Текст книги "Losing Her "

Автор книги: Mariah Dietz

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Текущая страница: 17 (всего у книги 19 страниц)

“This isn’t your business, dude,” Landon says, his voice remaining calm as he stands tall, warning me to back off with the same thoughts I’m having about his presence.

“FUCK YOU,” I shout. Raising my hands, I shove against his chest.

He falls back a step and then shakes his head, looking down at the ground before his eyes, cold and intense, focus intently on mine. “You got rid of everything, everything related to her, even your goddammed Jeep! You gave up on her, now you’re dating Erin. You lost your right for this to be any of your business. Get out and cool down.” He applies more pressure to my chest, and my fist clenches instinctively.

“Gave up? You can’t give up on something that isn’t there!” My face burns with anger as I scream the words at him. “She left. She left! I’m still here!”

All I want to do is make him bleed. Instead, I shift my upper body and slam my fist into the wall, creating a cloud of sheet rock dust before I turn and leave. I have a small understanding of why Ace used to flee. Sometimes the temptation to get away from the problems and the memories is so overwhelming, it’s difficult not to let it guide you as far away as you can fucking get.

It’s been a week since the fight with Nate. Every day I consider going to his apartment and beating the shit out of him. Instead, I call seven people before I finally find someone that has Pedro’s phone number. He answers after the fourth ring, sounding distracted.

“It’s Miller.”

There’s a long pause on the other end.

“Pedro, I need to know what happened.”

“It isn’t my story to tell.” My jaw clenches at his reply, and I pull the phone away from my ear, squeezing it as my lips curl around my teeth. I glare at the stupid piece of plastic, wishing I could somehow inflict pain through it.

“What did he do to her?”

“If she didn’t tell you, she didn’t want you to know.”

“No one fucking knows! Kendall didn’t even know!” My voice is raised to a yell, my normal tone these days, as I chuck the remote at the wall.

“She didn’t tell anyone?” A string of profanities are quietly whispered. I wait, hoping that if I’m patient he’ll tell me.

“She told me that she’d tell someone. She promised.”

I rub my thumb and forefinger across my brow several times while pacing the short distance of my room. “When did it happen?”

“A few years ago.” I hear him sigh and mutter a few more swear words, this time in Spanish. “I don’t know, God … four years ago?”

My brain instantly traces back in time. I would have been in Alaska then. I wait silently, thinking that he’s gathering the memory to share.

“She should have told someone. I can’t believe no one knew.”

“What in the hell happened?” My patience ends as the words tumble out of my mouth.

“I can’t tell you man. I swore to her I’d never tell anyone. I already told you too much.”

My feet stop and the muscles in my neck strain to the point that they ache. “You can’t tell me someone almost raped her and then not tell me the rest of it! That’s the news. I know the end result. Now I need to know the details.”

“You need to ask her.”

I’m sure he knows I’m not talking to her. I don’t even talk to her in my dreams these days. He knew she and I are over and threw it in my face at the bar. I shake my head, about to hang up on him, when I bring the phone back to my ear.

“What happened at the funeral?”

“What are you talking about? Nothing happened at the funeral, there’s no way … you don’t have a clue do you? She didn’t cheat on you if that’s what you’re afraid of.”

Anger rises with his insinuation. “Where was she? You came back in with her. I was asking what had happened … as in where did you find her and what happened?” I enunciate the last word, being a disrespectful pain in the ass.

Pedro lets out a loud sigh and mutters something in Spanish, probably about me being a dick. “She was at her dad’s gravestone.”

“Why’d she let you comfort her? She wouldn’t let any of us near her, but you had no problem. Were you guys—” I don’t know what I’m trying to ask.

“My dad died when I was a kid. I knew what she was going through.” His words penetrate me. I want to yell that I did too, I’d lost my dad! “At least, I thought I knew what she was going through. I don’t know, Miller, I think she was having an emotional overload. I don’t know what in the hell was going on with you two, but I know a few people were talking about you guys breaking up, and how she wasn’t taking it well.”

“We weren’t broken up!”

“What in the hell were you then? Amy said she saw Ace home and alone for two weeks prior to her dad passing away and said she didn’t see any sign of you.”

Rumors were circulating about us at home? Of course they were. Everyone had been shocked to see us together and expected us to fail.

I hang up without saying another word and toss my phone on the bed so I don’t have to see the large quantity of texts and voicemails I know Erin’s left for me. I collect the remote and the back that splintered off when it hit the wall and replace the batteries before sprawling across my bed. Several channels pass before I stop on an MMA fight. My eyes follow the contenders for a few rounds, providing me with a strange sense of relief, as though I’m vicariously punching through their fists. It also serves to increase my level of tension as my muscles become more tightly wound with the desire to actually connect my fist with someone.

