Broken Fairytales

by Monica Alexander

  “Princess, I don’t think you realize what you do to me,” he said. “Do you know how incredible sexy you are?”

  “I can guess by the way you keep looking at me.”

  Thank God I was buzzed or I would have been really embarrassed about saying that, but I didn’t have time to dwell on that thought for very long.

  “Looking at you isn’t all I’m going to do,” he said then as he lifted me and settled my legs around his waist as the waves gently rolled in around us.

  ***

  “Seriously, what got into you tonight,” Zack asked, as we lay on the blanket at the mouth of the cave, wrapped up in the towels I’d brought, looking up at the millions of stars overhead. Every now and then his lips would land on my shoulder, sending electric currents down to my stomach and beyond.

  “Hey, you’re the one who insisted on giving me a playbook on how the night was to enfold with those sexy drinks you kept making – I just went along with your suggestions.”

  He laughed. “I never expected you to be so literal, but I’m so glad you were. Please assume that I’ll continue to make subtle insinuations as I see fit, because holy shit that was fun.”

  “Come on, you don’t use that trick on all the girls you meet?” I teased. “Tell me you haven’t used alcohol and this secluded beach to lure women before?”

  “You make me sound like a sex offender,” Zack scoffed.

  I laughed. “No, seriously, that was a pretty sneaky seduction maneuver. You had to have practiced it before.”

  “Sorry, first time I ever tried it. You inspired me with your request for a sexy drink. It’s too bad you’re such a lightweight, because I could have made tonight’s playbook a little more interesting with all the potentially suggestive drinks I could make.”

  “I think it was plenty interesting,” I said, as I ran my hand over his bare stomach. “Besides, who said the game’s over?”

  “See, this is what I meant by mysterious. Just when I think you’re going to do one thing, you do something else entirely. You are not the same girl who skittishly hopped on the back of my bike a few days ago. What gives?”

  He could read me too well. I twisted so I was facing him, my head propped up on my elbow. “Honestly?”

  He nodded.

  “When I didn’t hear from you for a few days, I was afraid I might have scared you away. I know my announcement the other day sort of freaked you out, so I wanted to be sure you really knew I wasn’t looking for anything serious.”

  “So you figured leather and skinny-dipping would do the trick?”

  “Did you not like it?” I asked teasingly.

  Zack laughed. “Oh, no, I definitely liked it. It just not you – not that I wouldn’t want you to do it again, multiple times – but I know it’s not you.”

  I raised my eyebrows at him. “How do you know it’s not me?”

  “Because you’re a good girl,” he said simply, as he landed his lips on my shoulder once more, and I felt like smacking him.

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I asked, sitting up abruptly, the words ‘good girl’ grating on the inside of my ears.

  “Hey,” Zack said, sitting up with me. “I didn’t mean that as a bad thing, okay.”

  “Then how did you mean it?” I ask tersely. “Because, from where I’m sitting, next to a guy who drives a motorcycle, is pierced and tattooed to high hell, who professed to having slight alcoholic tendencies, and who has girls who could pose in Playboy throwing themselves at him on a regular basis, I’m thinking ‘good girls’ like me probably aren’t your thing, so forgive me for thinking you wouldn’t want to be with someone like me.”

  Zack head fell back in exasperation, and for a minute I thought I’d taken things too far. When he lifted his head, he glanced at me for a second before shifting his gaze to the ocean.

  “Stereotype much?” he asked, shaking his head, his eyes locked on a distant point.

  “Hey, I know the kind of girls who are into my brother, and you’re not much different from him. You’re a bad boy, Zack, and I’m fine with it. Hell, I think it’s hot, but come on. You and I don’t exactly go together, so I figured I’d do something to change that.”

  When he finally looked over at me, there was coldness in his eyes, but it didn’t seem to be completely directed at me. “I never ask you to change who you are,” he said softly, and he looked incredibly hurt that I’d assume that.

  As soon as the words were out of his mouth, the guilt I felt for judging him and assuming he wanted me to change for him washed over me like a tidal wave. Nothing he’d done since I’d met him had given me any reason to believe he didn’t like me just as I was, so why was I being overly sensitive? I was pretty sure I knew the answer to that question.

  “I know you didn’t,” I said, looking down, the guilt eating away at me.

  “And just because I own a Harley, have a few tattoos and one piercing, doesn’t mean I’m a ‘bad boy’,” he said, his eyes ablaze with conviction. “So if you figured you might go slumming this summer in an effort to try something new and reinvent yourself, I’m not your guy.”

  My mouth dropped open. “No, Zack,” I said, shaking my head. “That wasn’t my intention. I never thought that.”

  Zack didn’t respond to me at first, and I was afraid I’d really pissed him off. His jaw was set and his gaze was fixed on the rocks we’d climbed over to get to his spot. I wondered how much he wanted to get up and leave in that moment and I really hoped he wouldn’t.

  “Just so you know,” he said calmly, and it seemed like he was fighting to keep his emotions in check. “I haven’t been that kind of guy – a ‘bad boy’ as you put it – for a long time, and if you’d been paying attention tonight, you’d know that I was polite and cordial to those girls, but not once did I engage in any type of reciprocated flirtation. As you demanded, my mind was in one place, and a much as I appreciated what you were wearing, I would have been fine if you’d had on jeans and flip-flops.”

