by Jay McLean
Her eyes fill with tears as her mouth opens, but I don’t give her the chance to speak.
“Take care, all right?”
Her eyes widen, but she doesn’t speak.
She doesn’t make a move.
She just blinks, causing her tears to fall.
And it takes everything in me to not reach out.
To not touch her.
To not wipe away the tears so I can see her beautiful emerald eyes.
Then she nods once, her thumb in her mouth before turning away.
She leaves.
And I let her.
★★★
My eyes snap open when I hear Becca’s name. For a second I think I’m dreaming but I’m not, because it’s Chazarae voice and she’s screaming. “Becca! Stop!”
I throw on my sweats, forget the shirt and, faster than I thought possible, sprint from my apartment to her house. I try to open the door, but it’s locked. “Chaz!” I shout, banging on the door.
“Becca! Please stop!” I hear, and I instantly know there’s no chance she can hear me. Through the darkness of the night, I feel around the top of her doorframe looking for the spare key. When I find it, I use it and run straight up the stairs.
“Please, Becca!” Chaz says, but she’s not shouting anymore. She’s crying, pleading.
Becca’s the first thing I see when I run into her room, she’s in the corner; her eyes squeezed shut and her legs kicking widely. Her thumb’s in her mouth again while Chazarae hovers above her.
“What happened?” I rush out, moving Chazarae out of the way.
“Josh,” she cries, her hand wiping the blood from her mouth.
I ignore Becca for a moment and hold Chaz’s face in my hands. Blood mixed with tears cover her chin. “Did she do this?”
“She didn’t mean it,” she sobs. “I should’ve known better. I shouldn’t have touched her when she’s like this.”
“Like what?” I ask, looking back at Becca. Her eyes are still closed, but that doesn’t stop the tears from falling. She’s rocking back and forth, her free hand covering her head.
I drop to my knees and hesitate, just for a second, before touching her.
She squeals, her cry so loud it makes my ears ring.
“She’s having a nightmare,” Chaz cries. “I can’t snap her out of it.”
“Becca,” I whisper, but it does nothing. As gentle as I can, I touch her bare leg, trying not to spook her. She kicks out, her foot finding my knee.
“Stop,” she cries.
And everything inside me turns to stone. What the fuck happened to her to make her like this?
“I don’t know what to do.” Chazarae sobs, her hand on my shoulder.
“Becca. Baby, I need you to wake up.” I try to shake her shoulder but all it does is make her flinch, make her kick, and make her cry harder.
She grunts loudly and bites down harder on her thumb.
“What the hell’s she doing?” I ask, but it’s not really a question. At least not one that warrants an answer.
She kicks again, only this time I see it coming. I grab both her ankles and hold them together. She resists, using every bit of strength she possibly has to try to get out of my hold. The adrenaline pulses through me, beating wildly in my ears. “Becca.”
“She won’t hear you,” Chazarae cries while I quickly pick up Becca, one arm behind her knees, the other around her back. I carry her to her bed and rock her like a baby.
She fights.
With everything she has.
She fights me off her.
“Becca,” I whisper in her ear, “It’s Josh.” I wipe my tears caused by my guilt against her shoulder—because as much as I don’t want to admit it, I know. Deep down, I know I caused this.
I caused this beautiful, fragile girl to break.
A girl I’m pretty sure I’m in love with.
I hold her tighter, pressing my lips against hers, and I ignore Chazarae in the room.
And I break.
Just like her.
“Baby, please. I’m so sorry.” I run my hands up and down her legs, my mouth on her cheeks, kissing her tears away. “Baby, please, wake up,” I cry.
And slowly, I feel her body relax beneath my touch—her cries fading to whimpers.
I lick her tears off my lips and try to slow the beating of my heart. Carefully, I grasp her wrist and try to pry her thumb away from between her teeth. She bites down harder. So I do the only thing I can think to do. I turn to Chazarae. “She’s okay, she’s coming to. Can you just—I need—”
“I can’t leave her like this,” she says, her voice hoarse from all the crying she’s done.
“I’ll stay with her. I won’t leave. I just need you to trust me.”
“Josh,” Becca whispers, and Chaz and I both sigh, relieved.
Chaz asks, “Is Tommy—”
“He’s not home. I promise you, I’ll take care of her.”
Chaz nods and slowly backs out of the room, switching off the light and closing the door after her.
The moonlight from outside the window illuminates the room, just enough for me to see the outline of Becca’s face. I kiss her lips, and then her thumb, all while I continue to rock her. “Baby, you need to stop.” I try again to remove her hand but she resists. My hand drifts up her bare leg, to her waist, my thumb skimming her stomach. “You said I was your safe place, Becca. And I’m here. Please, baby.”
I kiss her mouth again, hoping I’ll somehow get through to her, and when her hand lands on my leg, fisting the fabric of my sweats, I know it’s working. I open my mouth wider, my tongue skimming the corner of her lips.
Her breathing slows.
So does mine.
“Josh,” she says again.
