Well, I made my escape. The only problem was the monster came with me. The monster I’d created, deep inside, the hot shame and burden of what I’d done stayed with me. It would always stay with me, no matter how far I ran or where I tried to hide, eating me alive.
CHAPTER 26
Tuck
That night, I crashed with Jax from the gym. No questions asked, he took me in and let me sleep on the couch in his apartment. And the next night, too.
My father cut me off, threw me out and it felt good. I’d spent too long feeding from that trough. I should have taken off when I was 18, but at 18 I hadn’t known what I’d wanted. Now at 21 I knew. I wanted to fight MMA and I wanted to fuck Jewel.
I called Jewel, texted her. I got nothing. I was going crazy, no workout at the gym, no run could work this out of my system. I couldn’t sleep, could barely eat. I had to at least know she was OK.
Thursday, I drove over to the Marine Mammal Center. I knew she worked until five. I could go in and ask to see her, but I didn’t know how she’d react. I didn’t want to cause a scene, upset her. But I had to talk with her. So I sat there in my car waiting.
Earlier that day my father had left me a message, basically telling me to come and clear out my shit. He and Candice were back in New York for the rest of the week. When they came back that weekend, he wanted every last thing of mine out or he’d throw it out.
All right, then. I didn’t care what he thought of me, what sick words he wanted to throw around. He was such a fucking hypocrite, like he hadn’t crossed some lines in his life. He’d cheated on my mom like it was his job. Now he was trying to turn the tables, make me feel like a sick perverted fuck for falling for a girl, the first girl I’d ever really fallen for in my life, just because he happened to be banging her mom? That shit didn’t matter. What Jewel and I had was real.
I missed her. I missed her pussy, her moans, her soft sighs and her smell. And I missed just having her around. I missed seeing her cut up strawberries into her Greek yogurt for breakfast. I missed seeing what kind of ridiculous, old baggy sweatshirt she chose to wear that day. I sure as hell missed seeing her do yoga. Once I got her back in my life, maybe she could teach me a pose or two, the best athletes kept limber as well as strong. And I would get her back in my life. That wasn’t a question. She just needed some time and with Jewel, I’d learned to be patient.
First, I needed to make sure she was OK. Then I would to talk with her.
I sat in my car, parked across the street, my eyes trained on the entrance of the center. I knew it was her right away, that flaming red hair, pulled back into a low ponytail. She wore a tent dress, of course, billowing around her, not doing a thing anymore to hide her shape from me, now that I knew every inch of her.
She walked out with a tall, slim man. He had brown hair and he rested his hand on her back. Mike. My eyes narrowed into slits. My hands gripped the steering wheel.
Together they walked over to a car I didn’t recognize, not her old beater but a Prius. Fucking tree-hugging hippie Mike’s car. They stood together close, speaking to each other. Then she rested her head against his shoulder, he gave her a brief hug, and they both climbed into his car. Together.
The blood pounded in my ears, rage flooding through me as I sat there alone in my car. The fucking Prius pulled out. I followed, a few cars behind, like a sicko stalking his girlfriend with her new guy. I stayed with them the whole drive, about twenty minutes, until they pulled in at an apartment complex. They got out of the car and went up the stairs together, disappearing behind the entry door. Into his place.
“Fuck!” I roared into my empty car, my impotent fury doing nothing to change things. I was a fucking idiot. All this time I’d been so bent out of shape over this girl, she’d been into another guy. And now she’d gone back to him. Easy come easy go. And here I’d thought she was the one. Talk about a sucker punch.
That night, I tore it up. Partying like a wild man, no one could slow me down. Instead of howling in pain, I pounded shots and bought everybody rounds. Then I brought the whole bar back to my father’s house and told them to go sick on the place. Who gave a fuck anymore? This was my last hurrah. What was he going to do to me that he hadn’t already done? What did I have to lose? Why not throw a fucking rager?
