by Amy Marie
I sigh before relenting and getting into the car. “Nice of you to show up, Braden,” I comment once my seat belt is secure.
I watch through alcohol infused eyes as Braden’s jaw clenches and unclenches. His knuckles are pure white from the tight grip on the steering wheel. It almost makes me giggle. He has the audacity to be pissed and has yet to even explain where he has been for the past–taking a glance at my watch–two hours?
A growling sigh comes from between his teeth. “What’s funny, Hadley?”
Maybe I laughed out loud. I don’t give a shit. He has no right to be mad at me. I’ve done nothing but reach out to him all week!
“This relationship!” I yell letting him know how truly angry I am come through. “This relationship is such a fucking joke, Braden, that it makes me laugh.”
I’m not even sure it makes sense to him, but to me, right now, it does.
“Obviously.” He snorts, flicking the turn signal on. “Obviously you think it’s a joke, Hadley.”
I roll my eyes in disbelief.
Is he kidding?
“Me? Are you serious?” I screech pulling the door handle as, minutes later, he parks in the parking lot of my complex. I look over at him, my eyes forming into slits. “I’m not the one that checked out this week. I’m not the one cheating!”
After slamming the door I grab onto the hood of his car when I slightly slip on a small patch of ice, I push off and stomp my way up the stairs. Just as I push they keys in to open the door Braden’s hand wraps around my wrist.
“Let me go!” I yell ripping my hand away from him and pushing my way into my apartment.
He’s quick to stop the door before I slam it in his face, striding in like he pays the rent here.
I point my finger into his chest. “Get out!”
He body stands firm but his eyes scream vulnerability. “I’m not cheating on you, Hadley. What the hell?”
Ignoring that lie I walk into the kitchen making myself a glass of water. When it quenches the parchness of my throat, I throw my purse and jacket off towards the table.
Braden hasn’t moved an inch, and when I look at him I see a different man. The difference a week makes. It’s sad, and I feel not only hurt but disgusted.
“Where the hell were you then, Braden...and not just today? All fucking week! I told you this morning that you needed to meet with me to figure all this out and you didn’t show up. Didn’t call. Didn’t text until you were in the damn parking lot two hours late. Dammit! I feel like we’re just falling apart!”
He flinches. I’m not sure he has ever been the recipient of my anger. As he steps closer he uses careful movements like he is confronting an angry animal. His eyes find mine, and his teeth snatch up his bottom lip.
Immediately remembering Ryder and what me biting my lip does to him. Guilt instantly creeps in when I think of how close he was to kissing me. How I almost let him and how Braden, who was just outside in the parking lot, could have just as easily walked in and seen how close we were.
My knees start to go weak at the thought of hurting Braden even just a sliver of what I felt the night Ryder betrayed me so long ago. Even though Braden has done nothing but hurt me this week he doesn’t deserve to feel that pain like I did, even if he might be cheating on me. I don’t know how I will be able to move on after another blow like that. I silently pray he isn’t stepping out on me...and then I try to imagine how I would feel if I caught Braden in a bar, his lips just a fraction away from another woman’s. It makes me sick.
I feel like a hypocrite saying it makes me sick to think of Braden doing what I almost did.
“I could never cheat on you, Hadley. I’m so deeply in love with you that I can’t even imagine getting to know another girl.” He reaches out for feelings of guilt. I can feel myself climbing back up the hill of the roller coaster that is our story.
He pulls me into him, his arms circling around my body, and my head falls into his chest. It feels warm and comforting. He smells like home and I just want to curl up with him and have him caress my back and tell me everything will be okay, but I have to get some answers.
My voice is muffled into his jacket. “What happened, Braden? Where were you this week?”
His chest rises and falls with a deep breath. “Right now, baby, I’m just dealing with some stuff and I’m trying to figure out how to deal with it the right way.”
I pull away, looking up into his now distant eyes. “Talk to me, Braden. We’re supposed to be a team. We should be able to tell each other anything.”
