My head swims and my thoughts are confused by this familiarity. His hands cup my swollen breasts, making my nipples pebble. They then snake their way up the back of my neck, tugging my pony tail back. The masked man has my head pointing toward his face, giving him a better angle so he can further assault my already aching lips. His teeth bite my lower lip and his hands weave through my hair. My hands go to his ass and I grab onto it, pulling his body closer to mine as my back crashes against the brick wall. As I feel his hardness against my front, I feel such unabashed passion and lust. Our tongues tango. My skin is on fire. I take his hand and place it on my front begging him to rub me there. I need to rid this ache, this need, this want. I can't control myself. I’m uninhibited and free and I want this masked man to fuck me, right here, right now. I don't care that it's here. I don't care if there are onlookers. All I know is I want this man. And I know he's a stranger and I’ve never done this....
I pause and remove myself from his body so that I’m back on the ground. Bringing my fingers to my lips, touching the swollen skin, I look down to the ground and rip off my mask. I throw it and look up and see the masked man panting and trying to catch his breath.
"Take off your mask," I demand. He doesn't comply. Tears fill my eyes and panic fills my heart. He stands there putting his head down, not looking at me.
"I said, take off your fucking mask!" I scream and wipe at my eyes.
My heart is beating erratically, my body sparking at all the sensations, all the emotions I feel and it’s all familiar. Too familiar. So now what I need is confirmation.
He slowly peels it from his face and throws it to the ground.
I look at him. My chest rising and falling as I cry harder and my body shakes the more I do.
"Why? Just...tell me why, damn it?"
He speaks to me, softly.
"I needed you. I needed to feel you, to be near you. To kiss you."
"That's not good enough," I growl out at him.
He raises his head, looking at me with eyes full of pain and I don't care because I’m hurting too. I don't want this to be about him. This is about me and how I was just deceived.
"Because I love you, Turnip, and that's never going to change as long as I stand here and breathe the same air you do."
My tears have no on and off switch. They leave me no choice and attack at full speed.
Fucking Raphael Cruz has got me. He just placed my memory of him back into my head and a piece of him back into my heart. I’m so confused, but what else is new? I’m angry knowing I feel the way I do, but I also can’t fight my feelings about what just transpired between us. He forced this. He made his way into my brain again and I welcomed it.
How could he?
How could he make me feel all those things, all that passion? But did he really make me, or did I allow myself to remember those feelings? Experience those sensations?
I did. I let myself.
What the hell am I going to do now?
CHAPTER 15
Being the Brave Solider
Cruz~
There's an intense stare down for a few moments. Her small and fragile body is shaking and she cries. I did deceive her. I deceived everyone. I told Craw I had to work this weekend when all along I knew I was coming here. I waited till Craw left and I wasn't far behind.
I stayed in my car until it was time for the party to start. I made my way to the bar when the doors opened and I sat at the bar the whole time. Mask and all. I stuck on a long-sleeve black shirt to cover up my tattoos. I watched her. I never took my eyes off her. The way she was smiling, the way her body moved when she was dancing. Even with a mask on, I knew it was her. But then the distance was too much for me to bear. I needed to be near her and when I followed her to the bathroom I had no intention of taking her and kissing her the way I did, but when I realized where we were, the bathrooms where we first met, I couldn't help myself. Something else took over me and my common sense. I just needed to kiss my girl. The need was so strong, I was useless against my own thoughts. And I don't feel guilty.
And why is that?
Because she
knew
it was me.
After a few minutes of crying and pacing, she stops and speaks. "How could you trick me like that, Cruz? And of all places to do it? Why? Just fucking tell me why."
I go to her angry because even though I couldn't help myself, I’m mad she didn't call out my name or even attempt to make it known it was me.
I take her face in my hands, her soft skin feels like silk underneath my fingers, but she's not having it. She turns her face and steps out of my touch.
"No!" she yells in my direction.
