“Al?” Marshall asked again. He joined me on the ground, keeping his distance, but being close enough so I’d know he was there. “Who?”
I didn’t answer him. He’d hear everything he ever wanted to know soon enough. Everything.
“She was too quiet, though. I didn’t even notice for God knows how long. The thought occurred to me just as my boyfriend said, ‘What movie do you want to see tonight?’ The next thought I had was that the tire screeching sound was close.”
Too close.
“The cordless phone was thrown to the linoleum floor of the kitchen. My goodness, how I’d pace back and forth, and back and forth, across that ugly butter- and brick-colored floor when I was on the phone. It was a habit. I couldn’t see the front door from the kitchen, though. I couldn’t hear it open through the mindless, insignificant bullshit I was discussing with my boyfriend.”
Marshall’s hand rested on my knee as he moved closer.
“Do you have any idea how long it is between the second you realize something and the second it takes for your body, your brain to make the connection? It’s so long. It’s like a lifetime of choices and decisions and regrets, and it’s all right there. A breath doesn’t leave you, and I don’t think it did for me until I was screaming. Or maybe I wasn’t even breathing then, either.
“And that blond hair of hers. You know, Delilah has the same exact hair? The white-blond ringlets. The first time Leslie sent me a picture of her hair longer and I saw it, I couldn’t get out of bed for two days. But I saw that blond hair, her curls blowing in the wind as her tiny steps met the middle of street at the same time as the car.”
“And then what?” Marshall asked, rubbing my knee.
Even though I told myself I couldn’t, shouldn’t, my eyes looked at his. “She flew.”
She did.
And my screams, my piercing wails, were the music to her descent.
My eyes turned away from him again.
“Sadie. My sweet, sweet Sadie. She loved The Wizard of Oz. Rainbows. She loved all things rainbows,” I mumbled.
Marshall took my hand from my lap and slid his into it. His grip was tight, almost too tight, but it was no match for the pain radiating through my heart. It never not hurt. Ever.
“Al?” Marshall whispered.
I still couldn’t look at him because I knew what I’d see.
Disgust.
Pity.
Horror.
I saw those things every day when I looked at myself in the mirror. I knew if anyone knew the truth—Aaron, Delilah, anyone—they’d see the same when they looked at me. It was why I got so depressed, and ultimately, I had to run. They couldn’t ever handle the truth because even I couldn’t. And now? I didn’t know how to run from Marshall.
It didn’t even matter, though. I could run as far away as I could, change my name, and create a new life. There was never any escaping it. I almost thought I did here, but then the poppies came.
“Do you know about the poppies?” I asked.
“Poppies?”
“They come in April. They pop up here in April. Out of all the things to be surrounded by, it had to be poppies.”
I must’ve started crying because Marshall’s other hand was cradling the side of my face. His fingers, on which I could faintly smell the basil and limes that he cut earlier, skimmed across my cheeks to wipe the tears away.
“Let them fall,” I said, my voice hoarse from all I’d released.
“Al?” he repeated. “Please.”
“Don’t ask questions.”
“I won’t. I promise.”
“Because I know what they are. How could I have been so careless? How do you tell parents that you killed their daughter?”
He dropped his hands before crawling across the ground to sit in front of me. My eyes continued to focus elsewhere because I wasn’t ready to know my fate. It was sealed the moment the words left my mouth.
“You didn’t kill her. It was an accident. A terrible—”
My eyes snapped to his. “I killed her,” I shot back. “You can color it any way you want, but that is the truth.”
He was on his knees and up in my face so fast I didn’t even see him move until he was there. His hands, now holding mine between his, were forcing me to go where I didn’t want to—to his eyes.
“It’s not the fucking truth, Al,” he said sternly. “Listen to me. It was a terrible accident, and maybe no one in your life ever told you, but it wasn’t your fault. It was an accident.”
I tried to shake my head, forcing my refusal to believe him against his grip. He wouldn’t let me, though.
His forehead rested against mine. “Baby, I’m so sorry,” he said, his voice cracking. “Fuck. You’ve been…almost your whole goddamn life…and…”
His hands shook against my skin, tiny tremors of my pain radiating into him. He didn’t know what to do with it. I wanted to make it better for him, to take away whatever of my ugliness had adhered itself to him, because I’d ruined so, so many lives with what I did.
My hands brushed against his beard, and I cradled his face in my hands. My lips gingerly touched his, my regret and shame washing across them while my need to replace his disgust of me with desire flowed. He was hesitant, not-not kissing me back, but holding back. This only made me push him harder.
I needed to make something better. I needed to make him better.
I stood, nudging him away from me with a gentle push, so I could reposition myself, straddling his lap. With an aggressive grip, I yanked his head back to my mouth, forcing my tongue into his mouth. I knelt to get closer, my knees digging into the hard cement road, as I ground myself against him.
It was reckless, with anyone who could walk by at any time and see us, but it was needed. We both needed it.
He was still pulling away, not just physically, but I sensed it in his lips. It wasn’t all I had come to know. When my mouth, my kisses, went to his neck and sucked and bit gently, like I knew he liked, there wasn’t the same throaty moan I loved. When I wiggled around his lap, he wasn’t hard.
