I chanced a glance over to her to see her brows furrowed in thought.
“What's going on in that pretty little head of yours?” I ask with concern as a million feelings appear etched across her face.
“Sorry. I was lost in thought,” she replies as she wipes a stray tear from her eye. Where the hell did that come from? I was taken aback by the way she allowed herself to look so weak and vulnerable in front of me. To be honest, the past few weeks were catching up to the both of us.
“Talk to me, Summer. What's wrong?” I made my way to her and took her into my arms. As I held her, she let go of everything she had been bottling up. She let the tears pour out and purged her soul right there in my arms. Reality is a slap in the face. It had never dawned on me before this moment that she never left here all those years ago to go chasing dreams, she had left this town to run from me. I felt her pain. The pain of knowing she wanted something that I could never give her.
I had asked her to marry me when I was six years old but that doesn't count. Surely she knew that. I was a child not yet understanding the depth of heartache that came with opening yourself up to love. I had grown up with so much pain and rejection from my mother, that I seriously doubted that I was capable of love.
“It's just everything. I don't know how I got here. This isn't quite what I had planned for myself in life. Why does it have to hurt so bad? All I ever wanted was to be somebody that was seen and loved.” she wiped her tears with the collar of my shirt.
“Summer, you are somebody and you are loved. You don't have to look for your value in a man or a career. It's right here,” I respond as I tap on her chest and point to her heart. “You are the most incredible and amazing woman that I know. Your heart is huge. You love deep and you are loyal. You are kind and generous. You draw people in without having to try.”
“I don't see what you see and if you really believe that then why did you change on me? You told me when we were kids that we would always have one another and you lied. Why did you lie to me? Why did you have to change?” she slams her fists against my chest as the anger and hurt pours out of the walls that have come crumbling down after all these years.
“Summer, I don't know how to love. I didn't want to change. It just happened. I have gone years feeling less than worthy of anyone's love. By the time I started getting attention and feeling wanted, I didn't know how to stop. I never meant to change who I was. I just struggled with my own demons. I still struggle with them. Do you realize you are the only person in my life that I can truly say that I came close to loving? You are the only person who never let me down. You have always been there for me our entire lives. I have carried you with me every step of the way over the last eight years. Don't you think I know that you were there when I needed you the most? At the time when all I needed to do was just be there for you, I failed. I fucking hate that I let you down.”
“I remember a time when you used to look at me like I was your light in the darkness. You said I could light your way even in the darkest of paths. You used to look at me like you could see forever with me as a real possibility.”
“Dammit, Summer. I am incapable of love. I was a kid who found hope in my best friend. But hope is a double edged sword. I had to accept that some things can't be fixed. Don't you get that I am broken? I am damaged beyond repair. You deserve someone who is whole. Someone who can give you a heart that you can hold. It was never your job to try to put me back together.”
“You were my best friend, Damien. After all those years, you just tossed me aside like I never meant anything to you. When I left for New York, you never called or wrote. You just let me walk away without another word. You didn't even try to hold on to our friendship. You abandoned me like I was yesterday's trash. I hate you. I hate that even though you hurt me, I still want you. I can't get you out of my system. I can't make myself stop thinking about you or wanting you.”
“Don't say that. You don't get to hate me, Summer. You just hate the person that you don't understand. I can't make you understand all the reasons why I am who I am but I can be your friend. We can start over. We can rebuild our friendship and get back to the way things were before life got complicated. The only thing I have to offer you is my friendship. Let's put the past eight years behind us and let me just be here for you when you need me to be. I'm here now and I'm not going anywhere.”
She needed me to give in and just tell her that I love her. Those little words could somehow make this game we keep playing, worth the silent torment that we both keep enduring. She needs to hear the words, and I know ultimately she needs me to say that what we have for one another goes beyond physical attraction and even friendship. She needs to hear that I could be more to her. She wants me to tell her that I can give her my heart.
I am so foolish to believe that life would give us a second chance. I realize that all those things that I silently hope for just are not in the cards for us. Like a slap in the face, reality is a hard pill to swallow. This cat and mouse game could only have one outcome for us. It can only be sex and nothing more. The infamous Damien Cole is finally able to say that he had Summer Montgomery as another notch on his belt. That fact made me realize how shallow of an asshole I really am but I honestly do not know how to be anyone different.
“Just leave. Please. I can't do this with you anymore. I can't be your friend. I can't tell my heart not to love you, Damien. I can't pretend that I don't want you or need you. This is a vicious cycle that is tearing me apart. No matter how strong I am, I am not strong enough to continue to resist what I feel. I am so done losing myself to you. Whether it's my heart or it's my body, I will eventually break. I know now, that if I allow myself to keep playing these mind games with you, I will be the only one to lose. It's not more than just losing a bet in this fucked up game of yours, it's losing the last remaining pieces of me.”
“Summer, please. We can stop all the games. We will draw a line and I promise I won't cross it. I will let you go to find someone who can make you happy. I will resist the urge to touch you. Whatever it is that I have to do, tell me. Just don't ask me to walk out of this door and watch you walk out of my life again,” My eyes silently pleaded with her as all the pain I felt etched its way across my face.
