I was never the same.
Chapter Four
Bray
I know what you must be thinking: What a bitch. And you’ll get no argument from me on that one. I was pretty messed up back then. I loved Elias with all my heart, and that scared the hell out of me.
But I should get something out of the way before I dive into the excuses of why I was the way I was. I’m sure Elias sugarcoated me with his bias and all, but if this story is going to be told, then it needs to be told in its truth and entirety, without Band-Aids and training wheels.
I was fucked up.
No, no one raped me or beat me or bullied me as a kid. My parents loved me. Maybe not as much as my sister, Rian, but I believed they loved me. They just showed it in different ways than Elias’s parents did, usually with the best toys for Christmas and birthdays, a steady allowance, and the occasional pat on the back for doing a good deed. Sometimes. But every pat on the back I ever did get felt like an obligation, like they were being forced. I had issues. There’s no doubt about that. And for much of my young life my parents did whatever they could to help me. They just gave up trying to fix me somewhere along the way. But I don’t blame anyone for the way I was. A psychologist appointed by the State to evaluate me when I had my little run-in with the police and a stint in juvy called it bipolar disorder. I, on the other hand, called it just one of those things. We’re all different. We all have our own quirks and flaws and dark secrets. All of us are fucked up on some level, whether or not we want to admit it to ourselves. And I like to believe that not every problem or issue that we deal with in our daily lives must be labeled with a fancy title.
I’ll say it again: I was fucked up. It was as simple as that.
Well, just so you know, I didn’t leave Elias and Georgia because I lost interest or fell out of love with him. Quite the opposite. I left because I fell even harder for him, which I didn’t even know was possible. I’ve never really been scared of anything, except of Elias. I think that in the back of my mind I figured if I left him first, if I was the one who put a stop to any kind of relationship that we had, it might not hurt as much as it would have if he had ended it. It gave me a sense of control. At least, I fooled myself into believing that all the way to South Carolina. But once I got there—I moved with my friend, Lissa, who wanted to be closer to her brother—it didn’t take long for me to see that I had made the biggest mistake of my life.
But instead of doing the right thing and following my heart by going back and hoping Elias would take me back, I did the opposite and pushed myself further away from him. Maybe it was my way of punishing myself for being the biggest idiot on the face of the Earth, I don’t know, but whatever it was, it landed me in a year-long relationship with a guy I didn’t love and never would.
I tried to go on with my life, but as time wore on I realized more every day that I really had no life without Elias. He was my life. He had been since that day we met by the pond.
I just wished I would’ve allowed myself to give in to that truth fully long before I finally did.
Because by then, it was too late.
Elias had a girlfriend, and according to our childhood friend Mitchell, Elias was serious about her and very much in love.
That was the time in my life when I didn’t care about anything anymore. I pretty much gave up on life without actually committing suicide. That’s the best way to describe it. I was completely dead inside. But no one else knew. Only Elias would ever have known that something was wrong with me deep down, that what I projected to the world was just a mask covering up the ugliness slowly eating away at my soul. But I never contacted him. I never tried to tell him how I felt, how much I was hurting, how much I missed and needed him. Because I wanted him to be happy. Even if it meant I wasn’t part of that happiness. I ruined my happiness for myself. I wasn’t about to waltz back into his life and ruin his, too.
Inevitably, I broke it off with my boyfriend and I told myself that I’d go back to being relationshipless, the way I had always been. Because relationships just weren’t my thing. But—and here’s some of where that “no Band-Aid” policy I was talking about comes into play—I went from a long-term relationship with one person to having sex with several different people. Call me a slut; say whatever you want. I never slept with anyone for the sheer pleasure of it—not in the beginning, anyway. I did it because I was trying to fill a void and I knew no other way. I was confused and I longed to feel loved the way I felt loved every moment I spent with Elias. I looked for that feeling in everything and everyone.
But I never found it.
And that’s when I… no, I’m not ready to talk about that yet.
For now, let’s just say when the dark secret I carried around behind that mask was out for the world to see, I had no other choice but to go back home.
Home to Elias. If he would have me. If he could have me…
I just never imagined that my homecoming would be met with more than I had ever hoped for… and, well, a lot more that I never could have possibly anticipated.
Elias
Two months ago…
I hadn’t seen nor heard from Bray in four years. As anyone would do, I went on with my life. I met a girl, Aline, at community college. She was beautiful. Dark hair. Bright blue eyes. Peach-colored skin. I loved her. But I wasn’t in love with her, even though I tried really hard to be. I tried so hard that for a while I actually believed it. But after two years of dating, I realized it wasn’t the kind of love I felt for Bray. And it never would be.
I heard from my friend Mitchell that Bray was engaged and in love with some guy in South Carolina. I felt like punching Mitchell for telling me this. I would have much rather gone on wondering about her, left clueless as to how she was carrying on with her life, instead of knowing the painful details.
I saw Bray in everything and everyone. Even in Aline—it wasn’t until much later that I realized how they favored each other. Pathetic, I know, but love isn’t always roses and rainbows and butterflies in your stomach. It’s equally cruel and painful and the world’s worst villain.
