Lie With Me

by Holloway, Taylor

  Prologue Part 2 – Jason

  Ten years later…

  The good thing about living in a junk yard is that when you need a part for your car, you don’t have to drive to the junk yard. You can just walk out the door into your regular yard. Which happens to be full of junk.

  Woof! Woof! Woof!

  The other good thing about living in a junk yard is the company. Most of it walks on four legs and not two. Butch, possibly the world’s most terrifying-looking-but-ultimately-harmless pit bull gazed up at me adoringly from his one intact eye. Butch was followed by his cowardly brother, Spike, ancient mother, Snoopy, along with Mario and Luigi, a pair of grizzled tortoise shell cats. The cats had somehow convinced themselves they were also junkyard pit bulls and were living their best life protecting it. I’d arranged for a friend to take care of my little pack, but I’d miss them dearly. They were all the family I had left.

  “Hey guys, wanna help me find a new solenoid? It’s the last thing I need. Y’all wanna go on one last adventure with me?”

  The dogs drooled and wagged their tails excitedly. The cats slow blinked, purred, and twined around my ankles. I interpreted all that as an enthusiastic yes.

  “Great! Come on then.” I started off toward a recently wrecked SUV.

  “Can I tag along too? Or do you not even want to say goodbye?” The voice behind me was soft and feminine. It was also full of pain.

  Shit.

  Wendy was wearing her red and white cheerleading outfit. She was the head cheerleader this year and ought to be at practice. Apparently, my plan to slink off before she knew about it hadn’t worked. I’d always been so transparent to her.

  “Wendy, I—”

  “You were really going to sneak off without saying anything else to me, weren’t you?” Her big, blue eyes started to fill up with tears. One escaped down her pale cheek. It physically hurt me to see her cry. I’d been in many much less painful fistfights.

  I didn’t know what to say. Before I could even come up with something, I was reaching for her helplessly. She melted against me, her soft curves and skimpy clothing setting my heart racing. I loved that goddamn cheerleading uniform. I especially loved putting her on all fours, peeling that tiny skirt up and then…

  “Wendy, I’ve got to go,” I whispered into her soft, sweet smelling hair. Her hairspray had glitter in it. It was going to be all over my face and chest, but I didn’t care.

  “Don’t leave me. Please Jason. Don’t go.” She held onto my shoulders like her heart was breaking. I’d never hated myself more than I did at that moment. Which was really saying something because I had self-loathing to spare.

  We’d been around and around on this in the past few months. The truth was that this was the best thing for us both. I was twenty years old and already a failure of a human being. Wendy was seventeen and full of hope and potential.

  My life was going nowhere. I couldn’t find a job in this godforsaken town. I was a borderline illiterate high school drop out with no skills and a questionable work ethic. I spent an enormous amount of time smoking pot and playing the guitar, which was resulting in me getting pretty good at the guitar, but also a reputation for being a useless drug addicted freak. Even the McDonalds and Walmart told me fuck off. Unless I wanted to live the rest of my life here in the junk yard, I had to go.

  And she needed me gone. She had a future that looked a lot better when I wasn’t in it. Wendy was a Paxton, the richest and most respected family in town. If our town had royalty, it would be the Paxton family. Her family wanted her to go to college and make something of herself. They hated me with a fiery passion, but they had grudgingly tolerated me while Wendy was in high school. Now that she was going to graduate, they’d begun to make their disapproval more apparent. I knew they were right to hate me. Wendy deserved so much more than me.

  “We can go together,” Wendy pleaded. “I’ll go with you tonight. We can run away forever if that’s what you want.”

  I’d never understood what she saw in me. From the moment we met, Wendy had acted like I was worthy of her attention and affection. It wasn’t just me that was baffled by it, either. The whole town expressed disbelief and confusion (politely to her and rudely to me, naturally). Wendy was popular, beautiful, kind, and lovely. I was stupid, poor, and lazy. I wasn’t even athletic in the traditional sense. The only reason I had any muscles at all was because I did a lot of lifting of heavy shit in the junkyard and a lot of running away from the local cops.

  “You have to stay here,” I told her. “You have to graduate from high school, go to college, and have a good, normal life. A real life. You know I can’t give you what you deserve.”

  “I don’t want what I deserve,” Wendy insisted. “I want better than that. I want you.”

  She didn’t know how ridiculous that statement even was. In the movies, the guy from the wrong side of the tracks and the rich girl from the nice family can get together and live happily ever after. But this wasn’t a feel-good movie. This was my shitty life. And I had to leave Wendy behind for her own good before I rubbed off on her any more than I already had.

  I’d already thoroughly corrupted her. I’d had my hand up her skirt since she was fourteen, sixty-nine’d with her at fifteen, fucked her pussy at sixteen, fucked her ass at seventeen, and gotten her drunk and high about a thousand times. We’d fucked every way I could come up with and I was surprisingly creative and tremendously depraved. But the final straw, the thing that made me finally wake up, was that I’d nearly gotten her pregnant.

  The condom broke during one of our more aerobic sessions and we’d both spent the next three weeks terrified out of our minds. I’d never been so happy for Wendy to get her goddamn period. It ended up being nothing, but for the first time in my life, I realized that being with me could have real consequences for Wendy. Bad consequences. Consequences that could wreck her life forever.

