More Than a Memory

by Marie James

  “Yeah, well, I shouldn’t have this one out, but that sophomore chick I was banging found out about the freshman chick I fucked last week and she won’t do my damn assignments anymore. She even warned all the other chicks in class about me, so I can’t find anyone to do them. Fucked up, right?” He looks over at me, expecting commiseration, but he doesn’t find any.

  “Sorry, man.” I slap him on the back, trying to seem as comforting as possible. I wonder how the guy is still in school and on the team if this is how he is.

  “Air mattress is in the closet. I hope you don’t mind the light.” He nods his head to his oblivious roommate. “Jackass over there will be up all night playing video games and jerking off, and from the looks of this shit, I won’t be getting much sleep either.”

  “No big deal. I appreciate it.” I reach into the closet and grab the air mattress out, knowing I won’t get any sleep tonight either.

  I’ve spent weeks falling asleep with Olivia wrapped in my arms and waking up with her warm breath on my bare chest. There’s no way I can rest easy knowing she’s alone in the apartment, but I have the twisted hope that she is wondering where I am and missing me as much as I miss her.

  * * *

  My alarm blares in my ear what seems like only an hour after I finally pass out. Feeling like I got crushed by a bulldozer, I sit up in the dip of the air mattress and my ass hits the ground since it lost half of its air last night.

  “Damn it,” I grumble, looking at the time on my phone. I had to have reset the alarm when it went off the first time even though I have no recollection of it. With ten minutes to get to class, I don’t have time to go home for a shower, or even to change my clothes.

  I slip my shoes on and roll the air mattress up as fast as I can. Liam is passed out face down with his head on his history book, drool pooling and ruining the pages, and his creepy ass roommate is passed out in his office chair. Stopping by the book store, I grab a notebook and a pen, because my books are still in my backpack at the end of the couch where I dropped them yesterday after finding Olivia watching those damn videos.

  I groan as I sit down in my first class, hoping it goes by as fast as possible and praying I can concentrate on something other than Olivia Dawson.

  Chapter 35

  Olivia

  A tear rolls down my cheek when my suspicions are confirmed. I close his bedroom door, an ache I can’t describe spreading throughout my chest. I hoped he eventually came home and slept in his own bed, but I never heard him come in. I waited up until the early hours of morning, praying, but to no avail. He should be home from class by now.

  Knowing he didn’t sleep in this apartment makes me wonder where he did stay, and with who. Simone comes to mind and the thought sours my stomach. He doesn’t seem like the type, but he was more upset than I’ve ever seen him.

  I walk into the kitchen and get a bottle of water from the fridge. Coffee would be too strong for my stomach this morning. I grab my laptop and pull it into my lap as I plop down on the sofa. It’s mid-afternoon and I know he’ll be home soon. I refuse to let him ignore me today. I let him walk out last night without a word, but that can’t happen today. I need him as much as he seems to need me, a realization that hit not long after he was gone. We have to work through this. There’s a way to compromise here, but we can’t do that if he’s gone—hell, it may not even be an option depending on what he did last night after he left in a rage.

  I surf around on social media for a while, wondering why I even bother. I don’t post, never comment or engage…I even have my status always set to offline, but I can’t help it. I do care about what my former friends are doing and how their lives are going, even if they don’t realize I’m creeping on their pages.

  An email alert dings, so I open that window.

  The only time Bryson has emailed me was when he confirmed the list of house rules I demanded he acknowledge when he first moved in, but sitting in my inbox is an email from him. The subject line is blank, which is ominous. My hand trembles as I move the mouse, hovering over the email. I’m terrified it’s going to detail his plan to move out and break his lease.

  I push the laptop away, staring at the seemingly innocuous name, knowing it’s going to change my life forever. Rip the Band-Aid off, right?

  I give in, preparing myself for the pain, only to find the email contains a smiley face and a Word doc titled Love Letter for You. I grin at it. Even as upset as he was last night, he sends something like this. A crumb of hope that what we were building isn’t destroyed settles inside me.

