For two and a half years, she fought like the warrior she was. Even made it into remission, which offered a flicker of hope to the four of us. But it was snuffed out as quickly as it was lit, as if God had decided to play some sick practical joke on us.
Roughly a year after her initial diagnoses, I was hanging out at Keith’s house under the pretense of studying when, in reality, we were heading to the party Ryan Matherson was throwing while his parents were out of town, when my dad called me with the news that all but sealed her fate.
Mom collapsed in the shower, unable to stand on her own. After my father took her to the hospital, doctors discovered the cancer had metastasized to her brain. God, what it did to her. It wasn’t enough for it to paralyze her body—it took her mind too. Like a goddamn parasite, it just ate away at her until she became a bedridden shell of the fierce, fiery woman who’d raised me.
The tumor consumed nearly any remnant of consciousness left. By the end, she couldn’t recognize my father, brother, or me. Couldn’t even form a coherent sentence. But her screams. They echo in my ears to this day. The hospice nurses assured us she wasn’t in pain, that it was the synapses in her brain misfiring. I guess I would never know. Mom couldn’t tell us.
Cue the second worst day of my life. My mother’s funeral. I hardly remember the day. It just . . . didn’t feel real, like walking through a nightmare and I’d wake up to the sound of my mother’s voice calling me down for dinner or yelling for me to take out the garbage for the twentieth time.
But the following morning, the house was silent. Eerily silent. The bed she’d spent her final weeks in was empty, and the remainder of our family was in shambles. My father couldn’t even look at my brother and me. Since we inherited the majority of our features from Mom, I guess it was just too painful. Can’t really blame him. Sometimes I look in the mirror and see her reflection staring back at me.
But life had to go on. Slowly but surely, we assembled the broken pieces, gluing what we can together, though the jagged cracks remained.
A small part of me still refuses to fully accept she’s gone. I could swear I hear her voice sometimes, if I listen closely enough, but time has muffled the sound of her laughter. It’s becoming harder and harder to hear.
And last night, while I lay in my bed after having given up on trying to lose myself in the piles of assignments with looming deadlines, it wasn’t my mom’s voice I heard or face I saw when my eyes finally closed.
It was Dahlia’s.
SAME DAY, SAME BULLSHIT. WINTER break came and went in the blink of an eye and left me with a fresh set of classes to lose sleep over. I’ve been hoping against all hope that the universe would be on my side and spare me any shared classes with Zack.
Well, universe, thy name is Bitch.
Zack and I share not one but two classes. Victimology and juvenile delinquency.
This time, instead of sitting directly behind me, he’s clear across the room in both courses, which serves as both relief and torture. On one hand, his enthralling scent isn’t permeating my nostrils and short-circuiting the fuses in my brain. On the other hand, my eyes need their daily fill and steal the occasional glance of him hunched over his desk, his fingers tapping away at the keyboard.
Not that he looks up to meet my eyes. Well, he did once, but the coquettish gleam in his eyes was replaced by a vacant expression. As though I wasn’t even worthy of his disdain. Humiliation licked up the back of my neck, its heat flooding my face before I shot my eyes back toward whatever the hell our professor was scribbling on the white board. My body all but squirmed to go over to him. To apologize, to demolish every wall I’ve put up and allow the truth to spill out, but I remained with my ass glued to my seat like the coward I was.
Zack hasn’t looked at me since. Just as well. I deserve it. I told him that kiss meant nothing and thereby implied that he also meant nothing.
On one acutely bad morning, after sleeping through my alarm and making a mad dash for victimology with my hair sticking out in every direction and wearing the same shirt I’d worn to bed, I stumbled through the classroom door a mere three minutes before class began and came face-to-face with a particularly gruesome sight.
Some willowy platinum-blonde had one butt cheek propped up on Zack’s desk. Her pearly pink lips were jabbering away, probably raving about how some juice-and-turmeric cleanse had changed her life. Whatever she was saying, she had Zack’s full and undivided attention. Flashing him a Cheshire-cat grin, she leaned in, her low-cut, skin-tight shirt no doubt giving him an eyeful. I forced myself to turn away before I could tell whether or not he was enjoying her little display.
