Authors: Addison Moore
Chapter 32
The Heart of the Matter
A stony silence fills the room. The image of Logan covering my body with his, burns bright for everyone to see. The color on the screen melts to the hue of coffee grounds before a loud pop explodes, and smoke rises from the back of the unit.
Logan.
He’s a little late, not to mention culpable for all this misery just as much as Chloe. Of course, I’m the biggest perpetrator of all. Chloe may have built the gallows, but it was me who provided the rope with which to hang myself. All of my most personal misgivings splayed naked for Gage to see.
My heart tries to pummel its way out of my chest—my flesh completely numb as if it no longer wanted the job of covering such a whore of a carcass. A Mack truck could run me over and I wouldn’t feel a thing—hell, I might welcome it. I’d run in its path if given the opportunity.
A horrible sting radiates through me, the laceration to my heart, too much to bear.
Gage gets up, walks calmly out of the room as if he were going to the kitchen, the bathroom. He hits the front porch so fast I can’t keep up with him.
“Gage!” I scream through the roaring downpour as I tap down the stairs.
He turns to face me, all of the color has bleached from his skin. His eyes are wide from the aftereffects of witnessing my indiscretions, witnessing the manner in which I had been grinding our love down to powder all along.
Chloe set up a minefield and walked our love right into it, but they were my sins. I should have fought Marshall—held Logan at arm’s length.
“It’s not what it looks like,” it comes out inaudible, unbelievable.
Rain falls like acid, dissolves the meaning out of any sorry word I could ever hope to utter. Even if those kisses from Marshall meant nothing, why wasn’t I reporting the offense? And Logan? How do I classify those kisses? As undesirable? Unwanted?
“I swear to you—I didn’t initiate any of that.” It pulses from me as a desperate cry.
“You didn’t stop it.” The words spike into me like rusted hooks.
“Can we go somewhere? I—”
“No,” it speeds out of him without reservation, filled with an underlying rage.
My fingers drift to the ring he gave me, the one engraved with our special brand of forever love.
“I don’t deserve this,” I say, twirling it without the fortitude to take it off.
He spears me with his injured eyes, bears into me with a palpable heartbreak that shatters the infrastructure of everything we stood on.
“Keep it.” His gaze lingers, heavy-laden with grief. The world wobbles around us as we succumb to this unimaginable pain.
Gage makes his way over to his truck, takes off so quick a wall of water ten feet high showers the road in his wake.
“Gage,” I fall to my knees. It’s hard to tell where the rain ends and the tears begin. My chest heaves in spasms—loud guttural cries escape from my throat. I cry—hard, bitter tears that I haven’t shed in such abundance since I was a child—since the time of my father. This was a new brand of heartache, the penalty for my sins too high a price that I could ever hope to rectify.
I lie down in the middle of the street, let the rain consume me, cut into my flesh with its punishing bites as I try to dissolve from the planet, become my own universe. I am nothing—a detestable Sodom, begging for the fire. I could only pray to burn to launder myself for Gage. Not even an inferno could purify what I had become—filth and dross. The rain could never cleanse the pain, the shame. I lost any chance of happiness I could have ever hoped to have and sold it for a few stolen kisses, visions that I never needed, never welcomed.
I broke both our hearts, forever.
***
With the strength of a lioness, Brielle peels me off Paragon’s pavement and rolls me into her Jeep. She fills me in on the cackling that went on once I chased after Gage, lets me know they replayed it a good three times on Chloe’s laptop for all to see, again and again.
“How the hell did she get all that? She’s a fucking witch, that’s how.” Brielle shakes with anger. You would think it was her heart that was perforated with bullets. “I’m so damn sick of Chloe cock-blocking you. This is just another ploy to get Gage. It won’t work.” The jeep picks up speed. “Chloe is the human equivalent of a Dingo, only instead of stealing your baby, she’s trying to steal your soul.”
Something tells me she would steal my baby if she had the chance.
Brielle is panting with hatred for Chloe. Drake stayed behind. He chose to stay with Emily. Perhaps that’s the true offense here, the reason for her white-knuckle grip over the wheel, her death glare into the blank open road.
“Do you hate me?” I ask. It comes out childlike.
I hate me. I don’t know why Brielle’s answer should reflect anything different.
“What?” We swerve into oncoming traffic momentarily. “
No
. Why would I hate you?”
