by Ashley Love
"Be like what?!" I step back, turning away from him and running a hand through my hair in frustration, breathing out a pent up sigh.
"Just like...this. Fuck, I don't know." He's just as confused about how to act as I am, but he won't admit it. His default emotion is anger, to just shut me down and blow up.
I turn to face him again. "You know, being here at all isn't fucking easy for me, Lex. Think about all the shit we've done in this house. Those are ghosts that will haunt me my whole life, okay? I know you don't know where my head is at right now, but I thought you'd try to be a little more understanding."
My voice isn't as steady as I would like it to be, and he sighs regretfully just like he always does when he thinks he's hurt me, tipping his head back and running a hand over his face. He never feels guilty about much, but when heated words fly between us, the second a tear comes to my eye or my voice starts to waver, it's like a reality check for him. After being broken down his entire life, he never wants to be the one to break me down.
"Just...just come lay with me for a little while, Leala. You've been gone for so long. I just...I'm fucking sick of being alone." His voice is softer now, and that's it, I can't say no. I can't turn my back on him. He's trying so hard to push it down, to cover it up with anger, but I know he's weak, he's slipping, and he has to hold on. And I'll be damned if I'm not here for him to hold on to.
He lays back with a sigh and part of me is reluctant to crawl up next to him. But I feel him shift and turn to face me and as soon as my body stretches out atop the comforter, he turns me on my side and holds me loosely against his frame, wriggling one arm between my waist and the mattress and draping the other over me comfortably. And the reluctance melts, just like it always does when it's just the two of us.
"Damn, I missed you," he says softly as he pulls me closer, arms tightening around me, and I notice a fresh bruise surfacing on his cheek close to his nose.
"What happened, Lex?" I touch the spot gently but he ignores me, brushing my nose with his as his palms flatten against my lower back, holding me against him.
"Three months is a long time to be alone in this bed." He shifts, his body rubbing against mine in all the right places and I know he's trying to shut me up, but I can't. I can't just pretend that today didn't happen, that he didn't almost die, that something deep isn't eating away at him—deep enough to make him want to hurt himself.
I sigh. This is how he gets when he's trying to avoid something. "What happened to your face?" My voice is a little more harsh than I had intended as I push back against his chest to look him in the eyes, casting a glare that shows I'm not backing down. He sighs, rolling his eyes at the realization that his attempts to charm me into shutting up aren't going unchallenged.
"He hit me."
I give him a puzzled look. "Who?" I ask as I glance down at his knuckles to see that they aren't bloodied, knowing that anyone who hits Lex gets a punch in return. Or two, or ten.
"Who do you think?" He gives me a condescending look and it clicks in my head.
"Are you fucking serious?!"
He winces as my shout fills the room and it re-registers in my brain that he said he'd run into his parents. I know who hit him. The same man who hit him for far too long before Lex walked out.
"We got into a fight, I mouthed off to him..."
"And he actually hit you in the face?" I interject as he trails off and he pauses before answering matter-of-factly.
"I'm kinda used to it."
I sigh and shake my head at his indifferent tone as I remember laying in bed just like this for so many nights with tears in my eyes listening to Lex tell stories of how he grew up, and I never understood how he always brushed it off just like he's doing now.
"Are you okay?"
He reaches up to touch his face, his lips tightening a bit when he brushes the bruised skin. "I'm fine. It's fucking sore as hell, but—"
"No, I mean really...are you okay, Lex?" My hand falls onto his chest, warm and smooth, familiar under my fingers, meant to not just be touched but rather felt. I can finally feel him. My fingers stroke across his skin, moving over his chest and finally stilling when I press my palm over his heart. I ask him again softly, "Are you okay?" And when my eyes search his he knows that I'm not just talking about the bruise on his face.
He sighs and his face tightens uncomfortably as I extend an offer for him to be vulnerable yet again. But his eyes harden and he starts to roll away from me. I lift my hand from his warm skin to run it over the hair atop his head, holding his face toward mine.