Every muscle in his body tenses up as the shade of his irises turn darker. “We should, huh?” he asks seemingly baiting me.
I take a hard swallow and try to see what he wants me to say. I just nod and he pulls away, disgusted.
“So if we can tell each other anything, tell me who Ryder is, Hadley?” he yells, his voice booming off of my patio door, shaking the glass. “Who is he to you?”
Time stops. The world comes to a halt and all I can do is just stare at Braden. Watch as the vein in his neck becomes prominent. Watch it flicker with each beat of his heart and watch as he steps closer to me, daring me to answer.
“How do you know about Ryder?” I ask trying to avoid the question I don’t know how to answer, when I finally find my voice.
“How do I know abo...” He stops mid-sentence, shaking his head and pulling his hair through his fingers. “Are you sleeping with him?”
“No!” I deny instantly.
“Then why did you lie?” His voice grows more heated than before, if that’s even possible.
I sway for a brief moment, the final shots of tequila reaching my system. I lean up against the couch to keep my balance. “What did I lie about?”
He picks up a pillow, throwing it across the room. “Your cousin didn’t help you fix your car, Hadley. Ryder did! Now, do you want to tell me about him? No fucking lies.”
Thoughts race through my mind. I didn’t tell anyone about Ryder’s help except for my cousin, who hates Braden with a passion, and Noelle. Neither would say something to him. Then it hits me.
“You and your damn friends are such stalkers! Don’t you have anything better to do at work? So, you ditch me on Sunday and have me followed?”
“Yea, Hadley,” he says sarcastically. “Because that is the worst of the two issues here.”
“Wait!” I stare him down wanting my own answers. “That all happened after you hightailed it out of here on Sunday and then refused to answer my calls, and why the hell didn’t you say anything when I came to your work on Monday?”
More things come into focus as others become more confusing.
“I wanted you to tell me the truth!” he yells. “I wanted my girlfriend of two years to tell me some other man helped her. A man who I have never even heard of before!”
I stalk towards the kitchen to get more water. I suddenly feel like I need it. “Are you kidding me? He had to help me because you wouldn’t answer your damn phone.”
As water from the faucet fills up the glass Braden continues, “No one else could help you, Hadley? It had to be some guy you’ve never mentioned before?”
“He stopped by.” I realized my slip up when the drink is halfway to my mouth, but he seems unaffected like he already knew he’d been here.
“What happened Sunday that you couldn’t bother to answer my calls in the first place?” I say before he can dive deeper into that last admission. “Is it the party? The fact that I’m planning it or the fact that I’d like to go and you seem dead set on not going?”
“We’re not going.” He slams his hand down on the counter, shaking my spice rack “You’re not going.”
“I don’t have a choice!” I yell throwing my hand up. “I’m the event planner! Don’t you want to go?”
“I do want to go,” he confesses, his face turning a dark shade of red, before walking back into the living room and sitting on the couch. His hands go straight to cover his cheeks as his elbows rest
on his knees. He looks ten years older right now, stressed beyond his years.
“So what’s the problem then, Braden?” I ask not being able to hide the annoyance in my voice. It’s not working.
He jumps up, pointing a finger in my direction. “I don’t want YOU to go!”
My jaw drops to the floor.
And there it is.
“Me?” I point a finger into my chest. “You don’t want me to go? Are you going to take the woman you’re cheating on me with? Is it Janie? Huh? Who is it, Braden? Who would you rather take than your own girlfriend?”
“You’ve lost your mind, Hadley!” His voice rising to a level I’ve never heard before. “I’m not cheating!”
The volume of his voice causes me to jump.
“We’re not going,” he continues. “You’re not going. I’m not cheating and I won’t tell you again. End of discussion.” His voice is low, like he is trying to fight a losing battle, which he most certainly is.
I walk to the door and open it, letting a cold breeze filter through the apartment. “Leave.”
