by Megan Hart
“And Niall,” Alex added. “What about him?”
I squared my shoulders. “He embarrassed me, Alex. He made me ashamed of myself. Of what I like to do. Of what we’d done together, which was honestly nothing compared to what I’ve done with other men. That’s worse than making me feel unimportant or making me doubt myself. I can’t forgive him for it.”
“Has he asked you to?”
I hesitated, thinking of Niall’s pleading gaze. “He said he was sorry for getting bent out of shape during an argument we had. And for hurting me.”
“It takes a lot to apologize, Elise.”
I was silent for a few seconds. “I know. But it didn’t matter. The damage had been done. I went through this already. I’m not doing it again.”
Alex groaned and scrubbed at his face. Then he set all four legs of the chair on the ground with a solid thump. “Let me tell you a story.”
CHAPTER 40
Alex
Her name is Anne. She’s my best friend Jamie’s wife. And one summer, because Jamie asked me to seduce her, I did. He said she wanted it, that it had been her fantasy. I thought he was being an open-minded and caring husband, giving her what she wanted. Later I found out she had no idea he’d set it up, but by then it was too late. She’d fallen into it as hard as I had, and we’d all gotten lost in it. They made me a guest in their home, and I came in like a fucking tornado and almost ripped it all apart.
There’s a problem with taking something you know you’re not meant to have, especially when it’s given to you all wrapped up with pretty ribbons and paper. When it’s a gift, you should be grateful for it in a way you don’t have to be if you stole it. Jamie gave me his wife, and I took her, but I wasn’t grateful for her until it was too late.
I loved Anne, and I could tell you I loved her like I never loved any other woman, but all that means is that everyone you love, you love differently. More, less, sane or not, every time you fall in love it’s never the same. What I can say is that I fell for her, hard, but I hurt her because I couldn’t bring myself to tell her that. Because I was scared, or arrogant, or because I thought she would never leave her husband to be with me. Or maybe I thought she would, and I knew I could never be the man she deserved. I don’t know. I ran away at the end of that summer so she couldn’t tell me, and I didn’t have to know.
Then when Jamie invited me to come to Cleveland to see one of our favorite bands in concert at some little club I’d never heard of, I said yes. It had been about six months since I’d left Sandusky. Since the last time I’d seen Anne, though, Jamie and I had stayed in touch. He told me Anne was going to be at the concert. I didn’t think to ask him if he told her I would be there, too.
The moment she saw me it was obvious she hadn’t expected me. When I came around the corner, Jamie and I hugged it out, but when I moved to hug Anne, the look on her face fucking killed me. Her eyes lit up then skated away from mine like she couldn’t stand the sight of me. She wouldn’t look at me, even though all I could do was drink in the sight of her.
When we crossed the street toward the concert hall, I automatically reached for her arm to make sure she didn’t stumble. She didn’t yank it away; she didn’t make a scene. But she pulled away and gave me a disgusted look.
“Hey,” I said, stupid and trying to make nice. “It’s all good. We’re good.”
She didn’t answer me.
We got to the concert, and Jamie was buying shots, and at some point, there in the crowd, I found myself next to her. Shit. I say found myself like it was an accident, but I put myself there. I’d told myself it would all be okay, that I wouldn’t need to touch her, but that close, there was no way I couldn’t reach for her.
I moved up behind her and slid a hand into the thickness of her hair. I meant to cup the back of her neck, but instead I wrapped my fingers in her hair and tugged her back against me. She molded herself to me. I can’t say what we did was dancing, not with so many people pressed up against us or her husband two feet away, bouncing and throwing up the devil horns to whatever song the band was playing. But we moved together for a minute or so, and all I could do was soak her in.
Until she turned, that look of disgust back on her face. She put her fingertips on my chest, over my heart, and shoved. It hurt. Not just the physical touch, her fingers digging into the meat of me, but the way she did it so vehemently. She was pissed, but worse, I saw the flash of tears in her eyes. All I wanted was to touch her again, even if it could only be for a minute or two, and instead I’d hurt her. Again.
Jamie had booked us rooms at the same hotel, since the drive from Cleveland to Sandusky at two in the morning after a night of drinking and carousing wouldn’t have been smart. Twenty minutes after we parted ways at the elevator, she knocked on my door. I let her in. Of course I did. Some stupid part of me hoped that she was there to fuck or forgive me. I’d have taken either.
She wasn’t.
“Why are you here?” she demanded.
Words came out, but like a dumbass, they weren’t what I really meant to say. “I thought it would be fun.”
I might as well have slapped her in the face, the way she flinched. Anne looked away from me. I’d never felt so small.
“You are so selfish,” she said. I wanted to protest, but I knew she was right. “You knew how I feel about you, and you show up to a fucking concert? Like nothing happened? Like you didn’t fucking break my heart into a million pieces, and what, you just think you can come along and put your hands all over me and make me want you again?”
“Anne…”
But she wasn’t having any of it. When she looked at me, I realized it was better when she wouldn’t, because seeing what I’d done to her was like watching her set herself on fire. I couldn’t stop it; all I could do was watch her burn.
