North Woods University

by Beck, J. L.

  Looking up at him, I see every ounce of the person I wanted to see when I first showed back up here. Remington Miller. My best friend… my lover...the man I planned to marry and have babies with.

  I lick my lips and we stand there for a long moment.

  Word vomit. Oh lord. It’s coming. It’s rising in my throat. There’s nothing I can do to stop the words from coming.

  “I love you, Remmy,” I whisper, pressing my heated cheek against his chest.

  11

  Remington

  “I love you, Remmy.” I can’t breathe. I can’t even fucking respond to those four little words. I know Jules has no idea what is going on, but I can’t help but feel like this is some sick joke. Like I’m on an episode of Punk’d. The one words I always needed her to say, and she says them now, after we’ve already fallen apart, after I’ve already broken us.

  “Come on, let me get you a shirt to wear.” I clear my throat, feeling like there’s a bowling ball size of emotions lodged in it. It’s the drugs talking, I have to remind myself. She doesn’t really mean any of this. Tomorrow morning she’ll be back to hating me again, and I’ll be back to loathing myself.

  “You’ll stay with me, right?” She can’t really mean what she’s asking me. She doesn’t want me within fifty feet of her any other day, but suddenly she wants me right beside her. No, she doesn’t want me. She doesn’t. We’re just like fire and gasoline to each other. Explosive, powerful, and if you get us too close to each other, we’ll burn everything to the ground.

  What we had before is gone forever, nothing but a distant memory, something that we can never go back to. Still, I can’t help but let tonight be what it is. I can’t help but pretend like we are still the same two people, so hopelessly in love. For her…tonight I’ll pretend like I’m still the same, like I haven’t lost myself.

  “If that’s what you want?” I guide her back toward my bed, a place I’ve never had a woman before. This is my room, my space to relax, my sanctuary. I’ve never brought a girl up here, no matter how much they begged and whined.

  So I guess in a way, she might not have been the first girl I had sex with, God knows I fucked my way through high school and college, but she’s the first girl to be in my bed, my bedroom. She holds so many of my firsts though.

  My first date, even if it was nothing more than a tea-party set up in the backyard. My first kiss, under the big oak tree at the park. My first dance at homecoming, where I begged and pleaded with her to go because, in my mind, she was the only girl worthy of dancing with.

  She was the first girl I’ve ever loved, actually the only girl I ever loved, and I can’t imagine that would ever change.

  Nodding her head, she lets me push her back onto the mattress. I can see her hardened nipples poking through her shirt and I have to stop myself from reaching out and running my fingers over them. I wonder if she would push me away if I go too far, tell me no like she told Cole. Cole. That fucking bastard. I didn’t think I could hate someone more than I hate myself, but that fucker takes the cake. The fact that he drugged her and took her up into that bedroom like she was some cheap lay makes me rage like a volcano.

  Leaving her on the bed, I go to my dresser digging down to the bottom of my t-shirt drawer. There I find the t-shirt she would always wear when she spent the night over at my house, on the nights her parents fighting made it impossible for her to sleep. It’s got a faded Mickey Mouse logo on the front of it, and the cotton is worn, but it’s still in one piece, and still hers.

  I’ll never admit it, but when she first left, I held onto that stupid shirt, using it like a fucking security blanket so I wouldn’t ever forget the way she smelt.

  Eventually her scent faded, along with her, but I couldn’t ever forget her. I was so connected to that shirt that any time I tried to destroy it, I would see Jules in it, looking at me with a smile, a halo of blonde curls hanging down her back, her big blue eyes piercing mine, seeing a part of me that I never allowed anyone else to.

  Turning around, I hand it to her, watching as an indescribable emotion overtakes her face. The drugs must be wearing off a little bit since it seems she’s able to smile again.

  “You kept it? Oh my god, Remmy. I looked everywhere for this t-shirt when we moved, and I couldn’t find it. I thought it got lost, ended up in the donate box by accident.”

