Withholding Nothing

by Victoria Bright

  “I’m fine. I’ll drive slow,” I said, bounding up the stairs as fast as my stilettos would allow and rushing out of the door. The summer heat smacked me in the face as soon as I stepped outside, sending a wave of nausea through me. I regretted having all of that whiskey in my belly now. Wandering through cars in the parking lot, I finally found mine and slipped inside. Ava and Alex called my name in the distance, but I had to leave. I couldn’t be here anymore.

  Resting my head on the headrest, I screamed and hit my steering wheel until my hands throbbed with pain. I hated him for what he’d done. I hated myself for not knowing how something was wrong with our relationship before it got to the point of him cheating on me. I hated life for being so cruel and having this happen to me. Most of all, I hated my heart because despite everything, I still loved him.

  Fucking Steve.

  Wiping my eyes, I started the engine with the push of a button and eased my Nissan Altima out of the parking space. I glanced in my rearview mirror to see Ava and Alex standing in the middle of the parking lot looking around, still trying to find me. A part of me felt guilty. I knew they only wanted to help, but I needed to get away. I knew better than to expose myself to Steve. As I drove down the dark backstreets, so many thoughts ran through my mind. Why wasn’t I enough? What did I do wrong? Was I not adventurous enough? Was I no longer attractive to him?

  After a few minutes of torment, I brought the Bluetooth on my dashboard to life. “Call Steve,” I stated with a sniffle. The dash repeated my command and dialed the number. The endless ringing flowing through the speakers tormented me. Would he answer when he saw my number? What would happen if he did? Would he even want to talk to me?

  I didn’t have to worry about the latter question because his voicemail soon filled the space around me. “Hey, you’ve reached Steve. I can’t take your call right now, so leave your name, number, and a message and I’ll get back with you as soon as I can.” The sound of his voice nearly caused me to fall apart. His voice always brought me comfort, but now it was just a painful reminder of what I didn’t have. A beep went off, signaling that I could record my message.

  “Steve…it’s Ashton. I don’t know if you remember, but today makes three months since you broke my heart. Do you even remember that?” My chest constricted as the memories flooded in, making it hard to breathe. My buzz turned into a blurry fog, preparing to be combined with anger and pain. “I gave you everything and you left me with nothing!” I screamed before sobbing. “What did I ever do to deserve this? When did you stop loving me? How could you do this to me? You’re a piece of shit asshole who did nothing but feed me empty promises!” I screamed, slamming my fist down on my steering wheel.

  As I wailed onto his answering machine, I didn’t notice my speedometer needle moving higher and higher.

  Fifty.

  Fifty-five.

  Sixty.

  Seventy.

  “I fucking loved you and this is how you—SHIT!” I exclaimed as something flew onto the hood of my car, sending me swerving off the road. After a failed attempt to regain control of the wheel, I landed in a shallow ditch, hitting my head against the steering wheel seconds before the airbag deployed.

  “Fuck,” I winced, holding my head. A warm liquid rolled down my forehead and dripped off my eyelashes. My head throbbed, everything still spinning around me as acid rose up my throat. I opened the car door and leaned out, throwing up in the grass. It was hard to believe that this was my life. Here I was on the side of the road being a drunk, hot ass mess while my ex was just living it up unaffected. Taking a few deep breaths, I slowly sat upright in my seat and ended the Bluetooth call, gasping at the sight of my windshield, which was cracked and covered in blood. Oh God.

  The blood from my face drained as I thought of every worst-case scenario. Some people walked along this road at night…what if I hit a pedestrian? I rolled my window down and looked both ways down the road, but was met with nothing but darkness. Trembling, I eased my way out of the car with my phone and walked back to the street where a body laid motionless. Rustling sounded in the trees across the street and a pair of eyes glowed in the distance. I held my phone in my shaking hands, activating my flashlight app and shining it in the direction of the eyes just in time to see a deer run off. I looked down at the body and was filled with slight relief. I’d hit a deer, not a person. At least that eliminates the possibility for manslaughter.

