Broken Juliet (13 page)

“Cassie?”

“Hmmm?”

“The buttons? Your fingers might be more dexterous than mine.”

“Oh. Right.”

I take the edges of the jacket and pull them together. His chest is too broad, so it’s not easy, and he’s right, the buttons do seem too large for the holes. I struggle with the thick fabric but have success with the bottom few buttons before running into problems.

“Have you put on weight?”

“A bit. I’ve been working out.”

“Boxing?”

He pauses. “Yes. How did you know that?”

I shrug. “Lucky guess.”

I pull again but the button’s not cooperating.

“I can’t get it.”

“Leave it then,” he says, his voice tight. “It’s fine.”

Once more the button pops out. “Dammit!”

“Taylor…” He closes his hand over both of mine. “For God’s sake, just fucking … stop.”

I freeze. Time slows down.

He’s touching me.

The effect is instantaneous and debilitating. My heart skips into overdrive when he lets out a ragged breath. I stare at his hand covering mine. So alien. So familiar. Wrong and right twisting around each other and into my stomach.

I watch in sick fascination as he rubs his thumb across my knuckles in slow motion. I want to step away, but I’m frozen. I can’t look up at him, afraid of what I’ll do. Or what he’ll do. Even through the thick leather of the jacket I can feel his heart pounding, faster than mine. His chest is rising and falling rapidly, and I know that whatever happens in the next few seconds could very well undo the past eight months of cultivated aloofness.

“Cassie … he groans.”

He presses my hands more firmly against his chest, and my resolve fails. I want to pull the jacket open and press my mouth to his skin. Taste the warmth there before moving up to his neck. He seems to want it, too, because he grips my hands and pushes them beneath the fabric. When my palms press into his bare chest, he inhales so sharply, it’s like he’s in pain.

I close my eyes and seek the strength to stop. I have to. I can’t be like this again. Desperate and needy. The obstacles keeping us apart haven’t changed. Especially not him.

I open my eyes to meet his gaze. It’s searing. Dark and intense and way too compelling.

Resolve, where are you when I need you?

This isn’t him wanting me back. It’s just him wanting me. And me wanting him. Pounding hearts and hormones screaming at us.

I move my hands over his chest and feel the fast pulse beneath it, looking for an excuse to let this happen. To allow me to have his body without needing anything more. To relieve the aching sexual frustration that’s haunted me since the day we broke up.

But there’s no excuse. No alternate reality in which this would make things anything but immeasurably worse.

I curl my fingers into his muscles before I snap back to reality. Finding strength I didn’t know I had, I pull away, embarrassed and irritated. I hate that I’m practically boneless with desire. That one fleeting touch from him can
still
affect me so completely.

I stare at him and try to find my voice.

He stares back, apparently just as shocked.

“What the hell was that?” Adrenaline is storming through my veins, making me hot and shaky.

He blinks and shakes his head. Angry. With himself or me?

“I have no idea.” His jaw flexes, and he drops his head. “That was fucking stupid. I … I shouldn’t have—”

“No, you shouldn’t.”

He snaps his head up to look at me. Definitely angry with me this time. “I didn’t see you stepping back too quickly. You were breathing just as hard as I was.”

“That doesn’t mean you can … that we should—” I rake my fingers through my hair. “Goddammit, Ethan, we’re supposed to be past this by now! I shouldn’t feel this way when—”

“When what?”

“When you’re near me! When you touch me. You can’t just … do that to me.”

“Believe me, I know the feeling.”

I throw my hands up. “I didn’t do anything!”

“You don’t need to. Just fucking existing is enough to completely ruin me.”

The sadness in his tone makes me pause, but it doesn’t make me any less angry.

“Whatever,” I say as I try to unzip my dress. “Forget it.”

He pulls off his jacket and says, “What the fuck do you think I’ve been trying to do all year?”

The bodice of the dress seems to tighten like a python, squeezing me to the point of asphyxiation. “Get this damn thing undone.”

I turn so he can unzip me, and when he does, I stalk into the dressing room. I rip off the dress and pull my bra and shirt back on. Then I gather up my stuff and throw back the curtain. He’s standing there watching me, like he’s about to apologize or something.

