Need

by K. I. Lynn

  But that can't matter to me. That's the way a guy thinks about his girl, and I have to stop thinking about her like that.

  I know that's part of the problem. I've fucked hundreds of girls trying to forget her, but I’ve never kept any of them around. Have never tried to go for more than just the sex because in my head, there’s always only been one girl I wanted as my girlfriend.

  I never wanted a girlfriend. Don’t want one now.

  Unless it’s Kira.

  And it’s that kind of thinking that has kept me stuck on her, I’m sure.

  It’s time to start thinking of exploring different options. Any types of options. Anything. I can’t live like this anymore.

  Just thinking about being with someone else pisses me off.

  Angry, I turn the ignition and peel out of the driveway, once again running from my father’s house and the girl that lives inside it.

  Four months later

  It’s so easy to lie to yourself once. It really is. Like slipping into a fuzzy, warm sweater that fits just right. Except, it doesn’t.

  That’s what my life had been from the age of fifteen up until a few months ago. The stupid, comfy sweater that wasn’t quite right but that I refused to discard. The stupid lie that had shielded me from the painful truth.

  A lie that, no matter how dumb it was, I desperately need back.

  But that’s the problem with realizing, or admitting to yourself the truth. The first time you lie to yourself about something is so easy, but once you’ve realized you were lying to yourself, it’s ten times harder to slip back into the false reality.

  Then eventually, if you’re smart enough, you realize you don’t want to slip back into the false reality. You want something real.

  I’m certain that I didn’t get over Brayden because I spent so much time denying to myself that I still loved him. So, shortly after he left almost four months ago, I made myself a promise. I was going to start being one hundred percent honest with myself. I was going to face what I felt for him head-on.

  Has it been hard? Harder than trying to stop my instinct to breathe, but I’ve been doing well so far.

  Am I over him? No. But I’ve finally gotten to a point where it doesn’t hurt to wake up every morning because I don’t have him.

  And because we’re back to not speaking to each other.

  He hasn’t tried to reach out to me since he left. That’s okay. I haven’t tried to reach out to him. I might be stuck being related to him by law, but that doesn’t mean I have to see him, or talk to him, more than necessary.

  Distance is the number one key to getting over him, even if it kills me not to be able to talk to him.

  I would love to say that I’m finally on the path to complete, emotional freedom. I’m not. But I truly feel like I’m finally on my way.

  Maybe.

  I push the thoughts to the back of my head and grab my dark blue nail polish before sitting down at my desk and waking up my laptop. I have a Skype call scheduled with Ryan in five minutes, and I’m dying to talk to him.

  It’s so weird not having him in the house. I still haven’t gotten used to it. I miss him like crazy. All the damn time. He annoys the hell out of me regularly, especially when he’s coming between me and guys, but I even miss that.

  Not that I’d tell him.

  I fire up Skype and start painting my nails, waiting for the call to come through. I’m halfway done with the first coat on my left hand when the familiar little jingle starts playing through my speakers. Smiling when I see Ryan’s profile picture, I reach over and click the accept call button.

  “Dumbass!” He cries when he sees me.

  Laughing, I shoot back, “Dickface!”

  “Hey!” Ryan grabs one of his text books off his desk and pretends to hit the computer with it. “How many damn times am I going to tell you to watch your mouth around me?”

  Giggling, I stick my tongue out at him.

  He places the textbook back on his desk and smiles at me. “You’re looking good, little sis.”

  I pretend to blush and go back to painting my nails, looking up at him in between coats. “Why thank you, kind sir. You’re bigger, I see. What exactly are you trying to accomplish? Arnold-status?” The shake of his head tells me not to go there, and I scrunch up my face in realization. “Oh, gross. I mean, duh. We all know getting laid is the main reason a guy gets huge, but come on. I’m your little sister.”

  “I didn’t say anything!”

  His outraged, indignant cry makes me laugh again, this time harder. “Oh my God, you’re blushing!” I think I snort in my laughter as I point at his pink face, but I’m not sure.

