Hell Without You

by Ranae Rose

  She hadn’t been able to call beforehand to let Donovan know she was coming. His mom had neglected the phone bill again and service to their trailer had been shut off. It happened all the time, and she’d known he’d be happy to see her, with or without notice.

  Except, when she finally came close enough to see him beneath the maple, he didn’t look happy at all.

  With a wrench in hand, he was responsible for the noise. As she stood frozen in place, watching, he systematically beat the shit out of an old Ford Taurus. Over and over, he dealt the body hard blows, denting the metal and cracking the faded red paint. The doors, the roof, the trunk lid – he distributed the damage evenly. Even from a distance, she could see the results – he’d given the car a pockmarked appearance that was obviously irreparable. And he wasn’t done. Raising one arm high, he lifted the wrench above his head…

  And brought it crashing down on the windshield. Cracks spread through its surface like spider legs, long and thin. Three blows and it shattered, raining crumbled glass on the hood and interior of the car. In the fall sunshine, the countless pieces sparkled, rainbow-like.

  So did the glass from each window – he broke every one. The headlights were next, then the taillights. She watched, entranced, until he withdrew a knife from his pocket.

  Her stomach clenched up at the sight of the weapon, the open blade. As he slashed one of the front tires, she finally continued toward him.

  “Donovan?” He’d flattened two by the time she came close.

  He looked up, eyes dark and narrowed. “Clementine?”

  He paused for all of two seconds before slashing the back two tires, then stood, tucking his knife away.

  “What did you do?” She stared at the spectacularly ruined car, unable to look away. It had Pennsylvania tags and an expired Willow Heights town sticker – it belonged to somebody. Somebody local.

  “Let’s go for a ride.” He tipped his head toward his dirt bike, which waited a few yards away.

  “Whose car is this?”

  “Tell you at the quarry. Come on.” He reached for one of her hands and she responded instinctively, curling her fingers around his, returning his touch. Tiny pieces of auto glass scratched her skin before falling to the ground.

  “Your hand…” His knuckles were faintly bloody.

  He never replied.

  They were on the bike within seconds, then on the road, speeding away, leaving Shady Side and the violated Taurus behind.

  The quarry was abandoned, dark water and exposed rock surrounded by a blaze of autumn foliage, peaceful despite the roar of the bike’s engine. Donovan parked at the bottom, where the earth was flat on one side of the lake. They hiked up a hill to the cliff on the other side, settling at the top where they could look down on it all.

  “Are you going to tell me what happened?” Clementine asked, unable to pay much attention to the scenery when Donovan drew her eye. His full lips were compressed into a thinner, harder line than usual, and there was a distinct heaviness in his gaze, even when he looked at her. It didn’t make him any less handsome, but it made her heart ache to see him so upset. To have done what he had to the car… Something had to have gone horribly wrong.

  “You know Shirley, the woman in the tan trailer next to ours?”

  “Yeah.” Clementine had seen her on numerous occasions – the woman was rail-thin but seemed to live in tent-like cotton dresses, all faded and at least three sizes too large. Besides her weird clothing choices, she was perhaps most memorable for her five children, all of whom tended to roam the trailer park like the feral kittens that were constantly being born there, getting into trouble.

  “Her brother brought his car over, told me he’d give me forty bucks to fix it. I told him I wanted fifty.”

  “The Taurus?”

  Donovan nodded. “He said whatever, just fix it. So I went out and started working. Spent damn near an hour on it before I went inside to get a drink.”

  Several moments of silence passed. A hawk circled overhead, wings outstretched, riding an air current that was as invisible to Clementine as the source of Donovan’s obvious anguish.

  “He was in the trailer,” he said after a small eternity. “Fucking my mom.”

  The bottom dropped out of Clementine’s stomach, leaving her suddenly queasy.

  “They didn’t even close the damn bedroom door. They were probably high… She doesn’t give a shit about anything when she’s like that. My brother and sister were in the next room over watching a fucking cartoon.”