"Why, Harlow? Tell me why not." I step in front of her, not even giving her a chance to get away from me. She crosses her arms in front of her chest like she's protecting herself. Every step she takes to try and move away, I’m right in front of her.
"You know why. I don't feel that way about you anymore, Cruz."
"Now we both know that's a bunch of bullshit. You don't kiss someone like that if you don't feel anything for them."
She turns to me with fire in her eyes and she yells, "Oh, yeah? What about what happened in there almost two years ago." She points to the back door of Jax where sits the bathroom where it all began. "I felt nothing for you that night. You were a guy who I saw and wanted to fuck. That's it! Nothing more. I don't remember anything else. You are still just a guy I fucked. Nothing more. You were my friend, that's what I remember. Nothing more."
I call bullshit all the way from here to Timbuk-fucking-tu.
I take her by the shoulders and I shake her, yes I shake her and I’m not gentle about it.
"That's fucking bullshit and you know it. You know who I am, you remember me, you remember us. I can see it all over your face. Every time you see me I can see it in your eyes. I can read it on your face. As soon as you realized it was me under that fucking mask, I saw it on your face. Deny it all you want, Harlow, but I know the fucking truth!"
Maybe that was a bit loud and yeah, maybe I shouldn't be shaking her the way I am but I don't give a shit. The woman needs to know that she is mine and always will be.
"Get off me, you animal! There's no look on my face. You want so bad for there to be one that now you are grasping at any kind of semblance to try and prove something that just isn't there. I don't have the feelings I once had. Move on, Cruz, and accept it."
I let go of her shoulders and grab her chin so she looks directly at me. She tries to get out of my grasp, but I’m not letting go.
"Look at me, Harlow. I will never accept it because you can deny it till your blue in the face. I will never let you go." I take my hand from her chin and I pick up one of her hands and place it over my heart. She goes stiff but I continue.
"This will never belong to anyone else. Never. I didn't give up on us when you were lying in that hospital bed. If you were still lying there, just breathing and existing, I'd still be sitting in that fucking chair next to your bed. So don't stand here and tell me to move on ’cause it will never happen. Get that through that cracked skull of yours."
She slaps me hard across the face and when I let go of her hand she walks away down the alley.
"Where are you going? You're drunk." I jog after her but she just walks at her own pace, swaying a bit. She hugs herself with her arms and she's no longer crying but she looks angry.
"Harlow, stop walking and talk to me." I grab her arm and she retreats.
"Leave me alone. Go away, Cruz." I stop as she continues to move.
Angry, I yell out to her,
"That's right, Harlow. Walk away the way you always do."
She turns around and flips me the bird. Classic back-in-the-day Harlow. I turn and go back into the bar. I push people left and right. The crowd is thick and I just want to go follow her as much as I just want to let her go. I keep swimming through the crowd until I feel a hand on my arm.
"What the fuck, Cruz? You told me you were working." Craw rips off his mask and looks pissed.
I shrug his hand off.
"I needed to see her. I had every intention on being here."
"Jesus, Cruz. Why can't you just let it be? She's seeing someone anyway. Just let her be fucking happy."
I push my hands through my hair aggravated because he just doesn't get it. I push my finger in his chest, not hard, but enough that he can understand what my point is.
"You don't get it, Craw. You've never loved anyone so you're not going to get it. You just don't give up on what we had and as much as she tells me she doesn't feel anything for me with some of her memory coming back, I know she's lying. So I’m not just going to let her be. I’m not going to just give up."
He swallows hard and shakes his head because for one, he knows the kind of person I am, and second, he knows in his heart how Harlow feels.
He looks around and I know he's looking for her.
"Where is she?"
"We got in a fight?"
"Is she okay?"
I’m not going to tell him what I did before we got into the fight. That will piss him off even more.
"She's fine. Pissed off at me, and she walked away but I have a pretty good idea where she is headed. Let the girls know she's okay and in good hands."