He strides to the door, slamming it back shut. “No! I want to know about Ryder. Now.”
I bring my chest to his, looking up to show him how pissed off I am. “Tell me where you were tonight then.”
His eyes drift down to my lips and I think he may kiss me, until they meet mine again and I see hurt. Anguish.
I swallow the lump down in my throat. I suddenly feel bad but we both want answers and neither of us wants to give in. However, if there is any chance of making things right I have to talk to him. If his avoidance of me this week was because of my lie about Ryder, and if I have any chance of fixing this, I need to be honest.
“My ex from high school,” I say starting up the conversation we need to have. He needs to know what happened.
We make our way to the couch to sit down and I tell my story first. How Ryder and I met and kept it a secret. How I got hurt in the process and left without telling him. I tell him that Ryder’s and my parents hated each other and how Ryder, a few months ago, showed back up in town. He says nothing, but just listens to what I have to say, taking in each and every word. When he hears about the sledding incident and how it all happened with my car his body tenses and stays that way until I finish. I don’t dare tell him about seeing him tonight. When I’m done he just looks at me, expectantly, like he wants more.
“Is that it?” he asks.
I deflect his question by asking his whereabouts this week. He breathes out a sigh but his only response is, “I was trying to figure out what to say to you. I was thinking. I needed some space.”
I shift on the couch, pushing myself back into it and away from him. “Don’t you think that you should have clued me in on that, Braden? We were fine Sunday until the mention of the party.”
“I don’t want to go,” is all he says essentially starting round three of this fight.
“No,” I counter, shaking my head. “You said you don’t want me to go.”
“That too.” He shrugs before continuing in a more heated tone. “You were pushing to go. I don’t think it’s a good idea. Then I turn my phone off to get some space and find out the next day some guy, who you have never mentioned to me before, is giving you rides and fixing your car. How can you expect me not to take a break from you, Hadley?”
Anger rises in me. I’m pissed. He disappears all week without as much as a phone call. “If you would have picked up when I called I could have told you about him. Then this week from hell could have been avoided!”
“Would you though, Hadley? Would you have told me about him? You didn’t tell me you saw him in the bar a few months ago?” His voice grows colder. “This guy fucks you up for years and you allow him back in your life, not to mention hide him from me, your boyfriend who NEVER hurts you?”
I lower my gaze to my fingers. “Until now,” I whisper.
“Excuse me?”
“Until now you’ve never hurt me.” I look up stronger than a moment ago. “This week was nothing but me getting hurt.”
The cushions move as he stands up. “I’m not doing this anymore tonight, Hadley. You’re not the only one who was mind fucked this week.”
He slips on the jacket he took off and walks to the door.
I pull my knees to my chest. “You’re getting what you want, Braden.”
His hand halts on the doorknob before turning towards me. “What’s that?” he asks cocking his head to the side, confused.
I look up, finding the face of a man who I don’t recognize anymore. This is not the Braden I met over two years ago. Not the Braden who has been riding this up and down coaster with me the past few months. This is a man I don’t like. Someone I don’t know. “Your break. I’m giving you your break.”
“What the fuck ever, Hadley. Fine.” He throws the door open and slams it shut with his exit.
Tears flow freely down my face, my body racking with sobs.
I cry for the next hour going over every minute of the day and realize I still don’t have any answers. Then a thought runs through my mind.
I never told him it was a bar I saw Ryder a few months ago.
It’s Saturday night and I need a girl’s night. Not a “let’s go out to a bar and let random assholes hit on you kind of night” but a “get in your pajamas and drink wine with friends” kind of night.
So after shooting off texts three hours ago, Noelle and Erin are here and Emie is on her way. Wine bottles line the kitchen counters and we’re about four bottles in.
“Noelle!” Erin yells. “I do not want to hear about my brother’s penis. Like ever!”
I laugh as I watch the back and forth banter between the two of them.