I pause. We stare at each other. No apology is forthcoming.

Of course not.

Freaking typical.

“Oh, hey, guys.”

We both turn to see Jack Avery, holding an armful of costumes. “Oh, wow, did I interrupt something? Need some privacy? Or condoms?”

I make a disgusted noise and push past him. “Shut up, Jack.”

As I walk down toward the exit, I hear Avery say, “Dude, are you still pretending she doesn’t have you totally and completely whipped? How fucking deluded are you?”

As I reach the door, Holt says, “For once I agree with Cassie, Avery. Shut the fuck up.”

Hours later, when I get home, I’m still tingling from the memory of my hands on his chest. They crave to feel him again. Want more of him beneath them.

I groan and collapse onto my bed, frustrated beyond belief.

Indifference? Yeah, right.

I have no freaking idea what that word means.

My only consolation is that neither does Ethan.

THIRTEEN

AVOIDANCE

Present Day

New York City, New York

The Apartment of Cassandra Taylor

I snuggle into the warmth beside me.

Hmmm. Boy. Soft skin. Smells good.

Ethan?

An arm wraps around me and I snuggle further, reliving the memory of lips and tongue. It wakes me up from the inside, making me greedy for more.

I put my hand on his stomach. Feel the taut muscles there. So many muscles.

Wait. Too many muscles.

I trail down to his belly button.

“Sweetheart, if you go much lower we’re going to have to re-examine my sexuality, and I don’t think either of us is ready for that right now.”

I open my eyes. My roommate, Tristan, is lying next to me with one of Ethan’s journals open in his hand.

“You know, I always thought your stories about this guy were embellished out of hurt or bitterness, but reading this? It’s a wonder he could walk upright and talk at the same time. There’s some serious self-flagellation going on in here. Did he actually have his own whip? Or was it all just in his mind?”

I grab for the book, but he tightens his arm around me and holds it out of my reach.

“Nuh uh uh. I’ve been hearing about his antics for three years. I think I’ve earned a little peek inside his crazy. Of course, the important question is, where did you get these journals? Please tell me you didn’t steal them like a crazy stalker-lady.”

I rub my eyes. It’s too early for one of Tris’s interrogations. “He gave them to me.”

“Really?”

“Yep.”

“At rehearsal?”

“No.”

“Then where?”

“At his apartment.”

He pauses. “Uh-huh. So you went over there, picked these up, and left, right? No romantic contact? No reminiscing about how obsessed you are with his cock?”

“Tristan…”

He pulls back so he can glare at me. “No, don’t you
Tristan
me. You swore you were going to take things slow with this guy, and I get home this morning to find your sex-kitten underwear on the floor, loverboy’s journals on your nightstand, and scruff rash all over your face. Seems to me you’re determined to screw this up before you’ve even given it a chance.”

“Nothing happened.”

“Do I actually need to check if your pants are on fire, Miss Liar? Because it looks like your face has been exfoliated with a sandblaster.”

“Okay, nothing
much
. We kissed.”

“
Just
kissed?”

“And … humped against a wall.”

He exhales. “That’s not nothing.”

“It’s not sex.”

“It’s also not slow.”

I know he’s right, but admitting it is beyond me. “What do you want me to say, Tris? That it was stupid? It was. Do I know what the hell I’m doing with him? Absolutely not. Did I have highly pornographic dreams about him last night? Hell yes. Honest enough for you?”

I slump against his chest as he tightens his arm around me and rests his head against mine.

“Sweet girl, I’m not trying to be a dick here. I just don’t want this to go south again. I know he probably turns you inside out but if you go too fast, too soon, then you’re going to do exactly the same thing he did—freak out and bail. I’m pretty sure neither of you wants that, right?”

“No. But whenever I’m with him, all I can see is him, and that terrifies me. And when we’re apart, I think that maybe we’re better that way, and that also terrifies me.”

He rubs my arm. “Fear is natural in this situation, but the key is to not let it call the shots. Scared people either shut down and avoid the thing they fear, or get angry at it and lash out. The bad news for you and Ethan is that you’ve tried both of those options and neither has been successful. The ultimate tragedy is that ever since you met, you’ve been completely nutso in love with each other and wasted too much time being stubborn asses about denying it.”

