Beneath Our Faults

by Charity Ferrell

  “What are you talking about? I did give you a chance!” She said, stumbling back a few steps. “You just don’t understand.”

  "You think I don't understand hurt?" I fired back, my hands dropping to my sides. "I'm a bastard child whose parents want nothing to do with him. My dad doesn't even want me to know who he is and my mom stays away screwing people on camera because I am nothing but a mere reminder of the guy who didn't want her. The only reason I am here right now is because I am her paycheck. So you may have lost one person in your life but I have never had anyone in my life to lose."

  Her head jerked forward. "You have me," she whispered. "No matter what happens between us, I will always be there for you."

  No matter what happens between us? She was just trying to break up with me for no goddamn reason. "Wrong," I seethed. "I thought you did but you're all the same. You needed a distraction and a fuck." Her head whipped back at my crude words.

  "You don't mean that."

  I laughed harshly. "The fuck I don't. You got what you wanted. Now you can leave me the hell alone."

  "Keegan," she breathed out, walking towards me but I held out my hands to stop her.

  "Get out of my house," I shouted and she winced. Whipping around, I stomped to the door, swinging it open.

  Her shoulders slouched and she clutched her arms around her body like a barrier. "Just talk to me. Let’s talk about this.”

  "Too late," I answered. "Leave."

  "But-"

  I held my hand up and over talked her. "Daisy, get the fuck out of my house!" I roared. I wasn't sure how I went from having hot as fuck sex with my girlfriend to punching my mom’s boyfriend to kicking Daisy out of my house. She sighed, rubbing her eyes with her knuckles and walked passed me.

  I knew I was being an idiot but I was done. Done with all of them. I tried everything to get the girl but sometimes even when you try your damndest, you can't always win. I tried to fix her but should have remembered the number one rule about fixing broken people: you always get stuck with their sharp edges.

  MY EYES singled in on Keegan passing me with a skinny red head arms wrapped around his torso. They merged through the lunchroom crowd and stopped at his old lunch table before lounging in a chair. Red head's arms folded behind his back as she parked herself directly on his lap, practically straddling him in front of everyone. Memories flashed back of the last time Keegan and I were in that position together.

  I regretted the words I said to Keegan but he wouldn't listen to my apologies. In fact, he never bothered to answer any of my calls or texts. From everything that had happened that day and what I heard, I was in shock.

  "You know he's only doing that to piss you off, right?" Lane said, a soft and sympathetic look passing through his features. He had repeated those same words to me everyday sine Keegan had kicked me out of his house. "He's actually pretty beat up about whatever the hell happened between the two of you that you both refuse to tell anyone about."

  Cora scoffed, throwing her braid over her shoulder. "Sure looks like the jackass is so distraught. I sure hope you don't let other girls bathe your neck with their tongues when we have an argument and you are," her voice lowered to mimic Lane's, "pretty beat up about it. Puh-lease."

  Lane's eyes whipped over to Cora. "Babe, I wouldn't ever pull that shit but what you three don't understand is that this is all new to him. Daisy is the only girl he's ever cared about and you hurt him."

  My head snapped to look at Lane. "I didn't do anything," I snapped, slightly annoyed at me getting the blame. "Just because this is his first relationship doesn't mean he can just do whatever he wants then say, "Oh my bad, I'm new at this, and get away with it."

  Lane puts his hand up to stop me from saying anything else. "And I'm sure he hurt you too. Both of you just need talk to each other. This silent treatment, immature bullshit isn't going to do anything but make it worse. Silence is deadly in a relationship."

  "Obviously, we don't have a relationship. I've tried to talk to him but he ignores all my phone calls," I grunted, leaning back in my chair and crossing my arms.

  "Give him time," he shot back, his thin lips creating a small smile.

  I shook my head. "Nu uh. I'm not going to give him time to hook up with all of his groupies and wait for him to decide he's ready to be serious about our relationship. I might not be able to save this relationship but I'm at least going to save my pride."

