by Devin Sawyer
At 11:50 Evan announces we have ten minutes until the ball is dropped and everyone rushes to the bar to grab their drinks. I seek out Torren, roaming the ballroom, looking behind decorations, but I don’t find him. I try the kitchen again, and then outside to see if he slipped out to smoke. It’s not like him to smoke, but I’m hopeful to find him here. I am standing in an empty and dark alley when I hear the countdown celebrations begin to go off inside. New Years. The party is essentially over. I text Allison that I’m heading out a bit early and that I can help her close out accounts tomorrow if she needs help. I receive a ‘thumbs up’ emoji and I bolt from the darkness, heading for home, alone.
When I arrive, I fall into my couch. The same one that we first flung out our vulnerabilities and insecurities and let our skin burn together. Granted I had been drunk, but only because I needed an excuse to be with him again, to touch him again. I immediately regret that we didn’t take things further. Again, it feels like a sexual haunting.
I want to drink every feeling I have away right on this couch, only I know now that drinking makes me want him more. The liquor disguises my memories of hurt and pain and I am left solely captivated with only the beautiful romance that I recall from such a young age. When I sober the pain intensifies until I can bring myself to numb everything around me. Once Torren leaves tomorrow I will begin the numbing process all over again, and I only hope for my sake, that I can actually recover this time, that I haven’t damned myself to endless loss. I feel like I’m at an alcohol recovery meeting where you never actually beat the disease, where you spend your entire life identifying as an alcoholic fighting the disease. Will I always have to hurt when I think of Torren? Am I not resilient enough to really move forward with my life? Or will I fail over and over every time I meet a man that I don’t feel that chemistry with? Will my memories be my downfall time and time again?
A brash ring emits from my phone, startling me. Nadia’s name lights up on my screen and I answer attempting to mask my dejection.
“Hey, Nadia.” My own voice sounds tired and scratchy.
“Hey girl, I know there is some major tension right now between you and your love criminal, but he’s here, at the bar I’m at. He, uh, looks pretty rough. Totally three sheets to the wind right now and it’s going to close soon, do you think you could give him a ride? I know you aren’t his babysitter, but I just thought that maybe you could…or you would be able—”
I cut her off. “Yeah, I’ll come get him. Text me where you’re at. I’ll be there shortly. Thanks, Nadia.”
I slide on some shoes and pull my hair up into a messy bun so you can’t see where it dipped into my pint of ice cream earlier.
I find him at the bar when I arrive and he sips, no, he guzzles, from the honey-colored liquid in his glass. I approach slowly, not really sure what I’m doing here or if I am about to make a bad thing worse, but I want his leaving to be as painless as possible and that won’t happen if he manages to make an ass out of himself before this is all over. I eye Nadia over near a window in the bar and I nod my head to her, showing my appreciation. She only smiles back, but it doesn’t reach her eyes and I know she’s currently feeling sorry for me. I wish she wouldn’t because that only makes me feel sorry for myself, and really, I’m to blame for this mess. I was weaker than I thought when it came to Torren, but all I can do is pick up the pieces.
Before I can even reach Torren, I see him spin around on his bar stool and he finds me. Like magnets, we couldn’t miss each other if we tried. It’s a shame really, because I am so tired of feeling tied to him, so tired of the strong pull that I can never get away from, and so exhausted from even trying. Even all those years apart I felt tied down to our past. Maybe this is closure. Maybe it’s what I needed all along. I say nothing, trying to communicate to him with my eyes that I’m so sorry it’s gotten this far between us. It’s then that he must feel the silence has gone on long enough.
With a wave of his glass, that I am sure is going to splash his whiskey all over the floor, he motions to me. “Speak of the devil.” His southern accent thicker than usual, due to his drunken state. He laughs to himself, a low chuckle.
I simply walk past him and hand the bartender my card to close out his tab.