I nearly decapitated a dummy during training that night.
“You’re staring again, D.” The sound of my best friend’s voice has me snapping my eyes shut tightly.
“Yeah, I really need to get a handle on that,” I grumble, more to myself than to Lexi.
Matching my stride as I walk out of the building after having endured another grueling class with Zack, she bumps her hip into mine. “Or you know”—her eyebrows shoot up as she teeters her head back and forth—”you could just do what normal people would do and apologize.”
I snort. “Little late for that, don’t you think?” I tilt my head toward Zack standing to the side of another set of doors, as a frizzy redhead rests her perfectly manicured fingers on his ass. I’m fairly certain it’s the same redhead Keith traipsed after at the frat party. Feels as though an eternity has gone by since then. Time seems to have slowed to a tortuously cruel crawl without Zack to make me laugh the hours away.
Lexi hums in agreement when she follows the direction of my stare, and I have to fight the urge to glare at them. A gust of brisk, wintery air blows into my face, forcing me to shut my eyes, as though it were the universe telling me to look away. Normally I’d be cursing Michigan’s seemingly endless winter, but for once, I’m thankful for it. Seeing yet another girl making passes at Zack has my face flaming and likely as red as Ginger’s hair.
“The gossip birds have been chirping away.” Lexi hunches her shoulders and wraps her arms around her middle to shield herself from the biting wind.
Well, that’s no shocker. I look at her, bracing myself for a potential rumor about why Zack and I are no longer speaking. While it’s no one’s business but ours, that’s never stopped them from soaking up every bit of juicy info as if it’s their lifeblood.
“Evidently Zack got benched for the next game against New Hampshire. Rumor has it that he’s been total shit on the ice.” She sniffles, using the sleeve of her coat to wipe her nose.
I eye her as we head toward Café au Lait “Are you driving at something?” While I feel bad that his game is off, I don’t see how that has anything to do with me.
The doorbell jingles as we step into the blessed warmth and comforting smell of freshly baked croissants and brewing coffee. We choose a table by the window.
“I know you don’t exactly follow the sport,” she says, shrugging off her cerulean jacket, “but Zack is one of the team’s best players. Him being off his game is like you getting your ass whooped by a nine-year-old.”
It was a thirteen-year-old, thank you very much.
Unwinding the scarf from around my neck, I grab a menu from behind the condiment stand. I hate it when people run circles around a subject until finally spitting it out. “Can you please stop with these backward riddles and tell me what the hell you’re getting at?”
She huffs. “Jesus, Dahlia, I love you, but how dense can you be?”
One of the servers stops at our table. We quickly place our orders—a fruit crepe for Lexi and a French omelet for me.
As soon as the server walks away, Lexi’s voice drops to a whisper. “I’m telling you that ever since you and Zack stopped seeing each other, he’s been screwing up. It all lines up.”
I tick off points with my fingers. “Firstly, we weren’t seeing each other.” Lexi rolls her eyes, and I keep going before she can say otherwise. “Secondly, you saw him
when we were leaving. He seems to be getting on just fine with his bubble-headed groupies.” I can’t even contain my sneer at that last statement.
“Have you ever considered that maybe he’s just putting up a front and not actually entertaining those girls?” she asks, much to my dismay. Why can’t she just let this go?
“He doesn’t give a shit anymore, Lexi. No calls, no texts, he’s stopped coming to the studio.” I suck in a calming breath.
Our server returns with our food in hand. The moment he leaves, Lexi digs into her crepe while I pick at my pale yellow eggs. I’ve lost my appetite.
She feigns a shrug. “Whatever you need to tell yourself.” She takes another bite of her food. “But I should tell you that Christie has been hanging over him like a damn curtain lately.”
Of course she is. She’s been acting even bitchier than normal whenever she’s around, and I’m definitely not oblivious to the way she cut between Zack and me at the party, like I was edging too close to her territory.
She presses on. “You can’t run or punch your way through everything, babe. Sometimes you actually have to lay your feelings out there and see what happens. Take the risk. You may end up stumbling and getting some scrapes and bruises, but at least you can say you tried.”