  “It’s just a t-shirt, Jules.” I shrug, knowing damn well it’s far more than that.

  “Just a shirt?” She pushes up from the bed, her body swaying with the motion. I’m grabbing onto her by the hips without thought, steadying her as she looks up at me, her white teeth sinking into her plump pink bottom lip. I lean away from her knowing how close I am to losing control, to kissing her. With her, nothing is normal, what it should be.

  “Come on, let’s get you into bed.” I make her walk backward until we reach the edge of the bed. She grabs the hem of her shirt and pulls it off, leaving her naked from the waist up. I gulp. I saw her half naked earlier, but I was in such a fury then, that I didn’t take the time to really look at her, but now without any barrier between us, I can.

  Of course her tits are perfect, just the right size, full but perky, with soft pink nipples hardened to a point, all but begging to be sucked on.

  Perfect…just like everything else about her.

  She just sits there looking up at me, her eyes silently begging me to touch her. It’s the drug. She doesn’t make a move to put on the shirt, so I grab it from her and for the second time tonight I help her into a shirt.

  Then as if she's somehow realized she was just sitting before me doing nothing, she starts fumbling with the button on her jeans. Her hands are clumsy, and she blows out a frustrated sigh, that makes me grin. Adorable. That's all I can think. On her third attempt at unbuttoning the button, I bend down and unsnap the thing.

  “Charming me right out of my pants.” Amusement twinkles in her eyes. She has no idea. There would be no charming with her. She’s mine, she has always been mine, every single inch of her. I just never took the time to let her know how much I wanted her in that way.

  Even though I shouldn’t, I watch her as she slips her jeans off, while I start to strip out of my own clothing. By the time I’m down to my boxers, she’s finally managed to get her jeans off. I walk around the bed and lie down on one side, leaving her enough space to lie on the other side. But when she crawls back onto the bed, she comes straight for me, trying to get on top of me.

  “Jules, stop, you don’t want this.” I grab her waist and force her to lie down next to me.

  “Please, I want this, I want to touch you,” she whines while reaching for me, her small hands landing on my arm.

  “And I want you to touch me.”

  The drug, it’s the drug.

  “Don’t you want to touch me, Remmy?” She’s taunting me, making it hard for me to say no to her. I never say no to any willing woman, but Jules isn't a willing woman, not tonight.

  “Jules, stop,” I warn, barely restraining myself from rolling over, grabbing her and caging her with my body, from claiming what's always been mine.

  She must sense the tension in the air because she frowns.

  “Will you at least hold me?”

  If my heart wasn’t already broken, it would crack right through the middle now. Her voice drips with desperation as if she thinks she’ll die if I don't hold her.

  “Alright, I’ll hold you, but that’s it. Nothing else, Jules, and I mean it.” I barely say the last word before she is snuggled up into my side. She hugs my chest with one arm and throws her leg over mine, her knee getting dangerously close to my steel hard cock. My eyes move to her bare legs, and over her creamy white thigh.

  She doesn't really want you.

  My body is tense, every muscle, every cell begging for me to give in to her wants, to my own selfish needs.

  “I miss you,” she purrs into the side of my chest, her curls tickling me.

  “You've told me that already.” It’s s
till a lie. “Just go to sleep. You’ll feel different in the morning, trust me.”

  “Why do you hate me? You hate me when I love you? That's not how it works.” Her words slur a little.

  “Jules, please, just go to sleep.” I can’t talk to her about this, not now, maybe not ever. I can pretend I’m the old me tonight, but that doesn’t change who I am now. I close my eyes, hoping she doesn’t say anything else, my heart has endured enough of a beating tonight. When she doesn’t speak after a short time, all I can do is thank the Lord. Her breathing evens out after awhile and I open my eyes one more time to look at her.

  She’s clinging on to me like she actually wants me, no, like she needs me and with everything inside of me, I wish that it wasn’t a lie.