Then I see her.

My body jackknifes from the bed so I can get closer. As the camera pans out to the rest of the crowd, I lunge for the remote, fumbling with it as my eyes and fingers scan the buttons, trying to make sense of the same ones I push every day, unable to recall how it functions as my heart thrums in my chest. Common sense tells me there’s no way it’s her. She hates fighting. There’s no way in hell she’d go to a fight. But I swear I saw her.

I hit a few buttons to make it rewind and then hit play, scanning the screen anxiously as I step closer. Her blond hair is longer, her face still looks too thin but not nearly as gaunt as it had been in the picture Jameson showed me back in December. I’d know those eyes anywhere though. I’ve stared at them so many times, they’re burned into nearly every one of my memories, even ones she wasn’t present for.

I press pause and study her. She’s talking to a man that’s sitting beside her, laughing at something he’s saying, giving him her genuine smile. My smile.

I slump to my bed and stare at her. This man did something I couldn’t. He fixed her. He’s healing her.

My entire body aches as I sit in bed, rewinding and playing the scenes with her, time and time again.

“God, I’ve missed you,” Erin moans against my bicep from where her tongue dances across my tattoos.

Why can’t she just shut up? Why can’t I just enjoy this moment? She’s here, willing, warm, begging, and all I can do is focus on not thinking about her again.

“Kiss me, Max.”

I look at Erin’s face. Her lashes rest on cheeks that are covered with small freckles she works to conceal with makeup. I still have never seen her without makeup. She goes to sleep with it on, and then instantly reapplies it after her shower. Even when we go to the gym she has it on, like she’s trying to hide from the world, or maybe she’s trying to hide from herself.

I press my lips to hers, desperately trying to empty my mind.

She pulls her head back and looks at me. “Max, kiss me,” she demands.

“I am kissing you.”

“I mean really kiss me.”

“It’s kissing,” I snap, sitting up.

She huffs and sits up beside me, completely comfortable with her nudity as her large breasts hang between us. I’m living the male dream here, and yet all I want to do is scream at her to leave.

“Are you seriously stopping?”

“I’m not in the mood.” This is one of the most honest things I’ve ever told her.

“Do you want me to help you get there? Because I need something here, Max. You can’t just call quits.”

Her words should have me thinking about sex, and foreplay, and what I can make her body do with my own. Instead, the word quit is running on repeat. She quit me.

“Like hell you can’t.”

“Whatever, I’m going home.”

I’m more relieved than I could have imagined when she stands to pull on her clothes.

Erin’s supposed to be my stepping stone, my distraction, but since I saw that fight, and saw her sitting in the stands, all I can do is compare the two of us and our situations.

Is she sleeping with him? Did she make him wait for any length of time? Does she say she loves him?

As Erin slams the door behind her, I hear her mutter the word quit again in an angry breath.

Quit.

If fuck is considered a bad word, quit sure as hell ought to be.

I flip on the TV and open my recordings, pulling up the MMA fight of Danny Hirsch. I’ve watched this so many times that if it were an old video cassette like the ones my grandma still has Disney movies on, it would likely be broken by now.

I lie in bed and fast forward to the parts I know she’s in. I watch her expressions, her smile. It took me several hours to of rewinding and playing short scenes of her to let the entire footage play through. It was near the end that I learned she wasn’t there because of the man sitting beside her; she was there for the fighter: Danny Hirsch.

I watch her lean over his body and kiss him, and hear the crowd grow raucous with cheers. Then I Google him again and seek any information that may tell me more. There are a few photos of the two together along with the man that’s at the fight with her. There are websites with allegations of him dating “the mysterious blonde” and a few reports on them having known each other for years. This gives me a small piece of mind, knowing that the internet and these sites often fabricate information for ratings. She didn’t know him after all … right?

I’d known for years that my parents fought. Our house in Arizona was fairly small and the walls were paper thin. I’m sure that even our neighbors knew. Their fights had never been physical. They were always verbal spars—my mom accusing my dad of not loving her enough, him accusing her of working too much, her accusing him of drinking too much, him accusing her again of working too much, and so on. There were plenty of times I’d been sure it was going to become physical when the accusations had turned to threats and the strained voices turned into angry volatile tones. My brothers had too, apparently, because on those occasions one or both of them would shove our dad into the attached garage and lock the door. It always seemed strange to me that he’d never left while in there. I have no idea what he did while he was in the garage; he had access to get out but he always stayed until Hank would eventually go unlock the door.

While he was in there, Hank or Billy would go and talk to mom while I tried to remain oblivious to the events by hiding under my covers and pretending to be asleep.