  I click on the attachment with a wide smile on my face. It opens, then closes immediately. I click on it again, and the same thing happens. Is this some sort of joke? Finally, after the third click, the letter opens, only there are no words on the screen, just random parts of the alphabet…computer code is what it looks like.

  The attachment closes and my computer screen flickers a few times. My heart begins to sprint. Trying to close out of my email program is fruitless. Nothing my mouse clicks on is working. I hold the power button with shaking fingers, until the screen blinks off. Waiting an agonizing five minutes before rebooting, I’m calmer when it begins to start up like normal, but it’s short-lived.

  When the home screen pops up, almost every folder on my desktop is gone. My heart pounds in my chest as I frantically click different things, but nothing happens. It’s as if my computer is on lockdown. I knew Bryson was upset last night, but this is beyond anything I imagined he’d be capable of.

  Tears stream down my face and an ache I haven’t felt since watching Duncan’s live feed the day he passed crushes my chest. Nothing is working. I shut the computer down once more, but when it comes back on, even less is on my desktop.

  “What’s wrong?” the devil’s voice asks, forcing me to snap my eyes up to him.

  I shake my head, refusing to speak and turn my attention back to my ruined laptop. An eternity of clicking and futility in trying to open programs only makes the pain in my chest grow. With losing Duncan all over again and Bryson doing something so abhorrent, I feel like I’m having a heart attack.

  I clutch my chest as sobs wrack my body. Bryson takes a step closer, holding his arms out, but I shuffle back, my eyes burning a hole into him.

  “Don’t fucking touch me!” I scream. “You did this!”

  “Did what, Liv? I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s wrong.” His face twists in confusion, no longer the handsome calmness I’ve come to expect from him.

  “You’re so fucking bitter and vindictive,” I sob. “What did you think, getting rid of the last thing I had of him would make me love you?”

  He takes a stumbling step back, as if I slapped him in the face.

  “I haven’t…I didn’t…Liv?” He reaches for me again and words I can never take back tumble for my lips, each one a fiery lash.

  “I could never love you like I love him. He was my entire life. Those videos were all I had left of him. Are you so damned selfish you’d destroy me just to keep me from watching them?”

  I hang my head in my hands and the weight of the useless laptop on my legs defeats me even further. With shaking hands and a battered heart, I shove it off my legs, taking no pride when it slams to the floor and skitters away in two pieces. Just like my life, torn in two directions. Just when I was letting him in, just when I was opening myself up to him, his true selfish colors come out. Knowing everything I’ve done, all the times I took a step with him even though it ate me up inside, rips me to my core.

  “He’s gone,” I cry. “I gave you something he should’ve always had,” I shout, all my pain shooting out like a slap to his face. “He should be here, not you! I should be sharing a bed with him. You asked if you were a surrogate? You’re less than that. You could never replace a fraction of what Duncan was capable of. You’re nothing to me.”

  Break him. Just like he’s broken you.

  He stands silent only a few feet away, yet still too close for my likin
g.

  “I opened that email with a hope that I hadn’t ruined what we had.” I point to the shattered computer near his feet. “What a fucking joke. You could’ve walked away. You didn’t have to erase him.”

  “I could never walk away from you, Liv.” He sounds as broken as I feel, and the messed up part is I revel in his pain. It can’t possibly be a fraction of what he’s done to me.

  “Well,” I say without a tremble in my voice, rage taking over the despondency I’m feeling, “I’m not giving you a choice. You need to leave. Pack your shit and get out of my apartment. I never want to see you again.”

  “You don’t mean that,” he whispers, the pleading in his voice visible in his dark eyes.

  “You have no idea just how serious I am, Bryson. Get out!” I don’t even recognize my own voice as I screech at him.

  “I’m not leaving you. I’m not giving up on us.”