  Smoke came from the hood of my car. There was no way I could drive my car home in this condition.

  “Fuck!” I screamed into the darkness. Even through my drunken state, I knew I’d fucked up big time. Where in the actual hell was I going to find the money to fix this?

  I opened the keypad on my phone screen and paused. I couldn’t call the cops; I’d be asking to be arrested for driving while drunk. Dialing the first person that came to mind, I waited as the phone rang.

  “Ash? Where the hell are you? Are you insane? I hope you are still in the parking lot somewhere!” Ava fussed. I ran a shaky hand through my hair and exhaled.

  “Ava, you’re going to kill me, but I need your help.”

  “Where are you? Are you okay?”

  “I’m not far from the bar. I hit a deer and—”

  “What the hell, Ashton? Did you call the police?”

  “No, and please don’t call them yourself. I’ll be arrested—”

  “Maybe that’s what you need to learn that you shouldn’t do that! You could’ve killed yourself or someone else!” she scolded. I groaned and grabbed my throbbing head.

  “I know, I know, but can you please help me? You can yell at me all you want, but please. I really need you guys right now,” I said.

  She sighed and told Alex what happened. I could hear Alex asking if I were okay while telling Ava to tell me that I was the craziest bitch on the planet for being upset about Steve. I couldn’t expect them to understand. They’d never had their hearts ripped out of their chest and stomped on, or been betrayed by one of their best friends. They didn’t have their safety net and comfortable life stripped away from them without a moment’s notice. They had no idea how great the pain was and how hard it was to get over him.

  “Fine, we’re on our way. I’ll call Jared and have him bring his tow truck to get your car. You know he won’t do this for free—”

  “I’ll pay your brother. Just hurry; it’s scary out here,” I said.

  “Okay. Just wait in your car and I’ll call Jared,” she said and hung up. I scurried back into the car and sank down in my seat. My head pounded from the intake of whiskey as well as the hit to the head. Turning the light on once more, I looked at my reflection and saw a purple knot forming on my head and dried up blood.

  I sighed. “Thank God I don’t have to show my face to be a phone sex operator,” I mumbled to myself, slapping the mirror up and turning the light back off.

  ∞∞∞

  Headlights appeared in my rearview mirror fifteen minutes later as a tow truck pulled up in front of my car. Jared stepped out of the truck and walked over to my window. “Wow, it looks like you’re growing a second head,” he said once he saw me. I scowled and got out of the car.

  “Shut up, Jared. I’m fine, thanks for asking,” I spat. He shrugged.

  “When you make stupid decisions, you get no sympathy from me,” he said as he examined the damage. I folded my arms across my chest.

  “How much is this going to cost me?” I asked, shifting my weight to the other foot.

  He tapped his chin as if in deep thought before saying, “$350.”

  “$350?” I repeated, my voice raising an octave. Did this bastard think money grew on trees?

  He chewed on the toothpick in his mouth. “Well, would you rather call the police and have them find someone to get your car out of the ditch? I’m sure $350 is a lot cheaper than a bail bond,” he said with a smirk.

  I glared at him and shook my head. “Fine, I’ll pay you in the morning,” I snapped. He walked off to hook my car up
to the back of the truck as Ava appeared next to me.

  “Wow, do you need to go to a hospital or something? That’s a pretty bad bump on your head,” she said, reaching out to touch my forehead.

  I flinched away and shook my head. “I just want to go home,” I said, walking over to her car. She talked with her brother as I got in the passenger seat of her Jeep and glanced in the backseat, noticing that Alex wasn’t there.

  “Did you take Alex home already?” I asked when she got in the car. She nodded without a word as she started the engine and continued down the road.

  The ride to my house was awkward and long. She appeared as if she wanted to say something, but she kept her lips in a tight line. When we arrived outside of my apartment building, she finally turned to me and frowned.

  “You can’t let Steve run your life,” she said. I nodded in agreement, but said nothing else. She sighed and patted my hand. “Ashton, I can’t sit here and say I understand your pain or what you’re going through, but maybe you’ll get over it quicker if you just move on with someone else—”

  “It’s not that easy, Ava. Even if I move on, I’ll be paranoid that someone else will do the same thing,” I snapped. She sat quiet for a moment, carefully thinking over her next words.

