Sweet Chaos (Love & Chaos Book 2)

by Emery Rose

  She laughed softly as she took the cigarette from my fingers. “I always thought that was so sexy when you did that.”

  “Did what?” I asked.

  “Lit two cigarettes. One for me and one for you.”

  I took a deep drag, feeling the rush of the nicotine hit my bloodstream, and said nothing. We were no longer a couple and I didn’t want to act like one. No more lighting her cigarette, you stupid fuck.

  “Remember your seventeenth birthday? We got drunk on my dad’s whiskey and high on your weed and rode down to the beach on your bike. I was on your handlebars and you rode with one hand on the handlebar, your arm wrapped around me, so I wouldn’t fall off. And I remember thinking, I’d go to hell and back with this boy.”

  She took a drag of her cigarette, her eyes on the ocean, her blonde hair lifted in the soft breeze while she tripped down memory lane, my least favorite place to visit. “It was late at night and the moon was out and we were floating in the ocean. And you sang Pearl Jam’s “Black.” It was so sad and angry and beautiful. Like you.”

  I sucked on my cigarette, needing it to calm my nerves. I remembered that night so well. My mother had forgotten our birthday. Completely forgot about it. No cards, no gifts, no Happy Birthday, not a fucking mention of it. I remembered Sienna that night too. I remembered thinking that a girl like her would never end up with a thug like me. And I’d been right.

  But now, instead of feeling like shit about it, I was grateful. Because I’d found something so much better. And I was already feeling antsy, wishing we could fast forward to the end of this conversation, so I could get the hell out of here. I’d even watch Riverdale, that’s how fucking desperate I was for this to end.

  “Where did we go wrong, Dylan?”

  I wanted to laugh at that question. Nothing about us had ever been right. “We don’t have that kind of time, princess.” I took a swig of my beer and a drag of my cigarette. Whose idea was this, to bring beer and cigarettes like we were two old friends sitting around shooting the shit?

  “Did you ever love me?”

  I took another swig of beer, thinking about her question. It was cocked and loaded, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the bullet exploded in my face. “There was a time I would have done anything for you. Anything you asked, I would have fucking done it. But you never…” I pinched the bridge of my nose. I didn’t want to go down this road. I didn’t want to be on this beach with her, reliving old wounds and bitter words and all the shit that went down in our eight-year on-again, off-again disaster of a relationship.

  “I never what?” she prompted, her voice so sad that I couldn’t even look at her because I knew what I’d see.

  “You never believed in me,” I said, my voice low, with a bitterness that surprised me. You would have thought I’d be over it by now. “You never had one single ounce of faith in me. You were so fucking scared of being poor. Of living like I did. You were always half in and half out. And every time your father gave you an ultimatum, every single fucking time he threatened that you’d lose your trust fund or whatever the hell he was using to keep you in line… you dumped my ass and ran scared. You made promises you never kept. Over and over again. Different day, same old shit. You wanna talk? Really talk? You had a fucking abortion and never even told me.”

  Yeah, that’s right. Let’s talk. That shut her up.

  “Dylan…” Her voice quavered. My jaw clenched, and I took deep breaths through my nose. She was turning on the waterworks again. This was what she did.

  “You wanted to talk. Fucking talk. Or we’ll go. Stop wasting my time. Stop fucking dragging me through all this shit all over again. You called me an asshole more times than I can count. But you made me fucking crazy, Sienna.”

  “I did it for you,” she said quietly.

  “For me?” I laughed harshly. “Didn’t you fucking know me at all? I would have done anything it took to take care of you and the baby.”

  “I know that,” she said, her voice raised. “And that’s why I did it for you. God, Dylan. You were barely getting by. You were selling drugs and fighting to pay the rent and the bills for you and Remy because your piece of shit mother was never around. What was I supposed to do? Saddle you with more responsibility? It was my fault. I fucked up the birth control. I missed a few days and I should have told you, but I didn’t. I was so scared you’d do something crazy like drop out of school. And you were so smart. I couldn’t do that to you. Don’t you see? I did it for you.”

