The XOXO New Adult Collection: 16 Full Length New Adult Stories (349 page)

Dean walked me back home not letting go of his grip on me, probably afraid I would fall. I felt awful not telling him what was going on, but I just didn't have the strength. I just wanted to get past this moment and go back to how things were before. Who knew that a moment that was so beautiful could turn out to be so ugly!

He walked me to the front door, but still hesitated about letting me go. "I'm okay, Dean. Thanks for being here." He hugged me tighter.

"I wish you would tell me what caused this, but I understand. I'm here no matter what," he said as he forced me to look at him. "I love you, Lennox. I don't know how I survived before I met you, and I don't know what I would do if I ever lost you."

He kissed my lips gently as if I would shatter with too much pressure, physical and emotional. He reluctantly let me go.

"I'm sorry you had to see me like that," I whispered shamefully.

"Don't ever be sorry. I want to be here for you. Always. Good and bad."

"Doesn't it seem odd to feel this way when we have only been together for a few months?"

"Odd? I don't know, but I know how I feel about you and what you do to me when we are together. That's all that matters to me."

His honesty was refreshing. I would never have imagined a seventeen-year-old boy would be so mature. He had such an old soul.

"Me too," I said, but I wasn't as sure as I used to be.

I got better after my meltdown with Dean. Although I didn't tell him what caused my episode, I think being able to let him be there for me was enough for me to snap out of it. I was grateful and feeling positive about the direction our relationship was taking. I would never feel like I did before the miscarriage, but I would try to get as close to it as possible again. I loved Dean, and I felt safe with him. He had become my rock. I needed him, and I would make myself want him. Forever.

****

P
resent

I caught a tear as it ran down my cheek seeking refuge at my lips. The salty taste was strangely comforting after so many years of not feeling and just getting by. I remembered that day like it was yesterday. How could I forget the day the downward spiral in our relationship and my life slowly started spinning? Maybe if I had confided in him things would be different. Our bond might have become stronger rather than strained. That was the day I truly understood what living with regret meant. It meant hiding who I was. It made for a lifetime of indecisiveness and insecurities. It meant losing pieces of me along the way. It led to a moment that forced me to make a choice that would change the course of my life, forever. One that could lead to irreparable regret or to my salvation. One choice full of selfish indignation and the other to a new beginning.

I wiped away the tear harshly because the choice had been made and now I needed to learn how to accept it and move on. The breeze outside was beginning to pick up and sway to the beat of my heart, fast and irregularly. Time was passing slowly, and the idea of having my kids while I was going through this was nauseating. Most days I could fake it pretty well, but this low was on a whole different level. I was having a hard time focusing on anything except the memories that kept flashing through my head. They say that right before you die significant moments in your life flash before your eyes like a perfectly placed movie montage, only I wasn't dying physically, but figuratively I guess I was. Was this a normal cleansing process for the brain? Detox the past to make room for the future?

The thought of losing the past was sad, but gave me hope that I might be able to survive the choice that I had made. That I could start over and finally break free of the ties that bound me to my pain and regret. Hope flickered in my heart for a second, but faded just as quickly. My heart wasn't ready to accept my new fate. Neither was I. We both needed more time.

I peeled myself off of the couch and retrieved my phone from upstairs. Dean still had not read my last text message according to the delivered time stamp that hadn't changed to
Read
. Today must be a really busy day at the station. I was contemplating having him come home, but then I would need to tell him I was having an episode. I hated to do that to him. It had been a really long time since my last episode. The last episode was so bad that I finally succumbed to my doctor's advice to increase my medication doses. Everyone thought that would keep the episodes at bay. I didn't have it in me to tell them it wasn't the electrical impulses in my brain that needed medication. It was the ones in my heart. I texted Dean again.

Me: I hate to do this, but I think I need you to come home. I'm having a pretty bad episode.

