Authors: Leisa Rayven
The first sob is so painful, I think I’ve injured myself. The second is no better. Then, all I am is pain, and tears, and wrongness, and when I press my face into my pillow, all I can smell is the man responsible for it.
NINE
FLOODGATES
Present Day
New York City, New York
The Apartment of Cassandra Taylor
He tries to soothe me as my breathing becomes harsh, but the echo of heartache fills all my empty places.
“Hey,” he says, and brushes hair away from my face.
“Cassie … it’s okay…”
“You hurt me. Broke me.”
“I wish I could take it back, but I can’t.”
“Is this how you used to feel? Angry? Out of control? I hate it.”
He cradles my face. “I know. And it’s my fault. I’m sorry.” He strokes my back. I shove him away. He pauses for a second, then steps forward to put his arms around me once more, patiently riding out my frustration. I shove him again, and my face is hot with too many emotions to identify. I want to lash out.
To punish him.
He knows. It’s easy to recognize his former self in what I’ve become.
“Do it,” he says. “Hit me if you want. Slap me. Yell. Do it, Cassie. You need to.”
I’m choking on emotion. I try to swallow, but it refuses to be suppressed any longer. I groan as the floodgates open, and hot tears spill down my cheeks as I slap at his chest.
“Yes. Let it out. Do it.”
I slap him once … twice … three, four times, and then I’m swearing and sobbing, and he stands there and takes it, all the while whispering that he loves me.
“I’m sorry I hurt you, Cassie. I’m so sorry. I’m not going to hurt you anymore, I promise.”
My sobs get deeper as I grasp at him, purging the rage all the pain he caused, all the time he wasted. Letting out years of venom until I have nothing left. No fuel for my fire. No bitter voice telling me he’s not worth it.
At last, all I have left is exhaustion. Then his arms are around me, and he supports me as my legs buckle.
He just stands there and holds me, murmuring that everything’s going to be all right. That
we’ll
be all right.
I’m too tired to fight anymore. Too lonely.
Too much in love with him.
When the wetness on my cheeks begins to dry, I hug him back and let myself believe him, just a bit.
Just enough.
I don’t know how long we stand there, but neither one of us seems eager to move. It’s like we don’t want the moment to end.
After a while, he loosens his grip. I guess he realizes I’m not going to run.
He kisses the top of my head, then my forehead, then my temple. He cups my face and kisses my cheek, and every touch makes me shiver. The soft brush of his lips tingles down my limbs and collects in my stomach, lighting up places that have been dark for too long.
Everything else fades into the background when he touches me. His heart pounds fast against my breasts as he holds me close and kisses my neck.
“Cassie…”
The way he says my name is like a groan of frustration and a sigh of relief. A promise. An apology. A prayer.
He rubs his thumbs over my cheeks as he leans down and pauses for long seconds before finally kissing me on the mouth. He presses his lips to mine but doesn’t move. I inhale as my pulse doubles, pounding blood filling tense muscles. Making me want so much more than I’m ready for.
He pulls back and leans his forehead on mine, eyes closed. “One more chance is all I need to prove how different we can be, Cassie. Please. I know second chances are hard to come by and here I am asking for a third, but … fuck, I need you. And despite everything, you need me, too. Just say yes. Please.”
I clench my jaw against habitual panic. “After my outburst, are you sure you still want this mess of insecurity dressed up like a woman?”
He lifts my chin and searches my eyes. “Cassie, I can safely say I’ve never wanted anything as much as I want you. Even if you tell me no, that’s not going to change.”
I sigh. Trust him to say exactly the right thing to melt me. “Well, okay then, I guess we’ll give this thing one more try.”
His answering smile is so dazzling, it’s blinding.
“But,” I say, “I’m not going to lie and say it will be easy. I’ll need some time, so we need to go slow, okay?”
He exhales. “Okay. No problem.”
Then he kisses me in a way that’s in a different universe to slow.
I pull back, breathless. “Ethan…”
“Slow. Yeah, I know. Right after I do this.” He takes my face and kisses me, unashamedly desperate.