And I kiss her harder, taking her bottom lip between mine as I slowly reach for her hand again. With tear stained lips, I kiss her with everything I have until her entire body relaxes against mine. Then she parts her mouth, her tongue swiping along mine and I pull her hand away, linking my fingers with hers. My thumb grazes against her thumb, feeling every single bump and dip caused by her teeth.
She whimpers as she returns my kiss, and with each second that passes, the kisses turn more passionate, more needy, more desperate. “Make it stop,” she whispers, her mouth still on mine. “It hurts too much.”
“How? Tell me what to do,” I say, my desperation matching her kiss.
“Touch me. Please, Josh. Just touch me. Make it stop.”
I pull back slowly, my eyes on hers, open for the first time since I came in. She chokes on a single sob—one that should break my heart. But when she whispers my name and cries, “Please, I need you,” it has the opposite effect.
It repairs it.
And for the next hour, I do what she asks. I touch her. Everywhere. My hands, my mouth, everything. Until every single inch of her has felt my touch and her cries of desperation turn to moans of pleasure.
We do everything but have sex—because sex with her is something I don't want to regret. And when her body shudders under my touch, my lips between her legs, and her hands gripping my hair—that’s exactly what I feel.
Regret.
Not because of what we've done.
But because I caused it.
I should've let her talk when she was at my door.
I should've given her a chance to explain.
But my pride out won my sense.
And now we were this—whatever the hell this is.
I move up her body, my mouth dragging along her sweat coated skin. I continue to kiss her neck, her lips, her cheeks, her eyes, her tears.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispers.
“Me too, Becca.” I sigh. “Me too.”
Her fingers comb through my hair while I roll to my side, my head on her chest, listening to her heart thump against my ear.
“My mom—she was in the car with me. The one that crushed my throat.”
I hold my breath, not wanting to move in case she
stops.
“She died.”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
“Olivia was my high school counselor. I didn’t know I had any family and she took me in. Josh…” She tilts my head up so she can look in my eyes. “She knows stuff about my past. Stuff that made me hesitate to tell her about who you were to me. You have to believe me. It has nothing to do with you and everything to do with me. My past—it makes me…this. And I hate this,” she whispers, breaking off on a sob. “You’ve seen me at my worse now. And I can’t handle the pain of it—let alone talk about it. And I don’t want my past to determine my future—and my future is you, Josh. That’s all I can give you. I’m sorry if that isn’t good enough for you.”
Her chest rises and falls against my cheek, her eyes on mine. And I realize now, that she needs me as much as I need her.
I close my eyes and keep them that way.
Because I don’t want her to see me holding back tears.
I don’t respond yet. Because if I do—I’ll tell her how I feel about her.
And she can’t know either of those things. Because even though it feels wrong to be in so deep, so desperate, so dependent on our feelings—on each other—I don’t want it to stop.
But the worst part? She’ll know.
She’ll know that I’m falling in love with her.
And that means she has the power.
The power to destroy me.
And if there’s something I fear more than anything in the entire world—it’s the aftermath of the damage we’ll cause. Because it won’t just be me caught under the fragments of it all, it’ll be Tommy too. And Tommy and I—we don’t need any more destruction.
“Say something, Josh.”
I push back those thoughts and give her a kiss, and with it, I give her my heart. “You’re more than enough.”
17
-Joshua-
For the next few days Becca’s quiet, and not just quiet in that she doesn’t speak, but she’s almost completely unresponsive. Even to Tommy. “I’m going to put Tommy to bed,” I tell her, squeezing her hand before kissing it. “Can you hang back for a while?”
She nods, her gaze distant.
After tucking Tommy in, I sit down on the couch next to her. She hasn’t moved. “Becca?”
She blinks.
I pick her up and sit her on my lap, her legs across mine. I place one of her arms around my neck, and hold the hand of the other. She doesn’t seem to notice any of it. With a sigh, I rub my nose across her cheek and kiss her neck. “What’s wrong, baby? Are you still worried about that night or something?”
Her shoulders lift—just slightly.
“You know it doesn’t change anything, right? It doesn’t change how I feel about you.”
Finally, her eyes move to mine. “I’m so sad,” she whispers, her voice shaky.
And my heart breaks. “Babe…”
She wipes her eyes on my shirt—the wetness from her tears soak through to my skin. “I don’t know why, Josh. It’s like… I’m here but I’m not. And I can’t shake it.”
“Well, you’ve stayed here every night so I know you haven’t had any more nightmares. Is there something else going on?”
She shakes her head, a frown on her lips as she tries to hold back another sob. “I think I’m going crazy,” she says. “Just being in the house all day waiting for you to come home… I don’t know…”
I scratch my head, trying to come up with a way to help her. “You know Tommy’s birthday’s coming up and I wanted to throw him a party—but work’s been crazy lately and I haven’t had a chance to plan anything. I was going to ask if you could help me out.”
She sits up a little higher—at least I know she’s actually hearing me.
“It doesn’t have to be big,” I add. “Just family and close friends. He’s never had a party before. I thought it’d be cool now that you’re part of our lives… we can celebrate it together?”
The tiniest hint of a smile forms on her perfectly beautiful face. She nods; her arms around my neck squeezing me tighter. “I want to do it,” she whispers. “But I want it to be a surprise, okay?”