  “Sorry,” Clementine said, her face heating with the same shame she could see clouding Donovan’s eyes. She knew he hated the way his mom lived, knew each week at Shady Side was guaranteed to bring some fresh hell that’d tear holes in his already wounded pride. She knew he never would’ve told anyone else what he’d seen, either. The fact that she was the one person he’d confide in made her ache. Unable to do anything to remedy the situation, she felt woefully useless.

  Donovan jerked his head to the side, as if recoiling from her apology. “Know what else?”

  “What?”

  “He took the last damn Dr. Pepper out of the fridge. I saw it on the nightstand in her room. My mom won’t drink it – she only likes that diet shit.”

  Clementine let a little more silence slip by. “What do you think he’ll do when he sees his car?”

  “Drop dead, I hope.”

  “I mean really. You don’t think he’ll call the police or something, do you?”

  Donovan laughed, a humorless sound. “He wouldn’t call the cops if his worthless life depended on it. He was in the trailer for over an hour, so like I said, he probably got high while he was in there, for one. And my mom doesn’t fuck anybody who hasn’t been to jail at least twice already. His car is trashed and there’s nothing he can do about it.” The barest hint of satisfaction entered his voice, a grim tone of victory.

  A pang of anxiety sailed through Clementine’s heart, a dark comet that disappeared into the darker, endless depths of her worry for Donovan. She didn’t say it out loud, but she feared what a drug addict might do in retaliation, might try to do to him. Sometimes – most of the time – she wished she could just… Just keep him. Somewhere sane, somewhere safe. Somewhere where people didn’t shoot up and have random sex with probable felons while their kids watched whatever was on public TV in the next room over.

  She couldn’t do that, of course. Not yet. She was only sixteen. But she had him, and she’d keep him close in the ways that she could. Help him forget about Shady Side for a while. “Want to hike up to the clearing?” she asked, tipping her head toward the woods behind where they sat. “We can walk really slow, look at all the trees. By the time we get back, that jerk will be gone.” Or so she hoped.

  “Yeah.” Donovan stood, dusted off his jeans and extended a hand to her.

  The blood on his knuckles had dried.

  She let him help her up, keeping ahold of his hand even after she was steady on her feet. “Let’s go.”

  * * * * *

  Donovan had hardly moved a muscle all night. She knew because she was still wrapped just as tightly in his arms as she had been when they’d fallen asleep. He was on his back, and she lay almost prone beside him, more of her body weight on his chest and hips than the bed. She would’ve known if he’d stirred, if he’d woken in his sleep, or attempted to sleepwalk.

  Relief swept through her as she glanced around the room, letting her eyes adjust to the sunlight filtering through the blinds as she remained where she was, her cheek resting against his shoulder. The rhythm of his breathing was slow and steady, his heartbeat a little faster.

  Half-hypnotized, she kept her breathing easy too, and imagined that her heart kept pace with his. It was a nice thought, and she felt closer to him than ever, despite the fact that the box of condoms they’d purchased the night before sat unopened on the floor beside the bed.

  He’d fallen asleep in the car on the way home from Ann’s, his head tipping awa
y from the passenger seat headrest and toward the window, his temple against glass. At the time, she’d wondered if it’d only been another way to block out the stress and anger incited by Trevor and their argument. Didn’t soldiers, marines – anyone who went to war – learn to sleep at will, when they had to?

  But no, he’d said he’d hardly slept at all in Afghanistan. And he’d seemed thoroughly out of it in the car, so lost in dreams or oblivion or whatever that he’d bumped his head lightly against the window when they’d gone around a turn. So when they’d arrived at the house, they’d gone straight to bed, both out within minutes.

  “Mmm.” A wordless sound rumbled in the pit of his chest, snapping her out of her half-dazed state.

  “Morning,” she said as he rolled over, simultaneously drawing her closer so that their bodies were pressed front-to-front, not even a hairsbreadth of space between them.

  “Is it already?” He opened his eyes halfway, exposing slivers of his irises.