  "Stay strong, girl," Gabby said, beside me, patting my head and looking across the table to Lane. "And when did you become some relationship guru, Dr. Phil?"

  Lane's smile grew, spreading from ear to ear. "I'm a fucking genius on every level. I know how to treat the ladies." He grabbed Cora's head and kissed her cheek.

  Cora rolled her eyes and the bell rang, causing everyone to start filing out of the lunchroom. Sliding out of my chair, I dreaded what was coming. My muscles were practically jumping out of my skin as I headed to my next class - with Keegan.

  He hadn't shown up for school the next two days after our fight. When he finally did, he acted like I was invisible. Sitting down in my usual seat, I spotted him heading towards the opposite side of the room from me. "Heya, Daisy," Dirk greeted, throwing himself into the chair next to mine and tossing his books on the desk.

  "Hey," I answered, but kept my eyes on the back of Keegan's head while he talked to the girl next to him.

  "So I was wondering if you wanted to get together this weekend? We could go to dinner and see a movie?"

  Before I could even muster up a lame excuse to tell Dirk, the loud boom of a book falling on the floor brought my attention back to Keegan. He whipped around in his chair and his eyes were glaring daggers at the guy next to me. "Dirk, I don't give a fuck if Daisy is with me or not. If you ever touch her, I promise you will never touch anything again because I will break every finger on that scrawny hand of yours."

  Dirk chuckled. "Ah come on, Keegan, you never care if anyone has your leftovers. What's the deal?"

  My body flushed in embarrassment, coloring my features of Dirk announcing to the entire room that I was his leftovers. Keegan surged out of his seat, causing the chair to slide against the floor. "What did you just say?" He screamed, stalking his way to us and I noticed his firm knuckles clenched into fists.

  Oh shit.

  I hopped out of my chair and made it in front of Dirk's desk before him to block him from Keegan. The sad part was that Dirk actually let me.

  "Move Daisy," Keegan barked, his eyes blazing fire at Dirk. If looks could kill, Dirk would have been annihilated instantly.

  I crossed my arms over my chest. "No, because you will do something stupid and get expelled."

  He bit out a laugh. "You think I give a damn about getting in trouble? This is none of your business."

  "I'm pretty sure it is considering this entire argument is about what he said to me."

  "Dude, I'm sorry. You know I didn't mean it like that," Dirk choked out from behind me. As much as I wanted Dirk to suffer for his stupid remark, it wasn't worth Keegan getting in trouble.

  "See, he just apologized," I informed Keegan, in case he didn't hear, and gestured to the jackass.

  "And?"

  "So this is over," I demanded.

  "The fuck it is. Dirk, get your ass up," he commanded, trying to move through me.

  "Is there a problem here?" I jumped at the sound of Miss Douglas's voice behind me.

  "Nope, no problem," Keegan answered, not even bother to turn around or move away from Dirk's desk.

  "Then why don't you take your seat, Keegan," Miss Douglas demanded.

  "Dirk is in my seat," he spat, reaching behind me and pulling Dirk by the front of his shirt. He tossed him to the side; letting go and Dirk fell to the floor on his hands and knees. Unsure what was coming next, I stepped in front of Dirk again and finally noticed the entire classroom's attention on us.

  "Get back in your seat, Daisy. I'm not going to do anything," Keegan sneered over at me.

 
Dirk rose to his feet slowly and wiped the front of his jeans down with his hands. "Oh wow, you talked the monster down. Impressive," he said, under his breath.

  "I would keep walking before I change my mind," Keegan snapped back, lunging for him again but Dirk grabbed his books and scurried away. I shook my head as he took the long way by walking around all of the desks, back to the front of the classroom to avoid passing by us before sitting in the chair Keegan had been sitting in.

  "Okay you two, have a seat or I'll send you all to the principal's office," Miss Douglas decided to finally announce after all the chaos died down. Great timing.

  I shuffled the few steps back to my seat while Keegan slid into Dirk's seat. "You stood up for me," I finally whispered, once everyone's attention turned back to the teacher.