  I swallowed hard, hearing the honesty in her voice, and I knew she was telling the truth. Yet all these years, she’d kept that to herself. And I realized it was because we never really talked. Not about the important shit. We just got mad and yelled at each other. Walked out in the middle of conversations.

  “We were so young and so stupid, Dylan,” she said, brushing away her tears and taking a shaky breath. “We were so bad at love. But I loved you. So much. And I tried. I tried so hard to be the girl you needed but I didn’t know how. I was scared. You’re right. But it wasn’t money I was worried about. It was us. I was scared that I’d give up everything for you and then you’d leave me and where would I be?”

  “Why did you think I would leave you?”

  She shook her head. “Because I knew that you never loved me the way I loved you. Your mom did such a number on your head. You never even believed me when I told you I loved you. And I told you all the time. But you always threw it back in my face. You could never say the words in return. And it hurt. The more you held back, the harder I tried to be what you wanted. But the more I tried, the more I failed. It was like this vicious cycle and we kept going round and round and ending up back where we started. But I kept coming back for more. Because when it was good, nobody had ever made me feel the way you did. You were my drug. My crack. My addiction. And I’m so scared that I’ll never love anyone the way I loved you.” Her voice cracked on the words, and I didn’t know what to say or do.

  I had never been scared of her leaving me. I always knew she’d come back. I was the one who finally ended things. If it had been left up to her, we’d still be doing the same old tired song and dance.

  “Dylan,” she said softly.

  “Yeah?” I answered as I ground out my cigarette in the sand.

  “Can you… can you just hold me? I know we’re over but… please. Just one more time.”

  I hesitated. The last thing I wanted was Sienna in my arms. “Sienna, I don’t think . . .”

  She ignored my words and moved closer, wrapping her arms around me. She buried her face in the crook of my neck, and placed her hand over my heart, and it was so wrong, but I was telling myself that it was okay. This girl was a part of my past, and we were awash with memories, nothing more. And maybe, like she’d said, I owed her this. Earlier, she had said she needed closure. And that’s what this was. Time to close the book on the past and move on.

  The first time I ever saw Sienna, we were sixteen. It was the first day of our junior year in high school and I walked into my fourth period English class. The only desk available was in the back row, right behind Sienna.

  I ignored her for most of that school year. Had immediately pegged her as the queen bee. Rich, spoiled, beautiful, smart. On her better days, she was funny and generous. She was also insecure and worried about every bite of food she put into her mouth. Her beach waves looked natural and carefree, but I knew it took her forty-five minutes, a shitload of styling products and three appliances to achieve. Same with her outfits. She used to spend a ridiculous amount of time deciding what to wear. Sienna pretended that people’s opinion of her didn’t matter but it wasn’t true. Sienna used to dress for me. Chose silky lingerie with me in mind.

  “I’m so worried about losing you that sometimes I forget who I am without you.”

  She’d told me that once, years ago, when I was too young to analyze it or figure out what the hell it meant. But even then, I’d had a feeling that was a bad thing. That you should never lose yourself
in the process of loving someone. If anything, love should make you a better version of yourself. That’s how I felt with Scarlett—I’ll always love her. She made me want to be a better man.

  “Dylan.” Her hands cradled my face and before I’d had a chance to process what was happening, her mouth captured mine. And just like that, I was kissing my ex-girlfriend on the beach under a sky that was getting dark.

  Her arms wrapped around my neck and her tongue was in my mouth. It took me a second to come to my senses and push her away. “The fuck are you doing?” I stood up.

  She smiled as she got to her feet. It wasn’t a sweet smile. It was cunning. A glimpse of the other side of Sienna, the side of her I’d forgotten. The side that showed me she was more like her father than she realized. She ran her hand down my chest and I clasped her wrist and pushed it away as my eyes met Scarlett’s over Sienna’s shoulder. She was farther down the beach, and dusk had descended, but there was enough light to make out that it was definitely her. Besides, I’d know her anywhere.

  Scarlett turned, and she ran, and I fucking hated myself.