  “Yeah.”

  “I was having a dream…”

  “About what?” Thinking of his sleepwalking, she was wary, but the tone of his voice wasn’t particularly ominous.

  “I could show you.” He flexed his hips, pressing the hard length of his cock against her belly. Now that they were a couple again, he’d gone back to sleeping naked. Her thin pajama bottoms let her feel every inch of his erection, even its heat. With one hand, he cupped one half of her ass and squeezed.

  “Damn.” Squeezing his eyes shut, he pulled his hand away like her bottom was a hot stove burner.

  A sick feeling struck her as she realized which hand he’d used to grope her. “Does it hurt?” Dumb question.

  “Like a bitch.”

  “Let’s go fill that painkiller prescription they gave you at the hospital. It’ll only take a quick drive into town.” All three of Willow Heights’ pharmacies had been closed the night before – such was small town life – and clearly, the medicine they’d given him at the hospital was out of his system.

  They dressed – she watched Donovan stretch, muscles shifting appealingly as he slipped into a pair of jeans.

  “I’ll get that.” She stopped him from struggling to button his jeans with one hand, taking over the task herself.

  The skin above the fly of his jeans was warm, the muscle smooth and firm beneath. Her entire body heated as she buttoned his jeans, eyes drawn to the slashing lines of muscle that defined his hips, dipping down below the denim. When she looked up, he was looking right back. “I can think of something else that’d take my mind off the pain.”

  Her core gave another one of those sudden clenches, reminding her of the pressure of the head of his dick against her clit, so close to penetration. That had been yesterday, and she’d been aching for him ever since, the feeling sometimes overshadowed by worry or stress, but only temporarily. Now, standing with his shirtless chest inches from her own body, desire hit her hard again.

  “Filling your prescription won’t take long – you’ll probably be one of the first customers of the day,” she said, eyeing his bandaged hand. It was covered now, but she vividly remembered the redness and blisters hidden by the stark white layer. If he’d admitted that it was painful, he was probably in agony.

  They went to Thompson’s, the town’s only family-owned pharmacy, figuring they’d get quicker service there than at a chain. Luckily, that turned out to be true – they left after five minutes, a bottle of pills rattling in the paper bag the pharmacist had presented Donovan with.

  “It says not to mix with alcohol,” Clementine said, reading the warnings printed on the label stapled to the package, “and not to drive or operate heavy machinery. But it’s not like you could drive anyway, with your hand the way it is. Guess I’m your chauffer for the time being.”

  “Where are you taking me?” he asked, sliding into the passenger seat.

  “Well, it is the weekend…” She took the driver’s seat. “I thought maybe we could do something fun today. Like go on a picnic.”

  “A picnic?”

  “Yeah. You know, like we used to – take a backpack with some food, hike up that trail behind the quarry to the clearing in the woods… It’ll be nice, with the cool weather and fall leaves.”

  It also would involve zero chance of running into Trevor or her parents. Like before, she and Donovan could escape to the wilderness bordering the small town, where they’d be beyond and above it all – alone, in peace. They’d made the hike frequently as teenagers – it had been a place of retreat, much like her grandmother’s house.

  “All right.”

  She smiled. “I was hoping you’d agree.” After the craziness and intensity of the past week, the outing would be like an eye in the center of a hurricane – or so she hoped.

  “I’d agree to just about anything you wanted to do,” he said, staring out the window. “Hell, I let you drag me to the hospital last night, didn’t I?”

  When they reached the house, Clementine opened the pharmacy bag for Donovan.

  “You’d better not take this on an empty stomach,” she said, handing him the pill she’d just dumped out of the container.

  They ate cereal, and she finished hers first. “I’m going to make sandwiches for our picnic.”

  When she’d laid out the bread, the sound of rushing water came from behind – Donovan filling a glass at the tap. Silence reigned as he took the pill, then set the glass down on the counter.

  “What kind of sandwiches are you making?” He crossed the kitchen and stood behind her, his breath hot on the side of her neck.