“Well,” Noelle says raising her glass. “You said let’s make a toast and I couldn’t help but praise the fucking beautiful cock that lies between your brother’s legs. I’m sorry.” She shrugs. “I’m thankful every damn day he lays it in me.”
“Don’t you mean on you?” I ask trying to keep my laugh at bay.
“No.” She shakes her head looking at me like I’m stupid. “Why would I want it on me? I’d rather it be in me.”
My laugh gets out of control and Erin goes to get more wine. Noelle eyes me. “What are you laughing about Chuckles? Doesn’t Braden have a nice dick?”
I almost spit my drink out.
Noelle can talk for hours on how amazing Trent is in bed. Erin will let a few things out here and there about Walker but as far as I’m concerned there is nothing spectacular about my sex life. Now that Braden and I are on a break there won’t be in the near future either. I’m normally not the type of girl to talk about my sex life but the five glasses of wine I’ve had apparently unfilter me.
“Yea, it was okay.” I raise a shoulder as I circle a finger around the rim of my glass.
Erin walks back into the room. “Was?” she asks as she sits down next to me, most likely thankful that the subject is off of her brother. “As in not anymore?”
Taking a deep breath and then letting it back out I look over at the falling snow outside my patio door. “Yes, was. We’re on a break.”
Noelle starts clapping her hands like a damn seal. “Finally!”
“Noe!” Erin chastises. “Can’t you see that Hadley is hurting?”
“She’s not hurting,” she argues. “She’s fucking free!”
I know that Noelle never liked Braden. She said there was something about him that she just couldn’t put into words which is saying a lot because Noelle is never short on them. But her saying I’m free strikes a chord. Am I really free?
No. I haven’t been for a long time. My feeling of freedom was lost a long time ago. When I left Ryder and high school to go to CHS and I put myself into my art. No longer was I the carefree Hadley that jumped off piers into Lake Michigan or who wanted to skydive and bungee jump. I lost all that the day Ryder, the one person who I felt really understood me, spewed his disgust towards me to his friend.
I lost my drive. I lost my will to be carefree. I lost myself somewhere and I desperately want to get it back.
A knock at the door pulls me from my thoughts and I jump up to answer it. Emie walks in waving two bottles of wine.
“From Napa,” she states going to work on opening them in the kitchen.
She just returned from a weeklong trip with some sorority sisters in Napa Valley. I’ve barely spoken to her since she left. She has no idea what I went through the past seven days. Even though she is my best friend, she sometimes makes it uncomfortable to talk to her about Braden.
Noelle greedily holds her glass up as Emie fills it. “What did I miss?” Emie asks looking over at us.
“Oh, not much.” Noelle eyes me after getting her fill. “Just Hadley and Braden broke up and now she can go ride Ryder.”
Both Noelle and Erin laugh but Emie just stares at me looking for confirmation.
I nod. “The break thing is true but not the riding Ryder thing.” I wave my heavy hand around feeling the effects of the alcohol.
“Well, good,” Emie says. “I wouldn’t think that is such a great idea.”
“Are you kidding?” Erin chimes in. “Why wouldn’t it be? From what I saw he is sexy and from what I heard Braden did to her this week she needs to find a new man. I don’t know if he is cheating on her but I can tell you from experience it’s best to just move on.”
“What happened this week?” Emie asks taking a seat across from me and putting her feet up on the coffee table much to Noelle’s dismay.
“Braden ignored her all week. Apparently he somehow found out that Hadley was seeing Ryder and checked out on her,” Noelle tells her.
Emie’s eyes go wide. “You were seeing Ryder? Hadley?” she says with disapproval.
The wine falls smoothly down my throat. “I wasn’t seeing him. He helped me out with my car when Braden wasn’t answering my calls. Somehow Braden found out and ignored me all week.” I shake my head. “We were supposed to meet last night but he didn’t show up until two hours later and we got into a fight. It would have been worse if he knew I had been taking shots with Ryder at the bar while I was waiting for his ass.”