★★★
When Becca said she wanted it to be a surprise, I was kind of confused, but I let her do it anyway. And now I know why. She isn’t throwing Tommy a party as much as she’s throwing me one. She’s gone all out with skateboard themed decorations and a skateboard cake and even though the only people here are Robby, Kim, Hunter and Chloe and of course, Grams, she put so much time and thought into every single detail. And while I can still see a hint of the same sadness she’d been carrying with her lately, she doesn’t let it show. At least not to anyone else. She makes an effort to listen in on conversations—which is probably why her and Chloe take an instant liking to each other. Chloe talks. Becca listens. At one point, I even hear Becca speak—something about magnets. She also makes sure to capture every single moment with her camera. It’s kind of sad that Tommy won’t remember this—but I sure as hell will. I’ll remember today for the rest of my life, because it’s the first day since Tommy was born that I realized something.
Tommy and I—we have support.
But above that, we have family.
I come up behind her as she pins more images onto the collage she’d made filled with pictures of Tommy and I.
Her hand covers mine resting on her stomach. “Do you like it?” she whispers.
“I love it,” I tell her. “I love everything about this day. You’re kind of amazing, you know that? This… All of this. It means everything to me, Becca. Everything.”
She tilts her head up to look at me but I’m too busy scanning all the different pictures. The one of me in the hospital holding him for the first time. Me giving him his first bath. Me with him sleeping peacefully on my chest. Him sitting on a skateboard with a hood over his head and his first pair of sunglasses with me behind him taking the picture. There had to be over a hundred pictures. Each one of just my son and I. I let out a nervous laugh. “You’ve got me in every single one.”
She doesn’t answer for a while, so I finally look down at her. She’s already watching me, her lips pulled down to a frown. Then she reaches up and cups my face. “Well, yeah, Tommy’s three years old today, that means you raised him for three years. You. And you did an amazing job because look at him,” she says, pointing to the pictures. “Look how beautiful he is. How happy he is. You did that, Josh. You gave him a life worth smiling about.” She pauses a beat. “We’re not just here to celebrate Tommy’s birthday. We’re all here to celebrate you.”
★★★
“I tired. I go bed,” Tommy says through a yawn, standing up from the couch.
I stand up too. “You sure, bud? You don’t want to watch the end of the movie?”
He shakes his head.
“All right, I’ll come tuck you in.”
Raising a hand, he says, “I’m free. I go nigh nighs by my own now.”
A chuckle bubbles out of me as I sit back down. “Okay then.”
“Fank you for my party.”
“That was all Becca, Tommy. She did it all.”
He steps forward, his arms tight around my neck. “Good night, Daddy, I love you.”
“Aw. I love you, too, bud.”
He releases me and hugs Becca. “Good night, Mommy, I love you.”
Becca tenses, her eyes wide.
I hold my breath, my mind racing and I try come up with a quick explanation, or at least a response. “Um, no, Tommy…” I grab his arm and gently stand him in front of me. “Tommy, Becca—she’s not your mommy.”
His eyes lock on mine, so innocent and pure, and he just stands there waiting for me to give him the answers he needs but the words are caught in my throat and I can’t—“Where’s my mommy, Daddy?”
I look at Becca. “Can you give us a minute?”
-Becca-
It should be impossible to feel so much at once.
Love.
Hate.
/>
Envy.
Despair.
Sadness.
Guilt.
Yet here I am, sitting on the steps just outside their door, and I feel all of it. It’s like a weight pulling down on my heart and the only thing I can do to survive is breathe.
Through the pain.
The excitement.
The longing for something that isn’t mine.
That never will be.
Inhale.
Exhale.
My phone buzzes in my hand, pulling me from my thoughts.
Joshua: Are you able to come back?
Becca: I’m just outside on the stairs.
A moment later he steps out, his hands in his pockets and his eyes on mine. “You waited for me?”
With a shrug, I say, “I figure you might need to talk.” I wait for him to sit down next to me before asking, “How did it go?”
He leans forward, his elbows on his knees and looks up at the stars—the stars that were once so bright now dim because of my emotions. He clears his throat before speaking. “It was hard.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I knew that at some point he’d ask. I’ve thought about it so many times—everything that I would say to him. But to actually say it…” He inhales sharply. “I think it’s more that I don’t really have an answer for him. I wanted to tell him that his mom just wasn’t around, but that she still loved him… and I couldn’t even do that because I don’t know if it’s true. And I’m scared that it’s something he’s going to feel for the rest of his life. He’s going to wonder where she is and why she doesn’t want him. I think that’s what I worry about the most; that he’s going to think less of himself, and less of me, because of her. And I don’t want that for him.”
I hug his arm to my chest and kiss it once. “I know, babe.”
“I’m sorry, Becca,” he says, and I pull back surprised.
“Why are you sorry?”
“Because I froze when he said it to you. I should’ve said something then and there. I don’t want you to think I’m not happy he thinks of you like that—like you’re his mom—because to him, you’re the closest thing to one… I just don’t want to confuse him and I think that’s what’s happening—especially with you spending the night and us kissing around him and—”