“I’ve tried to hate you, and there are times when I almost make it, Alex. And then I am reminded that I love you, and everything hurts all over again, and all I can do is hate myself for ever thinking that maybe you had one shred of feeling for me.” She held up a hand to stop me from speaking, though all I’d managed was a noise. “But obviously, you think nothing of me. You care nothing for me. If you did, if you had the tiniest crumb of love for me, you would never have been so simply, casually selfish. But that’s what I guess I should expect from you, isn’t it? It’s all you’ve ever been. It’s all you will ever be.”
I don’t know if I reached for her then, or she meant to hit me, maybe, but then she was in my arms, and I was kissing her. If you’ve ever kissed someone like you wanted to punch them in the face with your lips, that’s pretty much how that went. I pulled away bruised and stinging. I’m pretty sure she bit me. I tasted blood and her tears, and it didn’t matter if Anne couldn’t bring herself to hate me. I hated myself plenty.
“I’m sorry,” I said. It wasn’t enough. It couldn’t ever be enough, but I said it. “I’m sorry, Anne, I’m really sorry.”
She let me hold her. She didn’t relax against me at first. It was like hugging a board or a rod of iron. But she pressed her face to the side of my neck after a minute, and her arms went around me.
She whispered in my ear, “I hate you.”
We looked at each other. I wanted to kiss her again, but maybe for the first time, I was man enough not to give in to taking what I wanted and fuck the consequences. She studied me, and I had no idea what she was thinking. I probably never had.
“Are you here to ask me to run away with you, Alex?”
I could have said yes, and meant it, at least in that moment. I could’ve told her maybe, to keep her hoping and waiting for me until I figured out how to be what she needed me to be, and that’s what I wanted to come out of my mouth right then, believe me. Because I couldn’t say yes, but I didn’t want to give her up in case I never had a chance at anything so great again.
&n
bsp; Instead, I gave her the truth that would last a lot longer than a minute. “No.”
“I love you, Alex. But I love my husband, too. And you’re his best friend, and I know you love him, and he loves you, and all of this is a huge fucking disastrous mess, but when you love someone, you want them to be happy. I want James to be happy. I want to be happy. I want you to be happy, too. But I don’t want you to ever again touch me the way you did tonight.” She drew in a long, shaky breath. “How does that make you feel?”
“Like shit,” I said honestly.
“Good. I hope it breaks you. I hope the thought of never touching me again makes you want to die,” Anne said.
Then she stepped away from me, though she let our fingers link and linger until I could no longer hold on to her, and I had to let her go.
CHAPTER 41
“And I did,” Alex said. “I let her go. Because I did love her, and I did want her to be happy.”
I wasn’t sure what to say, so I didn’t say much of anything. He’d gotten up to pace while he talked, and now his hair was a rumpled mess from running his hands through it. His voice had cracked and broken several times during the story, and when he looked at me now, it was with red-rimmed eyes.
I tried hard to parse what he’d been trying to tell me. “Are you trying to tell me that George loved me enough to let me go?”
“I’m trying to say that maybe is a selfish fucking thing to do to someone. Sometimes, just because you love someone, that doesn’t mean you’re supposed to end up together. You learn more from the things that end,” Alex said. “I don’t know what that guy thought or felt. But when you really love someone, you want them to be happy, even if it’s not with you. You deserve better than maybe.”
“I know.” I swallowed hard against a fresh lump in my throat. “It was a good reason not to try with anyone else, though.”
“It was a reason. Not a good one.” He looked fierce.
I held up my hands. “I know. I know. Believe me, I feel like an idiot enough.”
“You don’t have to give Niall another chance,” Alex continued. “I don’t know the guy. He could be a douchebag. But he apologized to you. Did you believe he meant it?”
I hesitated but nodded. “Yeah. I do. He apologized and asked me what he could do to make it up to me, yes, but then he said he thought he could never make me happy, because he’s not into the submissive stuff.”
“That’s what he thinks. What do you think?”
“I think,” I said quietly, “that I was happy when I was with him. And that I don’t need cuffs and toys to be fulfilled. And I think it doesn’t matter, because you can’t make someone love you if they don’t. I kept thinking that we were going to work things out, that maybe…shit. I’ve spent years clinging to a maybe, Alex. I’m not going to do it again.”
“So you’re just going to let him go?”
I hesitated. “Yes. What should I do, chase him? Beg? I don’t do that. A fancy dinner and some flowers isn’t going to make anything up to me. A dozen orgasms won’t.”
Alex grinned. “Yeah, but at least you’ll have a full stomach and a satisfied—”
“Don’t!” I held up a hand to fend him off.
“At least think about it. It’s clearly making you miserable not to talk to him.”
I nodded, solemn. “I will.”
“And that other asshole,” Alex added, cracking his knuckles. “Just tell me where to go to kick his ass.”
“You’re not going to kick anyone’s ass!”
He grinned. “Maybe not myself. But I got a guy. You want me to get my guy?”