  I glared at Sienna, my jaw clenched. “You saw her,” I gritted out. “You fucking knew she was there.”

  Sienna’s eyes narrowed on me. “She stole my ex-boyfriend. My first love. And you know what’s crazy? While we were sitting out here talking, I’d almost forgotten about that. Because it was just you and me again, and it felt so good to be next to you and to actually talk. And for a little while, I remembered how good things used to be. And I remembered the things I loved about you. But then I saw her, and it all came rushing back. If I can’t have you, why should she?”

  I brushed past her and strode away, so fucking pissed I couldn’t see straight. “You don’t know what love is, Sienna.”

  “You’re an asshole, Dylan,” she screamed, shoving my back. I spun around to face her, and she pummeled me with her fists, her chest heaving. I grabbed her wrists to stop her from using me as a human punching bag and pushed her away. She came at me again, screaming like a madwoman, and planted her fist in my face.

  I rubbed my jaw as she cradled her hand and fell to her knees on the sand.

  “The fuck are you doing?”

  “How could you do this to me?” she cried, her hands covering her face, her shoulders shaking while I played monkey in the middle, caught between the past I wanted to run from and the future I wanted to run to. Sienna had made damn sure that her sister would pay for her sins, and so would I.

  One fucking kiss.

  “I didn’t do anything to you,” I seethed. “I fell in love with your sister.”

  “Why? What does she have that I don’t?” Sienna asked, scrambling to her feet. “Why her?”

  There were a million reasons why I loved Scarlett, but I wasn’t about to share this information with Sienna.

  “Because she’s not you. She’s everything you’re not and I love her.” I left her on the beach and I strode away.

  “Good luck explaining why you were kissing your ex-girlfriend, asshole,” she called after me.

  Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

  33

  Scarlett

  I had it coming. I did. But I had no idea it would turn out like this. I’d expected a conversation. Angry words. Tears. Apologies. I could have withstood that. Could have taken everything she threw at me. But this. I hadn’t seen it coming.

  Why had I gone to the beach? Why? I thought it would help put things in perspective. Or, at the very least, I thought it would give me a bit of peace.

  I took another sip of my margarita that I was drinking out of a mason jar and licked the salt off my lips. I was buzzed, well on my way to getting shit-faced. Hollowed out and empty from all the tears I’d shed. Personally, I would have gone straight for the tequila shots and not have bothered with the mixers. But the margaritas were good and the salt on the rim of the glass tasted like my tears, so I drank up, my legs draped over the side of the armchair, my eyes on the boring white ceiling.

  My mind replayed the scene in front of the gas pumps. The way he’d pulled her into his arms and brushed away her tears. And the scene on the beach. I couldn’t get the vision of that kiss out of my head.

  He’d kissed her. He’d kissed Sienna.

  My heart hurt so much. Physically ached. I didn’t think this pain or that memory would ever go away. It was branded on my heart forever.

  “We need to change the playlist. This is depressing,” Nic said, her words slurring a bit. She was slouched down on the sofa, feet propped up on the coffee table, margarita in hand. “It’s putting me in a weird funk.”

  Neither of us made a move to change the music. Instead, we suffered through John Mayer singing about slow dancing in a burning room. And I thought about dancing with Dylan. On the beach. In Mavericks. On the terrace in Cabo on his twenty-seventh birthday. I didn’t even bother trying to stop the tears from falling.

  “Maybe it wasn’t what it looked like,” Nic said. “I mean, maybe they weren’t really kissing. You said you weren’t that close to them so… it could have been an optical illusion… delusion? Or whatever the word is…” Her voice trailed off.

  There was no point in having this conversation again. We’d already gone over it in detail. And there was nothing she could say or do to make it better. Even if I hadn’t seen them all cozy on the beach, the fact remains that what we’d done was wrong. No amount of justifying it could make it right. A part of him still loved her, and I don’t care how many times he denied it, I saw it with my own eyes.

  I didn’t want to be his second best. His consolation prize. He couldn’t even tell me he loved me.

