I gathered her against me, her body so warm, my nose nuzzled in her neck. “Who gave you that soft heart, Anna?”
“It’s not soft.”
I chuckled. “You’re a liar.”
Redness flushed her face.
“Tell me yours,” I prodded.
Her answer came like a confession. “I just want to be happy.”
I shifted to my knees, grinned down at her as I crawled between her thighs. “Think maybe I can help with a little of that happy part.”
She giggled, then moaned, and I got the sudden sense I was happier than I’d ever been.
Because that’s the way falling in love should always be.
A quick slide straight into bliss.
Willow’s words were tortured where she released them against my shirt as she forced them out between her tears. “That’s the only thing she ever wanted. To be happy.”
I brushed my fingers through her hair. “I know. I didn’t understand it then, when I first met her, the desperation behind it. I should have, Willow. I should have. I should have seen the warnings.”
A crazed energy spun through my bedroom. A circuit tripped. Chaos ricocheted from the walls. Bounding fast. Gaining speed.
The sheets were stripped from the bed, and the lamp on my side had been knocked from the nightstand. Drawers where pulled out from the dresser and clothes strewn across the floor.
Blackened tears streaked Anna’s tormented face.
“How could you? How could you do this to me?”
With both hands, I grabbed my head. Wanting to shake her. Demand that she stop. For the woman I knew to come back to me.
She’d been missing for two weeks.
“What are you talking about?”
“That girl you were talking to. How could you do this to me?”
Frustration and anger tightened my chest, my voice grit. “Haven’t touched anyone.”
“Don’t lie to me,” she begged through violent tears. “I heard you…in the kitchen. You told her you loved her.”
Confusion crashed through my brain before realization dawned. “Edie?”
“Yes!” she screamed.
“You mean my sister…Edie?” I spit it like my own accusation.
The second I said it, she sagged in relief, and her feet fully went out from under her. I sank with her to the floor.
“I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,” Anna whimpered. “Please, just don’t leave me.”
I squeezed my eyes closed against the memories I’d just uttered into the air. “I remember being terrified that day…the first time I saw her lose control. It was like…I didn’t recognize her. She begged me to forgive her. Promised it would never happen again. I told her it was okay. I wanted to believe it would be.”
Willow moaned. “She was sick. She was sick.” She gulped. “What happened that day? I need to know how it happened.”
I pressed a kiss into her hair like it could possibly soothe some of her grief. “It was horrible, Willow. Horrible. I’d do anything to take it back. But I didn’t know.”
Blood streaked from the corner of Anna’s mouth, her lipstick smeared. A bruise marked her cheek and others were blooming across the top of her thighs.
I grabbed her by the outside of the arms. “You need to tell me who did this to you, Anna. Right now.”
She blinked, her mouth moving like she didn’t want to form the word. “Lyrik.”
I jerked back like the word burned me.
Lyrik? No way would he touch her.
But the proof was littered all over her body.
“What did he do?”
“He…he tried…we need to get away from him.”
How could he? My fucking best friend who I trusted with my life?
I sucked in a breath. “The second she accused him, I think I knew something was off. But I didn’t want to believe she’d lie about something like that.”
My hands were in fists when I stormed out the front door. I charged forward, hands ramming against Lyrik’s chest just as he was climbing from his bike. “What the fuck did you do?”
Caught off guard, he rocked back, sheer confusion and disbelief written on his face as he rebounded and caught his fall, entire being angling toward me as he returned the shove. “What the fuck, man?”
I stumbled backward a step, bounced right back. “You heard me, what the fuck did you do to her?”
Dark eyes narrowed. “To who?”
“Anna!” I screamed.
I breathed the confession into the top of Willow’s head. “There I was, accusing him of trying to rape her, all the while knowing deep down inside that everything was off.”
Lyrik pointed a finger in the direction of the small house we all shared. His voice dropped with a warning. “Listen to yourself, man. Running out here like a madman, making accusations there’s no basis for. I know you love her, but there’s something there that’s not right. Haven’t you seen what she’s been doing here? She has you wrapped around all her pretty little fingers.”
My throat nearly locked. Fuck, I hated putting Willow through this. Putting myself through this. Dredging up the details that’d had me running for the last seven years.
Willow attempted to catch her breath, fingers digging into my shoulders. “She had a good heart. I swear she did. Sometimes she just couldn’t find it.”
“I know, Willow. I know. It just all came up so fast. Out of nowhere, and I didn’t know how to handle it. If I could. I promise you. When I went back inside to confront her…I was so confused. So spun up. Part of me hated her and the other part wanted to save her.”
She peeked out at me from the end of the hallway where she was hiding.
I pointed at her. “Get the fuck out.”
“Ash,” she pled, frantic.
“I can’t believe what you just tried to pull…blaming my best friend for trying to rape you? Trying to turn me against him? Don’t you get how messed up that is?”
“I just…you…you can’t go. You can’t leave me here. Please, Ash…”
That’s what this was about? Her trying to get me not to go on tour?
Unbelievable.