At that, I laughed. Then some more, until finally it sounded real. Alex left me alone in my office, where I logged in to my IM account and studied my contacts list, and the little rabbit there, for a very long time.
CHAPTER 42
So you reach this moment where finally, finally, it all shifts, you find a way to open up your hands and let go. When what used to matter stops breaking you so fucking hard; when you accept that empty place in your heart will always be there because only one person can fill it, and you get up anyway because goddamn it, one person who does not love you enough should never make you incapable of moving forward.
I knew what I should feel and think. I should stop being stupid, holding on to what didn’t serve me. No more maybes. No more clinging to the past. I had a small square of paper I’d printed out from the internet tacked up onto the bulletin board in my kitchen, one of those dumb forwards people pass around on Connex or emails.
In the end, only three things matter. How much you loved, how gently you lived and how gracefully you let go of that which is not meant for you.
I’d printed it out because of George. Because of how nongraceful I’d been about letting go of someone who was so clearly not and had never been meant for me. It had been meant as a reminder, the way the ink imbedded in the most tender part of my arm had been meant to remind me.
But maybe, at last, I thought, it was time to stop remembering. Maybe it was time to forget.
* * *
“You sure about this?” The shop where I’d had the first tattoo done was still there, but the artist placing the template over the piece on the inside of my wrist was new. He looked up at me through oddly delicate reading glasses totally incongruous with his shaved head and biker mustache. “This piece is still pretty sweet.”
He meant the rabbit, of course. I nodded. I’d picked out something from the book and had him customize it—it was not unique, but that was okay. I wanted something I wouldn’t necessarily want to look at every day, something bland. Something I would have to work to remember.
“Yeah. I’m sure.” I lay back in the chair with my arm on the padded rest and closed my eyes.
The burn of the needle in my skin transported me. The pain, clean and somehow sweet, and all of it over too soon. I wanted it to go on and on forever, but nothing ever does.
“Hey,” the guy said gently. “You okay? You’re not going to faint or anything, are you? I have smelling salts.”
I opened my eyes. “No. I’m okay.”
I’d been weeping, and swiped at my eyes to clear them. I should’ve been more embarrassed. I looked at the spot on the inside of my arm where once I’d carried all I had left of him. The rabbit was gone, covered over by a red rose.
“What do you think?” the guy asked.
“It’s great.” I flexed, waiting for more pain, but it had faded for the moment.
My mother had thrown a fit about my getting the tattoo in the first place, warning me I would regret it, but I never had. That small rabbit had become as much a part of me as the color of my eyes or curve of my smile.
And now, it was gone.
CHAPTER 43
“This is nice,” my mother said and beamed at me from across the table. She’d put on her reading glasses to look at the menu, but she would order the same things she always did.
Then again, so would I. Breakfast, anytime. I wasn’t even hungry. The toast would be like sawdust in my mouth. I’d eat it anyway so she didn’t scold.
“So,” my mother said when the silence between us had stretched on too long for her to be comfortable with it, which was about three and a half minutes. “What’s happening with the guy?”
I gestured to the waitress and held up my iced tea. I’d considered asking for it to be redone, lime instead of lemon, but instead I asked for water. I didn’t have the energy to bother. I looked at my mother. “Nothing is happening with the guy.”
“He was so nice.”
I frowned. “I guess that was the problem, huh? Too nice for me.”
“Bite your tongue,” my mother said. “You deserve a nice man, Elise Genevieve. Don’t you dare try to tell me you don’t.”
I s
tared at her, remembering the woman who’d taught me to dance and not the one who judged my art. That was the mother I wanted. It made me sad.
“I just want to see you happy. Your sister, she won’t ever be happy. It’s my fault. For the longest time I thought she’d be my only one, you know, and until you two came along, she was. I should’ve made it easier for her. She felt replaced. She was high strung as a baby, colicky. The two of you came along and you were such…joys,” my mom said almost in wonder, as though she could hardly believe it. “Such a pleasure, both of you. Never a tantrum between you. I shouldn’t have played favorites.”
If either my brother or I had ever been my mother’s favorite, that was news to me.
My mother lifted her chin. “Jill felt displaced. Left out. She was so much older than the two of you. You and Evan had each other. You never seemed to need your sister. It affected her.”
My memories of Jill had always involved screaming, the taking of toys. When we were older, Jill had bitched and moaned until she got her way, and my mother had almost always sided with her. Out of guilt?
“Ma, you can’t blame yourself because you had two more kids. Jill’s an adult. She really needs to get her shit together.”
My mother nodded but looked sad. “She took your father’s leaving a lot harder than you and your brother did.”
“She was twenty-two years old. She didn’t even live at home!”
“She was distraught and made bad choices,” my mother continued as though I hadn’t said a word. She leaned forward to lower her voice. “Not like a tattoo or anything like that, thank God.”
I sighed. The rose was still tender. My mother shrugged. We stared each other down.
“Mom. Susan told me…”
“I know what Susan told you,” my mother said. To my surprise, she didn’t sniff disdainfully. She only shrugged then gave me a long, steady look. “Sometimes you have to be selfish, if you want to be happy.”