Even in that moment, all I could think about was asking her to go back to bed and make love to me. She couldn't understand that I wanted her too much to give up trying to get her into my bed. No matter how many false promises I made her, we could be friends. I knew that was the farthest thing from the truth, but now that I had a taste of her, I would always want her.
I don't know how or why things went from being so great one minute to being totally fucked up the next. Why do women have to always overthink shit and make it complicated? I know she deserves more, but my cock was not listening to any reason or logic when it came to her.
She withdrew herself from my arms and with a heavy heart she walked to the living room and opened the door.
“It doesn't have to be like this Summer. Don't do this.”
“Please,” she sniffled, “Just go,” She waited for me to leave before she closed the door. As I stood on the outside, I could hear the breaking of her heart. The sound of her sobs followed me all the way to my truck. After all these years, I still couldn't give her the one thing she wanted. I knew she tired of never feeling like she was good enough, but this time it was me who wasn't good enough. What started out as a game between us had taken a turn and she had gotten wrapped up and consumed by it. The truth was that both of us had. Now I wanted her in my bed again. Even more so than I had before. I had just fucked up any chance of that happening.
Chapter Eleven
Summer
I found myself sitting with my back against the door for the next few hours. I don't know where all of that came from. I think that a part of me just simply wanted to ask where we went from here. A part of me hoped that Damien would be the first to say he needed me and that he wanted this thing between us to be more. Those wor
ds could have been so easy to say. So why couldn't he? I should have just kept all of that inside and I could have a part of him, even if he couldn't give me all of him. But I just had to push for more.
I was just not so sure how to have all of that without losing my heart to him. I don't trust him to not leave it laying in a thousand jagged pieces at his feet. He is who he is. I am in no way naive enough to think that I could change the person that he has become. It would have been easier for me to sleep with a random stranger than to give in to the desire to sleep with him. A stranger couldn't rip my heart out the way Damien could. The proof is in the way that it hurts right this moment.
Part of me felt like it could be possible that the person who used to kiss away all my pain, protect and love me, could somehow still be in there somewhere. I just wasn't sure if this me, the one who had been hurt and jaded, was even still the same person that he had cared about all those years ago.
Life has changed me. I am harder now or at least that's what I like to tell myself to fake my way through all the let downs and disappointment. I think that all those years in New York made me forget who I am. I had become a woman who played games that only seemed to damage me even more. I want to find that girl again. I don't want to be lost anymore. I don't want to see a stranger staring back at me every time I look in the mirror.
I got lost and Damien felt like the answer to finding my way back. While I knew that I could be healed and made new with his love, he couldn't even fathom that my love could do the same for him.
One minute we were laughing the way we used to, and the next I was pushing him to tell me he loved me. What did I really expect after being gone for eight years? Did I really think that I could come waltzing back here to find that he had been pining away for me all this time? I was supposed to come home to heal and here I was projecting my broken heart onto Damien.
Maybe it was a mistake coming home but I can't always run from the hurt. Coming here only seemed to open old wounds rather than help me close the new ones.
I cut off all the lights and climb into my bed. I need to figure out what I am doing here and if I came home for the right reasons. I know one thing for certain. There is no way that I can go back to work at the shop and face him after tonight. We crossed a line that we could not come back from and in order to make peace with losing Damien all over again, I needed to cut myself out of his life once and for all. I cried myself to sleep sometime in the early hours of the morning.
I woke up knowing that there was no way that I could possibly go back to work at the shop. Damien and I had stepped into the unknown and now there was not a chance that we could simply pretend that we hadn't crossed a line. I pick up my cell phone and call the shop.
“The Boneyard. This is Cash,” Cash's voice answered the phone providing me a little comfort and saving me the awkwardness of having to actually speak to Damien this morning.
“Hey, Cash. I am going to be taking the day off. I just wanted to call and let someone know that I won't be in today.”
“Sure. Is everything okay?” he asks.
“Yeah. Everything is fine. I just need a personal day,” I reply.
After hanging up the phone with Cash, I decided to pay my mom a visit. It is probably better that I talk to her in person rather than over the phone. I throw on some clothes and grab a cup of coffee before I head out.
Making my way through the rush hour traffic, I manage to make it to mom's office in record time. As I walk in, I notice that the small office is empty. Thankful for small favors, I make my way to the back office and knock at the door. My mom glances up from her computer.
“Hey, sweetheart. What's going on?” she asks with concern. It doesn't help that my eyes are swollen from crying half of the night. So instead of trying to come up with some off-the-wall excuse, I decide to have a heart to heart and lay everything out on the line with her.
I take a deep breath as I sit in the oversized leather chair in the far corner of her office.
“I don't think that I can go back to work at the shop. I wanted to know if you might have an opening here in the meantime?” She tilts her head to the side, trying to read me, but finally decides to wait it out. Casting a knowing glance in my direction, she waits for me to offer up the reason I don't want to return to the shop.