Drunk, girls all up on me, kissing my neck, going for my junk, I still couldn’t fucking do it. Even with every reason in the world, with my girl gone and fucking another guy, I still couldn’t get hard for someone else. That pissed me off. But everything pissed me off. I guessed that was the new me. Celibate, drunk and angry. I should have business cards made up—come party with me!
The last thing I remembered I was sitting on a big leather chair in the living room. A couple of girls were over on the couch and I knew they were looking to hook up, they wanted to party, but all I could think of was how Jewel and I had played poker on that couch. I’d trade everything for just one more night with her.
§
The next morning, I thought I was dreaming. Or still drunk. A wild, raving goddess with fiery red hair was storming around, kicking beer cans and gesturing with her hands.
“Jewel?” I mumbled, wiping my lips. I felt drool there.
“This is disgusting!” she ranted. It was Jewel. Over on the couch I could see a couple of people passed out, fast asleep. They didn’t seem to have any clothes on.
“What time is it?” I asked, trying to bring my hands to my face to rub it, wake myself up. My tongue felt thick and fuzzy and somehow my arms were trapped, pinned down. I opened my eyes wider and noticed I had a couple of girls on me. They both wore panties, but had their tops off, their naked breasts out and exposed while they slept.
One of them grunted in protest as I tried to move.
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” Jewel exclaimed in disgust.
“Shut that bitch up,” mumbled one of the topless girls on my lap.
“Don’t worry, I’m out of here.” Jewel turned and spun out of the living room.
“No, wait.” I pushed myself up and off of the leather armchair, both girls whining as they were disturbed, then deposited back into the chair. Neither fully woke up. “Wait!” I chased after Jewel as fast as my barefoot, hung-over body would let me, picking my way through broken bits of a vase and some fireplace tools strewn across the kitchen floor. What the fuck had happened here last night?
I caught up with her in the garage before she could get into her car.
“Please, Jewel, wait. I want to talk to you.” I grabbed her arm.
“Let me go.” She pulled from my grip. “I just came to get my things. Now I don’t even want them anymore.”
“I want to talk to you,” I kept insisting, a big dumb bear, my brain not working right.
“About what?” she spat out. “How many girls you fucked last night?”
“I didn’t.” Fist up to my hair, I pulled at the roots, trying to wake myself up, trying to make her understand. “It’s not what you think.”
“You didn’t trash your father’s house, get shithoused drunk and fuck a couple of skanks last night?”
“No,” I protested, shaking my head. “Well, some of that.” And, wait, it came back to me. Wasn’t I the jilted one? Wasn’t I the one who had something to yell about?
“What about you?” I asked. “How about you and your boy toy?”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” She looked so gorgeous, all pale and flaming righteous fury. I wanted to pull her to me, claim her, make her mine again, all mine. But she’d chosen to leave me. Chosen another man.
“Mike,” I spat out, remembering how she’d rested her head on his chest, how he’d guided her up the steps of his apartment with a hand at the small of her back.
“Do you have a fucking rock for a brain?” Jewel screamed at me. Funny, that’s what my father had said to me, about a million times.
“Guess I do,” I spat back. “I trusted you.”
“Get away from me!” she yelled, opening he
r car door and climbing in.
I stepped aside. She’d made her choice. She’d left me, not because of something my father said or did, but because she didn’t want to be with me. She wanted to be with someone else, simple as that.
The wheels of her car burned rubber, squealing as she pulled out into the driveway. She couldn’t get away from me fast enough.
CHAPTER 27
Jewel
Thanksgiving was right around the corner and I had a pit in my stomach. The days had grown cold and dark in Massachusetts, a biting wind bearing down on me as I walked between classes. I was a far way away from L.A.
I hadn’t heard from any of them in four months. Not my stepfather or mother. And not Tuck, not a word from him, the man I’d fallen for so hard. In two weeks it would be Thanksgiving, a family holiday. Only this year I had no idea who to spend it with.