Aline dumped me. She knew I was in love with Bray. Not because I told her, but because women are smart like that. They have this weird fucking superpower that allows them to read a man’s emotions and see straight through his lies. I had told Aline about Bray, my “best friend” since childhood, and apparently that was all the backstory Aline needed to know more about me than I knew about myself. It wasn’t that I had tried to hide from Aline the fact that I was still in love with Bray, but that I had been trying to hide it from myself.
Aline was a great girl. She just wasn’t my girl….
It was one day in April nearly two months ago when the landscape of my life changed forever. The colors on that black-and-white painting were finally starting to fill in.
I woke up Saturday morning to Mitchell rummaging through the cabinets in my kitchen. He had been my roommate since last year. A lot about both of us had changed since we were kids. Thankfully, his mullet was one thing. Somewhere along the years he traded that hairstyle for a short, stylish cut with longer bangs that framed his face.
“What the hell are you doing, man?” I asked as I entered the kitchen wearing only my boxers. My current one-night stand, Jana, was still asleep in my bed, tangled in the sheets.
I opened the fridge and drank down half a bottle of water.
Mitchell was standing on a chair pushed against the front of the oven and reaching into the cabinet high above the stove light. “Looking for my weed.”
“Mitchell, man, seriously, you need to come down off that shit. Why would your weed be in the cabinet?”
“Come down off what shit? Weed?” His voice was muffled by the cabinet door.
“The meth.”
“Fucking A, bro, I’m not on meth. What the hell is your problem?”
I sat down at the kitchen table, stretched my arms above me and yawned. “You haven’t slept in three days,” I said. “Last night
I heard you going through boxes in your room. For three hours.” I looked around the kitchen. “I haven’t seen this place this clean since I moved in, and I sure as hell didn’t clean it.”
Mitchell’s head finally came out of the cabinet, his bangs partially covering his dark brown eyes. He stepped down from the chair. His eyes were wide and feral and bloodshot, his pupils dilated. The corner of the left side of his mouth constantly twitched.
“Don’t tell anyone,” he said. He started to sit down but began pacing instead.
“I’m not going to tell anyone, but you’re starting to worry me. That’s some bad shit, bro. A month more and you’ll be sucking guys off for a fix. It’s no better than crack.”
Mitchell’s face went slack. “Dude, that’s goin’ too far.”
I sipped my water. “Is it?” I asked and shook my head. “You know I’m far from Mr. Sober and Perfect, but I wouldn’t touch that stuff if you paid me. You remember what it did to Paul Matthews.”
Mitchell pushed air through his lips and rolled his eyes. “Paul got addicted. He was cooking the shit in his bathroom. You don’t see me doing that.”
“Not yet,” I said.
I heard footsteps behind me, and Mitchell looked up.
“Do I get to fuck her next?” he asked.
I shut my eyes briefly and sighed. “Don’t say stuff like that, Mitch.”
“Fuck you,” Jana said to him from behind me.
Her shoulder-length blonde hair was pulled into a sloppy ponytail that hung disheveled against her back. She had sun-kissed brown skin and she was skinny, with delicate wrists I could easily lock my fingers around. But her wrists and her frame were the only delicate things about her, really.
She leaned around the back of my chair and kissed me on the mouth. I noticed right away she was dressed only in a T-shirt and her panties. Mitchell may have been out of line with that comment, but she wasn’t helping her case any, dressed like that in front of another guy.
Jana went to the fridge and opened it. I glimpsed her naked, tanned legs for only a moment. She was hot, but I was already regretting having slept with her.
“Whatever, man,” Mitchell said and went back to the cabinet.
I got up and left the kitchen. I hopped in the shower and Jana joined me. I wasn’t used to girls staying this late with me in the morning, certainly not inviting themselves into my shower. But I wasn’t about to kick her out, especially when the first thing she did was get on her knees and give me a blowjob. But for some reason, I couldn’t get off. I shut my eyes and gripped her head in both hands while she took the entire length of me into the back of her throat, but I couldn’t get off no matter how hard either of us tried.
I was frustrated. Jana, I think, was worried about her technique.
She gave up on that method and rose to her feet, pressing her breasts against my chest. The hot water was beginning to run cool as it streamed down on us.
She had this crafty look in her eyes.
“I want you both to fuck me,” she said and bit down gently on my chin.
Well, that definitely took me by surprise.
I don’t know what made me go along with it, other than thinking with the wrong head, but a few minutes later I was on my knees behind her on the couch while she went to work on Mitchell in front of her—and he apparently didn’t have the same problem I’d had with her minutes ago in the shower.
Despite sharing an apartment with a guy and both of us having our fair share of girls—girls who wanted a relationship as much as Mitchell or I did, I should add—threesomes definitely weren’t the norm. The girls either of us usually brought home weren’t as bold with their sexual desires as Jana was. And that was a good thing, really, because a threesome with another guy wasn’t something I could ever really get accustomed to. I spent more time and effort trying to avoid crossing swords than actually enjoying myself. In the heat of the moment, I never cared about that much, but when it was all over, I was a little disgusted with myself. Every single time. Unfortunately, disgust rarely stopped me from doing it again.