I searched for a breath, my lungs too tight. “I told her to get out. Get her things and get out. I was furious. She beat herself up, Willow. Beat herself up. I had no clue how to handle that.”
She jumped on my back when I started to head for the door. “I’m sick, Ash. I’m sick. I don’t know how to stop it. I don’t know how to stop it.”
My mouth parted on a strained breath, and I took her by a wrist and slowly unwound her hold from my neck. Her feet hit the ground.
Not even trusting myself, I turned to face her. She looked to the floor before she sank to it.
“I told you…I’m trying. I’m trying so hard. I hate this part of me, but I don’t know how to stop it.”
She looked up at me with an expression of sheer torment.
Pain squeezed my chest, this insane love I had for her at odds with the resentment burning through my blood.
I dropped to my knees in front of her.
“I just want to feel. But sometimes I feel too much.” She clutched her chest. “And this paranoia sets in…right here…and it’s the only thing I can feel and I’m suddenly doing things, saying things that I never meant to say. It’s all fueled by this fear that I’m gonna lose something that I might die without.”
I felt like I’d swallowed a gallon of broken glass.
“That doesn’t make it okay.”
She flinched. “Do you think I don’t know that? Do you think I don’t hate what I just did? That I don’t hate myself for being this person? But the thought of you leaving me…I don’t know if I can do it, Ash.” Desperation weaved its way back into her words. “I need you. I love you so much.”
“You need help, Anna. I don’t even know you.”
“I know…I promise…I’ll get it. I’ll do anything. Just, don’t give up on me. This isn’t the real me.” She grabbed my hand and pre
ssed my palm against the frantic beat of her heart. “You know the real me. Right here. You know me.”
“How am I ever supposed to trust you?”
“I’ll prove it. I will. Just…tell me you still love me.”
My mouth opened and closed, before I finally sighed and pressed my mouth to her temple, sang the words to the song I’d been writing for her, in those dark moments when I felt her pain and had no clue how to ease it.
Lay me down
Say your peace
Come what may
But you can’t hide
The pain behind your eyes
Anna clutched me tighter.
So stay with me
I don’t mind
Find your comfort
Right here by my side
I’ve seen it all before
Want to take it away
So stay with me
I don’t mind
Find your comfort
Right here by my side
My voice was grit. “That day…when I went with you to see your mom?”
Willow nodded.
“I sang her that song. It was the song I’d written for Anna. Something compelled me to sing it to her. Thinking it might soothe her. I just had no idea singing it would hurt so bad.”
A sob ripped from Willow, and I continued, breathing the words at her ear. “I think somewhere inside me, I knew I was falling for you. And I was terrified of ever getting back to that place of feeling so helpless. Terrified of loving someone and not being strong enough to help them. Terrified of not being strong enough to be there for them when it really mattered.”
“She needed you.”
My nod was slow and filled with regret. “And I left her. Right after that happened, I was so shaken up, confused on what to do. The tour kicked off in two days, and here was Anna, desperate and trying to get me to stay. I went to my parents’ place because I felt like I needed a breath. To step away and get some clarity.”
I squeezed her tighter, pain clenching down as I forced out the admission. “It was the worst night of my life, Willow. I’d gone to my mom and dad’s, and I get this text to head over to this guy’s house.”
Fury lashed as I thought back to the memory. “Somehow, Edie had talked me into letting her go with me to this party.”
“No,” Willow whimpered, adding it all up. Piecing it together. The night that had destroyed us both.
Music thrummed from within the thin walls. As soon as I knocked, the door flew open to Paul, dude already lit. I made quick introductions, cringed when he gave my sister a beer. But fuck. A red Solo cup was a far cry from the shit I’d already been testing out by the time I was fourteen. Still, she was different. Innocent. She didn’t come close to fitting into this sleazy world.
Normally, I’d step into a place like this and instantly glom on to the vibe. Revel in it. Live it up.
Not tonight.
Even though she’d promised she’d keep it together, Anna hadn’t stopped texting me since I left. My phone kept going off like a bomb. Constant. Incessant.
Part of me got it. That she was scared I was putting distance between us. The other part was pissed that this was the very reason I wanted the distance.
Truth was, I missed her. That girl who’d become my best friend.
I just didn’t know how to handle the dichotomy, the Anna I adored and the one that terrified me.
My sister was laughing and having a good time, so I did my best to relax. I threw back a few drinks, let the world blur and bend and veer.
My phone vibrated in my pocket again. Reluctantly, I dug it out, figuring I couldn’t go on ignoring her. Not when I told her I would support her. Taking off like a pussy and not facing what was going down wasn’t exactly earning me any gold stars.
I pushed to my feet and moved down the hall where it was quieter, dipped into a vacant bedroom and accepted the call.
“Hey,” I said.
She was crying softly. It twisted through me like a dull blade. I hated she was hurting. “I need to talk to you, Ash. Please, come back home.”
I sank down on the edge of the bed, rubbed my weary eyes with my thumb and forefinger. “I thought you were going to your apartment?”
“I just…I needed to see you when you got home. Talk to you.”