“Al,” he whispered against my lips. “No.”
I shook my head, trying to bring him around, but he repeated, “Stop.”
His tone made me still, freeze. When his head backed away, I saw it in his eyes.
He didn’t want me anymore.
And there was no chance I could’ve blamed him.
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled as I climbed off his lap.
And I was so grateful that he let me go, even after I heard him scream my name as I peeled out of my parking spot.
I was so grateful he gave me time to cry in the peace of my home.
I cried and wailed for Sadie, my sweet baby sister, and all the guilt I had over my role in what happened.
I screamed through my tears, through the pain, of living a life alone and freed of love as penance for leaving Delilah, even though I know for certain she was in better place because I did.
I sobbed that it still wasn’t over. Sadie, Delilah, Aaron, Marshall…they all ran together like spilled watercolors on paper because of my one tragic mistake.
I wept for the girl, the woman, who I was, and am now, that has never felt the weight of guilt lifted until today.
I told Marshall, and there was more I needed to tell him.
I texted him and told him I needed him.
I told him to come to me.
And by the time he did, the tears had stopped.
“I thought I was okay,” I began.
He was sitting in front of me on the couch, the crackling of the fireplace the metronome of my declaration.
“I thought I had this,” I said. “I was in the safety of my life here, and I thought I had it a long time ago. I thought I was…cured. But all I did was run away and never fix what was wrong with me to begin with. I thought by not being with anyone that I could keep it in check, and I did for a long time. Then you…the right guy from the wrong time. Or maybe the wrong guy at the right ti
me.”
I paused before continuing. “I put it all on the table, Marshall. All of it. Things I never told anyone. Words that have never left my mouth. Not even to Aaron. You caused a crack, and that crack just grew and grew and grew until I split down the middle, and it all came out. It’s all there for you to see, and I’ve never been so scared in all my life. Leaving Aaron? Delilah? I carry that heartbreak, that shame with me no matter where I go. It’s crushing, but I always knew in some way I was doing the right thing. I knew Delilah deserved better. Now she has better. And know that gives me the first sense of peace I’ve known in years. Maybe ever.”
The tears began to fall again, a cathartic wave of empathy washing across my soul, my heart.
“But nothing was more scary than bearing my soul to you, Marshall,” I said. “My insides. All the ugly, and telling you what I know you’ve been waiting so long to hear me say—that I want you. I need you. I love you. Because there is truth and power in those words. They can lift you up to the clouds, or they can have you crawling against sinking mud. And for me, they both get intertwined.
“Everything about us is wrong. Who we are, who we were, who we love and loved. But something special, magical, worked between us, and at the end of the day, that is why I opened myself up to you. I couldn’t fight it anymore. It just all felt too good to fight against. And I could see the train wreck ahead. The wind was blowing in my hair on that freight train as we sped forward, and I could see the collision coming. I warned you and warned you and warned you. But as hard as I pushed, you pushed back and there was no more fight left in me. The good was just too good. The way you listened to me and understood. The way you saw past my flaws and only focused on my gifts. The way you touched my body, made me come alive from want. So much want I could drink it all up if I could. It was euphoric and I wanted it all.
“With it all, I ignored the rational and the only thing to take its place was irrational. Looking for the wrong. Seeking the bad. Making you see all that was broken. And when that wasn’t enough, I created things to make sure I destroyed us. But you know the truth now. You know all of my truths, and there is no way I can comprehend you could want a girl like me—that you can want a girl like me. I can’t understand how that can be real.”
He stood and walked toward me, placing his palms on the sides of my face and leaning his forehead against mine.
Chapter Seventeen
Marshall—
You know what you need here, Al?” I asked.
It was morning, and I was still naked in her bed, watching her be naked as she crossed the room. She bent over her dresser, pulling a pair of panties and a bra out.
“What’s that?” she asked, tossing the bra on a chair in the corner.
“A dog.”
She snorted and shook her head. “No way.”
“What?”
“I can’t get a dog.”
“Can’t or don’t want to?”
She pulled her panties on over her long, smooth legs before facing the full-length mirror, looking at me in the reflection. “I can’t have a dog running around a bakery. I’m in and out of the house entirely too much. Plus, no.”
There was something behind her voice, something that told me it was more than that. I didn’t want to press, though. We’d hit a stride recently, and I was fucking relishing every moment of it.
I sat up on my elbow, watching her. “You never wear sexy bras or panties,” I said.
She looked at me over her shoulder as she hooked the back of her bra. “Nobody has been looking at them for a while,” she said, winking. “Back in the day, my lingerie and bra and panty supply rivaled the intimate department at Bloomingdale’s.”
“Was it for you?”
“Was what for me?”
“Your…supply?”
“Who else do you think was wearing it?” she asked with a mischievous grin, turning around, placing her hands on her hips.
She was so comfortable with her body. She never hid it from me, and that made her so much sexier. I wanted to sit back and ogle her for a moment before getting to the bottom of Underwear Gate.
