Shattered Rose (34 page)

I finished getting comfortable and then went to put in the movie when I realized that it was still in my car. Throwing on some flip flops, I walked out the door, immediately feeling the chill of the wind as soon I did. I hugged myself tight and ran as fast as I could to my car, shivering the entire way. Within minutes I was back on my couch with a blanket trying to get warm again. I heard my phone buzz and ran to get it thinking it might be Parker again. It wasn’t.

“Why are you in your pajamas? I thought you had a date with Parker tonight.” I stared at the text wondering how he knew.

“Jake, are you stalking me?” I texted back.

“
Lol. No. I came to pick up my car and saw your mad dash. What’s the story?”

“Still out of town. Rescheduled for tomorrow.”

I had barely put the phone back down when I heard my door open and saw Jake with a big grin on his face. He shut it behind him and fell on the couch next to me, resting his hand on my thigh. “So what are we doing tonight?”

I looked at him with my mouth open in disbelief. “I’m watching a movie,” I said sternly. “You are going home.”

He put his hand across his heart as if I had wounded him and then got up to grab a coke out of the fridge. “Seriously, what movie is it?”

“Jake, I am being serious. We need a little space.”

“Ah come on, you said you overreacted last night.”

“Yeah, so?”

“So what’s the big deal? I’ve always watched movies with y’all on Sunday nights.”

“Jake, in case you haven’t noticed,
Issy doesn’t live here anymore, and people are starting to get the wrong impression about us.”

“Technically,
Issy does still live her. But fine, I’ll just stay for an hour, I promise.”

I rolled my eyes and then warned him if he said a word about my movie choice, he was immediately evicted. He agreed whole-heartedly and joined me back on the couch.

Almost two hours into the movie, I felt my stomach growl loud enough that even Jake heard it. “Skip dinner tonight?” he asked with his eyebrows raised.

“Yeah, I did. Want some pizza?” I asked as I grabbed my phone to make the order.

“Of course. I never turn down pizza.”

I placed the order and then scowled when they said it would be at least forty-five minutes until they got there.

Jake looked up at me as I rejoined him on the couch. “I have to admit, this is a pretty good movie. I was worried when I saw how long it was.” he said with a grin.

“It is, isn’t it? I know how to
pick’em,” I beamed, feeling proud of myself. He shook his head and laughed, pressing play on the DVD player again. He leaned back on the couch and pulled me toward him. I started to resist, but he insisted it was more comfortable that way.

Twenty minutes later, there was a knock at the door and we both jumped.

“That was fast,” I said rushing to my room. “Get the door, and I’ll grab my wallet.”

It took me a while before I found where I had set my purse
, and I felt guilty knowing the guy was standing out there in the cold. I finally spotted it and started towards the door, pulling out the money as I spoke. “Sorry it took me so long, I couldn’t find my pur…” I looked up and my heart stopped. Standing in front of my closed front door was a stunned Parker and Jake who seemed almost amused.

“It wasn’t the pizza,” Jake said matter-of-factly.

I couldn’t move, and I immediately felt my heart begin to race so fast that I thought I might pass out. Parker took one more look at Jake and then walked past me into my bedroom, glancing my way in the process. His face showed a combination of shock, hurt and anger. What I didn’t see was the usual adoration that I had grown so accustomed to, and I felt a shiver go down my spine. I turned and watched him disappear and then slowly walked towards Jake.

“You should probably go,” I whispered, my body still trembling from the shock.

“I’m not leaving you alone with him,” Jake said sternly, glancing into my bedroom.

“Please Jake, Parker would never hurt me. Just go. I begging you, please, go.”

He must have seen the desperation in my eyes, because he grabbed his keys and started for the door. Before leaving, he turned back around and pulled me towards him, planting a kiss on my forehead. I cringed as he lingered there, his eyes never leaving the door of my bedroom. He finally let go and walked out the door, leaving me to wonder if Parker had just witnessed that scene, which appeared far more intimate than it actually was.

I took a deep breath, and walked towards my bedroom, my heart pounding harder with each step. When I finally got there, Parker had his back towards me and was staring at the wall with his hands on his head. I could see that every muscle in his body was tense and it was more than apparent he was fighting for control.

“Parker, it’s not what you’re thinking.” I closed my eyes as I heard myself speak, remembering how painful those same words had been when Jake said them to me.

Parker didn’t move from his stance, just asked two simple words. “How long?”

I started to get nervous, as I knew he was jumping to the wrong conclusion. “It’s not like that. There’s nothing going on,” I pleaded.

Parker turned around and his face showed an emotion I had never seen before. He was mad…really mad. “How long?” he asked again, his voice getting louder.

When I didn’t answer, he clarified, “How long has it
not
been what I’m thinking? Huh Avery? How long have you
not
been hanging out with him ALONE in your apartment, watching movies together in your pajamas and doing God knows what else?” His voice kept getting louder each time I deflected the question, and I felt my hands start to shake as I realized this was a much bigger deal to Parker than I thought it would be.

“We’re just
frien…”

“HOW LONG?” I jumped when he yelled and answered before I even had the time register what I was saying.

“Since Issy’s accident,” I whispered.

I saw Parker’s face change as he processed the information. I watched as he relived every conversation, every touch we had had since that night and the magnitude of the betrayal hit me as I watched it hit him. He fell back, sitting on my bed for support. I felt sick to my stomach as I watched the pain on his face.

“I knew something was wrong,” he whispered, his voice quivering a little. “My instincts were screaming at me, but I never imagined it was him.”

