My insides quaked with pleasure thinking about him again. I still didn’t know how he did it, or why, but he had the uncanny ability to break through my walls and see the real me. Too bad he didn’t want that person. The time had come to move on, and if that meant throwing myself in a piranha pool, then that was what I had to do. I knew Mel would help me, but I thought of someone else that would probably help me more: Chad.
Chad had been more than a little helpful when I attended his little soiree, and he knew my current predicament. And I did have his cell phone number. Would he be willing? My stomach clenched in both nervousness and uncertainty. My inner voice yelled at me. He’s not Bryan.
I fully grasped the fact that he was not Bryan, but I couldn’t keep pining for someone who did not want me. He helped, encouraged, championed, and pushed me more than anyone else in my life—past or present. For that, I felt grateful beyond measure, and maybe my heart confused those two feelings.
My heart denied the confusion, fighting against the mere thought I misunderstood myself. But could I trust my heart?
Looking around my living room, everything seemed so quiet and peaceful. Since I had woken up slightly weak and extremely fatigued, Mel came by on her way to work and picked up Curley. I had a feeling I would be seeing her this morning when she texted me last night and I told her I felt kind of blah. And at 7:45 A.M. she knocked twice and let herself in with the key I had given her. Two people had been given keys to my apartment–just in case–Mel and my sister, Ellie. Both of them used it even when I didn’t want them to, but I learned to accept their sometimes overbearing tendencies. They worried about me and wanted to make sure I was all right. I appreciated the fact that they cared as much as they did.
However, this morning I missed my dog. I missed his cuddles, his barking, and his moving around. With him there, my thoughts couldn’t head down paths they shouldn’t.
Maybe sorting my thoughts would help me to regain control over my riotous emotions. After grabbing a piece of paper and pen from the kitchen, I flopped back down on the couch. I folded it in half, and on one side I listed all of the reasons I believed my heart was confused about my feelings for Bryan. On the other side, I wrote down all of the reasons why it might not be confused about my feelings for that Navy man. The latter started to become longer then the former, and I ripped up the paper and slammed it on the table. Fuck this shit. A list could not decide my future for me.
Bryan didn’t want me, and therefore, I would have to find someone that did, and eventually, I would get over him and move on with my life. My heart would find someone new to like. No longer could I convince myself that my feelings were a mere crush, but I refused to define them any further than that.
My gut twisted with my denial, and tears welled in my eyes. I denied them permission to fall, pretending that I could actually control them, and still, they remained swimming on the surface, making my eyes glisten.
It was time to start thinking about myself and my future. My phone lay next to the shredded list, and I wondered if Bryan had maybe sent me a message. It was easy to forbid me from thinking about him, to order myself to get over him, but actually following through on either of those, was impossible. And I couldn’t stop myself from checking, disappointment filling me when no message had been received. Then I wanted to slap myself when I tried to give him an excuse. He’s busy with his family, and besides, it’s only midmorning.
This behavior needed to stop. If I intended to find someone, to complete the mission Bryan set out to assist me with, I had to make a conscious effort to change a few things. Communication with him would come to a screeching halt. No more pinging him. No more waiting for him to message me, or looking forward to our conversations. I hated even the thought that I would never chat with him again, because he made me feel normal, as if my disease did not matter. Never mattered. He had become the first guy since right before I started college that I felt I could relax and be myself around, ripping down walls he had no idea existed for a reason.
MG forced me further into my shell, but it only compounded issues that had already existed.
In high school, I was a size 16 even though I maintained an extremely active lifestyle. Winter guard/flag corps, tennis, softball, marching band, and dance. I loved it all and never got tired of my busy schedule and managed to maintain a 4.0 GPA.
And then Allen happened. I had been pushing down all of my memories of him, trying to forget that brief period of time in my life never existed, but now without the distractions, without anything else to occupy my mind, they escaped and burst free.
I planned to use the summer between high school and college to get read ahead and start getting a jump on my studies, however, my plans changed a little when I met someone. Allen was different than any of the other guys I knew. Five years older, he had an edge to him. Bad boy personified. Drinking, smoking, partying…he did it all, and he approached me. Me, the wallflower who no one noticed. I shouldn’t have wanted him. I should have told him no, but when I opened my mouth, instead of no, yes escaped, holding my denial prisoner. This man gave me my first taste of alcohol, cigarettes, and the wild side where no one cared about text books. And then he tore me to pieces.
My self-esteem was already shit, and I never quite understood why a guy like him would look twice at me, but at the time, I didn’t care. It felt good to be wanted by someone, even if I also knew this relationship could never last. I still had plans for my future and planned on leaving for university to work on my degree. I had dreams I wanted to pursue, and I did not want to become my sister. That thought always remained first and foremost in my head. I had this violent urge to prove her wrong.
It only took two weeks for my relationship with Allen to change from giddy school girl to tortured soul.
The relationship started innocently enough, although, he tried to convince me to sleep with him from day one, and he always pushed my boundaries when we made out, but I wasn’t ready to cross the line into a more physical relationship yet. For two weeks the pressure built and increased, and on the last day, I finally gave in.