  I hold both of my hands up to ward him off when he walks closer. Upturned hands close into fists and meet his chest in a violent burst of energy when he steps within reach. I pound his muscled flesh as he wraps his arms around me, holding me as close as he can even though I’m fighting for him to let me go.

  “I trusted you,” I whisper when my energy wanes sooner than I anticipated. “I hate you.”

  “Hate me today, beautiful. I can take it.” His voice is calm and soothing, the opposite of what I want, but exactly what I need.

  I stop fighting him when he scoops me up in his arms and carries to my room. He settles us both on my bed, not even bothering to pull the blankets back. The broad expanse of his chest and the heat emanating from his body comforts me just as it has so many times before, but this time, I’m more broken than I’ve ever been.

  Closing my eyes, I try to pretend Duncan is here. He’s the one holding me, promising me everything will be all right. The strength in Bryson’s arms, the masculine scent clinging to his clothes along with the deep timbre of his voice, are all reminders that Duncan is gone.

  He left me in a crying heap while he faded away in a hotel room with only a doctor there to comfort him in his final moments. He didn’t love me enough to have me there to hold his hand, to kiss his lips when his breathing grew shallow. He robbed me of our final goodbye, tore the life I imagined we could have together away from me. Just as Bryson did today with one simple click of a mouse.

  I’m not enough, never enough. The realization that I’ll always be alone, always be hurt by the men I care for hits me as I fall into an exhausted sleep.

  Chapter 36

  Bryson

  I whisper promises I’m not certain I can keep against the top of her head long after her breathing evened out. I have to remind myself she’s angry and hurt, but her words cut me deep. From what I gather, she got an email that caused the videos of Duncan to disappear.

  I could’ve argued with her, showed her my sent mail in my account to prove I didn’t do something like that, but she was breaking right before my eyes and proving my innocence became secondary. Words were said—words I have no hope of ever getting out of my head. My chest aches at the vehemence she used. There was not a trace of the emotion I saw in her eyes two nights ago. It was replaced by hatred and repulsion. I don’t know if there’s a way to come back from that. I don’t know if she’d even want to.

  Knowing when she wakes she’ll push me away again has me holding her even closer now. She whimpers against my chest, but I find a shard of hope when she clings to my shirt rather than pushing me away. In my head, I imagine she knows it’s me holding her, when I know there’s a very real possibility she’s in Duncan’s arms in her dreams.

  Regardless of what the outcome will be, I know I have to do everything in my power to fix this. Even though the last thing I want to do is leave her right now, I kiss her forehead, whisper words I’ve never spoken to a woman before into her soft hair, and get out of the bed.

  Gathering up her shattered computer in the living room, I pray Liam’s roommate is as good at fixing computers as he is playing games.

  * * *

  “He’s not here,” Liam’s manic roommates says when he finds me standing in the hallway.

  I knew he wouldn’t be here. He’s at the baseball practice I chose to miss to go back to the apartment to try to fix things with Olivia.

  “I know. I’m here to see you.”

  His eyebrow quirks up. “I charge two-hundred and fifty dollars for term papers, and they no longer come with the guarantee of beating the antiplagiarism system the professors are using. They updated their system and fucked up my enterprise.”

  “That’s not…I’m not here for a term paper.” I step farther into the room, holding out the bag with the broken computer even though he sat down and swiveled his chair, putting his back to me.

  “We’re in the middle of mid-terms. If you wanted Adderall, you should’ve prepared by hitting me up at the beginning of the semester like the smart ones did.”

  I want to argue that if they were in fact smart, they wouldn’t need fucking pills to study, but I need him to help me and pissing him off wouldn’t benefit me right now.

  “I’m not here for Adderall either. Listen, man. I need to get the files, videos, and shit off this computer.” I hold the bag out to him, hating myself for actually wondering whether Olivia would recover if they really were gone forever.

  It makes me an asshole, but I’ve fallen for a girl who will never love me back, and that stings like a bitch. I don’t want him gone, or his videos destroyed. I just want to be a part of her life, a part of her, and I’m not certain that’s possible since she uses him and the videos as a crutch and a tool to push me away around every corner.