  If Wendy had my baby, she’d be stuck with me for life. Her family, who clung to the belief she was a virtuous little virgin, would disown her. The town would shun her. She’d end up dropping out of school, marrying me, living in a junk yard, maybe working some horrible, minimum wage job, and raising the next generation of failure on welfare. I couldn’t let that happen to her. I wouldn’t let that happen to her.

  She was also just too damn delicate to survive a life of poverty. Wendy had been born with dangerous allergies. Peanuts and penicillin were the two that were the two worst, but she also had sensitivities to cats, diary, wool, pollen, dust, and a thousand other daily things. She’d been to the hospital dozens of times in her life. Without good, consistent medical care and a controlled, clean environment-- things I’d never be able to afford for her-- she could literally die.

  I had to go.

  “I’m sorry Wendy,” I told her. “I wish I could stay.”

  For once in my life, I was going to do the right thing. I was going to get the hell out of her way before she got stuck with me (and/or my hell spawn) forever. It was out of character, but I thought I could do it. After all these years, maybe the tiniest sliver of Wendy’s goodness had finally rubbed off on me.

  “Once you go, you’ll forget about me.” Wendy sounded so hopeless. She had also never been more wrong. She was burned into every cell of my body. She was literally burned, well inked actually, into my left bicep forever.

  Wendy had been my first and only love. My only friend. She was only girl I’d ever kissed, touched, or loved. We lost our virginity to each other and the thought of ever sharing sex with someone else felt cheap and pointless by comparison. I didn’t even see other women. It was like they didn’t exist. The idea that I could ever forget her was ridiculous.

  “I’m hoping you forget about me,” I told her.

  “Why would you hope something so awful?”

  “It’s for your own good.”

  “I think you need to stop pretending that you’re doing this for me.” The uncharacteristic bitterness in her voice made my blood run cold.


  Wendy pulled away from me. Her blue eyes had hardened the way they sometimes did when she was really angry. It took a lot to make Wendy mad. She was the kindest, most generous, and most empathetic person I knew. But even her patience and understanding had limits. I’d run afoul of them plenty of times over the years, like when I dropped out of school, or refused to take the GED test. This, however, was on a completely different level.

  I needed to convince her that me leaving was a positive thing. I’d failed to persuade her that it was in her interest, even though that was true. That left me with only my selfishness. I could use that.

  “You’re right Wendy.” I tried to match her bitter tone. “I want to go. I hate this town. I hate the racist, judgmental, holier-than-thou people here. I hate the ignorant, backward assholes that look down on anything even remotely different. I hate that nothing here ever changes. It doesn’t get better or worse. It just stays the same, generation after generation. My family has lived right here on these ten acres of trash for a hundred years. An entire fucking century of poverty. I have to get out.”

  The truth was more complicated than just that, but Lord knows I wasn’t a complicated guy. I wasn’t smart enough for all that. I’d just make it simple, instead. And in doing so, I’d convince Wendy she wanted me gone.

  Wendy blinked. “I knew this wasn’t all about me.”

  It was at least ninety-nine percent about her but if the one percent was what would convince her…

  “Why would I want to stay, Wendy? I can never belong here. You’ve got options, but I don’t. All I have is this.” I waved a hand at the sprawling junkyard around us. Ten acres of twisted metal, bloodied carpet, and broken glass. Behind us, the peeling white shotgun shack my mom raised me in.

  Mom died last year when her liver finally gave out. She wasn’t eligible for a transplant because she wouldn’t quit drinking long enough to even go to the doctor. She said the liquor was cheaper than chemo and it didn’t hurt as much. I didn’t blame her anymore, either for addiction or for giving up completely when she learned about the cancer. Life had dealt her one blow too many. She was barely fifty years old.

  My mom was my last living relative, aside from a much older half-sister my mom gave up for adoption years ago. She lived in Kansas and pretended like we didn’t exist. I couldn’t blame her for that either. I wouldn’t want to be related to me if I could help it. My grandma died when I was twelve. My dad might actually still be alive, but I didn’t count him as kin. That neglectful, violent a-hole could burn in hell as soon as the meth finally killed him. He might be still breathing for the time being, but Satan would get him soon enough. Personally, I couldn’t wait.

  “You’ve got me,” Wendy sniffled, bringing me back to the conversation. “We can go together.”

  “You know that wouldn’t work. I’m not good enough for you. Look at where you are. This is where I’m from.” I’d never understood why she wasn’t repulsed by me, although I was grateful for it.

  “It doesn’t have to be this way,” she told me. “I don’t care about where you’re from. I only care about where you’re going.”

  There was no way to salvage this conversation. I turned away. “I’m sorry Wendy. My mind is made up.”

  Also by Taylor Holloway

  Lone Star Lovers

  Admit You Want Me - Ward

  Kiss Me Like You Missed Me - Cole

  Lie with Me - Lucas

  Run Away With Me - Jason (coming soon)

  For fans of exciting, romantic mysteries full of twists and turns, check out my Scions of Sin series!

  Bleeding Heart - Alexander

  Kiss and Tell - Nathan

  Down and Dirty - Nicholas

  Lost and Found - David