“And what if I wasn’t done here, sweetheart?” he whispers into my ear from behind me. I don’t have the strength emotionally to get into it with him, and I especially don’t have the bravery to do it here.
“We’re done here.” It’s all I say, staring into his unfocused eyes and I speculate if he’s too drunk to catch the double meaning.
I walk out, and he follows behind. I open my car door for him and he gets in. I really don’t know what comes next. I hadn’t planned it out any further, I was just going to get him out of the bar before he made any more of an ass out of himself.
The ride is quiet back to the apartment complex and I’m grateful it’s a short ten-minute drive. Torren is sleeping when we get there, and I pull up outside of his building. I don’t get out right away. I rest my head against the steering wheel and try to take in a deep breath. Why is this happening all over again? Why do I have to watch it fall apart again? It feels like too much to handle today, like I could close my eyes and sleep for years and everything about that would be okay. Finally, I gather any threads of strength I have left, and I shove him three times in the passenger seat. “We’re home. Let’s go inside.” I simply meant he’s home but since we are in the same complex, just a different building, I didn’t see the point in differentiating, and the statement feels weird rolling off my tongue as if we are a normal couple arriving home from a night out. He wakes and silently carries himself up the stairs. He lays across the couch and swiftly returns to his sleep. I also find myself slipping into the chair diagonal to the couch and turning on the TV, watching the late night infomercials before sleep takes me as its victim as well. I know I’m a victim because of the way I feel when I wake.
~
His eyes bore holes into me as I groggily come to. I feel an ache in my neck from sleeping sideways in a chair too small for rest. He hasn’t said a word, but I feel the anger emitting from his brown eyes that I often remember as being warm, but at this moment feel nothing like that. His breathing is steady but heavy.
I look around, attempting to orient myself to time. It’s not light out yet, so it must still be the middle of the night. I look back to Torren who is sitting on the couch he fell asleep on earlier, but he’s sitting up and leaning with his elbows on his knees while he continues to stare at me. The silence is uncomfortable, but I’m also not about to be the first to speak. I don’t know what to say or where to begin. I just wish this had never even happened.
Finally, I hear his voice strong and angry, seething with what I recognize as my old friend, pain.
“Three months was enough to destroy everything last time. What? You thought we could go unscathed in only two?” His voice is boisterous and laced with bitterness. I can’t find my voice to respond. “You couldn’t leave it alone, Ari? What did you want from this?” His voice is loud, and I feel it resonate around the entire room. This last line finally stirs me from a catatonic-like state and my own anger works its way out.
“I wanted to see if you were ruined the way I was,” I spit out, swallowing my pride. “Because I was.” I feel the tears push at my eyes and I do everything in my power to hold them in. “I was fucking ruined. At seventeen, I believed in perfect and all-encompassing, passionate love. The kind you thrust your whole fucking heart into, no holds barred. I wasn’t scared. I wasn’t timid. I didn’t second guess a thing about the perfection I lived in with you. You ruined that for me. Yeah, I fucked up royally by putting your company on the list of names for John, it was impulsive, and I didn’t think you would actually end up here, but you don’t get to come back and pretend you’re the innocent one here. You don’t get to pretend that you didn’t demolish the illusion of love for me. I will never have the capacity to love like that again.”
&n
bsp; Truths spill out like an overflowed sink. Too much damage done to fix the mess. He had taken me to the brink of believing, twice. And each time I jumped over the edge. Awaiting peace and serenity in the fall, to only find terror in the fear of landing at the bottom.
“I have a fear of heartbreak every time I’m interested in a man, I have a fear of loss, and I have even more reservations than I did at seventeen when it comes to love. I wasted that fearless love on you. So, tell me, what can I do? What can I do to make it better?” I’m out of breath, and so emotionally spent I feel like I could fall back asleep for days.