I hiccup, sniffling back the deluge of waterworks still trying to purge themselves from my system.
“You broke up with Logan a while ago, right?” she asks.
Before I can nod or get into her line of thinking, an old women on the side of the road garners my attention. She wields an ax over the stump of a tree, hacking at it without regard for the monsoon that’s dousing her with its affections.
“You see that?” I ask, twisting my neck to get a better look as we speed by.
“See what?”
Ezrina.
“Nothing,” I say, taking in a quivering breath.
“So, Mr. Dudley,” she continues, “being with him is practically a graduation requirement. They don’t let you out of West unless he sticks his tongue down your throat at least once. It’s not like you could help yourself. He’s like a drug, one hit and he’s got you for life.”
“Right,” I say stupefied as the rain turns a putrid shade of red, douses the windshield with its crimson splendor. Oh my, God—the sky is bleeding. “Do you see
that
?”
“What?” Brielle angles into the road as if trying to make out a deer, or possum.
It’s clear she’s not privy to same weather phenomenon that I am.
“I need to go to Dudley’s,” it speeds out of me. It takes everything in me not to text Gage and beg for help, not that he’d give it—nor could I blame him.
“Totally.” She lifts a hand in the air. “I swear, I get it.”
“Not for that,” I don’t bother defending myself. I’m sure Chloe will have the entire scene emblazoned in the school newspaper by Monday.
“Oh, sure,” she doesn’t sound convinced.
We drive another ten minutes before pulling into his circular drive. I speed out of the car, through the salty plasma gushing from the sky and storm his porch—pound my fists against the door, ferocious like a riot.
Brielle takes off and I’m left alone, bloodied, in the dark.
A walloping thump ignites just above my head, shakes the mahogany, strong as an earthquake. I look up to find a newly embedded ax—the handle protruding over me like a promise.
The porch light comes on. Marshall swings open the door and gives a bleak smile.
The blood magically fades from my clothes, and I’m simply soaking wet, standing on his porch. Marshall plucks the ax from the door like it were a daily occurrence, common as a wreath at Christmas.
Deep down inside I know nothing will ever be normal again.
Chapter 33
Heartbreak
“I knew you’d come.” Marshall wraps an arm around my shoulder and leads me to the couch where two cups of steaming tea sit unsupervised.
“You knew this was going to happen, didn’t you? You said so,” I hiccup the last part out in anger.
“No, Skyla.” His face catches the light and exposes his grief. “All I knew is that you would come to me brokenhearted.”
Marshall encapsulates me in his arms and I bleat out a stream of silent tears over his shoulder until I can see his flesh illuminate from under his shirt. Not even the pleasurable impulses that course through his body are enough to quell this desperate ache. Marshall was an accomplice of Chloe’s in the destruction of my forever. He could deny it with every good intention, but he was the constant in that horrific display of my affairs.
“Chloe,” he breathes her name over me like a curse.
Glimpses of what unfolded on that oversized TV shutter through my mind. It’s my way of telling Marshall what happened, how I stabbed Gage with a thousand deadly pixels of my own doing.
“I’m sorry, Love.” Marshall helps me to the sofa. He holds me for an hour solid without placating me with silly sentiments about how everything will work out, that all of this will blow over and that Chloe will die in a fiery car crash. All of the assurances I long for are null and void from his lips tonight.
“I thought we were going to be friends,” I hiccup. “She’s an animal.”
“She should be caged,” he echoes.
“Ezrina, she’s after me,” I clutch onto the collar of his dress shirt until the buttons threaten to give way. “I saw her on the road. I need to see my mother.”
“It’s not that easy.”
“Then get Giselle,” I take in a trembling lungful of Marshall’s spiced cologne. Gage, and his perfect angelic face pumps through me and I start in on the tears again. I’ve plunged from a very steep cliff, and I will never recover.
I lose myself in the darkness of Marshall’s chest.
This wound can never be rectified. I’ve killed everything we were by polluting the oxygen that desired to sustain us, choking out our love with these lips I shared so freely.
Buried deep in the black world behind my lids, thoughts dissolve, elongate, pull like taffy until sleep comes over me, welcome as a song.
I appear on a hillside, an unblemished sky, vapid and bland. Trees spike up like a fortress, raven and sable—nature throwing out all the wrong colors. I had taken everything that was right and perverted it. It was only fair that it should follow me into my dreams.