  When I finally calm down, he’s still glaring at me, and his face is almost beet red. “I do not like knowing that my little sister knows about that type of stuff. As a matter of fact, as far as I’m concerned, they didn’t even give you sex-ed in school. Got it?”

  For the oddest reason, his comment sends my mind skidding months back—

  To Brayden’s bedroom.

  Brayden’s bed.

  His body under mine.

  My thighs on either side of his face as he ate at me like a desperate man.

  Jesus, Mother of Christ, why am I thinking about this right now?

  My own face flares red, I feel it, and I get busy ducking my head and painting my nails to try and hide it. “Yeah, got it,” I mumble, making sure I sound sarcastic and playful, and not horny, embarrassed, and lonely. But no one’s touched me since Brayden. No one ever has, actually. Stop thinking about it! “I’ll let you live in your delusional world for a little while longer.”

  I nervously apply another coat to my ring finger nail. Please tell me I’m not being obvious. Please tell me I’m not being obvious.

  “That’s it. You’re going into a nunnery.”

  His reply shocks me with relief—and annoys the crap out of me at the same time. Thank God. Now I have an excuse for the red face. “You wish, loser,” I cry, head flinging up. “How about I end up on the pole instead? Just to make you suffer!”

  “Kira! What the fuck, man?” He’s practically whining.

  I give him the biggest, cheesiest smile I can muster, then decide to have mercy on him. “Fine. No more discussions about my future career possibilities.”

  “Trust me, your future career ‘possibilities’ go way beyond you ending up on a strip pole,” he murmurs angrily.

  I smirk and dip the nail polish brush back into the bottle. “How are things going between you and Dana? Is the long distance thing really working out?” I see Dana around town here and there, but we only say hi to each other. We aren’t friends. We aren’t close.

  And I certainly don’t see myself just going up to her one day and asking how things are going with my brother, a guy she isn't even officially dating.

  Ryan shrugs. “We didn’t agree on doing anything serious. We just stay in contact. So it’s fine.”

  I hate how guys can do that. How it can mean nothing for them while it means everything to us. I’ve seen the way Dana looks at him, how she’s waited forever for him.

  But I clench my jaw tight and ignore it, refusing to delve deeper into a place I don’t belong. It’s really none of my business, right? “And school? How’s that going?”

  He tells me all about this one annoying professor he has, and how he’s sure the professor has it out for both him and Brayden.

  My entire chest tightens when I hear Brayden’s name, but I fight not to react. Not to give away even a hint of curiosity. Of course, his and Brayden’s lives are practically symbiotic, so that isn’t the first time Brayden’s name comes up during our conversation.

  And each time is just as bad as the last. With every new small piece of info I hear—oh, Brayden dragged Ryan out to one of their classmate's parties and the party ended up being two days long, or, Brayden decided that he and Ryan had to join the football team—I feel the hunger in me reawakening more and more.

  Not just the physical. Th
e mental one. The one that is dying to know what he’s up to.

  I’m on my third coat of nail polish when I finally give in.

  “So, how’s Brayden doing?” Damn me. I’d told myself I wouldn’t ask. I know I shouldn’t ask. The last thing I need to do is think about him. Or what he’s doing, to be exact.

  I’m supposed to be forgetting my feelings for him, remember?

  I’m so stuck on my thoughts, my fight with my obsession, that I don’t see the look on Ryan’s face. Not at first, at least. When I do notice, I sit up straighter, panic surging inside me. “Did something happen? Is he okay?”

  “He’s fine.” Ryan sighs and runs a hand through his hair. Then, seeming to make up his mind about something, he looks me straight in the eye. “He met someone.”

  The feeling like something vital has been ripped away from me hits. It’s a quiet moment. All thought processes stop for a split second while my body refuses to assimilate the incoming pain.

  Then it all rushes back, every fact, every emotion, my brain speeding up to make up for that split second lapse.