After Jana left and Mitchell went on another cleaning spree in the apartment, I got another shower before I headed out to help my mom move the last of her stuff into her new house. Mom had bad credit, and when the rental house I had grown up in started going to shit, I took out a loan to get her a new house on the other side of town.
Her new boyfriend, James, was loading boxes into the moving van when I pulled up.
He man-hugged me and started his usual spiel, asking how I was doing and reminding me how good I was to my mom. It really wasn’t necessary. I already liked him, and there wasn’t any need for him to still be trying so hard. But I guess he just hadn’t exhausted his efforts yet, and so I left it alone.
“This will be the last load,” my mom said and handed James a box to put in the van. Then she enveloped me in a hug. “How’s that new job going?”
“So far so good,” I said. “I didn’t think I’d like it as much as I do.”
“That’s great,” James said, emerging from the back of the moving van. “I did construction for ten years. It’s better than fast food or sitting behind a desk.” He was a few inches shorter than my mom, with graying salt-and-pepper hair sprinkled above his temples. Physically, James wasn’t my mom’s usual type, but I think his personality made up for that.
I nodded.
“OK, I need you two to be very careful with my china cabinet,” my mom said. “It was my mother’s, and—”
“We’ve got this,” James said, smiling over at me. “Don’t you worry.”
We followed my mom inside. She stayed close behind us every step of the way as we carried the massive china cabinet out the front door. Her face was as white as a sheet; she was worried we were going to drop it and shatter the glass doors along the top. We got it into the van and covered it with two thick blankets for extra cushioning. I stepped down from the ramp to see my mom staring out at the road. Her face was still white, but this time it seemed like she had seen a ghost. It took me a second longer than it should to turn around to see what she was looking at.
Bray stood at the end of the driveway, looking back at me.
Chapter Five
Elias
My heart thumped so violently I felt light-headed for a moment. I think I gasped, but I couldn’t be sure. I was too paralyzed to move or breathe, much less get my brain in working order again.
For the longest time Bray and I just stared across the driveway at each other. My first instinct was to walk straight over to her, lift her into my arms, and kiss her like I had never kissed anyone before, but I stopped a half a second before I acted upon it.
I had to play this cool. I had no idea what she was doing here after four years. Four fucking years! She could’ve been there just to see how I was doing after so long and to update me on her life, tell me that she was married and had a kid. I almost broke down. Right there in front of her and my mom and James. But I held my own, swallowed hard as emotion thickened my throat, and let out the breath I had been holding for the past few minutes.
“Bray?” I took a few steps forward.
Her smile was faint and shaky at first, but when I walked toward her those few steps her smile started to brighten.
“Hey,” she said softly.
Her hands were folded loosely down in front of her like a delicate little basket near her belly. Her long, dark hair, soft as it always was, draped both shoulders and was tucked behind her ears. She looked exactly the way I had always remembered her: soft and fragile and beautiful, with the biggest blue eyes and the prettiest smile I had ever seen. I swear her eyes twinkled like they do in the cartoons whenever she’d smile. And I always found it funny that she looked so damn innocent, but whenever she opened that mouth of hers she would blow that innocent façade right out of the water.
But not on this day. She definitely wasn’t herself. It was like she wasn’t sure yet if she could be. Or if she wanted to be.
I
looked back at the moving van and then at my mom.
“Honey, you go ahead,” my mom said, waving me on. “James and I can move the rest.”
Other than Mitchell and, even less so, Aline, my mom was the only other person who knew my history with Brayelle Bates. She knew how much I loved her, and over the past four years, she’d tried on several occasions to convince me to reach out to Bray, tell her how I felt.
Having an idea about the situation, James added, “No worries, Elias. I can move this stuff. You go do what you’ve gotta do.” His smile was kind of goofy.
Bray stepped up then. “How about we all help?” she said to James and smiled at me.
Take it slow. Feel each other out first. See what our boundaries are, if there are any. It was the method Bray and I both used that day, without actually coming out and saying it.
We spent the next couple of hours helping my mom and James unload the van. After all of the heavy stuff was moved into the house, Bray and I left together in my gray Dodge Charger. We didn’t talk much while moving boxes or even when we were finally alone in the car. We were both nervous, both worried about the same things: Is she single? Does she have a family? Is this our last and final good-bye?
I drove her to my apartment. Mitchell was as shocked as I was when he saw her. “Holy shit,” he said when we walked through the front door. “Brayelle Bates. What are you doing here?”
“Hi, Mitch,” she said and strolled over to give him a hug. “It’s good to see you.”
“You too, girl.” He took a step back and looked her over, bringing one hand up to push his bangs away from his face. “Still smokin’ hot, I see. You haven’t answered my question.”
“Mitch,” I said dropping my keys on the coffee table, “do you mind going out for a while and—”
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