Before I could change my mind, he dragged me to his room, his hand gripping mine as he pulled me behind him with his friends cheering him on from his living room. I didn’t fight him. In truth, I felt too embarrassed to even look at him. My skin prickled with heat, and I swore my whole body turned red as he stripped me and then pushed me backwards onto the bed. As soon as I landed, my stiff body gave a little bounce. I tried to will my body to relax, but it remained as still as a 2x4.
Now that the memories of that time assaulted me, I could not turn them off.
Everything up until his cock slammed into me was blurred, blending into each other. He was part of the room, not a separate being, and until he rammed into me, I had no conscious thought of him above me.
It hurt. There was no foreplay, no preparation, and my pussy was dry as a bone. The moment he roughly took my virginity, I screamed. He laughed. I remembered him laughing, pulling out, pushing in…his pace picking up with each thrust, and I cried.
When he finished, he pulled out and started teasing me, calling his friends to “come in and look at the scared little girl.” Sneering, he told me, “You’re just like all the others, and you’re not even that good. Now that I’ve tasted you, you can get the fuck out of my house.”
One of his friend chortled as he asked, “How were you even able to fuck her? She’s a dog.”
“Man, that’s what a pillow over the face is for,” Allen replied.
“It would take more than that to make me forget that fat ass body and that ugly mug.”
Everyone in the room began to join in the fun, to make a mockery of me, and to tear me down. No one helped. I tried to ignore them as I got dressed, but I moved slowly from the shock and from the pain that lingered between my legs. Still, their taunts continued. Even Allen snapped, “Hurry the fuck up! I have a real woman on her way over. One that actually knows how to satisfy her man.” It stabbed me and st
ung. I didn’t want to cry, I tried not to, and yet, the tears fell anyway.
The torment continued until Allen’s brother showed up with a buddy and they saved me. While the friend pushed everyone out of the way and threw Allen to the ground, Allen’s brother, Paul, pulled me out of the room and got me into his car. Paul’s friend followed a few minutes later.
They dropped me off at home, and I never heard nor saw any of them again. The rest of my time in town, I managed to avoid running into anyone present that day, but their taunts and Allen’s derision stuck with me throughout the years. As many times as I tried to forget their faces, the leers and sneers, their horrifying jabs, that memory was ingrained deeply into me. I could push it down and pretend it didn’t exist, but sometimes it snuck out and toyed with me. Only Gia knew what happened that day, and how it still affected me.
Maybe allowing something to chain me up like that was stupid. I allowed it to hold me in place instead of moving forward, but I couldn’t help it. My sister, that experience, and then getting sick. I felt like life kept knocking me down and messed with my prospects. Finding someone always proved difficult for me, and nearly impossible after the MG. Honestly, I started to believe my future would not include love.
At least, until I began talking to Bryan.
Bryan swooped in when I had reached a low point, and helped build me back up. Now I believed, even if not wholeheartedly, that someone existed for me out there somewhere. I was scared though. Not only did that memory hold me hostage, the terror of putting myself out there still gripped me.
I hated seeing the disgust, pity, indifference in people’s eyes when they saw me. Of course when I used my walker versus my cane, everyone’s reactions were magnified a hundred fold. When I mentioned that to my sister, Ellie laughed it off and told me I tended to exaggerate and once again allowed my imagination to run away with me. Her words stung, but I had plenty of practice at hiding my hurt. No one ever stared at her like she was a freak. No one ever glared at her for using a walker. Her health remained intact while my body seemed like it fell apart.
After I got sick, I begged and pleaded with God or the universe to heal me. I asked for prayers from family and friends. MG remained. I wanted to give up and give in numerous times, but I forced myself to keep fighting. I could never bring myself to completely surrender. Eventually, I learned to deal with the effects of MG and adapted. Military brats excelled at adapting after all.
I accepted my life was no longer the same, and that I had a new normal. However, every time I met a guy for a date, a new wall appeared, barricading me into my own personal inner sanctuary. But by doing that, I almost lost myself without realizing it. Again, Bryan was the person who helped me realize how buried I had become.
He had yet to steer me wrong, so I would take his advice and guidance, and I would march forward, praying the chains of my past did not jerk me backwards. Baby steps.
Baby steps began with calling Chad.
Picking up my phone, I scrolled through my contacts until I found his name. My heart pounded in my chest and ears. Was I breathing? I thought I was, but it hurt to breathe. I didn’t know. My pulse sped up, and my face felt flush. It was time to forget my fears, jump off the cliff, and make the call.
Before I worked up the courage to hit the talk button, my phone began howling at me with an incoming call. At some point while I tried to convince myself to hit the button, I had turned up the volume to max.
Screaming in surprise, I threw the phone into the air and it landed on the coffee table, sliding across it, and falling over the edge away from me. If I thought my pulse was racing before, nothing compared to the speed it raced now. I didn’t know. Breathing deeply, I pressed my hand to my chest and felt the erratic heart–beat trying to break through my ribs and escape. The pulse point in my neck thrummed, and I felt it spazzing without touching it. Hell, anyone could probably see it and take my pulse without laying a hand on me.