Yeah, I’ve had enough of those to last me a lifetime. But in the cobweb-riddled place in my mind where my vulnerability lies battered and bruised, I know she’s right. Rather than telling her as much, I sip at my latte and stare out the window into the blinding sun-kissed snow.
“So are you working tonight? I’ve got a test in biochemistry and my professor totally has it for me.”
With a smile of relief, I chuckle, and we begin an argument over how it’s not some vendetta the professor has against her but the fact that she can’t seem to ever keep her trap shut enough to actually pay attention to the lectures. I don’t think I’ve ever been more relieved over the end of a conversation in my life.
IT’S NOT GETTING EASIER. NO matter how much time has passed since I ran from Zack, the gaping wound within my chest continues to deepen. Every day, a new girl fawns and drapes herself around him like an accessory, and every day my eyes burn from the sight. Today, it was a curvy brunette with skin-tight, low-cut jeans and a probably even lower IQ. I dashed out of class and into the blistering winter air as soon as we were dismissed.
Bitter cold air bites my nose the second I step outside. My eyes well from its icy kiss, making it easy to disguise the tears threatening to spill over as I head to the studio. Despite it being only a ten-minute walk from the university, anything more than thirty seconds spent in Michigan’s brutal winter feels like stepping into a cryogenic chamber.
It’s one of those days when I’m on the move from sunrise to sunset. School during the day, then the studio, and tonight I’m supposed to meet Lexi and some of her sorority sisters at Sammy’s Wingshop. At least being busy keeps my mind occupied well enough.
Tucking my chin into a plaid patterned scarf to shield my face from the wind, I make a mental note to check my savings account to see if there’s enough money for a deposit on a car. Or to move to Florida. Either one would suit me just fine at this point. Warm weather with lots of beaches I could lie on, hundreds of miles away from Zack and his hockey groupies. I’m not sure which part sounds more appealing.
A grueling ten minutes later, my frigid hands swing open the door to the studio. Christos’s voice booms as he finishes up with his students, all of them listening intently. I always have a hard time getting first-timers to take me seriously. More often than not, they seem to assume I don’t know what I’m doing because I’m a girl. It used to bother me, but seeing their jaws drop once I slam someone’s face onto the mat in a demonstration makes the doubt worth it. Not that Zack ever once made me feel inferior because of my gender. He soaked up my lessons like a sponge.
Christos offers a polite greeting, giving me a quick rundown on remaining classes. Another youth group. Great. The more advanced groups are so much easier to handle. They don’t require quite as much involvement.
Even Christos has been avoiding me lately. Granted, I haven’t exactly been good company as of late. I’ve fallen into a pathetic routine. Get up, go to school, go to work, home, shower, bed. No dinnertime chats. What’s there to talk about except me wishing I could mentally strangle each new girl I see with Zack? Not exactly lively dinnertime chat.
Dumping my bag on the floor, I head to the backroom to change and put on a stone face before the next class arrives.
“SO COLD” BY BREAKING Benjamin booms in my ears while I recline on the leather bench, getting ready to do presses. Keith stands over me, crossing his arms with his eyes on the wall-to-wall mirrors. Probably looking for a gym rat to hook up with.
I smack the back of his leg to get his focus and wrap my hands around the cool metal barbell with two hundred fifty pounds worth of plates divided amongst each side of the bar. When I release the bar, my teeth grind together with a growl as I max out my reps.
Three. That’s pathetic. A criticism that has Keith in agreement when I tug the ear buds from my head.
“Man.” He clicks his tongue. “You were bangin’ out eight to ten with that weight before.”
He helps me settle the bar back into place, and I sit back up, wiping my brow with the back of my arm. “I know.”
“Look, Z.” He takes a seat on the bench beside me. “You need to get it together. You’re playing like a sad sack of shit that can’t even make the damn toilet.”
My face twists in a scowl, but I say nothing because he’s right. I’ve become a liability on the ice and am jeopardizing the entire team. While I was anything but happy about it, Coach was probably right to put my sorry ass on the bench.