“You think I planned for that to happen? I made bad choices, but they were ones I felt I had to make at the time for the people I loved, even you... I won’t apologize for my choices back then. I feel awful that you were there and I know I still feel responsible for the hell it put you through, but I spent a year after I got released dragging my head, convinced that I could never be anything but a criminal with a record in a computer system. If I didn’t make something of myself, I was going to be stuck in Glennville forever and I wasn’t going back there. I didn’t need to get employed if I could employ myself. I won’t go back to that negative thinking, Arianne, and I was hoping you had done the same or at least that I could convince you to. An olive branch of sorts.”
“Oh, go fuck your olive branch. I don’t owe you shit.” My own anger matching his.
His voice raises with condescension and arrogance. “And to think I thought this might be fate. I walked into this little business deal of yours, terrified when I saw you, I always thought I wanted to fix things and have you forgive me for our past. I always thought about what it would be like to make peace with you about all that happened. And then, the second I saw you I became terrified. You reminded me of everything I have sacrificed in this life and I wanted to run as far from you as possible. I was scared. I knew though, at some point that I had to get past that. That I couldn’t live in fear of that phase of my life forever. So, I decided to work past it, to offer you friendship, and really try to be comfortable with it. I finally took my shot to fix my mistakes from all those years ago and show you who I really was, and how I really felt, no matter how much time had gone by or what had changed, you deserved to know why I did it. But time never was on our side, was it?” A sigh of surrender parts his lips.
“When you look at me you see a brief moment in time, a tragic history. It’s a shame, ‘cause when I look at you, I only ever saw eternity. You can’t get past it. To you, I am a criminal, a felon. You will never move on, I can see that now.” He lowers his chin to his chest and I see his eyes close. He’s done. He’s said his peace and this is finally, completely over. My face feels wet and I know I have been crying throughout his entire speech. I don’t know when I started, but I know I won’t be able to stop for far too long. He’s not wrong.
“You’re right. About almost all of it. I wish I had an explanation. All I know to share with you is that I never got over that night. I never could move on, I relived it with every man I tried to be with. I never experienced the closure I needed, and I had many moments of weakness, and one of them happened when I saw your name on the vendor list. I wasn’t even sure it was truly you, but I had hoped.”
“Well now you have closure,” he seethes.
I nod my head once, to no one but myself, and turn to leave. With no one else in the arena to fight, I’m left to joust alone and I’m too hurt and damaged to continue. I turn my back and aim to walk off when I feel a firm grip catch my elbow.
Before I know it, I’m spun around and chest to chest with Torren, only he towers over me. He’s breathing heavily, and I can feel his chest expand into me. I catch his eyes and aim to not break eye contact because I want him to know I’m not the same timid girl I once was, even if in this very moment I feel broken. His breathing slows after a prolonged silence. He looks as if he is on the edge of saying something, but I can see his face change when he decides not to, and I pull away and walk off again.
“You don’t get to regret this until I do,” he hollers after me.
Chapter 29
Torren
Hearing her story shouldn’t bring me joy, but it does. I am so fucking glad she has never experienced anything else like that. I hope she never will. I don’t know if that’s good or bad. I don’t know if love is or was supposed to be like the way it was for us, but I can’t imagine it feeling any other way. It is the only love I know.
“Stop!” I yell before she can reach the door.
I haven’t found the strength to chase after her, but I need her to stop. Her feet halt, but she won’t turn to look at me. I will my feet to take me to her. To take me to something that feels like love, even if it isn’t always nice or right. I feel one foot hit the ground in front of me and I thank God. I reach out to touch Arianne’s beautiful soft skin on her exposed shoulder and I pull myself in as close as I can get to her, flush against her back. I breathe her in. I reach up and wrap her hair around my hand tightly and yank it up off her neck. She winces, making a small sound. I lower my lips to her delicate skin of her neck and kiss her softly, a contrast to how tightly I have her pinned to the door and her hair yanked off her. I use my tongue in the way I want to use it all over the rest of her body.
“You are my goddamned weakness.”