"You can't do this again, Lex. I can't handle it. You can't do this to me."
"I won't, okay? I've got my shit under control. You need to chill out. I just wanted to take enough to make it go away, then when I started to get sick and shit I just...I fucking freaked out. I knew I fucked up taking as much shit as I did and I thought I was gonna die and I just...I didn't want to."
I sigh, my hand running down the back of his head to stroke his neck softly. "I don't think you have things under control, Lex. What happened today, that fucking scares me. I'm scared for you." I take his face in my hands and look at him sincerely, my eyes pleading, and God, I just want to shake him. "I can't save you, Lex. Not when I'm trying to save myself." And his eyes soften again, looking back at me so innocently, so lost, just needing direction, needing an answer, and in these fleeting moments of raw insecurity I know this isn't what he wants, this life he has.
It's frustrating. It's so fucking frustrating because ever since I met him I've wanted the world for him. I've wanted more for him than he's ever wanted for himself, and I know he can never have it until he thinks he deserves it. For years I've tried to make him feel worthy, tried to make him feel like he could have more than...this, because I know he wants it. I know even though he's a hardass there's a dreamer in him that wishes for the world and he can't have it. Not when he lives like this.
"God, I don't know why you won't just fucking get clean!" I growl, my thoughts building up to the point of overflow and I roll away from him roughly, not able to look into those blue eyes for another second without crying out in frustration and just sobbing and going into some I-love-you-and-I-want-more-for-you speech. And I know that will do neither of us any good right now.
He breathes out a frustrated sigh and I feel him slide up behind me, slipping an arm around my waist, and the tears are threatening me again when he's so close but we're worlds apart.
"I took too much, I know that. I didn't know what else to do. It's not gonna happen again," he breathes softly against my ear and I snap, sitting up and whipping around to face him.
"You can't keep justifying it! You can't keep making excuses and promising you'll be okay just so you can keep doing it! Just so you can get that buzz and feel great and forget about everything!"
"Jesus Christ, Leala. You think I fucking enjoy it? You think I get pleasure out of it anymore?" he scoffs and I can see the fight coming before it even begins. I can't do this. I tear up out of his bed but he pushes himself up into a sitting position and reaches for my arm. "I have to do it! That's what a fucking addiction is!" he shouts back at me, gripping me tighter than I'm sure he intended to, his strength heightened with his anger and I whimper softly, ripping away from his grasp.
"No, you have to live your fucking life, Lex! You can't keep numbing yourself. You have to face fucking reality!"
"You don't know shit about reality, Leala!" he emphasizes my name in annoyance. "You might be able to face your fucking life without a problem. Shit, it's wine and roses. Little Miss Perfect. What the fuck do you know?"
"I know that you can sit here and try to be a hardass all you want. Oh poor me, I had the hardest fucking life so I'm gonna be bitter and mad at the world and everyone in it...but you're a fucking coward! You have all these bitch boys running around for you so you can feel like you're the shit, but you're fucking sad, Lex. You're a sad, sad person and you can try to hide it all you w
ant, but I can fucking see it. That's why it kills me that you won't just get help! GET FUCKING HELP! God, why won't you just let somebody in?" My voice breaks with a sob as the tears that have been threatening me finally spill over and I bring my hands to my face immediately, hanging my head as sobs wrack my body, shaking it hard and my words are broken and muffled in my palms. "Just...let...me...in."
I turn my back to him, embarrassed by my sudden outburst and the fact that I can't stop crying. My insides tremble as I try to steel myself but I'm too emotional, I can't shake this fear that I'm losing him, and I just cry and cry and there is nothing else in the room but silence. We're losing each other, we're losing whatever shred of something—anything—we have left between us. It's tearing at the seams, hanging by a thread and we're just holding on desperately, trying to hold on. We have to hold on.
"Hey...look at me..." His voice is soft and I jump a little when I feel his hand on my shoulder and I realize he's crossed the room to stand behind me, but I don't turn to face him and his voice hardens a little. "Goddammit Leala, look at me."