Skyla,
Logan trembles as he comes upon me, offers his platonic embrace before pulling me in, wiping my tears away with the soft of his lips.
Will you forgive me?
His sincerity catches me off guard. Logan who owned me, still does, he wants to share the blame, dive into this ocean of grief with me.
I don’t think fate knows what it’s doing
. I shake my head, convinced of this
. I should never have fallen in love with you. It was a mistake.
There’s a reason for everything, Skyla
. Logan is drained, bone tired. Death has mopped the floor with him, made him drink down the dirty water, and he’s had enough of it all, I can tell.
Gage will understand. Chloe portrayed you in the worst possible light
.
It didn’t take much
, I say.
I didn’t know about Dudley
. He squints a sad smile before tilting his head.
I had no idea he was playing you every chance he could
.
He was showing me—
He cuts me off.
Visions, I know. Giselle filled me in.
There it was. My shame had spread over two dimensions, heaven and earth knew of my offenses, how abhorrent I was to have let it happen while Gage pined only for me. He loved me with everything—bore his soul on paper, dreamed of my face before he even knew me. I bet he wishes I would throw myself off Devil’s Peak and break my neck.
Gage made me feel safe. And now I was alone, as good as naked in a forest full of Fems. Nothing will be right again. Gage is gone, our relationship as dead as Logan.
I struggle to wake, fight to open my eyes and when I do, I’m all alone on my bed with the storm wailing its wrath outside my window.
***
In the morning I awake to incessant knocking. For a fleeting moment I think Gage has come to see me and bolt up out of my restless slumber.
“You going to church?” Mom appears from the other side of the door. Her glossy hair lays over her shoulder, her lips fully outlined and colored in a dewy scarlet. I had never seen my mother pay such careful attention to her appearance as I have of late.
“I’m not feeling so good,” it comes out hoarse.
She speeds over and checks my head for a fever. “You weren’t drinking last night, were you?” Her anger comes out disguised as concern.
“No,” I fall back on the pillow. Just drunk on sorrow, I want to say, but don’t.
“The rest of us are headed out the door. If you need anything call. I can always stop by the store and pick something up.” There’s a sadness in her eyes like maybe she knows. I’m sure Chloe has deposited a copy of my infernal DVD on every doorstep on the island by now—uploaded it to YouTube.
Crap, I hadn’t even thought of that until now.
Mom leaves and clicks the door shut behind her.
I’m going to be alone.
Ezrina stalks the outer recesses of my mind, causing me to bolt up and do a quick change. I need to see Gage. Apologize until the sun goes down if I have to. I pause in the mirror, horrified at the girl staring back at me, her face bloated with grief, eyes like bloodied tumors. Instead of giving my best to Gage, this malfeasance would be all I could offer.
I grab my purse, my keys and head out the door.
The brisk air slaps against my skin with its glacial bite, the sky washed anew from the storm. The soft glow of fog, the gentle lamp-lit grey that illuminates the island cuts into my tender eyes. It makes me wish I had sunglasses. I’d gladly dip the world in washed tones of sepia.
Nevermore lands on the hood of the Mustang.
“Nev,” I groan, placing my hand over his back. The strong smell of tailpipe emissions leftover from the minivan burn my nostrils.
Word has reached the Justice Alliance over your agreement with Ezrina
. He twitches his neck three times.
“Great,” I lack enthusiasm but mean it nevertheless.
Not great, Skyla
.
They’re annoyed at the prospect
.
Do nothing more with the situation, I implore you with my life.
“OK, Heathcliff,” I whisper his name with human lips, a foreign sound to him after hundreds of years.
Enough!
His wings expand with fury.
Why must you delve where you don’t belong?
“I made a covenant. I belong here now. You and Ezrina, belong. Love should always prosper. You can’t tell me otherwise.”
Not under these conditions, not with eternal damnation awaiting one and ceasing to exist the reward for the other. Skyla, you are about to foolishly end my days. Stand back from my life. Remove yourself before you cause any more turmoil. I demand it.
Nevermore bolts into the sky quick as a spiraling arrow. With amazing pent up fury he screams into the quiet reserve, blackens the sky with his pulsating wings.
Damn it all to hell.
It takes real talent to piss off a bird.
Soon I’ll have to add blipping Nevermore out of existence to the growing list of things I’ll never be able to forgive myself for.