In a blur of mouths and desperate I-need-you noises, he walks me backward, guiding me through the doorway I was blocking a little while ago. Then the door is closing, and my back is against it, and his body is warm and hard as he presses into me.
“Ethan…”
I can’t catch my breath. He’s everywhere, pressing and tasting. Reclaiming what’s always been his.
“God, Cassie … Thank you for this. For you. Thank you.”
He stops kissing and wraps around me, and I bury myself in him, my face in his neck.
We just stand there for a while. Breathing each other in.
Being.
Still not fixed, but far less broken.
TEN
THIS TOO SHALL PASS
Six Years Earlier
Somewhere Over Middle America
For my whole life I’ve heard people throw around the term “heartache,” but I never truly understood what it meant until now. I mean, how is it possible that an emotion, something that has no mass or form except what we give it, is able to wrap around our hearts like a python and squeeze until every valve and chamber aches? Until the blood itself, which has no feeling at all, pulls barbed wire through our arteries with every broken beat? It shouldn’t be possible.
And yet, as I look out the window of the plane taking me home for Christmas, that’s exactly how I feel.
Everything’s wrong. I’m alone, and all the parts of me that shouldn’t hurt, do. The parts that thought love could conquer anything feel stupid. The parts that were firing with pleasure less than twenty-four hours ago feel tainted and cold.
I’m so angry, I want to rage and smash things, but the pain … the illogical heartache … keeps me curled in my window seat, fighting tears and trying to ignore the sick rolling in my stomach.
I hate what he did. I hate the reasons he did it.
The word resonates hot in my chest.
Hate
.
Such a strong emotion. So easy to call upon. Loud enough to shout down all the pain.
It’s easy to hate him, so I do.
It distracts me from how much I love him.
When we land, I exit the plane in a fog of cultivated numbness.
“Sweetheart.” Mom hugs me before pulling back to give me her usual once-over. “That’s what you wore to travel? They’ll never upgrade you if you wear jeans, honey.”
I sigh and turn to Dad. He wraps his arms around me and squeezes, and when he whispers, “I’ve missed you, kiddo,” everything breaks loose.
Mom
awww
s and
shhhh
s as I sob into Dad’s shirt. She thinks this display is because I’ve missed them. She gets teary and says she’s missed me, too. Dad shuffles nervously as he pats my back. He never was good at dealing with emotion.
By the time we collect my luggage and get to the car, I’m beyond drained. The trip back to Aberdeen passes in a hazy blur.
When we get home, I go straight to my room and get ready for bed. As I brush my teeth, Christmas carols echo up the stairs, along with my mother’s out-of-tune voice.
She loves Christmas.
Usually I do, too, but not this year.
It’s only when I crawl into my childhood bed that I find relief in deep, desolate unconsciousness.
The next morning, I zombie-walk downstairs.
“Merry Christmas, sweetheart!”
I get hugs and a large box. The hugs make me feel claustrophobic. The box contains a leather-bound copy of the complete works of Shakespeare. It’s beautiful, but I have an immediate urge to tear out
Romeo and Juliet
and throw it in the fire. That play will forever remind me of my first lead role. And the first time Ethan kissed me. It was backstage on the second day of rehearsals. He told me he wasn’t capable of being my Romeo. That if he tried to play the romantic lead, he’d choke and take me down with him. I should have listened.
I put the book down and thank my parents. My smile feels sickeningly fake, but they don’t seem to notice.
I give Mom perfume. Dad gets a detective novel. They both hug me, happy with their daughter even if they’re not speaking to each other.
When I’ve had my fill of Tofurky and nutloaf, I claim I have a headache and go upstairs. My room is small, yet the space around me screams its emptiness. Like I’m too shriveled to fill it.
I unpack the rest of my bag, and when I find a small package at the bottom, the room gets a lot smaller.
I don’t know why I brought it with me. Maybe because I didn’t know what else to do. I peel off the too-bright paper and stare at the leather cover for a long time. I was going to give it to Ethan yesterday, but I got sidetracked by him breaking up with me. I was so excited when I bought it. My first gift for my first boyfriend. I was worried he’d think it was lame.