Not looking happy, he nods anyway and walks away, and I bolt out the door to a place where I’m praying she's returned to.
***
Because she walks so slow from her injuries, it's not hard to trail behind her a block or two. Even though the streets are filled with people in costumes roaming the streets, it's not hard to spot my girl. My eyes never leave her as I see her limp along. It breaks my heart when I see it because it only reminds me what could have been prevented.
I stay back when she reaches our houses on Barnacle Lane. I watch her walk up the wooden steps. Each step she takes looks painful and I just want to go and lift her and carry her up, but I also don't feel like getting punched in the balls. It's bad enough Morty is going to wind up turning into a Monk from not being anywhere but my hand since last year.
Christ, how things change.
I lean against the street light post until she goes into the house. I wait. The light for the living room turns on, then turns off a few minutes later.
She went to bed.
I go up to the house and find the hidden key to Porter's parents’ place. I gave my key back a long time ago but I remembered the one that was always hidden in case any of us forget ours if we were out and came home.
I go to my old room and sit on the bed. I touch the wall to the other house. On the other side of it I know is the room Harlow is in. I rest my forehead against it and wish things were different. I stay like that for a few minutes and try and lay on the bed, looking up at the ceiling, but I know sleeping is not an option. I'll just go to the place that reminds me of her, of us.
I make my way out the back door to the dock. It's dark and cold. The fall weather has arrived and soon winter will be here. I reach the dock and I see her. Sitting there with the chair facing the water. I can see her hair flowing off the back of it. I hesitate going to her, but this is my baby, my love, and I have to see if she's okay.
When I reach her, I just stand behind her with some distance.
"I don't know why I’m here. I don't know what this all means, but something told me to come out here." When I hear her speak those words I take my hand to my chest and feel the crushing of my heart. I slowly walk over to the other chair and sit in it. It faces her instead of out into the bay. She has a blanket wrapped around her and her legs are tucked up underneath her.
"I’m sorry I did what I did, Har. It's just that...." I let out a breath and run my hands through my hair. "It's just that I need you to know what my life is like without you. As hard as I try to stay away, to move on and do other things with my life, nothing seems to work."
She doesn't look at me when I speak, she just keeps staring out into the darkness.
"I lived a meaningless life before you came into it. I was just this guy who wanted to have fun with my friends and meet girls, and well, you know the rest. But then you walked into Jax that first night and without even knowing it, that night was going to change me forever. I was changed forever."
She chuckles a bit, it's sarcastic, but it's better than silence.
"When you were in that coma and you were just laying there, I ran the scenario in my head a million times about how I could have changed it all. I could have stopped it all and we would be sitting here happy and still in love instead of you hating me."
She turns her head to look at me. "I don't hate you, Cruz." Then she turns back to the water.
I ease back in my chair. "You don't love me, either."
She let's out a breath. "I didn't say that. I don't know what to feel or what to do. I'll come clean to you because I can't keep it from you any longer, but yes, I do remember a lot. More than I’ve led you to believe, and as much as I hated what you did tonight, it reminded me and made me think."
I don't dare ease my chair toward her or even attempt to touch her as she tells me what I’ve suspected. I just want her to talk to me.
"What, um, what do you remember? If you want to tell, go ahead."
She turns to me, tucking her hair behind her ears.
"I keep having these dreams constantly about this place, about this dock. I remember us being here, the first night after you told me your feelings for me. I remember how it felt, how I felt about you. It's just very confusing because I’m not supposed to feel what I feel."
"Why not? Why aren't you supposed to?"
"It's complicated," she replies.
"’Cause of this other guy?"
She looks surprised and sad at the same time.
"How did you know that? Did I tell you?
"I live with Craw. I have been. He told me about him. You work with him."
She straightens up in her chair and leans forward.
"You what? Since when?" Her tone is angry and I didn't want to tell her this way but it's as good a time as any.