I close my eyes, not liking how this conversation is tightening my chest. Tris sighs.

“If it’s any consolation,” he says quietly, “the one thing these journals prove is that he always loved you.”

I laugh. “Even when he was breaking my heart?”

“Yep. Even then. I mean, listen to this one from six years ago. ‘
New Year’s Eve. I can barely function with so many thoughts of her running through my head. I feel like a crazy man. I keep thinking, “What if she could have fixed me?” If anyone could have, it would have been her. I’m dreading next year. It’s going to be a fucked-up charade of pretending I don’t want her. I’m exhausted just thinking about it. I could barely hold myself back when she texted me on Christmas day, and that was just a freaking message on my phone. How the hell am I going to resist her when she’s right in front of me? All sad eyes and trembling mouth and broken heart.

Part of me kind of hopes when I see her again, she’ll break down and beg me to be with her. If she did that, there’d be no way I could deny her. Please let her beg me. No, wait, don’t. Fuck. I hate this. I want to peel off my skin. Happy fucking New Year.
’”

Hearing about his past turmoil isn’t helping my own, but somehow, knowing he was as miserable as I was is strangely satisfying.

Tristan turns the page.
“
And here are his New Year’s resolutions: ‘
Stop thinking about Cassie. Stop dreaming about Cassie. Stop fantasizing about Cassie when I masturbate. Be kinder to my mom and sister. Try not to imagine smashing my father in the face every time he says something annoying. Run more. Drink less. Be a better person. For Cassie.
’”

He puts the book down and looks at me. “You have to admit, despite his issues, the boy was totally crazy about you.”

“It doesn’t excuse what he did.”

“I don’t think he wants you to excuse him. I think he wants you to understand that he was confused.”

“And stupid.”

“Well, yeah, obviously stupid. I mean, you turn me on and I’m a bona-fide cock lover. I have no idea why that hot-blooded straight boy thought he could be anything but totally obsessed with you.”

He keeps flicking through the pages. I lie there and listen to his steady heartbeat as I try to sort through my feelings about Ethan.

“Tris?”

“Hmm?”

“Do you think it’s possible that soul mates who love each other aren’t actually supposed to be together?”

He pauses, and then puts the book down. “I think a better question would be, do
you
think it’s possible?”

I don’t answer him, because if I admit that it’s crossed my mind, the small spark of hope inside me will sputter and die.

FOURTEEN

PASSION

Five Years Earlier

Westchester County, New York

The Diary of Cassandra Taylor

Dear Diary,

Humans are strange creatures. We lie every day, in a thousand different ways. The most common lie is, ‘I have read the terms and conditions.’ The second most common lie is, ‘I’m fine.’

Some people believe that actors are just professional liars, paid to manufacture personalities that aren’t our own. We create characters from our imaginations, interpret someone else’s words, dress in someone else’s clothes, become a different person for hours, days, months. We’re good at fooling people. We’re less adept at fooling ourselves.

The best actors keep all the parts of themselves in little boxes and bring them out in an unending parade of various combinations.

I used to be pretty good at doing that, on stage and in life, but ever since Ethan and I broke up, my compartments have been confused. In the filing cabinet where I keep my feelings for him, the drawer labeled ‘lover’ is now firmly locked. So is ‘boyfriend.’ The ‘friend’ drawer rattles and tries to squeeze open, but it’s so squashed beneath ‘hurt’ and ‘resentment,’ it’s practically buried.

I don’t talk about him anymore. Not to Ruby. Not to Mom. Not even to Elissa, who I confided in the longest because she always sought me out. Talking about him maintained tiny cracks in my resolve, and always made me bristle and want.

It’s better now.

I’ve locked my passion away. Put it in a strongbox and covered it in concrete.

Ethan and I go to class, do our work, avoid each other when possible and snark at each other when we can’t. We have no patience for these platonic versions of ourselves. Even now, more than a year after our breakup, our hearts and bodies fight against the distance and suppression, but we’ve gotten good at ignoring them.