  “I know, Zack. I’m sorry,” I said, after a few beats, looking over at him in an effort to gauge how mad he was.

  “I like you, Emily,” he said, catching my gaze, the intensity in his eyes apparent. “I like you for you. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.”

  “I know,” I said, looking down again as a new wave of guilt washed over me.

  He leaned over and pulled me against him, taking me by surprise as his lips, hungry for mine, kissed me with more intensity than I’d ever felt from him. It was as if he was pouring his previous emotions into that moment and that kiss, in an effort to show me just how he felt.

  “Just do me a favor,” he said, when he broke the kiss, his gaze burning a hole through me. “Don’t lose sight of who you are. Don’t do it.”

  “Okay,” I said, not sure what he was getting at. His words were fierce and determined, and I didn’t know what was fueling them.

  He shook his head a few times, as if frustrated with my level of comprehension. “Emily, I know you’re dealing with a lot and trying to figure out who you want to be, but just know that there’s nothing wrong with being a good person and doing the right things in life. Just from getting to know you these past few weeks, I can tell you I like the person you are when you’re vulnerable and honest and not trying to force yourself into some mold. That girl is sweet and kind, and she’s a ‘good girl’, and I like her because of that.”

  I opened my mouth to protest, but he stopped me.

  “No. Just hear me out. I get that you feel like you were stunted somehow, and you have to make up for all the times when you played it safe in life, and that’s okay, but don’t lose sight of who you truly are while you’re doing that.”

  I shook my head. “Who I was, was boring and cautious and scared. I don’t want to be that person again. I want to be fun and take risks and not care so much. I want to be the girl I was tonight, who didn’t care what people thought about her, who had confidence and wasn’t constantly weighing the outcome of every
decision she made. I was trying to be the girl you told me I should be.”

  Zack leaned his head back against the rock frustration. “The girl you were tonight was fun and brazen and sexy as hell, but it pisses me off that you were trying so hard to be her, because you thought that’s what I wanted.”

  “So, you didn’t like it?” I said, confused and irritated by his conflicting statements.

  “No, I loved it, because I thought it was an act. It was dress up. It was you having fun and letting go. If I thought for one second that you were doing it because you felt you had to change for me, I would have driven you straight home to change your clothes.”

  I threw my hands up in frustration. “I don’t know what you want from me!”

  “I want you to be who you want to be. Stop trying so hard and just be happy! If you want to drink, drink, if you don’t, don’t. If you want to hole up in your room and read a book instead of going to a party, then own it. Have the confidence to be who you are, and allow others the courtesy of being who they are, without judgment. I think you’ll find that you’re a lot happier when you do, but if you want to make your life more interesting, then do the right things in life to be more interesting, Emily, because at the end of the day, you can’t change who you’ve been for twenty-one years overnight. And if you go to such extremes to try to do that, you’ll wake up one day even more lost that you were to begin with, and it’s not a fun place to be.”

  He took a deep breath and looked at me, searching my eyes to see if I’d pulled anything away from his diatribe. I fingered his hair that was falling over his forehead. Looking down at me, his hair falling around his face, he looked so angelic. I touched his full lips, running my finger over them, tracing their perfection.

  “Okay,” I said, nodding my head a few times.

  It was like his words had hit me over the head, and I saw exactly what he was talking about. I’d been pushing and pulling myself in so many directions in an effort to find the right one that I was just walking in circles, never really reaching a destination. I was trying to be who I thought Chase thought I should be and Rachel and Molly and Zack, and it was exactly what I’d done my entire life, but what I should have realized was that everyone I was trying to emulate was an individual in their own right and couldn’t be duplicated. What I should have been doing was carving out who I wanted to be and what made me an individual.

  Zack kissed me once, his lips pressing against mine, and smiled. It was as if he had seen the light bulb go off above my head. When he pulled away, he leaned his forehead against mine for a few beats as we both basked in the intimacy in being that close to someone.

  “Zack, I don’t want you to think I’m stepping over my bounds here, but you sound like you’re speaking from experience,” I said, biting my lip and appraising him as he pulled away from me.

  “I am,” he said. He seemed guarded all of a sudden as he looked up at me through his thick lashes. “I’m not proud of it, but there was a point in my life where I did a lot of things I shouldn’t have and made some really stupid decisions that almost cost me everything. I realized too late that I was trying to be who I thought I wanted to be, and when I stepped back and looked at my life, I knew that wasn’t who I wanted to be in the long run.”

  “Who do you want to be in the long run?” I asked, realizing he’d never really talked about the future. When he’d opened up a few nights earlier, it had all been about the past, and even then it seemed he’d left out a few key details.

  “Someone who my mom can be proud of,” he said simply.

  “I think that’s sweet,” I said.

  “It’s the least I can do,” he said softly, his gaze dropping. “I disappointed her a lot, so I’m just glad I get the chance to show her that I really am a good person.”

  “Zack, you are a good person,” I insisted, lifting his chin so he was looking at me.