  It’s painful. So much that I can only sit there, frozen.

  “Kira?”

  “Yeah?” I hear my own distant voice reply. I know I’m just staring at him blankly, and that it’s probably freaking him out, but it’s better than the alternative—giving into the sudden pain I feel and breaking down in front of him.

  Then he’ll know. And there will be no coming back from that. He’d never forgive me.

  He’d never forgive Brayden.

  Just like everyone else wouldn’t.

  “Did you hear what I said?”

  I force myself to blink and move, slowly sliding the cap of my nail polish back on and placing it next to my computer. That’s it. Go slow. No sudden moves. “Yeah, I heard what you said, sorry. Spaced out. Remembered that Mom had asked me to do something and I haven’t done it yet. So . . . ” Stop right there. Stop! Do I? No. Because now I’m sick with agonized curiosity, and I just have to know. “Is it serious?”

  Ryan’s pause this time sets off something else inside me: alarm.

  It’s like he knows his next words are going to hurt me, and it makes me wonder just how obvious I’m being about my feelings for Brayden.

  “Looks like it’s heading that way. He asked her to be his girlfriend.”

  I swallow back a million things at once—the bonedeep sense of betrayal, the tidal wave of agony as my heart shatters in my chest, the violent anger that's born in the wake of it all.

  Mostly, I swallow back any reaction that wants to make itself known. Now, more than ever, it’s a good thing Ryan doesn’t know just how in love I am with Brayden. There’s no point in anyone knowing.

  He’s moving on.

  He’s fucking moving on.

  “That’s good.” I manage to inject just the right amount of sincerity into my tone, and I swear to myself right then that I’m going to look into acting classes. “I’m glad he’s finally taking someone seriously.”

  Ryan chuckles and smirks at that. “Yeah. I told him the same.”

  The knot in my throat expands, threatening to unleash everything I’m feeling in that moment, but I don’t let it. Just one more second. “Uh . . . there's something I gotta do for Mom. I gotta go. Talk to you later, though, okay?” I move to get off my seat.

  “Kira, wait!”

  I stop and stare back at him.

  “Are you okay?”

  His question feels like a slap, although I know it’s born out of nothing but concern. I also know what else it means: he does know. There’s no doubt in my mind about it anymore.

  “I’m fine,” I lie, for his sake as much as my own.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Perfectly. I do have to go, though.”

  “Love you, sis.” His eyes are still watching me. Worriedly.

  My legs shake from the force of my emotions, but somehow I manage to hold myself for just another moment. Long enough to tell him, “I love you, too, bro.” By the time I grab the mouse to log off Skype, the tremors have spread to my hand.

  As soon as Skype is closed, it all overwhelms me, until I can do nothing more than slide to the floor next to my desk as the tears start to come.

  I threw up three times that day.

  Isn’t that ridiculous?

  I think so. Pathetic, too.

  How the hell can something hurt so bad emotionally that it fucks up your bodily functions?

  I don’t know, but that’s exactly what happened.

  One week later, I was still walking around in pain, every step I took sending jolts of agony through my system. I could barely look at my food during Thanksgiving dinner, let alone touch it. Ryan came home just in time for the celebration.

  His eyes were on me all night. I didn’t look at him. Didn’t look at anyone, actually. But I felt his stare. He’d seen the lifeless zombie his sister had become, the one that couldn’t speak more than a few words to anyone, couldn’t look at them.

  I should have cared that everyone was seeing me that way. I should care now, weeks later.

  I don’t. It’s not that I don’t want to, it’s that I can’t. The pain is greater than my will to pretend I’m all right.

  Brayden had sworn, over and over again, that he would never have a girlfriend. Ever.

  She must mean more to him than his vow ever did. Than his reservations about relationships. Than his bitter memories of his parents fighting.

  She must mean so damn much to him.

  I don’t know when he met her. How. Does it matter? Some people fall in love at first glance. Maybe that’s what happened with them.

