more often and staying for hours. Usually, I’d go with him, but I figured he needed this time with her as she got sicker and sicker and eventually…So, I chalked it up as normal. I mean, when he came back from his mom’s he would hold me like he always did, kiss the top of my head, and tell me he loved me. Normal.

  Then his mom died, and he became a totally different person. He stopped holding my hand, stopped telling me he loved me, and the sex— when we did have it— was as bland as a brown paper bag . I tried, but the more I tried the harder he pushed away until eventually, he stopped talking to me save for a few grunts here and there; he basically ignored me for a month. I thought: space, that’s what he needs. But how long was I supposed to sit around being ignored? I played the part of the dutiful girlfriend, cooked dinner only to have him not come home, called to check on him even when he ignored my calls, and when he came home, I’d get the silent treatment, like it was too arduous to talk to me, to interact. It felt like I was being punished, being treated like a non-person. Being ignored by someone you love sucks, like big time. It’s like you’re screaming and no one can hear you; it damages you.

  Turns out, I’d have kept screaming had I known what was going to happen.

  When I was younger, there was this weird kid in my class that always said random and crazy shit, but no one ever thought anything of it because every class had one token weirdo. Every time she got upset, she would blurt out that her marshmallow was crushed, and in my third grade brain, I always assumed she kept a bag full of marshmallows with her and kept sitting on them. It wasn’t until later, maybe in the sixth grade that I realized she was way too deep for he
r age. When I had to get braces due to a serious overbite and enlarged teeth and Tommy Mitchell started calling me The Wire and everyone laughed because kids are little assholes, and I started crying. She came up to me and said, “I’m sorry your marshmallow is crushed, but you’re still pretty.” BOOM, mind blown. I think I saw her on some literary show a few months back, it’s always the weird ones who change the world.

  What Matt did more than crushed my marshmallow; he melted it.

  For the first week afterward, I did the normal break up things girls do when they have their entire heart ripped out and stomped on, which is like, the biggest hyperbole, but my marshmallow was so beyond melted and crushed. It was all I could do to keep breathing. It was like all that sticky goo was covering my heart, preventing it from beating; I couldn’t breathe without him. I stayed in bed, called in sick from work, and did the whole cry my eyes out thing while listening to every sad song ever made.

  Again with the hyperbole.

  I know people will think that I was being melodramatic by saying that I felt like I lost a part of myself, but they didn’t get it. I did lose a part of me. I knew that people, couples had to balance, and without him, without my three, I felt off. So I holed up in our apartment because his name was still on the lease. I was lost because what was I supposed to do? How was I supposed to go on like normal, like he wasn’t a huge part of my life the past three years? Something as simple as sneezing and having no one to say ‘Bless you’ or getting me a drink of water caused a wave of sadness to wash over me that nearly crumpled me because he always said it, and I’d normally get him water too. This sadness, this feeling of utter hopelessness, had me retreating back into bed and crying again over the fact that I’d never be able to get a freaking drink without thinking of him.

  I bet he can get water and not think of me. Asshole. It’s not fair that his drinking habits won’t be as effected as mine will be. Am I really going off in a tangent over his drinking habits? Am I really asking myself questions?

  I was so pitiful.

  On to week two’s everything-reminds-me-of-him phase followed by week three’s he-made-a-mistake-and-he’s-just-wating-for-the-right-time-to-call phase. Only, he didn’t attempt to contact me to apologize or get his things, which, I’ll admit, him not getting his stuff had given me hope. Thinking about it further, because that’s all I did when I wasn’t crying, I realized they were all things that were replaceable: clothes, shoes, a few pictures, things he could get more of, like me. It had bought on a fresh wave of tears to know that I equated to a pair of socks in his eyes.

  After cashing in all my sick leave and vacation from work for the last three and half years, score for never taking any, I was down to week four, and I yo-yoed back and forth with turning into a baby stalker, obsessively checking his social media accounts and my phone to see if he had called or texted. In case you were wondering, he didn’t. I knew his schedule at work, and I had talked myself into popping in and taking him lunch because, you know, that’s what a good stalker does right? I’d crawled out of bed, brushed my teeth, and taken my first shower in days so I would look fresh. Then I put on make-up and a nice dress, determined only to stop short after looking at myself in the hall mirror and seeing the sad pathetic desperation in my eyes. That was what crazy looked like. That had been my low point.

  Week five would be all about the new me and forgetting him for breaking my heart and turning me into this sad and lonely person who sat around in sweats, sweats! And ate peanut butter from a jar. I was so much better than peanut butter from a jar!

  So with a new determination and a hatred for peanut butter I went in search of real food... I had been holed up in our apartment for five weeks and done nothing but cry and wallow and be heart-broken and who has time to really eat anything when your heart is broken? It was no surprise that there was nothing sustainable in the kitchen. I had planned on going grocery shopping the day Matt broke up with me, but then, well Matt had broken up with me, and then Harley needed me. By the time I dropped her off at her hotel with Deklan, I was too raw to do anything but crawl in a ball and cry. The apartment seemed so much quieter now, like it too knew that something, someone was missing from it. All the day-to-day noises that I once heard were gone now: Cars driving by, or the occasional child screaming while playing outside.