  “Everyone isn’t like Steve—”

  “Who said that Steve was even the problem? Maybe I’m the problem. Maybe I did something wrong to mess up what we had and—”

  “You can’t blame yourself for what happened, Ashton. You didn’t make him cheat. There’s something messed up in him that made him do that, not something you did,” she coaxed. A few sneaky tears rolled down my cheeks before I had a chance to stop them.

  I knew she was right, but it didn’t make it any easier to accept. Wiping my eyes, I took a deep breath and gave her a small smile. “Thanks. I’ll be fine though. I should probably just call it a night,” I said.

  “Do you need me to walk you to your door?”

  “No, that’s okay. I’ll call you in the morning,” I said and got out of the Jeep. She stayed in the parking lot until I entered my apartment, honking as she left out.

  As soon as I locked the door behind me, my stomach churned violently, sending me running to the bathroom. I barely made it to the toilet before I came face to face with the drinks I’d consumed earlier in the night. I threw up until nothing remained, my dry heaving echoing in the porcelain toilet bowl. I flushed the toilet and sank to the floor, resting my arm on the toilet seat and putting my head down.

  I somehow managed to survive my three-month dumpiversary. Just a few weeks ago, I cried myself to sleep on Ava’s couch, devastated and scared of what the future would hold since I was officially alone. Now I sat on my bathroom floor with my head almost in the toilet, feeling as much pain as I did that night. Nothing had changed other than my car being wrecked and the huge shiner on my forehead that would hurt like a bitch in the morning.

  Trying to ease the pounding in my head, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. One thing remained the same though. Just like that night, only one thought swam around in my mind before drifting off.

  Fucking Steve.

  Go figure.

  Chapter Two

  O’Shea

  “You have seventeen new messages. First message…”

  I sighed inwardly, already knowing who majority, if not all, of the messages were from.

  “Shea…it’s Kayla. I’ve been trying to get in touch with you since…everything happened. Can we at least talk about it? I really didn’t mean to—”

  “Message deleted. Next message.”

  “It’s me again. Please call me back—”

  “Message deleted. Next message.”

  “Shea, it’s your mother. Kayla has been calling me nonstop asking where you’ve run off to and I’m running out of things to tell her. Give me a call when you get a chance. I love you, son.”

  “Message deleted. Next message.”

  I went through the rest of the messages, deleting them halfway through whenever I’d heard Kayla’s voice. This had been my routine ever since I’d left Virginia, listening and deleting all voicemails and text messages from her. I was sure she’d said everything she’d needed to say during our last conversation, so I was no longer interested in hearing what she wanted to talk about three months later.

  “Morning, Smith,” my boss, Rocky, said as he walked out of his small office. I looked up from my phone and gave him a small smile.

  “Morning, Rocky. How’s that arthritis treating you today?”

  “Eh, I ain’t no spring chicken, but I’ll manage. Got my sidekick with me today,” he answered, taking a bottle of Aleve out of the pocket of his overalls and giving it a shake.

  I chuckled. “That’s good then,” I said, following him out of the waiting area of the repair shop and into the garage.

  “Oh yeah, since I like ya so much, I’m assigning you the doozy that came in last night,” Rocky said as he unlocked the door to the garage.

  “A doozy? That bad?”

  “From what I’ve heard, yeah. It was late when it came in, so I haven’t seen it just yet. Jared called me to let me know he was dropping it off. I guess we’re both in for a surprise,” he said, pulling the door open.

  “Shit,” I mumbled when the car came into view. Blood covered the middle of the badly cracked windshield and hood, mud covering the bumper that looked as if it hung by a miracle.

  “Looks like it’ll be quite a fix,” Rocky said as I continued staring at the car.

  “What the hell did they hit? An elephant?” I asked. He was definitely right about the car being quite a fix. Dollar signs racked up in my mind as I continued to examine the damage. The owner of the car was already looking at a hefty bill and I hadn’t even looked under the hood yet.