  I think I’m going to throw up again.

  Sighing, I ease off my bed, my entire body screaming. It doesn’t stop hurting, no matter what I do. It hurts almost as much as my chest does. My heart.

  Almost a month later, and I’m as broken as I was the day I found out.

  My friends don’t know why I’m like this. Jenna has already guessed it has to do with a guy. Her twin sister, Marilyn, says only a man has the power to wreck a woman on this level. Ashley says it’s depression.

  They’re all right. I’m not confirming anything out loud, but they’re all so damned right.

  I Googled the symptoms of depression over a week ago. Guess what? I’m exhibiting all of them.

  Isn’t that wonderful?

  If you’d asked me a year ago, even during the period where Brayden and I weren’t really talking, if I hated him, I would have honestly said no.

  That’s not the case anymore. I don’t want to loathe him; I can’t stop myself. I despise him. It’s petty, and childish, and I hate myself for it.

  Making my way over to my bathroom, I reach up and wipe my cheek. My face is soaked. I’ve been practically leaking tears nonstop. There’s no end to them.

  I just love him so much. Even after he’s torn me apart, over and over again, I continue to adore him.

  Why? Why does he matter so much?

  Because he always did, that’s why.

  Silently sobbing, I step into my bathroom, avoiding my reflection in the mirror. I don’t know what I ever meant to Brayden. I once thought I meant a lot, but I’ve finally come to the point where I’ve admitted to myself that maybe it was all wishful thinking all those years. That I superimposed what I wanted to see into our interactions.

  That I put more meaning into our friendship than was there.

  Maybe I did mean something to him. Maybe I still do.

  Not more than she does, whoever she is.

  That’s what hurts the most, you know? The nameless, faceless fucks I could handle. Hell, I somehow survived seeing him fuck Jennifer, because it was obvious that’s all it ever was.

  Sex.

  But for him to now have a girlfriend, after all those vows . . . I just know what it means. Like I said, what she must mean.

  Compared to that, I mean nothing.

  He’ll throw aside all his vows and issues to b
e with her, but he couldn’t even be with me once. Although I was pathetically obvious about how much I needed it. How much I needed him.

  There should be nothing left of my heart, emotionally speaking, but it feels like another piece cracks and falls off.

  “Come on, Kira. Get it fucking together,” I growl at myself, running the cold water and splashing my face over and over with it.

  I need to stop crying. I need to regain back some semblance of normality. I need to get on with my life.

  Need to get over him.

  In all these years, I haven’t been able to. Even now, I can’t.

  Will I ever?

  It doesn’t take a genius to figure out the most probable answer to that question.

  “Kira!” my mom calls from the other side of my door, knocking softly. “Come downstairs for dinner, honey.”

  Her tone is as soft as it’s been the last few weeks.

  It’s because she, like everyone else, knows how broken I am. They’re all treating me like I feel. Like I’m something fragile.

  I hate this. I hate it. I hate it.

  I turn off the water and grab a small towel off the counter. Wiping at my face, I exit the bathroom.

  And come face-to-face with the painting.

  The one he gave me.

  The one I’d convinced myself was ridiculously romantic.

  The one still hanging on my wall.

  What the fuck? Why is it still there? I can’t believe I haven’t taken it down yet.

  Determined steps take me back toward my bed. Flinging the small towel onto it, I keep going, stopping right before the painting and literally ripping it off the wall.

  “Kira?” my mom inquires from the other side of the door, still in that soft tone.

  I can’t throw the damn thing away. It’s in my trembling hands, and the urge to rip it in two is gnawing at me, and still.

  I. Can’t. Throw. It. The. Fuck. Away.

  “Kira, honey, you’re worrying me.”

  Gritting my teeth, I let the painting fall to the white, carpeted floor. The anger I feel that I can’t throw it away brutalizes that little fragile part of me, the one that whines because it can’t have the man it wants. I kick at the painting, sending it almost flying under my bed.