I didn’t know how long I was staring before she said, “Was there something else you wanted to say, Marshall?”
“Ah. Yeah,” I said, shaking my head. “I know you were the one wearing them, Al, but did you wear the said previous undergarments for yourself or someone else?”
She dropped her arms to her sides and sighed. “Don’t go there,” she said, leaning down to pick up the pair of jeans she had on the day before that got tossed across the room during our romp.
“I wasn’t fishing and I wasn’t talking about Aaron. I just know that some women enjoy wearing such things, and others only do because they know it turns on their man,” I said.
She was quiet as she continued getting dressed, annoyance written all over her face.
“Come on, gorgeous. Don’t pout,” I said, rolling off the bed. I approached her, wrapping my arms around her waist. “This is only me wondering something about you.”
Her blue eyes met mine with an unrelenting stare. I knew by now that was what she did when she was searching for her place of trust. Whatever secrets were hidden behind hers, she knew she could find truth behind mine.
It may have been a stupid fucking move on my part, but I let her. It was always all there for her to see, to take, and do with as she wanted. Even something as basic as a conversation about her underwear choices was something she had to have an internal debate about. It was fucking exhausting at times, and it was during those times I just wanted to take her face, kiss her so fiercely, push all I was feeling for her into her so she would continue to let her guard down.
But this was no fucking time to rush or be selfish about shit.
We were moving, growing, and trusting. It was enough…for now.
“It was for me,” she said finally. “Everything about me was about absolute perfection back then.”
She gave me a quick kiss, returning to buttoning up her shirt. “Inside and out,” she said, shaking her head with a bitter laugh. “Everything from my underwear, perfume, even my nail polish color had to be thought out.”
“Why?”
“Because it was who I was. If I wasn’t presented as completely put together than anyone could assume I was vulnerable. With the career I had, I’d get stepped all over if I portrayed that.”
“Yeah, but you weren’t walking around in your underwear. No one knew what you were wearing under your power suits,” I said.
“You still don’t get it. I knew it. From under my clothes to under my skin, everything had to be perfection. There was no room for anything else.”
I was man enough to admit that as a dude, there were some things associated with women I had no clue about. Periods (and anything related to the female organs including PMS and childbirth); why they wore shoes that were so uncomfortable but were “cute”; telling us everything was “fine” when it clearly so was not and then expecting us, through some magic male ESP shit, to figure out whatever the fuck you’re trying to tell us by not telling us what is wrong; and unexpected situations, conversations, that rendered us completely mentally incompetent to understand you.
This was one of those times I didn’t have a fucking clue what a female was talking about, but had to nod my head and pretend like I did. If I didn’t, if I had pushed and asked more questions, I knew I would have an “everything is fine” problem on my hands.
“It’s just one of those things,” she said, heading toward the door. “But next time I’m in need of new underwear, I’ll keep it in mind that someone is looking at them again. Anything special you like or should I just guess?”
She winked.
My dick twitched against my boxers.
“Black,” I said in a low voice. “All black.”
* * *
“What the fuck am I doing?” I mumbled to myself.
I stood outside Victoria’s Secret, staring inside and probably appearing like a pervert
to everyone inside and out. It was what I practically was by standing there, gawking.
All right. I knew I wasn’t going to be the first dude to walk into a lingerie store and buy something for his girl. The thing was, I had never done it before. Thirty-four years old and I’d made it this far without having to do it. While maybe the right girl and right situation never was presented, it was now. I wanted to get Al something, something she liked, even though I didn’t know exactly what that was.
Or maybe this was a huge mistake, and it would turn into the time I bought my high school girlfriend a stuffed pig animal. She loved pigs, so I thought she’d like it. I got it thrown in my face in the middle of the cafeteria, with the entire school laughing at me. It was humiliating.
I’d come a long way, but I’d still feel like an asshole if I gave Al something sexy and it was misunderstood.
Or maybe she’d love it. She’d be touched I thought to do it, that I’d listened to what she said. She did insinuate that she’d be up for getting new things. She even asked what I liked.
Or maybe…
“Oh?” A salesgirl with long, dark hair the color of black licorice and a plaid skirt so short I was glad she wearing tights popped her head out. “I thought maybe the door was locked or something and that was why you were just standing there.”
Or maybe I should get the fuck inside and stop debating with myself to the point of ridiculousness.
“I was browsing through the window,” I said.
“Well, you could come in and browse,” she replied. Her teeth was super white against her bright pink lips. “We don’t bite. I’ll even help you if you want.”
No. I don’t want you to help me because this is already awkward as fuck.
I stepped inside, and while I knew the selection would be vast, I was wholly unprepared. Bras; bra-like things; underwear in a variety of patterns, colors, and shapes; and lingerie, from risqué to modest, lined every inch of the store.
“Fuck,” I said under my breath.
“Something for your wife or girlfriend?” the eager salesgirl asked.
I glanced at her name tag—Berry. Her name was Berry.
I wanted to ask her if it was a joke, something of a conversation starter, or if her parents really hated her at birth.
So Wicked Page 19