The fights escalated when Hank left for college. Although Hank could be a grade A-asshole to Billy and me when he wanted to be, his absence took a sense of peace from the house that had always been too fragile to begin with. Billy was only fifteen, and his hot temper didn’t serve to resolve the conflicts. Usually, he escalated the issues.

One night, the fighting had built, becoming particularly heated. Billy was failing miserably at calming things down. I crept out of my room and down the hall to the dining room where the three of them were converged. At ten, I still only came up to my dad’s chest, but I was channeling Hank, hearing the sternness of his voice as he used to direct our dad to calm down and get out.

My voice wavered a bit with the first word, then came out shockingly loud and clear. I felt triumphant as my dad stopped and turned to look at me, his cheeks flushed with alcohol and rage, then he laughed. It was a loud, cruel laugh, and my stomach rolled at the stench of bourbon permeating his breath as it reached me in waves. Even when it wasn’t on his breath, my father always reeked of bourbon; his pores excreted bourbon sweat.

Anger surged through me for him laughing in my face, especially in such a demonic manner. I’d never seen or heard my dad laugh when Hank instructed him to leave. Hell, I’d never heard him laugh like that period.

His laugh stopped as quickly as it had begun, and before I could react, he backhanded me. Hard.

The metallic taste of blood from my cheek hitting my teeth filled my mouth as my eyes grew round with surprise. My brothers had hit me many times, way harder than that even, but my dad had never hit any of us.

My shock was reciprocated on his face as his mouth fell open and he choked on a few incoherent words.

Billy punched him in the gut before the shock wore off, making him double over. Although Billy was a lot shorter than Hank, he was thicker, his muscles more compact, and he could deliver a punch that left you dazed.

My ears registered my mom’s screaming, and by the hoarseness of her voice, she’d been screaming a while. She threatened to call the police and demanded he leave. In all of their fights I’d never heard her tell him to leave, usually she begged him to stay.

I wake up with my heart pounding as I sit up and quickly scan my room. It’s still dark enough out to know I should still be sleeping.

Erin’s next to me, her naked leg stuck to mine. I pull mine away and roll so I feel the coolness of the sheets, offering me a chance to breathe. Maybe having her so close to me triggered the dream? I intentionally work to sleep on the opposite side of the bed from her on the nights she stays over, which is becoming a routine.

Zeus’s head lifts at the side of my bed from where he lies on his dog bed each night, and I drop my hand over the edge to reassuringly pat his head and let him know to go back to sleep.

He lies his box head on the mattress close to mine, looking lonely, and I make a quiet vow to him that I’ll take him running.

He doesn’t move.

We both know it’s not running that he’s missing right now. It’s her.

Before I reach the front door I can hear raised voices. They’re not just raised, they’re yelling.

I push open the door and see Billy head to head with our dad.

“… this some sort of game to you?” Billy’s a few inches shorter than him still, but he doesn’t hesitate in placing his hands on Dad’s shoulders and shoving him backwards.

“What? You don’t know us well enough to fight back yet?” With those words I know exactly where Billy’s mind is, mine has been there too. And the memory brings with it that horrible taste of blood, like I’m sucking on a penny.

“I would never—”

Billy punches him in the mouth, making his head whip to the side. “LIAR!” Billy shouts, grabbing the front of his shirt in his fist.

I don’t know why I’m defending my father, but I begin to peel Billy away, struggling against his anger that is stronger than my confusion.

“Go!” I yell at my dad, jerking my head toward the door. “Let him cool off.”

He opens his mouth to object, but I cut him off and instruct once again for him to leave. Finally, he does. As the door closes behind him, my arms drop from Billy. Though I’m no longer holding him, he violently shrugs his shoulders like I am, before turning to face me, his head lowered defensively and his hands balled into fists.

“Don’t give him the chance to hurt you again. He had thirteen years to come back and he didn’t! Why now? Because he no longer has to pay child support, or go to our games, or actually be a dad? Thirteen years, Max! Why in the hell are you letting him stay here?”

“Because I made him leave!” My voice matches his volume that can still likely be heard on the doorstep.

Billy’s head snaps back and his eyebrows bury over his eyes. “I swear to God, Max, if I ever hear you say that again I’ll beat you to a pulp. You didn’t make him leave!” His arm swings up, pointing toward the front door. “It wasn’t your fault! No one blames you!”

“I was trying to be Hank.”

“I don’t care if you were acting like the biggest fucker on the planet. Kids do shit, Max. They say things, they break things, they do stupid shit all of the fucking time! It’s part of being a kid! You were trying to be an adult in a situation you never should have been in. It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t your fault he hit you, and it wasn’t your fault he left.”

His eyes manage to somehow look even angrier than they did moments ago when he was fighting to get to our dad. “Jesus, is that what you’ve thought all this time? Is that why you went looking for him?”

