Once the drinks are gone, Jeff stands. “Well it’s been delightful getting to know you, Mrs. Grant, but I’m afraid that if I don’t leave soon, I will miss my check-in time at the hotel.”
She stands to join him. “A hotel? I won’t hear of it. We have plenty of rooms here. Alexis, show our guest to a room please.”
I stand. “Mom, if he wants to stay at a hotel, you shouldn’t force him to stay here.”
“Who’s forcing? Am I forcing you?” She turns and asks Jeff.
His eyes are wide, looking from me to my mother.
Hold strong, Jeff. You can do this. Please do this. I would hate to tell Striker that we’re sleeping in the same house. A house that Striker isn’t even allowed in.
I must have missed something, because Jeff says, “Well, if you insist.”
My mouth falls open. What the hell?
“Close your mouth darling before you catch a fly.” She marches past us.
I show Jeff to a room and once we’re tucked away inside, I spin to face him. “What the hell?”
He drops his bag on the floor. “I’m sorry, I felt pressured.”
I flop down on the bed, fuming, knowing full well that Striker is going to be outraged. He already thinks that Jeff has a thing for me. Finding out that he changed his mind and is now staying just down the hall from me will seal the deal for sure.
“The bathroom is in there. I’ll leave you alone to unpack and get ready for dinner.” I stand and head toward the door. He stops me just as my hand brushes the knob.
“This thing between you and Striker, is it serious?”
I turn to look at him. “As serious as it can get with us. Why do you ask?”
“What does that mean?” He sits down on the bed, but a calmness surrounds him.
I take a long breath, cross my arms over my chest, and lean my back against the door. “Striker is different. We’ve known each other for so long, there is a lot of history there. I’ve been in love with him since before I knew what love was. Even those six years that I couldn’t see him, he was on my mind constantly. But are we serious?” I shrug. “I don’t know how serious we can get with everything stacked against us. My parents hate him, his dad hates me, plus there is still something I’m holding back from him. I don’t know if I can tell him.”
Jeff nods. “The secret that caused you to run?”
Jeff doesn’t know the secret, but he knows something happened to make me run, something I won’t talk about.
I nod my head while staring at the floor.
“Well, I have a secret too, and based on my experiences, it’s better just to get it out there. It’s between you two, it will eat at you both. You can only move forward once you let go of the past and leave it behind you, but you can’t do that until you face it head on.” His voice is calm and reassuring.
I offer up a half smile. “I know, I just need time.”
Dinner is long and awkward. My father hasn’t made it home from work yet and my sister isn’t here. It’s only Jeff, my mother, and me.
She works hard to keep me out of the conversation. Any time I say something, she acts like I haven’t spoken at all. Jeff tries for a while, but eventually gives up when he realizes that I would rather sit quietly than have to fight to be treated with an ounce of respect.
The maid takes the plates and brings out dessert and coffee. I excuse myself, flashing Jeff an apologetic look as I pass.
Halfway up the stairs, I reach into my pocket and pull out my phone, pressing it to my ear while it rings.
“Right on time,” Striker says on the other end.
“Right on time for what?”
“Dinner is at seven. I’m surprised you lasted this long.”
I let out a laugh. I always went running to him after dinner, after whatever treatment I had to endure.
“I need out,” I say, flipping the light on in my room.
“Look out your window.”
A smile covers my face as I move to my window and pull open the curtains.
There he is, standing where he always had before. Waiting on me.
I hang up the phone and start my climb down to him.
He takes my hand and we walk across the yard. As soon as we step foot into the trees, I’m in his arms with his lips on mine.
My body is taken over with need for him. I grasp tightly at his shirt and pull him closer as he moves to lay us down on a blanket that he’s already laid out.
When his body presses against mine, every nerve ending lights with desire.
Our hands roam each other’s bodies, pulling and pushing our clothes out of the way as our erratic breathing fills the quiet forest around us.
Just when I think I’m going to bust, he slides into me, filling me completely.
His fingers squeeze my thighs and hips as he pounds into me. His lips never leave me, moving from my lips, to my neck, and back again.
I can feel my release building deep inside of me. I tremble against him and he doubles his efforts. When I open my eyes, his eyes are fixated on me. “There you are,” he whispers just as my body is wracked with waves of pleasure.
He pumps a few more times before he’s falling apart right along with me.
We lay in each other’s arms, not ready to separate for the night. With my head on his chest, we lay quietly and listen to the breeze play through the leaves of the trees around us. His heart beats a slow, steady rhythm.
“Thank you,” I say, lifting my head up to look in his eyes.
“For what?” His brows pull up as he pushes hair behind my ear.
I shrug. “Just for being you. For always being here for me, even when I haven’t been there for you. For getting me away from my mother tonight and every other night. I’m sorry for all the pain I caused you.”
He picks me up and sits me down on his lap, straddling him. “You don’t have to thank me, Lex. And you have nothing to be sorry about. I don’t know what chased you off all those years ago, but I know now that you only did that because you felt like you had to.”