I stared at the phone for a moment and waited for the delivered time stamp to switch to read, but it didn't.
Crap
! I could always ask my parents to take the kids for the night, but then I would have to tell them why and that always led to a million questions I didn't want to answer. After the kids were born, we managed a better relationship, but it was scarred and fractured. I wanted my kids to know their grandparents, though, so I made an effort and I held my tongue. But to tell them I was having an episode was a whole different story. I felt judged and vulnerable.

I was starting to think Dean was still mad at me for going away this weekend. He was never that fond of Kylie because of her free spirit, well, and other reasons. Or it was just my guilt making me think that.

****

H
igh School Years

Kylie and I had grown apart over the first year of mine and Dean's relationship. We tried to keep in touch, but it was tough. We were both busy and were in completely different classes in our senior year. Kylie was on the dance team, and they seemed to have practice every lunch and after school. They had become one of best teams in the country. She became obsessed with it.

And then there was my obsession with Dean. We spent every waking moment together on the weekends. We would fill the days by going to the beach or Venice. We spent a lot of time on 3
^rd
Street. Sometimes we went alone, and sometimes we went with a group of friends. Either way it was always fun. We also spent a lot of time anywhere he could skateboard. Watching him skate was always such a turn on. It was fascinating, the things he could do on a board. We practically lived at shows. Music was his life, so he supported the underground punk scenes.

I had been worried about Kylie, though. I ran into her at a few parties, and she had been pretty wasted, which was never like her. Don't get me wrong; she always loved to party, but this just seemed to be on a different level. We were nearing the end of our last year together in high school, and I wanted to spend some time with her before we completely lost each other.

I wasn't the biggest fan of driving, so Kylie was picking me up from the mall. I hit a cat running across the freeway ramp, and it traumatized the hell out of me. It just jetted right out in front of me. I didn't have any chance of missing it, so I tried not to drive whenever possible. Dean had dropped me off after lunch, so I could spend the night with her. He sat outside on the planter wall with me until she got there. He was holding my hand tightly, caressing my hand with his thumb.

"Do you want me to pick you up somewhere later?" he asked hopefully.

"The plan is still for me to crash at Kylie's."

"Okay. I can pick you up tomorrow." He sounded disappointed.

"I'll call you when we figure out what we're doing tomorrow." Kylie pulled into the roundabout in front of us. She rolled down the window.

"Hi, Dean. You ready to go, love?" she asked me.

"Yeah." I turned to Dean and gave him a hug. He squeezed me tightly and kissed me softly on the lips.

"I love you," he said.

"I love you, too."

He held my hand until our reach no longer permitted.

I jumped into her car and waved to him as she drove off. "So, what do you want to do tonight?" I shouted over my favorite band, Fugazi. We both had the same taste in music and favored the underground punk bands over mainstream. "Waiting Room" was blaring through the speakers.

"There's a party at this guy's house tonight. It's supposed to be huge. He lives in a mansion in the hills."

Ugh!
I was really looking forward to a quiet night of catching up. Now I had to compete for her attention with a bunch of people I hated sharing my days with at school, and on top of it, I would be stuck since she drove and it sounded like we were going into the middle of nowhere. This night was looking less fun by the second.

"Should I take the silence as your disapproval?" she snapped.

"No, it's fine. I told you to pick. I'm just glad we're hanging out." I was lying and she knew it, but she didn't offer an alternate plan, so I slouched back in the seat and accepted my night.

"Awesome. It's going to be so much fun. I'm kind of diggin' on Luke."

I jumped up in my seat. What the fuck was she thinking? "As in Luke, the rich kid who got busted for dealing?" Not only were we heading to a juvenile delinquent's house, but she liked him. Who was this? This was not
my
Kylie, the girl who made fun of people for smoking cigarettes. Something was going on.

"Whatever. They let him off with a warning, so it couldn't have been that bad."

"Are you that naïve, Kylie? His parents donated a ton of money to the annual police fundraiser at the same time. That wasn't a coincidence."