  “Not an elephant, but a deer. You know those son of a bitches are everywhere around these parts. Hit the deer and landed right in a ditch,” Rocky said and clasped my shoulder with a firm hand.

  I nodded and rubbed the stubble growing along my jawline. “That explains the mud then,” I said with a sigh. My phone rang in my pocket, setting my teeth on edge.

  “That ex of yours again, eh?” Rocky asked.

  “Probably so,” I said with a sigh.

  “If she’s still chasing you after three months, maybe she wants to reconsider,” he said and walked away. I ground my teeth. Just because she may be ready to reconsider didn’t mean I was. I’d leave her to simmer for a little while longer.

  Crunching gravel snapped me out of my musings, revealing a Jeep Cherokee coming down the driveway.

  “Ah, there’s my niece,” Rocky said, taking a few steps out of the garage as the Jeep rolled to a stop next to the damaged Nissan Altima. When the three women stepped out, it wasn’t hard to spot which one was the owner of the car.

  “What…the…fuck,” she exclaimed, making her way over to the car and examining the damage. She removed the baseball cap from her head and ran a frustrated hand through her black hair, revealing a huge knot on her forehead. Despite the alien egg growing out of her head, the woman was fucking gorgeous. Her baby blue eyes scanned the car as she nibbled on her bottom lip, stress tightening her baby doll features. My eyes drifted along her body, my gaze briefly settling on the tops of her breasts exposed by the fitted tank top she wore. Her Daisy Dukes put her long, slender legs on display and her ass was something to marvel. I definitely wonder what it would be like to have those legs wrapped around my—

  “Don’t drown yourself in your own drool, kid,” Rocky joked under his breath as he went out to meet the women. “Ashton, Ava, Alex—so good to see you again.”

  “Same, Uncle Rocky,” the petite blonde said with a smile as she hugged Rocky. “You really need to get that driveway of yours fixed. I could’ve messed up my tires or my suspension coming down here.”

  “Well, how else would I get customers?” he teased, chucking her under the chin.

  I stepped out of the garage and over to th
e dark-haired beauty. When she didn’t notice my presence, I cleared my throat and put my hands in my pockets.

  “You must be the deer killer,” I stated with a smirk. The stress that once filled her face quickly morphed into irritation.

  “Excuse me?” she spat. So sexy when she’s mad.

  I nodded toward her car. “This is your car, isn’t it? The one you hit the deer with last night?”

  She folded her arms across her chest, narrowing her eyes at me. “Were you there to see me hit it?” she asked.

  And she was a smart ass. How cute.

  “Well, with the blood on your car, the alien egg on your forehead there, and the fact that you’re not in jail for hitting a person…I think it’s safe to assume you’re the deer killer,” I stated, the smirk never leaving my face. Her tanned skin turned a light shade of red as she placed the baseball cap back on her head, trying to rearrange her bangs to hide the knot. I glanced over to her two friends, both of them watching us with grins plastered to their faces.

  “Hey, space cadet, want to come back to Earth to tell me the damage or are you just going to stare at my friends?” she snapped.

  “You’re funny, you know that?” I mused, wagging my finger at her. She rolled her eyes. “First, I’ll properly introduce myself. I’m—”

  “An asshole,” she interrupted, folding her arms across her chest. I chuckled.

  “Sadly, that isn’t it, though I’ve been called that plenty of times.”

  “Yeah, I don’t doubt that,” she muttered under her breath. “Look, I don’t care what your name is. Just tell me what’s going on with my car.”

  “The deer killer is impatient, I see,” I said, ignoring the glare she gave me. “In order to get an idea, I need to know the details of what happened.”

  She looked at me with wide eyes and exaggerated shock as she placed her hand on her chest. “Details, you say?” she asked. “But I thought you had it all figured out ‘considering that I’m not in jail, that there’s blood all over my car, and I have an alien egg on my head,’ remember? Now Inspector Gadget wants details!”