“Okay. I slept with Damien,” I exhale and throw my hand up in the air to dismiss her chance to speak. “I know. You don't have to say anything to me. It was a huge mistake and I can't go back and undo it. I guess I got so caught up in the excitement of the games with him, I wasn't paying attention to the fact that my heart got involved. Needless to say, I was honest with him and he rejected me. So, I am asking this favor of you. I don't want a lecture mom, I just need a job.”
I finish without barely taking a breath.
“Are you done?” she asks.
When I nod my head she continues.
“Of course, you can come to work here. I have to ask though, are you sure you aren't making a decision in the heat of the moment? I don't mean about the job, I am talking about things with Damien. Summer, I have watched you two since you both were children. He cares about you. Hell, he probably loves you and just needs a chance to process that after all this time you finally found the courage to tell him how you feel.”
“Listen mom. There is nothing with Damien. He may have cared about me once, a long time ago. That Damien is gone. He has had eight years to find a way to let me into his heart. He loves himself, and that is the only person he will ever love. I was foolish in thinking otherwise. Call it a momentary lack of judgement on my part. I deserve to be loved and he is a damn fool if he can't see what is right in front of him.”
My heart breaks all over again, shattering into little jagged pieces. I ache to understand this situation. There is nothing worse than falling in love with someone who doesn't feel the same. My mom comes over to wipe the tears from my eyes.
“Oh, baby. Everything is going to work out the way it should. You just have to believe that,” she holds me there in her arms, rocking me like she used to do when I was a little girl. Only this time, she can't piece my heart together again. She can't fix the damage that is done.
“Mom, I don't know how to do this. I just don't understand. Why am I so unlovable? What is wrong with me that I am never good enough? I just want to give my heart to someone who will protect it, cherish it, and love me the way that pops loved you.”
My mom’s hands clasp my cheeks, she places a kiss on my forehead, and hugs me tight.
“Honey, you are very loveable. Any man would be lucky to have you and an idiot to lose you. Sweetheart, you can't go through life expecting to find a man like your father. You can't compare them to the measure of the man that he was, because no one will live up to that. Your father was a wonderful man, and I was lucky to have him. You need to find a way to let go of him enough to make room for another. Baby, no man is perfect, and although you were too young to realize it, your father was no exception. He made mistakes along the way. All of us do. If you keep expecting perfection, you will find disappointment at every corner. Maybe you need to realize that when you find the one, his imperfections will be the things you can't live without, they will be the things you love the most.”
“Thanks mom. As much as that helps, it still doesn't make this hurt any less. I just need some time to figure everything out,” I say goodbye to my mom and agree to report back to the office the following week for my first day at the office.
***
It has been over a month since I last talked to Damien. He called every day for the better part of the first three weeks before the phone finally fell silent. I still can't bring myself to talk to him. I erased all of the messages he left on the answering machine without bothering to listen to them. I have decided that there is nothing left for us to say at this point.
I woke up today still feeling as lost as ever. I have been working at the real estate office so that I did not have to face anyone the shop.
&
nbsp; Today I want to go visit my pop's grave. I just need to be close to him. I wish he were here because he could tell me where I keep going wrong. I need direction and I have none. My whole life feels like it is falling apart.
I pull in the graveyard and kill the ignition of the old mustang. My pops had bought this car for me the day I started my senior year of high school. Old Faithful was her name. She saw me through the best year of high school. She was also the last remaining gift I had that was a part of my dad.
While I was away in New York, I had her kept in storage out at my mom's place. Each year, I sent money home to mom to take her in and get a tune up. There were just some things that you couldn't let go of and Old Faithful was one of them. I learned to drive a stick on her. I learned to change tires, and check oil. These were all individual memories of me and my pops bonding.
I knew he had always wanted a son but he was perfectly happy with me since we discovered that I was content to work on cars, go fishing, and do some of his favorite things just to spend more time with him. I was a daddy's girl through and through but right now, I need him more than any other time in my life.
My eyes scanned the old cemetery that has fallen into disarray. The weeds now cover many of the headstones. Slamming the door of the mustang, I make my way along the path that leads to my father's grave. He had picked out his plot a few years before he passed away. He always did love the giant oak that sat at the far recess of the graveyard. So when he passed, he took his final resting place in the shade provided by that old towering tree.
I walked over to the stone bench that sat adjacent to my father's grave. The day was cloudy and there was a slight breeze that made the weeping willows throughout the cemetery seem to come alive. The branches dipped low and kissed the graves of the loved ones that had been lost to the world. I glanced down and read the old familiar quote on the bench as I allowed my fingertips to trace each etched word. “The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living.” It was one of my father's favorite quotes by Marcus Tullius Cicero. He started keeping a journal of quotes when I was a child. When he became older and started thinking of arrangements if something were to happen to him, he carefully laid out all of his wishes. One of which was the memorial stone bench with the inscribed quote. He wanted others to feel that even when loved ones moved on to the next phase of their journey, they never truly leave us and they are always there. If we just find time in the silence, we would feel them with us.
Dared (Boneyard Bad Boy #1) Page 11