  His jaw twitched. "Cut the games. Don't try to act like you're not surprised I still care about you. You think everything I felt for you just disappeared because of what happened? My feelings for you were never forced or fake."

  His words seared through me. Did he think my feelings for him were fake? I leaned in closer to him, blinking just in case the tears were wanting to appear. "Then why won't you talk to me?"

  "We have nothing to talk about. I realized I should have listened to the guy's warning at the hospital who told me to stay away from you." His hands ran through his dark, overgrown hair. "So just quit. What we had was nice but we both knew it was temporary. So just let it be. I won’t interfere with you having any other relationships, but you need to stay the fuck away from Dirk. He will only hurt you." And he hadn’t?

  With that, he lunged out of his seat and out of the door before I could try to tell him my feelings.

  CORA SCOOPED up a strawberry with her spoon. "So I need to tell you something."

  "Okay," I drawled out, not sure I wanted to really hear what she was about to reveal, especially if it was about Keegan.

  "I overheard Ragan talking in the locker room after tennis practice today."

  I groaned, tossing my spoon into my frozen yogurt bowl and leaning back in my chair. Ragan was the redhead who had been up Keegan's ass lately "Yeah, don't even wanna know what she had to say," I muttered.

  Cora's mouth turned up into a smile. "That's the thing, you do. She was complaining about how weird he acts around her. She said that while they are in public or at school, he plays it off like he is all into her. But as soon as the audience is gone, so is his affection. She's terribly disappointed because she allegedly has been waiting forever to bang him since freshman year." I eyed her across the table warily. "Her words not mine," she rushed out.

  "That seems to be normal around here," I frowned, rolling my eyes. "I swear every girl within a hundred feet of this damn city was injected with a ‘I want to bang Keegan bug at birth.’"

  "Too bad Keegan has only been injected with the ‘I only want to be in between Daisy’s legs bug,’" Gabby teased, winking over at me.

  "Yeah right, I bet he is banging every girl that opens her legs up to him. He hasn't even been coming home at night," I revealed, instantly regretting my confession that I had been watching for him.

  "That's because he has been staying over at Lane's," Cora confirmed. "I'm close on kicking his depressed ass out too because he's messing up my alone time with Lane. Lane feels bad making him hang out by himself considering all he does is sulk around the house. By now, I am expecting to walk in on him devouring a whole pint of Ben & Jerry's and watching The Notebook. I'm not certain what went down between the two of you because you both are being all hush-hush about it like you committed murder or something but maybe you need to talk to him."

  Gabby snorted. "You're just saying that because you want to get laid and Keegan is being a cock block."

  "That's only a small percentage," she answered, holding out two fingers apart from one another, "and Ragan's comment is the rest. Plus, I want you to be happy and you have been freaking miserable since you two broke things off."

  "I have not been miserable," I disputed, looking over at Gabby for backup.

  Gabby raised her hand up. "Uh uh, I'm with Cora on this one. Now that we know he's not with Ragan, you better go talk to him before I lock you two in a room together.

  They both looked at me expectantly, waiting on my answer. "Fine," I said, holding out my hands in defeat. "I'll talk to him."

  MY FEET hit the pavement as I marched across the parking lot and stopped at the black SUV I had become so familiar with. I was a woman on a mission and it wasn't going to end until it ended in my favor. My insides were quivering with fear but I had to do this. I couldn't lose another person I loved.

  I wrapped my clammy hands around the door handle and swung the door open to face two very surprised people. "Out," I demanded, pointing my thumb out the door and startling the girl in the passenger seat.

  Her jaw dropped. "What?" She replied, puzzled. "But he's my ride home."

  "Find another," I instructed, moving to the side so she would have room to get out.

  "Not happening. Find someone else to stalk. He doesn't want you anymore." Her hands slid through her red hair and she flipped it over her shoulder.

  I stifled an eye roll and threw Keegan a quick look but his eyes only widened in interest. "Out, Ragan," he ordered, keeping his eyes on me.