This has been too many years in the making and I fucking need this release, and this closure once and for all. This part of my life needs to be over. The pain needs to be gone. I need to be inside her to do that. And I need it to be right now. The pain and anger control me. I know I’m being too rough, but Ari doesn’t say anything, doesn’t stop me, and doesn’t complain. She’s silent. Not a noise other than the slight yelp as I pulled her hair. I bend over and pick her up around her legs and throw her over my shoulder like a goddamn caveman. I don’t want to ask her for anything in this moment, I just want to take it. I carry her to my room and I rub over her tight little core with my free hand. She’s wet already, and I can’t control the grunt that leaves me. I toss her on the bed and watch her bounce as she regains her balance and composure. When she does, she pulls herself to the edge of the bed. I bend down toward her and pull her lips into mine firmly. Her lips meet mine and push back into me. I feel her hands ravenously pulling at my shirt. I slip my tongue past her lips and it’s fucking euphoric. I love tasting her, but I fucking hate that I want it all the time, that I can’t go a day without thinking about it.
She’s grabbing for me, my chest and shoulders, unbuttoning the shirt I’m still wearing from the night before, the one the brunette at the bar was playing with. When she’s fumbled her fingers through every button and pulls the shirt off my shoulders, she pulls back from the kiss and stares at me, our breathing ragged and hard. That’s enough. I pull her top off of her and unclasp her bra from the front, as she makes quick work of removing her jeans and underwear, but this is not going to be another night of worshipping Arianne Mason. I am desperate for her in ways I’ve never known before.
“Please,” I huff out, going back on my previous thoughts of taking, because I could never take from Ari, it’s always been hers to give. “I need all of you.” I ignore the break in my voice, ignore the weakness I can hear in it.
She nods her head emphatically. “Yes,” she offers, and I am ravenous once again. I drop to my knees at the side of the bed and I pull her lips to mine again. My body feels as if it were on fire and there is a sharp ringing in my ears as if all my senses were heightened. I had never known this moment. I had been close, many years ago, but I never knew what it was like to have Ari give herself completely over to me, but this is not an act of forgiveness, it’s an act of coping.
She pushes away from me and a brief panic makes its way through my body and I pull back for her.
“I’m not going anywhere,” she states.
She stands from the bed and I follow her back up to my feet, wondering what is happening in her head. She’s not fearful of sex anymore. Once we are standing, she dabbles
light kisses across my chest, over to my shoulders.
“I am sorry,” she says, not bothering to look me in the eye, but I can still see the tears at the surface. “That I wasn’t stronger, back then. That I couldn’t see past your time, I didn’t understand it.” She continues her assault with her lips and tongue across my torso and she reaches for the button of my jeans slowly maneuvering the button open. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you when we first saw each other again, I wasn’t sure how to, or even if I regretted the action, if it was a big mistake, but I’m not sorry it happened. This was a long time coming, Torren.”
She pulls at my jeans until they fall to my knees. Her eyes are big and blue and filled with all the sorrows she speaks of, I can feel them. I am still bitter and angry with her, I don’t know if I can forgive her, but I do believe her. Her fingers hook into my boxer briefs and with another tug, I spring free of them. I am hard and needy, frantic for her touch and as if reading my thoughts her tongue and mouth wrap warmly around my cock. I bark out a loud breath as I feel her.
“I think we both needed for this to happen,” she declares with one final statement before she takes me back into her mouth and I lose myself. I don’t know if she was talking about the sex or our reunion but in this moment our current problems melt away. She pumps me into her mouth and I close my eyes and bite into my lip trying not to come, trying to refocus, staring at the most beautiful girl on her knees for me is a weakness I never thought I’d feel, she continues to suck me, never making eye contact. I’m grateful for this because I need the emotional reprieve, my anger still burning. After only a few pumps from her, I pull her back up to the bed, flipping her to her stomach, still needing to avoid her eyes. I rub her wet core making sure she is ready for me.