"How would you know that?" she retorted.

"It wasn't a secret. It was in the paper."

"Well, I don't read the paper."

"Is that really your response? Kylie, come on. Wake up. He's bad news."

She slammed on her brakes abruptly. I looked behind us in a panic to make sure we weren't going to get rear-ended. "What are you doing?" We were stopped in the middle of the road. Thank God it was a quiet residential street.

Her knuckles were turning white from gripping the steering wheel so hard.

"You lost the right to judge when you ditched me for Dean."

Oh my God!
It was going to be one of those conversations again. I felt awful that she felt left behind, but I didn't know in how many different ways I could tell her that I loved her and it wasn't intentional. Plus, I wasn't the only one busy. I was getting pissed!

"Really? Are we going to go there again?" I asked angrily.

"Actually, no. I'm over it."

She started driving again. The tension was brutally thick between us. It kind of already was, but now I could barely breathe. I didn't realize how much that tension affected me until now. My eyes were filling with water, and I was holding back the tears. It wasn't that I cared if she saw me crying. It was more because I didn't want to talk about the same thing over and over again. It was like beating a dead horse. God, that sounded horrible! Who would want to beat a horse at all? My mind was side tracking to save me from the sorrow of the loss of a once amazing friendship. It had withered, and if we didn't treat it with care, it would surely die.

We drove the rest of the way in silence, winding through the valley where houses were sparse. At some point, there was nothing. We had driven for at least twenty minutes. Finally, I saw a huge two-story house on a hill ahead. It looked more like a library than a house. There was a presidential library close by with the same layout.

The house was painted a neutral beige color to blend with the landscape. As we drove up the steep driveway, I could see that it had a roundabout out front with several cars parked in it. Kylie pulled around it and settled behind the last car. I fidgeted with my fingers as she turned off the engine.

"Are we good?" she asked.

"Yeah, we're good." Were we really? No, but whatever. I just wanted to get through the night.

"Cool," she said as she threw open the door and hopped out.

I didn't move at first. I was dreading the night ahead of us. It was going to be filled with drunk and high idiots and probably a few fights. I was considering calling Dean and having him pick me up. He would be less than thrilled about me being here. Kylie tapped on the window and gestured at me in annoyance to get out of the car. I shrugged and pushed open the door. I forced a smile, although she knew it was contrived.

I wasn't sure why we were here so early. I didn't want to be a third wheel while she made out with a loser. At least at a party there would be
someone
to talk to. She grasped my arm like we were besties again.

"Come on. Please try to have fun for me, okay?" she pleaded.

"Only if you promise to get me home safely."

"Of course, silly."

She dragged me to the glass-encased door and walked inside without knocking. They had to be more than just diggin' on each other with how comfortable she was being. Standing in the front foyer, I could see the kitchen off to the left where someone was busy fixing food. Straight ahead was a large dining room with glass double doors at the end that revealed stunning views of the valley and an infinity pool that dropped off to who knows where. I could only imagine the sunsets from here. One thing to look forward to tonight. Sunsets were magical and calming. They reminded me of the true beauty the world possessed. I wish I could say the same thing for sunrises, but I was not a morning person! To the right was a pool table room that included a full bar and stools. It looked straight out of a magazine. In fact, the entire house did. Rather than be awestruck, I found it a little unsettling. It was so cold. It lacked the intimacy and warmth a family naturally brought to a house. I was starting to feel bad for Luke. Kylie strutted comfortably up one side of the double spiral staircase.

"Well, are you coming?"

She broke my concentration. "Yeah," I responded as I followed her. The house got more aesthetic as we reached the top. It opened up to a great room that was set up like a reading study. Comfortable couch chairs framed the enormous window that took up most of the wall. You could see miles into the valley from here. The other walls were lined with beautiful antique mahogany bookcases that were filled with hundreds of books.