I drop my hands and turn my head just enough to meet his eyes and the lump in my throat creeps back up again when I see the soft look that's staring back at me. Afraid, unsure, almost like his fears match my own. We're losing each other. We need to hold on.
"I just don't know what it's gonna take. You've almost died two fucking times now, Lex, just within the past couple of months. It fucking scares me. I don't know why it doesn't scare you."
"I'm not going anywhere. I thought I'd be dead long before now and I'm still here, and that has to mean something, right? I mean...somebody's gotta take care of you." His mouth tugs up a little at the corners and I roll my eyes, shaking my head as I look away from him again. He always does this, jokes when I'm trying to be serious.
I feel his large hands grab my waist and tug me back toward him, wrapping his arms around my shoulders. I lean back into his chest, feeling the rumble against my spine as he continues.
"Hey, you hear me? I'm not going anywhere. I'm not gonna leave you. C'mon..."
I sigh dejectedly but I don't fight him as he walks us back to the bed, pulling me down with him, matching my shape as we lay on our sides and he holds me from behind.
"You will if you don't stop. You'll die or you'll end up in jail and you'll be gone and—"
"Hey!" he cuts me off, and I turn my face to look at him over my shoulder. "Listen to me...I'm not going anywhere."
"You promise?" I ask softly as I turn in his arms to face him, and he nods at me.
"Yeah. I swear."
And I just stare at him. And most of the time he fucking pisses me off to no end, I get so damn frustrated with him, but again there are these moments. Where his hand is heavy and warm on my hip and my cheek is pressed into his bicep, where he lets me lay on his outstretched arm and we just stare at each other with my arms curled in between us. We just stare. Just breathing and blinking and staring and it's comfortable and everything else goes away. We're young again, in that dirty apartment we lived in before he ever dreamed of having his own house, laying in that old bed barely big enough for both of us, with nothing to hold onto but each other. Just trying to hold on, trying to make it.
"I'm...I'm sorry I left." He shifts uncomfortably when he says it, breaking the awkward silence.
I give him a curious look, his statement pulling me from my thoughts unexpectedly. "What?"
"Christmas. I just left. I was mad, and when your sister said that shit, when she has no fucking idea about me and my family..." He's still stuttering, and I can't blame him because I'm not sure he's practiced apologizing much since I've known him.
"I know, Lex. She doesn't know." I shake my head, slipping one arm out from in between us to drape across him. "Sometimes I don't even feel like I know."
"What the fuck does that mean?" He pulls his face back from mine to look at me with a questioning glare.
"It's just...it's such a struggle for you, the whole thing. It makes me think you haven't told me everything, that's all I'm saying," I offer easily, not wanting him to get worked up into fighting mode again. I've had enough of that for today. Shit, I've had enough of fighting with him, period.
"I got the shit beat out of me until I was fifteen years old, Leala. Wouldn't that make anyone a little fucked up in the head?" His voice raises slightly and I sigh in frustration, searching for repairing words to fill the silence before his anger can settle any deeper.
"I know. I know, Lex. I'm sorry...I just—"
"He almost killed me," he cuts me off, and my eyes widen. He says it so flatly, so matter-of-factly. Like it doesn't even phase him, and I stare at him blankly for a moment, not sure what to say, because as my previous statement had predicted, he definitely has never told me this before.
"What?" My voice almost breaks when I say it, my astonishment still hindering me from forming coherent words.
"Yeah. Right before I came down to Mexico. He was mad that I didn't want to work. I just wanted that one summer off. It was fucking stupid, we were in the kitchen yelling and shit and one thing led to another and he snapped and pushed me up against the wall, and he hadn't laid a hand on me in a couple of years 'cause he knew I was old enough to fight back, and I just...I lost it. I hit him."
"You hit him?" I choke out the question, knowing Lex's history with his dad, which makes his confession even more shocking.