I certainly wasn’t going to spend it with Tuck, no cozy fireside snuggling with the game on TV, no laughing as we attempted to make homemade cranberry sauce and failed. Those scenes would stay in my head, or in the Lifetime made-for-TV movies I seemed to compulsively watch. He hadn’t gotten in touch with me, no texts, no calls, no late-night romantic gestures, “I’ve driven all day and all night because I had to see you.” No, that only happened late at night in my head.
During the day, I kept myself busy. Working for a professor, waiting tables on the side to make some money, plus a full load of classes left few idle hours. Thank God. It was the nights that were hard, making it through all those long, lonely hours.
It had been easier being lonely before Tuck. Before him, intimacy had been an abstract concept. I hadn’t known what I was missing. Now it felt like I’d lost a limb. I had phantom pain. My heart ached all the time, like it had been torn in two. I’d lost weight, but that was only to be expected when everything tasted like cardboard. My already pale skin turned ghostly white. I wasn’t doing well.
I didn’t know what he was doing for Thanksgiving. I doubted he was spending it with his father, not after what Leland had seen and said that night. Definitely not after Tuck had trashed his house, his skanks and gym buddies breaking and smashing everything in sight.
I’d sent my mom a text back at the start of the school year, asking if we could talk. Nothing in return. In October I’d left her two phone messages. Not saying much, just please give me a call. She didn’t get back to me.
Funny how I missed her. She’d always been there in my life, something to rail against, someone to roll my eyes over and complain about, but she’d always been there. I’d never gone this long without talking to her.
I kept picturing her standing there at the bottom of the stairs, so angry but so cold. Had she really thought I’d been mean to her her whole life? That I’d looked down on her, thought she was trailer trash? It made me feel sick.
Nothing like making a huge fucking mess of your life to learn some humility. I didn’t think I was better than her, I really didn’t. I figured we were both human, that’s what it came down to. Each trying to do our best, and I obviously didn’t have it all figured out.
I made it through my days, sleepwalking, zombie-like, making my grades, on time for work shifts, but I wouldn’t call it a life. It resembled a life, but I was back in hiding, under wraps, a heavy blanket of loss cloaking me. They said it was better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. I wondered who they were and how they said that shit with a straight face. This pain I felt, it wasn’t getting any easier.
I guess that's what you got when you’d kept yourself in lockdown mode for all of your teenage years. I hadn’t gone through the typical progression, swooning over a pretty boy band as a tween, crushing on the dreamy high school senior quarterback as a freshman, moving up to spin-the-bottle kisses in the closet to your first real boyfriend junior year and the big bang at senior prom. Had I done any of that, I guessed this wouldn’t be so hard now. It wouldn’t take me so long to scrape myself up off the pavement and start breathing again. I was sure Tuck had rebounded like a champ, off like an Olympic sprinter on to the next girl. Hell, I’d already seen him in action with two topless hos draped over his lap after a big night. The memory made my stomach turn.
I realized that I should feel more revulsion, more ‘how could I have done that?’ or ‘I’m such an idiot.’ But even with direct evidence that he wasn’t who I’d thought, he was still a party boy player and hadn’t really changed at all, I ached for him. Not a day went by when I didn’t think about searching for him online, seeing if he’d made the leap to pro MMA. Or just picking up the phone and calling him, even if he didn’t want to talk, simply to hear his voice for a few seconds. And if he did want to talk, I’d tell him Mike was just a friend, I hadn’t cheated, I would never do that to him.
But then I’d remember. I’d see Leland’s face, hear the crushing disgust in his voice that confirmed every horrible thing I’d ever thought about myself. I’d see Tuck, passed out and hung over, literally covered with semi-naked girls. Every time I almost broke down, that image would hold me back. That was probably where he’d be, what he’d be doing when his phone rang.
It was best to move on, trust that in time I’d forget all about him. So what that my body still shivered for him, that I woke up moaning his name? That would go away. Some day, like when I turned 75.