  * * *

  Adrenaline pumps through my veins, dragging me out of a shallow sleep when a loud noise hits my ears. Jules. My first and only thought. I look at the empty space beside me before I quickly scan the room. Our eyes meet and relief floods me. She’s still here, and she’s okay.

  “I’m sorry I didn't mean to wake you. I was just trying to go to the bathroom,” she says from the floor beside the bed. “Then I tripped.” Her voice is raspy as if her throat is dry. I bet anything her head is throbbing too. She didn’t drink that much last night but coming off ecstasy in itself is like a hangover.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine.” She gets back up onto her feet and scurries into the small bathroom attached to my room. I get up from the bed and pull on a t-shirt and then a pair of sweatpants. Mentally I have no idea what the hell I’m going to say to her. She’s not high on the drugs anymore, which means everything she says, her reactions, it will all be honest, the truth.

  She comes back out a few minutes later, her eyes on the floor as if she’s lost in thought. Her gaze lifts as soon as she sees me standing and leaning against the dresser. She opens her mouth as if she’s about to say something, but I cut her off before she can even get out the first syllable. I’m not sure I’m ready to hear her tell me how much she hates me for everything that happened last night.

  “Don’t! Just don’t say anything right now,” I order, trying to keep any emotion out of my voice. Her eyes go wide, confusion written all over her beautiful features. I just can’t hear her say it. I can’t listen to her admit that I was right and whatever she felt last night was a reaction to the drugs that were in her system.

  “Rem—”

  “I said don’t,” I cut her off again, but even I can’t miss the hurt in her eyes. “Let’s just forget last night ever happened. Just take your things and get out.” I brush past her and go into the bathroom, closing the door behind me.

  Last night was the first time in a long time that I slept all the way through the night, and the first time I slept with a woman for more than just sex. Gripping onto the edge of the sink, I notice my swollen and beat up knuckles. I grin, wondering how the fucker’s face must look right now. I hope he’s in pain, that his nose is broken, and his eyes are swollen shut, then again if they aren’t, I suppose I can show him another lesson.

  Air fills my lungs and I exhale it out. I do this a few more times letting the fury from Cole simmer. My thoughts shift back to Jules. I just told her to forget about last night, as if that was so easy, as if I could do so myself. I shake my head in disbelief and lift my gaze to the mirror. I feel like a drug addict who used for the first time after being clean for several years.

  I reach for my toothbrush and when I pick it up, I realize that it’s wet.

  Did she just use my toothbrush?

  Shaking the thought away, I brush my teeth and wash my face. I have to tell myself a thousand times that I’m not what she wants, and her behavior last night was nothing but a reaction to the drugs Cole gave her, but there’s a sliver of hope inside me wondering if maybe it wasn’t just the drugs...maybe it was what she really wanted.

  When I emerge from the bathroom, I find that the room is empty. Relief and disappointment both crash into me all at once. This room has never seemed so empty before, and because she was here, it no longer feels like it’s mine, and mine alone.

  Glancing over to the bed where just ten minutes ago she was in my arms, sleeping, not arguing with me or telling me she hated me, but sleeping peacefully, I wish for the moment to return. My heart and mind are racing at the same speed. The room still smells like her, vanilla and sugar… or maybe I’m just imagining that. It wouldn’t surprise me if I was.

  Shit. I need to clear my mind and get some of this pent-up energy out. There are a couple of different things I could do to help but sleeping with someone else and fucking up Cole's face again aren’t really all that appealing to me, even more so since the only person I want now is Jules. Eyeing my Nikes near my closet, I decide to go for a run.

  Maybe if I run long enough, fast enough, I can outrun the problems overtaking my life.

  12

  Jules

  Humiliation. It bleeds into every pore on my body as all the memories from the night before surface in my mind. Cole, the things he did to me. When I arrive at the apartment, I take an hour-long shower scrubbing at my skin to rid the feeling of his hands, and his lips from my body. Then I cry...I sob against the tile for being stupid, for letting myself be alone with Cole, for letting him slip drugs into my drink. It was my fault... all my fault, I should’ve been smarter, but seeing Remington at the party, it just pushed me, it pushed me to act out.