"Yeah, I knocked the fuck outta him. I mean, I was twenty-one years old, I don't know how in the fuck he expected to put his hands on me and not have me fight back. But he did. And we got into it. It was bad, blood everywhere, and somehow he got me on the floor and he...he fucking choked me. I mean, I couldn't breathe...I remember starting to fade out, and I just thought, 'this motherfucker is going to kill me'...and I really think he would have."
My arm's still draped over him, my fingers brushing back and forth across his back unconsciously in an instinctive soothing gesture. I open my mouth to say something, but he continues.
"But he stopped...and I don't know why. And as soon as I got up off the floor I ran upstairs and packed my shit. When I came down he told me to get out of his house, but I was already on my fucking way. I didn't explain it to Damon. And I think Mom knows I was sick of getting the shit kicked out of me, 'cause I think she knew what was going on she just didn't want to believe it..."
"That's why you were all beat up in Mexico?" Things are finally starting to become clear. I still can't believe that after all this time he hasn't told me about this, but part of me can't blame him.
"Yeah. I felt like a dumbass 'cause we were at the beach but I never took my shirt off 'cause I had so many fucking bruises. Too many to just play it off as some random ass fight, you know. He beat the shit outta me...but never again. Until yesterday. That's the first time I've been hit in five years, Leala. It just...it fucking got to me, you know? It just got me thinking and shit..." His gaze floats down absently and I can hear his voice beginning to tighten, trying not to quake, and I sigh sympathetically.
"Lex," I reach out to touch his face, but he rolls onto his back away from me with a frustrated groan. I know he doesn't want my sympathy. That's probably why he never told me about any of this.
"I'm fine...fuck." He rubs a hand over his face but I can see the tears welling in his eyes as he shakes his head and sighs, staring at the ceiling. "Why didn't he want me, Leala? Why did he never fucking want me?"
I watch a tear rolls down the side of his face into his hairline and my heart breaks because he's really doing it. Being vulnerable, letting me in. And I finally know that this is what got him so fucked up. These are the emotions he's never wanted to come to terms with. This is what he doesn't like about himself, this feeling, and he tries to cover it up, tries to make it go away with the drugs, and I hate it for him. I hate the man who makes him feel this way, who has made him think that he was nothing for longer than anyone should have to endure. I hate him for making Lex feel lik
e he isn't loved, that he isn't loveable, that he isn't worthy. Because he is, looking at him now, he's so many things that he doesn't know. And I love him.
"Because he's a stupid, stupid man. But I want you, Lex. I promise I do." I'm shocked at my candor, but I can't stop the words as I lay my head on his chest, wrapping my arms around him the best I can, and I feel him hold me tight against him without hesitation.
"God, I fucking missed the shit outta you. I'm such a mess without your ass."
I laugh at his words and the rumble in his chest that tickles my ear. I look up into his face to see him smiling weakly. I smile back before I tuck my head back under his chin and I close my eyes.
And I just hold onto him. I hold on.
2
I open the front door to Lex's a few days later to a strange scene. Stepping in and shaking off the chill from the cold outside, I peer curiously at Kyle, who snaps his head around abruptly when he hears the door shut behind me.
"Hey Leala! What the fuck! How in the hell are you?" He crosses the room and grabs me up into a tight hug and I assume from his reaction that he knows I've been away for a while. But more importantly he knows why I've been away.
Kyle has always been my favorite of Lex's "boys." Just a genuinely sweet kid who got mixed up in some bad shit. Kinda like...well, honestly, kinda like most of us in our crew. The baby of the group, he'd give you the shirt right off of his back, but I don't think age has anything to do with it. Kyle just seems to still have that naive sense about him. He hasn't become quite as jaded as the rest of us. He still actually trusts people and wants people to trust him.
"Hey Kyle...what are you doing?" I peer over his shoulder as he releases me from his grip to see the hole in the wall he looks to be attempting to patch up with mesh tape and spackle.
He opens his mouth to respond but is cut short by the smack of a hand against the back of his head as Lex reaches the end of the hallway.