  There was only one thing left to do. I needed to leave. It would be too hard to stay in this town. Everywhere I went, I’d take the risk of running into him. Everywhere I went, I’d be reminded of him. It would be too hard to see him, longing for him yet knowing that I couldn’t be with him. All of my memories of Dylan, from the time I was eleven, were in Costa del Rey. And I think that’s what made this so much more painful. I hadn’t only lost my boyfriend tonight—I’d lost the life I so desperately wanted.

  For ten years, Dylan had starred in all my dreams. He’d been my wish on every star. My knight in tarnished armor. My Romeo. For a little while, I had even deluded myself into believing that he was not only my past but that he’d be my future too.

  My mind was made up. I needed to get away from here. Away from him. I grabbed my phone from the coffee table and scrolled through my emails, pulling up the one from the international volunteer organization that I’d contacted back in November.

  “Nic?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Don’t hate me, k?” I asked, typing out an email to let the organization know that I was ready and willing to go anywhere they needed me. The farther away the better.

  “I could never hate you. What are you talking about, bitch? You’re my bae.”

  “And you have Cruz. And your friends from work. That girl with the purple hair,” I continued. “What’s her name?”

  Nic bolted upright, her drink spilling over the rim of her glass as she slammed it down on the coffee table. “No. No. Nuh uh. Don’t you dare.”

  She lunged for my phone, but I pulled it away and hit send before she grabbed it from my hand.

  “What have you done?” she asked, staring at my phone screen then at me. She opened her mouth to speak just as a knock sounded on the door. “If that’s him, I’m going to kill him.”

  She flew to the door and flung it open so hard, it banged against the wall. I slunk lower in my seat and chugged the rest of my margarita, tuning out whatever Nic was saying to Dylan. Not that I’d looked to confirm it was him, but I wasn’t surprised he’d turned up here.

  “I need to talk to her.”

  “No.”

  “Step aside, Nic, and fucking let me in.”

  “If you wanna get to her, you’ll have to get through me.”

  “Just let him in,” I said, feeling weary. “Might
as well get this over with.”

  “Get this over with? The fuck does that mean?”

  “It means we’re over. We’ll say our goodbyes and move on.”

  “We’re not over. I love you. I’m in love with you. I fucking love you, Scarlett. Only you.”

  I’d waited so long to hear those words. It felt like I’d been waiting half my life for him to say that to me. But now that he had, all I wanted to do was cry.

  I set my glass on the coffee table and walked out of the living room, down the hallway and into my bedroom. He trailed after me, closed the door behind him and turned on my table lamp.

  I flopped down on my bed, not sure why I’d come to my bedroom. I just wanted to fall asleep and wake up and have this whole thing be a bad dream.

  “Did you hear what I said? I love you.”

  “I heard you.” I reached up a hand and ripped the fishing wire off the wall, dragging all my photos down with it. “You see all these photos? These are my memories. My happy memories.” I drew my knees to my chest and wrapped my arms around them. “We’ve destroyed too much, Dylan. You asked me not to let you ruin this. Ruin us. But we’re ruined. We were from the start. How could we have ever expected to make this right?”

  He sat on the edge of my mattress and angled his body toward me. “We’re right. You and me.”

  “I saw you with Sienna, Dylan. I saw you kissing her. I saw the way you looked at her. You’re still in love with her.”

  He scrubbed his hand over his face. “I’m not in love with her. Whatever you think you saw…” He stopped and took a deep breath. “It wasn’t what it looked like. I didn’t kiss her. She kissed me.”

  I laughed incredulously. “Oh. Okay. Next you’re going to tell me you didn’t wrap your arms around her and wipe away her tears.”

  His jaw clenched. “I’m not in love—”

  I held up my hand to stop him from continuing. “It doesn’t matter. None of this matters. It doesn’t change anything. If you kissed her or she kissed you. It happened. I was there. I saw it. But this… us… it’s not just about that kiss on the beach. I can’t be with you anymore. Seeing you with her tonight… it just made me realize how wrong this was.”