  He regarded me carefully, as if weighing how much he wanted to share. “I wasn’t. For a long time, I let a lot of shit go to my head, and I did a lot of things I wish I could take back. I thought I was invincible. Then I found out I wasn’t.”

  He leaned back and raked his hand back through his hair, and I waited for him to continue, hoping he would give me some insight into what he’d done and what had happened, but he didn’t say anything else, and I was left to guess what sort of objectionable things he’d took refuge in.

  He shook his head. “My mom found out about some of the things I was into, and she was pissed – really pissed which was surprising, because my mom had always been really cool. She never cared about my bike or my tattoos like my dad did; she just wanted me to be happy, so I figured she’d be cool about the other stuff but she wasn’t. When she found out, she laid into me like she never had before, and I don’t think I’ve ever felt like I was letting her down more. Then she told me her cancer was back.” He shuddered, as if remembering the conversation.

  My jaw dropped as multiple questions fought to come out of my mouth, but I held them in. As much as I felt inclined to ask for details, a part of me almost didn’t want to know, because if I thought about it, I could probably figure it out what exactly he’d been into, and truthfully, if he wasn’t that guy anymore, then I really didn’t need to know.

  “That must have been a hard way to find out she was sick again.”

  He nodded. “It was, but it also smacked me into reality, and she knew it. I quit everything right then and there – gave it all up. I knew what she was dealing with and what the next few months would hold, and there was no way I was going to add me to her list of things to worry about. She needed to focus on her treatments. She did not need to sit around wondering if one day she was going to get a phone call from a police officer letting her know her son was dead. I couldn’t do that to her.”

  My head was spinning. The download of information he’d just given me was overwhelming, and I wasn’t sure how to process it all. Zack was watching me intensely, as if trying to gauge my reaction.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to rethink things?” he asked, and I knew he was asking again if I wanted to take a chance on him.

  He’d told me how he felt, so I knew he didn’t want me to walk away, but he also knew that with everything he’d just disclosed, walking away might be an appealing option for me, and he was giving me an out if I wanted one.

  I swallowed and leaned up on my elbows in an effort to get my bearings. He was so different than any other guy I’d ever dated, and I had a feeling he’d never dated someone like me before. He was skeptical, and honestly, he probably expected me to bail after everything he’d told me. So because of that, I wouldn’t do that to him.

  “Is it true that you don’t date?” I asked, diverting the conversation.

  “I’m here with you,” he said, and I could tell I’d caught him off-guard.

  I laughed, and it came out a little forced. “If this is your definition of a date, then I feel sorry for the girls you go out with.”

  “Well what would you call this then?” he asked, and his mouth curved up into his trademark smirk, as despondent, sullen Zack disappeared and was replaced by the playful guy I’d been with most of the night. He was a master at flipping the switch on his emotions.

  “I would call this having fun,” I said, teasingly. “Or at the very least, friends with benefits, but this is definitely not a date.”

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right,” he said as he leaned forward and kissed me, no doubt trying to distract me from my train of thought.

  “So is this what you do with girls?” I asked, giving in to his kisses, but using my tremendous multi-tasking skills to get him to answer my original question.

  “Not really,” he said, as he kissed his way to my ear. “What’s with the third degree?”

  He whispered that before he nibbled on my ear, and I let my head drop back as remembered feelings from our time in the ocean hit me once again.

  “Daphne told me I shouldn’t waste my time with you because you don�
��t date,” I said, just a little breathlessly.

  “Oh yeah? Well Daphne needs to mind her own business,” he said, as he tugged at my towel. I let it fall to my waist as his lips moved lower over my breasts.

  “I think she likes you,” I said, my breath becoming shallower with each passing moment.

  “I think I like you,” he said, looking up at me with those thick-lashed light brown eyes that made me lose my focus when I stared directly into them.

  “Well, in that case, carry on,” I said, giving in to him once and for all, my burning questions forgotten.

  Chapter Nineteen

  That Friday, after much cajoling, I convinced Zack to let me see him play his regular gig at Phil’s. I could tell he was nervous for me to watch him play, but he tried to hide it as he sat me at a table right up front with a bucket of Coronas. After setting up his equipment, he had a few minutes before he had to go on, so he sat with me and had a few beers to calm his nerves.

  He was in a good mood that night and had been for the past few days. We hadn’t talked about that night on the beach and our intense conversation again, but I hadn’t forgotten any of what he’d said. I knew he had a dark past, but I also knew he was trying his hardest to keep it in the past, so I did what I could and tried to keep things light and just focused on having fun with him.

  “Do you like living here?” I asked, as I wedged a lime into my beer, put my thumb over the top and tipped it upside down.

  He took a long swig of his beer, and I noticed he’d taken the ring out of his eyebrow again. I could guess why, looking around at the patrons of the bar who were waiting anxiously for him to play.

  “I live at the beach,” he said, pulling my focus back to him “What’s not to like.”

  It was obvious he was talking a good game. I could tell he was holding back, but didn’t want to press the issue. Living on the island was a blessing and a curse for him, and I wondered how alone he felt when the place wasn’t bustling with the summer crowds and his family wasn’t visiting.