  “Turkey,” she said as he laid his good hand on one of her hips, squeezing.

  “Mmm.” His lips brushed her neck as he made a sound of appreciation – not for the turkey, if the hardness pressing against the small of her back was any indication.

  She tilted her head to the side, exposing more of her skin to his mouth.

  With a light kiss and lighter bite, she was reliving the day before, when he’d done the same thing in bed. Before she knew it, she’d dropped the mustard bottle she’d been holding and he’d slipped a hand beneath her sweater. Fingers searching, massaging, he pulled down the edge of one bra cup, teasing her nipple.

  A head-to-toe shudder raced through her, charging her nerve-endings with delicious sensitivity. His fingertips were rougher than his mouth had been on her breasts the day before and the difference was thrilling as he pinched her nipple, inciting an answering ache in her core.

  Like he’d read her mind, he slowly withdrew his hand from beneath her top, letting his fingertips settle on her jeans button instead.

  She let him undo it one-handedly, liking the scrape and flutter of his fingertips against her lower belly. As he worked the button through its fastening, the shaft of his cock rubbed against the small of her back, so hard a shiver raced up her spine, then back down again.

  When the teeth of her zipper finally split, Donovan slipped his fingers beneath her panties, teasing her clit for short, breathless seconds before pulling her jeans and panties down, all the way to mid-thigh.

  Moisture dampened the folds of her pussy as he continued to abrade her neck with teeth and lips, his hand between their bodies now. When the noise of another parting zipper resounded, she braced herself against the counter, steeling her body for the smooth, hard rod of flesh that brushed her bare skin where her sweater had ridden up. The head of his dick was hot against her body and the memory of it against her tongue made her mouth water.

  “What about the condoms?” she breathed as he cupped one of her ass cheeks, exerting pressure that urged her to rock forward, onto her tip-toes.

  “Got one.”

  She peered over her shoulder in time to see him pull something from one of his pockets, which had ridden down low on his thighs, sagging just like the waistband of his jeans sagged on his hips. His cock stretched rigid and flushed from between the parted teeth of the zipper, framed by dark hair that was half-hidden by his clothing.

  �
��You can’t do that one-handed,” she said as he tore the square of foil open with his teeth.

  “Give me a hand, then.” He let the foil flutter to the floor and held the condom aloft.

  She turned around, pinched the tip and held it over the swollen crown of his dick, mostly because the thought of watching his fingers glide down his shaft instantly raised her body temperature.

  She wasn’t disappointed. Her entire body hummed with anticipation as he rolled the condom to the base of his erection, fingers sliding over vein-roped flesh. “Turn back around,” he said. “Unless you want it up on the counter.”

  “On the counter,” she said, sweeping an arm over its surface to push the sandwiches well out of the way. “I want to be able to watch you.”

  He lifted her easily with one arm, setting her on the edge of the laminated surface and quickly pulling her jeans and panties all the way off. The counter was a little lower than his hips, but not so much that they couldn’t make it work.

  Widening her thighs, she made sure there was plenty of room between them for him. Finally – God, finally – it was happening. She hurt her fingertips squeezing the edge of the counter, so ready for him to be inside her that it was painful not to have him there.

  With one hand wrapped around the base of his dick, he guided himself to her pussy, quickly pushing past her folds and into her body, claiming the space he’d been absent from for so long in one bold, slow stroke.

  “Jesus,” he breathed as her muscles wrenched and tightened around him, “Clementine…”

  She gave him a deliberate internal squeeze, relishing the way it hurt a little, the way her body ached as it adjusted to his thickness.

  He flexed his hips, rocking in and out of her with enough force that she tensed her legs against the cabinets below, needing more stability than her two-handed grip on the countertop provided. In and out, he fucked her with his head bowed, one hand on her hip, gripping her hard. When he pressed his face to her chest and bit one of her nipples lightly through her sweater and bra, everything inside her succumbed to one quick, wrenching contraction that promised more.