His heavy sigh hung in the room and the silence felt crippling. Finally he spoke under his breath,
but I had to strain to even hear his voice. “Do not be yoked together with unbelievers.” 

I had no idea what he meant, but felt
the words must have been significant because he put his head in his hands when he said them. His resigned tone stung at my heart, and I reached for his hand, begging, “Parker, please.”

He jumped away from me as if my hand had seared him and walked to the other side of the room. I could see his body shaking, and I felt real panic for the first time that I was going to lose him.

“Why? It just doesn’t make sense after how much he hurt you. Two months ago you couldn’t even be in the same room with him without shaking.” His body was still rigid and his voice still hard, but I could sense the hurt was starting to replace the anger.

“When
Issy was in the hospital, we were there for each other, and the past just seemed to disappear,” I explained.

He didn’t like my answer; I could see that right away.

“I wanted to be there for you…tried to be there for you a million times. You pushed me away, wouldn’t talk to me and completely shut me out,” he reminded me, his exasperation resonating across the room. 

“I didn’t mean to shut you out, Parker. I just didn’t know how to let you in. He offered friendship, and I took it.”

Parker let out a stunned laugh as if I had lost my mind. “Avery, you can’t be friends with him! And if you believe you can, you’re lying to yourself as much as you are to me. He’s your first love; the only guy you’ve ever had a sexual relationship with.” We both flinched as he said those last words, hurting him almost as much as they did me. I watched him close his eyes as he fought to regain control again.

“Did you even wait five minutes before inviting him over after I said I wasn’t coming back tonight?” he asked after a few seconds of silence.

“I didn’t even know he was coming over. He just showed up.”

“Are you sleeping with him?” His voice was cold and harsh, matching the look in his eyes.

“No!” I yelled, feeling angry at him for the first time.

“It’s a fair question.”

“No, it’s not, and it hurts me that you would even ask me that.”

Parker just shook his head in disgust. “You have no idea,” he scoffed looking away from me again. “Did you kiss him?”

“No. I told you, it wasn’t like that,” I argued, my voice shaking now.

“Well he obviously feels comfortable kissing you, so what am I supposed to think?” he retorted, matching the volume in my voice. It was just as I feared. He had seen Jake kiss me goodbye. I had nothing I could say to that. We stood staring at each other for what felt like an eternity before Parker sat back down on my bed and put his head in his hands.

I walked over to him again and kneeled down in front of his legs, careful not to touch him this time. He looked up and his eyes were glassy. The anger seemed to be gone and all that registered was hurt and pain.

“I won’t share you,” he whispered, his eyes piercing me.

“You’re not,” I pleaded, once again trying to make him understand.

“You don’t get it, Avery. Every moment you give to him is a moment that is ripped away from us. I am the one you should turn to when you’re hurting…not him. And the idea that I only get half of you because you’ve given the other half to him makes me sick! Can’t you see that?” His voice was getting louder again as I saw the anger start to return. He paused, but didn’t take his eyes off of me. “You can’t sit on the fence, Avery. I won’t take less than all of you.
I won’t move forward until I know we are on the same page.”

He said what I always knew to be true and what I feared one day he would ask for. I hung my head, not knowing how to respond. I felt his hand on my chin as he tilted my head up to look at him.

“Why can’t you let him go?” he asked painfully, his voice catching when he did.

I felt the tears flow freely as I whispered back, “I don’t know.”

He let go of my chin and stood. Before I even realized what was happening, I saw him grab his keys and head for the door.

“Wait Parker, you’re not leaving are you?” I asked feeling a panic so severe it almost paralyzed me.

He opened the door to the apartment right as the pizza guy was about to knock. I saw his body go stiff and then he turned around to me, his mannerisms so cold and distant that I almost didn’t recognized him. “I guess your pizza’s here.”

Seconds later he was gone, and my body was crushed with an emptiness exceeding any I had ever felt before. 

“Lord, I pray you draw her to you. I pray that she may have power to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is your love for her…”

22. Truth

I couldn’t seem to move from the bed as I replayed our conversation over and over in my head, reliving every word, every image and every touch. He was gone, and I had no one to blame but myself. I had once again succeeded in pushing another person away who demanded more from me than I was willing to give.

The smell of the pizza consumed the apartment, and I felt my stomach growl. I was still hungry, but knew without question that if I took even one bite I wouldn’t stop until I had purged all of it, hoping the emotion would go with it. As much as it appealed to me, I knew it wouldn’t help. This ache was impossible to comfort.

I thought back to the first time I ever decided to try throwing up and shook my head. How naive I had been. It was a regional cross country meet and we were all staying in a hotel the night before. They had a big buffet for us with lots of pastas and carbs for us to load up on. I ate what the other girls ate, but kept hearing my mom’s voice in my head telling me how bad pasta was for me. Almost out of spite, I ate more than I needed and felt uncomfortably full.

While the rest of the team was still in the lobby flirting with the boys, I snuck up to the room I had been assigned. I tried lying on my bed to ease the fullness, but it didn’t help. I had recently read an article in Food Magazine that gave statistics on how many girls suffered from eating disorders. While the numbers were concerning, I still wondered if it really worked. There had to be a reason so many girls did it.

I shook my head, remembering clearly the minute I decided that I was going to try it. I wish someone had told me what I was getting into. I wish the article had said, “Stop, this is bondage!” I wish I knew then what I know now—that choosing this path would be the biggest regret of my life.