My hand runs over my hair that now juts out over my fingers, an inch longer than I’ve worn it since Alaska.

My throat feels dry and my chest feels compressed. “I don’t know.” A loud breath echoes in the silence.

“I’m not going to tell you that you should kick him out, though I would without even blinking. But if you’re letting him stay here because you feel guilty over a fucked-up decision that he made thirteen years ago, you need to grow some balls.”

Sharing his thoughts about Erin was the first time Billy offered me advice, and I still haven’t managed to escape them from randomly playing through my head. These words I know are going to haunt me as well.

“Christ, why didn’t you ever say anything, Max?”

The door opens, breaking the tension. Hank walks in with a few bags of groceries in each hand and a smile that falls as he looks to each of us.

“What in the hell happened?”

“Nothing,” we say in unison.

Hank lifts his eyebrows but doesn’t press the issue. He cranes his neck to the side, indicating the kitchen, and holds up the bags. “I got some Jäger. Let’s get this shit over with.”

We get plastered. Completely shitfaced. Reminiscing about times that I didn’t even realize I remembered. Billy proves his lack of ability in keeping a secret and tells Hank about my fears of being the one that forced dad to leave to which Hank doesn’t respond to. He spins, raising his arm in the air, trying to kick a foot between mine. Growing up, he loved putting me in headlocks. It used to annoy the hell out of me because it was so degrading, and so damn annoying that I could never reciprocate the action, despite the fact that I’d tried for years. Now though, I’m bigger, and my alcohol tolerance seems to be at an all-time high, and I finally pin him instead.

He lets out a strangled laugh of surprise and pats my arm a few times to tell me he understands. I release him and he sits back in his chair and eyes me.

“You didn’t do anything wrong, Max. Not with dad anyways. The porn star, now that’s another issue. But you never made a mistake with dad. That wasn’t your fault.”

We sit in silence for a while, all lost in our own thoughts.

“Molly’s having a baby,” Billy announces quietly.

“Is it yours?”

My eyes grow as I look to Hank and wait to see Billy attack him. The universe has me completely shocked when he instead laughs quietly and takes another drink.

“When are you going to Delaware, shithead?” Billy asks.

I shake my head and pour another shot of Jäger that I toss back without blinking.

“You should go … shithead,” he continues.

“I’m supposed to let her go. That’s what David told me.”

“What?” Billy asks. “Dude, are you hallucinating?”

“No, shithead,” I reply, filling my glass again. “He wrote me a letter.”

“What?” Hank grabs my glass before I can get it to my lips. “When did he write you a letter?”

“He wrote one to each of the girls and their families. Jameson and I each got one.”

“And he told you to let her go?”

I nod, and reach for the bottle. Hank rips it away from me as well, and I turn to ask him what in the hell he’s doing.

“Max, what in the hell did this letter say?”

I grab my glass and drink it, raising my eyebrow to him, daring him to stop me. “He said that she would freak out. He knew it. But when she freaks out she doesn’t plan, she reacts. This time she planned. She planned it all. And I did let her go. I didn’t have a fucking choice in the matter. She’s gone. Get used to it.”

Hank looks at me and blinks several times. I see the questions streaming through his mind and guarantee they’ve already crossed mine at least a thousand times.

“At least go get Wes back,” Billy says. “Don’t tell the SOB, but I’ve kind of missed him.”

I wait until Monday, because I felt like shit all weekend. Apparently, I’m not as bulletproof as I had thought when I decided to finish off the Jäger by myself. I approach Wes’s apartment and knock.

He pulls open the door, and his face falls into a frown as he sees me.

“I’ve been an asshole. I know,” I start. “I feel like I’m trying to learn to fucking breathe again.”

I notice Wes’s face tighten with a grimace. “Why don’t you talk to me, then? I know this is hard on you, but being a douche isn’t going to help things get better.”

“I’m failing classes. I can’t sleep an entire night because I fucking talk to her when I sleep. I talk to her, Wes! Like she’s still here.” I brush a hand over my hair and avoid looking to see his reaction. “I live with her sister and dog. And my dad just came back into my life. I need Erin right now.”

“Your dad’s back?”

My eyes lift to Wes and rather than expressing shock, his face is relaxed and calm, reflective of the old Wes, my best friend. “Apparently.”

“Where in the hell has he been.”

“New Orleans.”

“What in the hell, dude! What’s he like?”

I shrug my shoulders and shake my head. “Fine. I don’t know.”

“He’s back?” he whispers, and I nod in confirmation, realizing how crazy this is. Wes lets out a deep breath and then nods. “Just make sure you wrap it up. Hell, double wrap that shit.” He slings an arm around my shoulders and roughly hugs me as he pats my shoulder a few times.