I was always that person who sat on the fence about whether surprises were good or bad, and today, I despised them. My breathing came hard and fast: in and out, in and out. My lips began to feel numb and tingly. I was hyperventilating and could not control it. I needed to take in long deep breaths and settle down.
A pounding started at the base of my skull and moved forward. Bending down, I placed my head between my legs and breathed as deeply as possible. Why the fuck did I feel so panicked over a simple phone call?
Five breaths later, I felt better and the anxiety had started to wane, but the pounding grew louder behind me. It took me a moment to realize the loud noise came from my door and not my head.
***
Bryan
Had I followed my own advice, I would have stayed away from Emma the remainder of this trip and not seen her again until Mel and Luke’s wedding. Instead, I stood in front of her door, using my fist to beat on it. Where the hell was she? Why didn’t she answer?
Maybe I overreacted a little when I left my sister and mom in the middle of lunch and hurried over to her house. Maybe. But, what was I supposed to do? Chad called and asked if it would be all right if he asked Emma out on a date. My Emma!
Wait a second. Not my Emma. She was a friend and nothing more. However, she deserved a whole hell of a lot better than Chad Destin. I loved the guy. I mean he was my friend and buddy, and we hung out whenever I got into town, but there was no way on God’s green earth that I would allow him to date Emma. Period. End of discussion.
And when I told him those exact words, he laughed and said, “Dude, I actually don’t need your permission. This is nothing more than a courtesy call because we’re friends.”
“She’s not ready,” I proclaimed, which went against everything I had been saying up until this point.
“Once she jumps on the horse, she’ll be fine.”
“And you want to be the horse?” My left hand pressed the phone against my ear harder as my right hand pumped open and closed as I tried to stave off the urge to punch something or someone. If Chad had been in front of me, he would have made an excellent punching bag.
His chuckle made me want to kill him. “Hey, why not? I’ll make sure she enjoys herself and has a really good time. It’s not like you want her, and she’s hot. Just because she isn’t 100% healthy doesn’t mean she isn’t fuckable.”
I growled, the sound rumbling deep and low in my chest. “Excuse me?”
“I’m messing with you. Why don’t you take a fucking chill pill and chill the fuck out? All I’m saying is, she seems like a nice girl and I plan on asking her out.”
“Over my dead body! Didn’t you just get out of a relationship?”
“Bryan, remember who your friends are. I’ve had your back since college.”
“So?”
“Come on. We both know Sarah wasn’t the girl for me. Who knows? Maybe Emma is.”
“You can’t,” I snapped again.
“You aren’t her daddy or her boyfriend. I can do whatever I fucking want to, and you can’t do a damn thing to stop me.”
“She deserves to have someone romance her, not someone who wants to fuck and be done with her.”
“Who says I only want to fuck her? You might be my friend, but you are crossing the line, Bryan.”
His tone warned me to take a step back and leave this alone, but I couldn’t. “I’m crossing…? Back off, Chad,” I roared. “She deserves better than you can give her.”
The buzzing of silence coming through my cell phone greeted me. Had he hung up? I pulled my phone away from my ear and glanced down at the screen. Call still active. Lifting he phone back to my ear, my hand ached from how tightly I gripped my cell phone, and it surprised me that it didn’t shatter with the pressure.
I almost said something else, but his quiet words stopped me. “Is that your final answer? And before you say anything, you need to ask yourself why you care so much. Why are you so pissy about this particular girl?” With that, he hung up and the line went dead. I didn’t have to pull the phone
away to see that the call had truly disconnected this time.
That particular girl? Why was I pissy about Emma? Why the hell would he ask a question like that? Obviously—maybe not to him—I was trying to watch out for her. Up until that point, Emma had some of the worse luck with men. She didn’t trust easily, and the last thing I wanted for her, the last thing she needed, was to be pursued by a playboy who pretended to be a lifer. Chad would never be a lifer, and Emma deserved better in her life. My concern meant nothing more than that.
After he hung up, I placed enough cash to cover the lunch bill on the table, jumped in my car, and sped over to her place, determined to convince her to decline Chad’s less than innocent invitation. The drive seemed to take longer than it should, my chest felt tight, and I couldn’t stop grinding my teeth. With the way I mashed them together, they might’ve turn to dust, and I didn’t give a fuck. I needed to get to her before he had a chance to talk to her. I didn’t care that a phone call required less than a minute to make, or that my trip took almost fifteen minutes driving from the restaurant in the heart of Charleston to her apartment on the outskirts of town. I also didn’t care that the only reason it didn’t take longer was because I sped and might’ve run a couple of stop signs.
My reaction wasn’t logical and I couldn’t care less. I had to protect her from him and anyone else who did not approach her with honorable intentions. It was my duty to make sure she found someone who would cherish her.
By the time I arrived at the door, I was panting from the exertion and anxiety. Only friends. I only wanted to offer my friendship to her, and I refused to explore my feelings beyond that. She seemed sweet, wholesome, and amazing. And compared to her, Chad was the scum of the earth. An angel like her deserved better than the devil.
Exposed: Book One of The Love Seekers Series Page 23