“Don’t pretend like this isn’t about Dahlia,” he says before I can think to explain myself. “Why can’t you two bury whatever shit happened and just go back to making goo-goo eyes at each other? Christ, never thought I’d say that.”
I laugh, but it sounds more defeated than anything. I focus my eyes on the cable machine where some jackass looks as if he’s about to choke himself if he tangles himself up any more. “She doesn’t want me.”
“So buck the fuck up and move on.” He pushes himself off the bench, holding a hand out to the side. “It’s not like you need help getting laid, man.” He drops his hand to his thigh with a slap. “Maybe start with a girl who doesn’t have the warmth of a fucking snow peak.”
Oh, fuck no. I shoot up from the bench and shove my face into his. Doesn’t matter that Keith has at least three inches on my six-foot-one frame, I’m stronger and he damn well knows it.
“Go ahead,” he snarls. “Do it.”
My hands ball into fists by my sides, squeezing so tightly my knuckles turn white.
“But let me tell you something,” he continues, straightening to his full height. “Between her and me, I’m the only one of us who actually gives a damn about you.”
And with that, he steps back and turns toward the free weights.
I blow out a breath and sit my sorry ass back on the bench, my head hanging like a ragdoll’s. Keith’s words hit me harder than any punch he could have thrown at me.
Maybe he’s right. Maybe Dahlia simply doesn’t give a flying fuck about me. But how does that explain the way she stares at me from across the room, her eyes penetrating me? My seat may be far from hers, but I can still see the hurt in her eyes. As though it’s painful to look at me. And whenever a girl is around me, Dahlia looks murderous. As if she wishes she could burn a hole right through them with her glare.
Not that I’m doing anything with them. Sure, it may seem that way, but it’s nothing more than an act and it’s all for Dahlia. The second I watch her step out of the building, cut scene and I continue on my way like the girl never existed.
I think a part of me hoped that the act would incite some jealousy within her. That she’d finally get fed up and act on it. And while I see jealousy, I’m not seeing any action.<
br />
I walk over to where Keith stands doing hammer curls. I offer a placatory smile, which he returns, letting me know we’re still good. Plugging my earbuds back in, I pick up a set of dumbbells and zone out to Benjamin’s gravelly bellow.
“SO THEN,” JUSTINE CONTINUES, leaning over the table in our booth, “she whipped off her bra, stood up on the table, and starting grinding on the umbrella pole while lip-syncing to ‘Bed’ by Nicki Minaj.” Her voice is a shrill squeal as she spills the sordid details from some frat party she went to last week.
Not that I’m paying much attention. I stare at the cardboard bowl of habeñero wings, regretting ordering these because all I can think of now is the time Zack cornered me in my studio to go on a date with him. I would have protested coming here tonight, but according to Lexi, I’ve been moping like a wounded puppy and need to get out more. I didn’t have the energy to refuse.
While the three of them huddle around the table and gossip like verbal vomit, I sip my tea, surveying the room out of boredom. When my eyes reach the bar, I spot Christie’s profile while she rests her cheek on her fist, smiling and nodding enthusiastically at the person sitting next to her. A guy with a broad, muscular back and cropped dark hair. I’m about to turn my attention back to Justine’s less-than-interesting story when the guy faces Christie and my heart seizes. Zack. He’s here. Sitting with Christie. At the very same spot where we had our first date.
Despite how hard I’ve tried to convince myself that everything between Zack and me meant next to nothing, it was a lie. It’s always been something. Something I could never quite define and something that scares the living daylights out of me.
I can’t seem to look away from them, despite my lungs burning with the effort to breathe as my throat closes in on itself and a searing pain licks down my body, settling into my belly like a bowling ball.
Regardless of all of my efforts to keep my heart locked up tight and my vulnerabilities hidden, I became the very thing I wanted to avoid. Weak. The icy walls I built up slip away like a melting glacier, leaving my heart floating on a tiny ice raft, searching in desperation for yet another frozen mass to hide behind.
Sweet Insanity (Sweet Series Book 1) Page 12