  It was eerily silent and drove home the point that I was really alone. Hating the silence, I switched on the music app on the phone I kept glued to me in case Matt called— he still hadn’t. The music faded into the background as I opened the fridge and saw I had eggs, which my hungry stomach was ready to consume raw. I took out three and then went to grab three more and caught myself on the last egg. What was I doing? I didn’t have to fix him anything anymore, and dammit, if that realization didn’t sting. I would always make him something when I made myself something; it was what I did. We always had just enough for the both of us and now it seemed as though the egg carton was overflowing with too many eggs, and now there was too much stale bread on the counter. I had to fix it, make it balance without him.

  I put the eggs back, suddenly not hungry anymore, and before the tears could well up again, I took out the half carton of eggs and threw three away . I knew later this made absolutely no sense whatsoever, but it made me feel better. Then I threw away three semi-rotting apples, bread, and the entire jar of peanut butter, because god, I had to. I was on a roll and felt a burst of energy and thought, why stop here? I went through the apartment and gathered everything that held even a hint of Matt, and like a tornado, I swept through it all and threw it in a box and shoved it in the guest bedroom under an old box of my nail art books.

  When I was done, I looked around the apartment. There was no trace of him in sight, and I felt my energy leave me. I wouldn’t cry. I didn’t want to cry. I had cried so much over the last few weeks I thought my body would shrivel up from lack of water. I’ve cried in the shower, in the bed, in the kitchen, and to Harley over the phone. I’ve cried watching those stupid rom-coms that I thought would make me feel better because who doesn’t love a good rom-com, only to be crying thirty freaking minutes in, and really why the hell would I even watch those? I’ve cried to my diary; yes, I actually still keep one and to myself. I didn’t want to cry now, but it was like the only emotion that could adequately sum up how I was feeling. Tearful.

  Tearful because my person, my three, didn’t want me, and I was still stupidly in love with him. Putting his things away and making him disappear in the apartment wouldn’t lessen how in love with him I was. You can be in love with someone and not be with them right? I mean, my dad was in still in love with my aunt and he wasn’t with her. Different because she died but still. If he could be with my mother, whom he had never loved, then I could bury my love for Matt and move on. I could find peace in being unbalanced, or at least I hoped. I hoped that even though I knew I’d never love someone as deeply as I did Matt that I’d be okay being unbalanced, that in time, it would feel…right. You know that saying, “‘Tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.” Well, someone who obviously was never so wrapped up in someone, so entwined with them that the mere thought of never being with them again caused such debilitating fear it paralyzed them had to have said that . That person had obviously never fallen in love with Matt Kane. Because if they had, they would know that that line, that famous saying that ex-lovers tell themselves to try and ease the hurt they feel when they have broken up with someone for the tenth time, is bullshit . Complete and utter bullshit.

  Matt

  “Matthew, what are you doing here son?”

  I opened one eye and immediately closed it as the harsh glare of the sun hit me. How the fuck did I get back here last night?

  After my little bathroom scene with the anonymous pair of tits I spilled myself over, I made it my mission to drink until I forgot everything. The last thing I remembered was my one of my boys, Farmer, I think taking my keys from me, or
was it Spence?

  “Matthew,” my dad said louder, the aggravation clear in his voice.

  “Christ, what?” I groaned and pushed up from my stomach to fully face him, and I saw the frown normally reserved for my bother plastered on his face. Bet the old man didn’t think he’d ever see me like this. No, once upon a time I was the good brother, always doing what my father told me, never talking back or going against anything he said. Around our town he was royalty, and I was just lucky enough to be his son. I ate the shit he shoveled and drank the Kool-Aid, always believing every bad thing he said about my brother. My brother the fuck up, my brother who would never amount to shit, and my brother who got the shit beat out of him all his life. My dear old dad left that last part out of the many tirades he went on about him. He left out the fact that the reason my brother was such an asshole to us was because Dad was an asshole to him, and I never knew.

  “Watch your tone son.” Royce Kane was a man to whom you showed respect and speaking to him in an exasperated tone as I just had was a no go. He looked better than I felt, although not by much. He’d become different since my mother died a few months ago. He’d started behaving in a way that was indicative of— well, a lost man. But losing someone as awesome as my mom would do that to a person. Once upon a time, A long, long time, I thought we were a great family. My brother loved me; I worshiped him, and our parents were loving and happy. Then things with my brother and father got rockier and rockier and my brother was no longer my brother. Instead he became the same person who shared my DNA who put a new spin on bad seed. Or so I thought. After my mom died from lung cancer my world was destroyed by truth bought to light.

  “My head is fucking killing me. Can you just get it over with and let me sleep this shit off?” I asked, not bothering to hide the fact that I had the mother of all hangovers.