Turns out, his Christmas gift was the last thing I should have been concerned about.
I flick open the empty journal and run my fingers along the lines that should be filled with his thoughts.
Maybe I’ll keep it for myself. Make it the place I pour out all toxic emotions.
I pick up a pen and try to write. Nothing happens.
I close my eyes, but all I get is a cavalcade of Holt. Kissing me. Holding my hand.
I wrap my arms around myself to stop the pain.
God, I miss him.
Being away from him is one thing. Being emotionally severed from him is another. Both together are unbearable.
My last thread of self-control snaps. I grab my phone.
He said he wanted to be friends, right? I draft five texts before settling on one that sounds casual enough to be friendly.
As soon as I hit send, I want to take it back.
I spend the next hour in purgatory, waiting for him to reply.
The hour after that I spend making up excuses as to why he hasn’t.
The hour after that I feel more stupid than I ever have in my entire life. So ridiculous, and pathetic, and viciously dumb. I cry hot tears, and my chest nearly cracks with the effort to stay silent so my parents don’t hear.
I throw my phone on the floor and try to sleep.
A tiny masochistic part of me keeps waking during the night to check if he’s texted.
When morning breaks, he still hasn’t.
“Cassie?”
Go away, Mom.
“Sweetheart, come on.”
“I’m sleeping.”
“It’s two o’clock in the afternoon. You need to eat something.”
“I’m not hungry.”
The bed dips. A hand touches my head and strokes hair that hasn’t been washed in the five days I’ve been home.
“Honey, I wish you’d tell me what happened. Maybe I can help.”
You can’t.
“Does this have something to do with that boy you were seeing? Ethan?”
I don’t answer, but Mom knows. Only love gone wrong could make a woman behave like this. I’ve seen her after she and Dad have fought. Heartsick looks the same on everyone.
“Sweetheart,” she says as she strokes my back. “Surely no boy is worth this. If he didn’t want you, then he’s obviously defective.”
She’s right. He is.
That was one of the things that attracted me to him in the first place.
“He didn’t … hurt you, did he? Physically, I mean.”
I shake my head and block out images of how I gasped when he pushed inside me.
“So this is all just emotional?”
Just
emotional? There’s no such thing. Emotions are nothing without a corresponding physical response. Adrenaline-fueled joy, heart-thumping fear, gut-churning loss.
Sure, Mom. It’s
just
emotional.
I nod, because I know it’ll make her feel better.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
I shake my head again, really needing this conversation to be over.
She sighs and squeezes my shoulder.
I wait until she closes the door before I turn my face to the wall and go back to sleep.
“He’s a fucking idiot.” I can almost see the look of disdain on Ruby’s face through the phone.
“I don’t want to talk about him.”
“Yeah, well, I do. He hasn’t called you at all? Not even on Christmas Day?”
“No. I texted him.”
“What? Why?”
“I don’t know. I missed him, I guess.”
“Did he text back?”
“No.”
“Cock.”
“I don’t know what I expected,” I say, and lie back on my bed. “We broke up.”
“No,
he
broke you up. There was no ‘we’ in that scenario. And don’t make excuses for him. He doesn’t deserve them.”
I really wish she were here.
Mom and Dad don’t understand, but Ruby does.
“What are you going to do when you see him at school on Monday?”
“I have no idea. Drop out?”
“Cassie, don’t even joke about that. Don’t you dare let that douchenozzle ruin your college experience. Just block him out. Do your work and kick ass. Don’t give him power over you, and you’ll be fine.”
I sigh. It’s not like I want him to have power over me, but I can’t stop thinking about him.
“So, I’m coming back on the ninth,” I say.
“I’ll be back from my parents’ by then. I’ll pick you up from the airport.”
“Thanks, Ruby.”
I’m just about to hang up when she says, “Cassie?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re going to be okay.” Her voice is soft and sympathetic. “I know it probably doesn’t feel like it now, but you will be.”