§
The call came in the middle of the night, as it always did. She was sobbing and blowing her nose so I couldn’t understand much of my mom’s words, but I understood her meaning. Leland had left her. He was filing for divorce.
Well, that was quick. I thought it, but at least I didn’t say it out loud. I sat there in my narrow, long dorm room bed, feeling slightly numb. I counted out on my fingers, mid-February to mid-November. Nine months. Huh. She’d certainly had relationships with guys that lasted shorter than that, but the marriage and divorce thing all within the span of a calendar year. Hats off.
The next day she emailed me a plane ticket to join her in Cabo for Thanksgiving break. I guessed all was forgiven now that her own situation had fallen apart. We were quite a pair.
She played the part of the jilted, tortured movie star to perfection, complete with ginormous black sunglasses that swallowed up her entire face and a floppy sun hat the size of Texas. She rarely left the shelter of her poolside cabana and fell asleep early at night, drifting off in a haze of margaritas, pina coladas and cosmos. There was something comfortable about both of us being back in our normal roles, her the drama queen with man trouble, me the long-suffering, mostly silent daughter tending to her needs.
She didn’t bring up Tuck and I didn’t either. She moaned a lot about how Leland wasn’t the man she’d thought he was, and how ridiculously he was, insisting on sticking to their pre-nuptial agreement. Apparently she was only getting $10 million. Can you imagine? The insult. How would she scrape by?
She was super concerned about the finances, less so about Leland. Thankfully she called him by his middle name. Hearing her talk about Tuck would have been too strange. Not that everything about this wasn’t already strange.
I couldn’t say I was surprised. I’d heard the clock ticking on it from the second they’d eloped on Valentine’s Day. But it did change things.
Tuck wasn’t going to be my stepbrother any longer.
The day before I flew back to school, my mom had a rare moment of lucidity. I was sitting by her side in a lounger with a little light reading, a packet of articles on the ethics of gene splicing for my bioethics class.
“Do you like him?” she turned to me and asked, holding a large water bottle in her hand for a change.
“Who?” I replied, suddenly frozen to the spot. She couldn’t mean who I think she meant.
“Tuck,” she answered, nonchalant, as if we were having a normal, casual conversation. I stammered something incoherent, wondering where this line of questioning was going. “You don’t have to be embarrassed about it,” she continued. “He’s not my son. You two were never related. An
d now you sure as hell aren’t.”
Silence sat between us.
“But what about—?” I began.
“I know what I said.” She waved her hand dismissively. “I was upset about a lot of things. I wanted it to work with Leland.”
I honestly didn’t know what to say. Frozen in shock, I sat there with my reading packet on my lap.
“He’s nothing like his father, you know,” my mom said.
That made me laugh a bit. “I do know that.”
“I sometimes think... I wonder...” Oh no, she’d started crying. I stood up and went over to her lounge chair to give her a hug. “I’m fine, I’m fine,” she said still crying. “I know I haven’t been a great mother.”
“Mom, don’t say that.” I wanted her to feel better.
“I’m so proud of you,” she said, a tear running down her cheek. Now I was crying, too. “But I worry,” she continued. “You need to live a little. You’re such a killjoy.”
OK, maybe I wasn’t crying that hard. “Well, Mom, I’m not sure that’s my biggest problem.” Look where “living a little” had gotten me this summer?
“I’m just saying.” She blew her nose, wiped her eyes, took a sip of water. Then she looked straight at me. “Don’t be afraid to go after what you want.”
After that, she went back into her histrionics, how she was penniless (except for the $10 million), heartbroken (how hot was that man at the bar?), and hideously old (did you see the way that guy was checking me out? Scandalous). But she’d had her moment, looked into my soul and spoken the truth.
I flew home knowing my mom would be OK. She’d re-invent herself as always. Morphing into her next phase and bursting out gloriously like a butterfly was her favorite pastime. Me? I didn’t know what came next. Other than looking forward to a visit from a friend next weekend.
Off Limits: A Stepbrother MMA Romance Page 24