  “I can’t put this shit back together. This old as fuck computer isn’t even worth it,” he mumbles as he pulls the pieces out of the grocery bag.

  “I don’t need you to fix the thing, I just need the videos, pictures, and shit off it.”

  “Dude, seriously, you can just get more porn. I mean, I’d be pissed if my collection was gone, but most of the fun is building it back up again.” He grins in my direction, but his inability to hear what I’m needing is driving me mad.

  “It’s not porn. Fuck, it’s not even my computer. My girl got an email, said it was from me. I didn’t send an email, but then her files and shit vanished. I need you to get those files back for her.”

  “Just the videos?”

  I shake my head. The videos are bad enough, but I’m sure there’s more. “Pictures, videos, voice messages—anything. I need them back.”

  He shakes his head. “Not gonna be cheap.”

  “I don’t give a fuck about the money. I just need that shit back.” Hope sparks in my chest. I may not end up with the girl, and I may be handing her back the very thing that will keep me separate from her, but her already broken heart shattering before my eyes is not something I want seared into my brain forever.

  “Give me an hour.” He turns away from me. “You can leave. I don’t like being supervised.”

  “The fuck am I gonna do for an hour?” I was just going to pass out on Liam’s bed since I slept like shit last night.

  “I suggest you go get your girl a new computer and a jump drive to put all this shit on once I get it back. Possibly stop by an anger management meeting on the way. Control that devil you got inside you and shit like this wouldn’t get broken.”

  I don’t even argue with him about his misconceptions. All I heard was it’s only going to take an hour for him to give me Olivia back.

  Taking part of his advice, I leave campus to get a computer for Olivia. The bookstore sells computers, but even the shitty ones they carry are overpriced. Once inside the electronics store, I find the smartest looking guy in the computer section and have him help me find the best computer money can buy.

  “Do you need it for gaming?”

  I shake my head. “No, just like getting online, watching videos, maybe Netflix and shit,” I tell him as my fingers graze the keys of a ridiculousl
y expensive laptop.

  “You don’t need that one then, dude. It has too much stuff you won’t use.” He directs my attention to a different computer.

  “I need something with an awesome firewall. Something that prevents email hackers from getting in and ruining my life, destroying everything I’ve spent weeks building up.”

  He narrows his eyes at me, trying to get a read on what I’m saying. I clamp my mouth shut, feeling like a fucking idiot.

  “They got your porn stash, huh? That fucking sucks, man. This one,” he says, pointing to a sleek black and gray laptop, “will work best for what you need it for.”

  “It’s not for porn,” I correct, exasperated, “just watching videos.”

  He winks at me as if he doesn’t believe me, and I roll my eyes, giving up on the fight. “This one comes with a great firewall already in place. If you don’t feel like it’s enough, we sell programs that will lock your shit down like Fort Knox.”

  “I’ll take both, please.” On the way to the register, I grab a handful of jump drives, because only having one isn’t going to be enough.

  An hour and a half after leaving the psycho roommate, I’m back in the dorm room.

  “Please tell me you were able to recover them,” I say as I walk in, not bothering to knock.

  His face is somber when he turns around. “I was certain you were hoping to save your porn, man. I only opened one video, dude, I swear. I know I shouldn’t have, but fuck.”

  I cross the room, wanting to strangle him, just knowing he watched the video of Olivia masturbating with Duncan—the same video I stroked myself to when I heard it from the other side of her door.

  “You motherfucker.”

  He holds his hands up in surrender. “I remember watching that shit live when it happened.”

  I stop in my tracks. The suicide video, not the one I was thinking of.

  He swallows hard, his neck bobbing in effort. “That shit was all over campus, man. I don’t let shit like that get to me, but Liam and I were roommates last year as well, and that guy doing that shit fucked him up. He hasn’t been the same since. I take it your girl is the one the guy is talking to?”