I’m not sure what to say. I want to tell him. I finally want to release my secret, but is now the time? I know what I have to tell him will piss him off and it will get back to his father within minutes. Maybe the weekend of my sister’s wedding isn’t the best idea. I will wait until we go back to the city, put some distance between us and this town.
“I’m ready to tell you, but not now. When we go back to the city. I just need a little more time.”
“Tell me when you’re ready, Lex. I’ll be here waiting. Always.”
Chapter 14
Letting Lex get into that car with that douchebag pissed me off. Why couldn’t I be good enough for her? Would I always be looked at as the troublemaker I used to be?
I mean, fuck, I’ve grown up, why don’t her parents see it? I have my own house. I started my own company. I don’t drink or do drugs. I don’t beat women or mistreat them in anyway. Why can’t they see that?
I get it, Jeff is her parents’ dream guy. He has money, he has the fancy car and clothes. They look at him and see a future for Lex. They look at me and only see our troubled past.
Do they ever stop and think that maybe they made us the way we were? If they wouldn’t have fucked up our childhood, we never would’ve rebelled the way we did. We never would have caused so much trouble.
Something feels off as I walk into my quiet house alone, after spending the whole week with her. Everything in the house is exactly where it was a week ago – I never spend much time in the house so nothing has moved. Even the letter that she left me, all those months ago, after she snuck out of my bed is still in the same place, untouched.
As soon as I drop my bag by the front door, I walk right back out and to the garage where I can blare the radio and lose myself while working on the car. The carburetor sits unfinished from the last time I was out here, so I start by spraying it with cleaner and thoroughly scrubbing all the grime from it.
My mind is blank the whole t
ime – until I start reassembling it and thoughts of Lex come flooding into my mind.
What kind of future do we have together? Are we always going to be hiding?
If I could just figure out what it is that’s holding her back, I could fix it, I know I can.
She says she’s finally ready to tell me. I’ve gotten her to open up. She trusts me enough to tell me what it is. But she won’t do it here, in this town. That only confirms my suspicions about the threat being here.
I slowly and methodically sift through my memories, analyzing every second of the final days before she ran off. Who did she see? Who did she talk to? Did she say anything to hint at her leaving?
They’re the same questions I’ve asked myself a hundred times before, always coming up empty-handed.
Think about the day before she left, I tell myself, wiping my hands on my jeans as I sit on the couch by the workbench.
We’re sitting in my truck, across the street from her house. She’s terrified to go inside, and I don’t blame her. Her parents are throwing her graduation party - an elaborate event to which the entire town received an invitation. Everyone, that is, except for me.
I know that if I show up, I’ll be escorted off the property. Her parents like to believe they can keep us from each other. They know we’re always together, but as long as they don’t see it, they pretend it doesn’t exist.
“We’ve been sitting here for twenty minutes now. Are you going to go in or are you ditching your own party?”
“God, I wish I could skip it.” She rolls her eyes.
I pull her to my side and press a kiss to her lips. “Go inside, endure your party, and come by when you’re done. I’ll be there waiting.”
“Okay,” she says before giving me another kiss and getting out.
My gaze follows her as she slowly walks up her driveway. Through the crack of the front door, I catch a fleeting glimpse of a large crowd, holding champagne glasses and dressed in the latest fashion for the occasion. The gentle sound of live music drifts to me through the opening to this surreal, fake world, and I shake my head disapprovingly as I drive off into the night. Just as the door obscures her from my view, I catch her glancing longingly back at me.
That was the last time I saw her.
My dad’s car is in the drive when I pull in at home.
“What the fuck is he doing here?” I think out loud to myself as I park and head inside.
“Where the fuck have you been?” he asks when I walk in.
“I just dropped Lex off.”
He follows me to the kitchen and stands close behind me as I get a bottle of water from the fridge. “If you’re thinking about running off with that bitch you better think again.”
I slam the fridge closed and turn to face him. “You can’t stop shit, Dad. I’m eighteen. Tomorrow, we’re gone.”
Nothing was set in stone, but now that she is done with school and is eighteen, we can finally put our plan into action.
The thought of running away with her is the only thing that’s kept me going this past year.
He grabs me by my shirt and pushes me hard against the wall. “Over my dead body, you are.” The alcohol on his breath burns my nose, and the throbbing vein in his forehead amplifies the hatred that emanates from his eyes. I don’t even know why he wants me here. Someone to beat on? Is that all he wants me for?
I shove against him. “Fine. If that’s what it takes to you get out of my life.”
He laughs. “Oh, you’re a big man now? Is that it? You think you can take me?”
I stand taller. He’s got a good fifty pounds on me, but if that’s what it takes then I am willing to try.
Without warning he drives his fist into my stomach just under my ribs, knocking the wind out of me and causing me to double over. He looms over me, laughing.
A hot surge of rage rises from deep in my chest and I throw my entire bodyweight forward into him, tackling him to the ground.
His eyes widen with surprise and I immediately start throwing punches. He blocks most of them, but I manage to land a few hits.
Seemingly unfazed, he casually rolls over and pins me beneath him, as if he were fighting a small child. Smiling maniacally, he pulls back his sinewy arm and delivers another solid hit.