  And act out, I did. I hold my head in my hands. I’m so disappointed in myself. The only good thing to come from last night was Remington. It felt like he was his old self, like he was my Remmy again. He held me in his arms and defended me. He made my heart beat like crazy, my stomach fill with butterflies. Then this morning, he didn’t even let me thank him or apologize for how I acted. He just brushed it off like nothing ever happened.

  “You’ll regret this in the morning, trust me.”

  His words had never been more false. I didn’t regret what happened between us. In fact, I wanted to relish in the memory of it, because I was certain it wouldn’t happen again. A throbbing begins behind my eyes and I cringe, remembering how I threw myself at him. How I wanted him so badly, I would’ve given myself to him in the state that I was. But he didn't want me back, he doesn't want me like I want him, not anymore.

  A knock on the bathroom door drags me from my pity party of one.

  “Jules, are you okay?” Cally’s muffled voice comes through the door. She sounds concerned and now I feel bad about that too. I told her I was okay when I stormed in here, but of course she doesn’t believe me. We got separated at the party last night, and she knows I didn’t come home, which means she’s assuming I slept with someone.

  “Yeah, I’ll be out in a minute.”

  “Okay, are you sure though? You didn’t come home last night. I was really worried about you. If something happened, you know you can tell me, right?”

  Something inside my chest tightens. Lots of things happened last night, lots of things, and none of them are something I want to talk about right now.

  “Nothing happened, and I’m sorry for worrying you. I’ll be right out.” I hate lying to her, but I don’t want to explain the Cole thing, or how Remington rescued me, not right now at least.

  “Okay, just making sure.” The tone of her voice tells me she doesn’t believe me, but I’m just thankful she doesn’t push for answers, because I have nothing to give her.

  Standing from my seated position, I gather my stuff, and open the bathroom door, scurrying across the hall and into my bedroom. I toss my dirty clothes into the hamper and put my bathroom bag on my desk. Then I sink down onto my mattress and grab my cell phone.

  There are tons of texts from Cally, and then a couple from Cole, which I delete right away. But it’s the one from Sebastian that leaves me with a sick feeling in my stomach.

  “Fuck,” I mutter to no one but myself, burying my face in my pillow. I forgot about family dinner. After everything that
happened yesterday, I now have to face Remington all over again. This is a nightmare, a complete nightmare, and one that I continue to star in.

  My stomach churns thinking of what his reaction will be when I show up at his house tomorrow. Will he tell me to leave? Will he end up fighting with his brothers all over again? What will his father say? All of these questions are hurting my head more. I can’t focus on them, not right now. Plugging my cell phone into the charger, I lie down, curl into a ball and wish like hell that I was back in Remington’s arms, with his warm body pressed against mine.

  “I love you…” I told him, and the words were still true…I did still love him, and probably would die still loving him. But Remington was like Pandora’s box, and every time I opened him up, I wasn’t sure what I would get. Closing my eyes, I wish for sleep to come...but it never does.

  * * *

  “How was your weekend?” Sebastian asks from the driver's seat of his SUV. Music from the radio filters quietly through the speakers, but all I can do is focus on the tightening knot of fear in my belly. Am I about to ruin everything by going to their house for dinner? Remington hasn’t messed with me in days, didn’t even attempt to talk to me until yesterday and now... now I was going to be giving that up for a visit with his family.

  He would retaliate, lash out and hurt me.

  “Fine.” I shrug, refusing to talk to him about the party, or any topic remotely close to it.

  “Fine? That’s it?” He gives me a look that all but calls me a liar. “You never were a very good liar, Jules.”

  My cheeks heat, knowing he can see right through me. Each of the Miller boys are good at that, seeing right through your bullshit.

  “It was fine,” I say, trying to make it sound a little more believable.