  Her fiery hair swung halfway out of the car nearly taking out my eye to twist over and look at him. "You can't be serious?" she questioned, raising her voice.

  "He is," I answered for him, "now out.”

  She waited for Keegan to answer, but he kept his eyes trained on me. Snagging her bag from the floorboard, she stumbled out of the car. "Bitch," she mumbled under her breath, rolling her eyes and bumping into my shoulder harshly causing me to stumble back in surprise.

  "Keep rolling your eyes, sweetheart. Maybe you'll find a brain back there," I called out behind her, catching the quick movement of her middle finger waving through the air at me.

  I shook my head, ignoring her gesture and hopped into the car. "What the fuck do you think you're doing?" Keegan spat out as soon as I shut the door behind me. "You can't just go around kicking girls out of my car."

  I eyed the person next to me who drove me absolutely nuts but made me happy at the same time. His hair had grown out a bit in the past week and it looked like he hadn't shaved, giving him an unruly, but sexy look.

  "Yes I can," I revealed, boring my eyes into his.

  His hands gripped the steering wheel. "The hell you can. Surprise Daisy, you don't call the shots anymore," he fired back, his jaw clenching.

  "I can," I repeated, "because you're mine."

  "Bullshit," he snapped, shaking his head and narrowing his eyes my way. "Now it's your turn to get out."

  He turned the keys in the ignition, starting the car.

  "I just want to play a game real quick," I rushed out, fumbling through my bag for my phone hurriedly. I was nervous he was going to kick me out before I had a chance to tell him everything.

  His jaw muscles clenched together and the veins in his neck grew more prominent. "I've already played one too many of your games," he huffed, his face hot.

  "You'll like this one," I promised, plugging his USB cord hanging out of his radio into my phone. "Give me five minutes. If you don't want anything to do with me after, I understand but please, just listen first." My stomach fell at my own words. What was I going to do if he chooses to not be with me after this?

  "Five minutes," he bit out, proving how serious he was by pulling out his phone and setting a five-minute timer on it. "Alright, let's see what you got." He leaned forward, propping his phone up on the dashboard and I watched my time start to count down.

  I felt like a game show host preparing to shout out the lucky prizes for the winner. "We are going to play a game where we both play a song that reminds us of the other person or how we feel about the other," I told him, nervously. "I'll go first."

  He gaped at me, blinking. I could do this. My pulse raced when I tapped my finger against
the play button and the song I'd had on repeat all night, Nickelback's Far Away started pouring out of the speakers and I let the words of the song tell him my feelings. He stayed silent the entire song, his lips pressed together in a firm line with an unreadable face, until the song went dead. It fit us perfectly. We had both been lost and made mistakes, running away from each other, when our bodies ached with the need to be together.

  "When I lost Tanner, I lost myself," I blinked, trying to stop the threatening tears from releasing themselves. "I hated my life. I honestly hated just about everything. Then you came crashing into my life and made me do things I thought I would never do again. You made me feel things I thought I would never feel again. You made me smile, laugh and be happy. You showed me that I could love more than one person in my life. Trust me, I know I'm not perfect. There will always be a broken part inside of me from losing Tanner but I want you to finish the job you took on of healing me." By the time I was finished, the tears had broken through and were streaming down my face, the salty taste hitting my lips.

  I paused, waiting for anything he was willing to give back, but received nothing in return. "Say something," I said, softly. Every muscle in my body locked up in fear of his rejection. "I know I have my faults. It's my fault Tanner is gone and it's my fault we are no longer together but-"

  "About damn time you came to your senses," he said, over my words. Smiling, he leaned over and pulled me into his lap. "Baby, we all have plenty of faults but I think ours go pretty damn well together." His arm ran down my back pulling my ass into him. "And I mean, very well together," he groaned, kissing my neck. "And I'm sorry for being such a stubborn jackass. I told you I would do stupid shit, just be patient with me."

  I laughed, holding my arms out against his shoulders to look in his electrifying eyes. "I love you," I told him, enunciating every word slowly.