“I’m not up for talking tonight, Anna. I’ll go over to your place tomorrow. We’ll talk it out. Decide how we’re going to handle this, okay?” I tried to keep my voice even, let her know I cared but that I wasn’t caving.
A sob broke across the line. “I need to talk to you. Please, Ash, come home.”
I sighed. “I’m not doing this shit, Anna. You—”
“I’m pregnant,” she suddenly begged.
Everything went silent and the world stopped. Tipped from its axis. Slammed into high gear.
Finally, I caught up.
“You’re really gonna pull this right now, Anna?” I gritted my teeth, sympathy blown. “You’re going to sit over there, trying to trap me, saying I’ve got a kid on the way? After what you pulled with Lyrik this morning?”
I wheezed for a breath. “I’m not a fucking toy, and I won’t allow you to use me like one. I’m done. When I get home, you need to be gone.”
“I am.” It was a whimper.
“Just stop, Anna, I can’t take any more lies.”
I killed the call and pressed my fist to my mouth, wanting to scream, to fucking tear something apart.
This was killing Willow. I could feel it. The anguish that jarred through her body. I wanted to stop. To shield her from the truth. But I kept right on, the words cracking as I offered her my sins. “I didn’t believe her, Willow. I didn’t fucking believe her. And I just wanted to forget everything. Get back to who I was before I met her.”
The bedroom door creaked open, letting in a sliver of light. Casey clicked it shut behind her. She moved across the room, and I let her push me to the bed, let her crawl on top of me.
Because I didn’t want to feel anything.
Not the sting of Anna’s lies.
Not the loss aching inside of me.
The regret.
The guilt.
But the guilt was there when Casey kissed me, when her hands were on my chest. I squeezed my eyes shut, tried to block it all out, to just focus on the feel of skin on skin. It’s what I’d done for all my life. It didn’t have to be different now.
It didn’t.
But it was.
My phone lit up again, and the guilt bloomed and amplified. I pushed Casey off, the girl smirking at me from where she was twisted sideways on the bed.
Confused, I accepted the call, pushed it to my ear. “Anna.”
I wanted to apologize. To tell her we’d make it through this. That we’d figure it out. That I did know her.
On the other end, I heard her crying softly. “I love you, Ash. I need you to know that.”
“God, I love you, too. So much.”
Casey was suddenly on her knees beside me, voice saccharine sweet. “Aww, isn’t that cute, Ash Evans professing his undying love when he just had his tongue down my throat.”
“Who was that?” Anna demanded.
“No one.”
“Who was that?” she demanded louder. Even from across the miles, I could feel it. The snap. The trigger.
Anna started to hyperventilate on the other end of the line. “Oh my god, oh my god. I knew it. I knew it. You’re cheating on me. No, no, no,” she stammered. “I can’t do this. No.”
“Anna, listen,” I yelled, coming unhinged.
“I can’t do this,” she whimpered and the line went dead.
I swore, gripped the phone in my hand, pointed at Casey. “Stay the hell away from me.”
I stormed from the room, intent on finding Edie to tell her we were getting out of there when my phone buzzed in my hand.
I nearly threw it against the wall until I saw it was a text from Edie.
Headed home. Don’t worry about me.
> Part of me wanted to call her and lay into her for just taking off. That shit wasn’t safe. The other half was just relieved she’d gone. That she wasn’t a part of this mess.
My hands fisted at Willow’s back, and I couldn’t speak the words. Could barely admit to myself that while I’d been letting that chick crawl all over me, my baby sister was being raped. “I made so many mistakes that night, Willow. So many. But what I did know was I needed to make it right with Anna. Deep down, I knew it wasn’t her fault. That she was sick.”
I drove back to the house.
Guilt slicked my skin with a sheen of sweat. Couldn’t believe I’d let that bitch kiss me. That I’d kissed her back. Touched her.
No fucking wonder Anna didn’t trust me. That she was terrified for me to leave for months at a time. Being loyal to her seemed so simple until the second it wasn’t.
Did I really have it in me to change? Did Anna have it in her to do the same?
Only thing I knew was I wanted to. That I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving this city with things the way they were between us.
Main thing? I knew she was sick. I was certain that was no lie. Even if we didn’t end up together, at least I could help her through that. Help her find that happiness she’d been so desperate to find.
I blew out a breath, cracked open my door, and headed for the quieted house. The windows were still blackened with night, the front door locked. I slipped in my key and opened the door.
Profound silence echoed back.
I took a tentative step inside. “Anna?” I called, quieter than intended.
Nothing. I inched down the hall, leaned in and flicked on the light in my bedroom. My attention skated the room, taking in the broken mirror that’d shattered against the wall, pieces falling to the floor, the strewn papers, my drawers pulled from their hinges and my things spilling out, as if she’d been frantic, searching for a secret I hadn’t left for her to find.
I raked a hand through my hair. Disquiet bubbled to the surface. Somehow, I was more panicked that she’d actually done what I told her and left.
I straightened, standing back in the darkness of the hall, clutching my phone in my hand, trying to figure out how to apologize. How to let her know I didn’t want anyone else. That what happened with Casey was a mistake. A slip in the middle of a moment I couldn’t make sense of.
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