My eye is already swelling and dimming my vision, blood trickles from my split lower lip, and my head is pounding. He’s a big man, and his dense fists and arms are a force to be reckoned with.
One hit wasn’t enough for him, though. He takes advantage of my dazed state and hits me a few more times.
Everything goes black.
When I come to, the house is quiet and devoid of life. I wearily stand and stumble to the bathroom to check out the damage. The face revealed in the mirror is beyond recognition. My right eye is swollen shut, my lips are swollen and busted, and bruises in all shades of blue and purple cover my jaw and cheekbones.
Seeing this only brings back the feelings of anger. I push off the bathroom sink and head to my room.
Fuck this. I’m done.
I grab my bag and fill it full of clothes. We’re leaving tonight.
I take one last look around my room to make sure I’m not forgetting anything and slam the door closed behind me.
Back at Lex’s, I park down the block, out of sight of any nosy partygoers, and head straight to her backyard. I toss several pebbles at her bedroom window, but her light never comes on and her face never appears behind the glass.
I sit and wait, thinking maybe the party isn’t over yet.
Still I wait and wait, but never see her again.
I shake my head to clear the memories and the feelings they bring up. Just the thought of that night angers me to no end.
I shove off the couch and jump in my truck, driving towards her house under a sky painted in twilight watercolors. As expected, my phone rings as soon as I pull up in front of her house.
I don’t want to let her go, but I have to. We can’t spend all night in the woods. I watch her climb back into her window, and when she is safely inside I walk around the house to my truck.
I’m not ready to go home yet. My empty house is too quiet, and left to my own devices I know I will spend the entire night dwelling on that memory. I tend to suppress most of those kinds of memories. I don’t like to remember myself being weak.
I mean, I got into my share of fights, all of which I won. Except for those with my dad. He walked away from every one of them victorious, with me bleeding on the ground. He was too big and too strong for me to take. He had years of fighting under his belt, I was no match for him.
I can’t see Lex and I don’t want to go home, so I call up Brett and ask him to meet me for a beer. He readily agrees and his car is already parked in the lot when I pull up.
On the other side of the bar is the last person I want to see: my dad, sitting on his usual barstool.
He doesn’t see me and I want to keep it that way. That last memory has me ready to fight. I need to calm down. I walk past and find Brett sitting at a back table.
“Hey, man. Thanks for meeting me.”
“It’s no problem. Gemma is at work tonight. What’s going on? You sounded a little off over the phone.”
The waitress brings over a bottle of beer, and I take a long pull and shake my head. “I’ve just had some stuff come up that I wish would’ve stayed buried, if you know what I mean.”
He takes a drink and nods toward my dad, who is falling asleep at the bar. “Stuff regarding him?”
“Him, Lex, what happened all those years ago.”
His eyebrows raise in inquiry. “What do you mean? Like why she left?”
I nod. “She was threatened by someone, she won’t tell me who it was or what they threatened her with.”
“Have you been seeing her?”
Fuck. I wasn’t supposed to say anything, but I can trust Bret. I nod. “I’ve been with her all week. Don’t tell anyone though. Whoever threatened her, she’s still afraid of what they will
do.”
Suddenly, as if she heard her name being called, she walks into the bar. She sees my dad before she sees me, and her face pales as she stops dead in her tracks.
Was it him? Did he threaten her? When could that have happened?
Jeff is behind her and he picks up on her fear. He grabs her by the arms and leads her to the bar. “Come on, Alex. I’ve put up with your mom all day, I need a drink.”
With the mention of her name, my dad perks up. He eyes her and the guy she’s with. Something flashes across his face.
It was him. He did it. He made her leave me.
Anger washes over me again, blurring my vision and dilating my veins. I grip my beer bottle tighter.
“What’s happening?” Brett asks.
“It was him. He threatened her.”
My body seems to be moving on its own. Before I can process my thoughts, I’m directly behind him.
My hands reach out and spin him around before landing a hit to his jaw, knocking him off his barstool.
I jump on him, peppering him with hit after hit. He’s so drunk, he doesn’t feel any of it. He pushes me off of him and my head bounces on the floor. I’m stunned. I lay still, trying to catch my breath.
He stands over me and looks at her, then points his finger in her direction. “You ain’t supposed to be here.”
The color drains again from her face and her eyes fall to me on the floor.
My dad looks from her to me and back before letting out a laugh. “Are you fucking kidding me? You two fucking around again?” He kicks me in my side.
The adrenaline coursing through my body numbs me to the pain. I shoot to my feet and rush him.
The main door is propped open, and the two of us fall in tandem through the screen door and onto the sidewalk outside.
“You fucking did this!” I scream between blows. “You took her from me!”
The small shred of self-control that I have left snaps. I’m lost. He’s beneath me and he can’t stop me this time. His face is bloodied, but that doesn’t make me stop. She does.
She runs over to me and grabs ahold of my arms, pulling me off him. I let her because I don’t want her hurt in this. I want her away from him.
Losing a Piece of Me Page 13