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“Get a grip, Becca,” I told myself as I smacked my head against the log wall. A hand slid in-between, cushioning the blow.
“Why are you trying to hurt yourself?” At the sound of Aaron’s voice, I wanted to either collapse at his feet in a ball or run far, far away. Of course it had to be him that followed me. I should have expected it. He might have been the quiet, unassuming one of the trio, but he was also one of the most observant men that I knew. In the past, he always picked up on any little changes in tone in my emails or texts, choosing to call me within a few hours of receiving it to find out what was bothering me. Not that the other two didn’t question me as well. It was just that T.J. tended to storm in and take charge while Brice chose to cajole me into giving him the information.
“No reason. Just trying to knock some sense into me.”
“Bullshit.” He wrapped his hand around my upper arm and spun me around, slamming my back against the wall. Both his hands landed on the wall on either side of my head, caging me in.
My eyes popped open as I stared at him. It wasn’t just his actions, which despite their appearance of roughness were still done with care, it was the fact that I couldn’t ever remember a time where Aaron swore. Not that bullshit was considered much of a swear, but for Aaron, it was huge. Maybe these men weren’t the same as when I knew them.
“You ran away because you were having fun…with us. Like you did six years ago.” By the end of Aaron’s little statement, his jaw was clamped tight with anger.
I flinched. But that didn’t stop him. The words whipped towards me like punches, hitting me right in the gut. I couldn’t breathe. There was no defence. What he said was the truth.
I ran then and I was running now.
“You nearly tore us apart. You took my heart and shredded it. You left and I was lost. Not a word.” He yanked his hands away, shoving them through his short, blond hair. “Not a single fucking word. After all the times I pleaded with you to respond, to let me know you were alive…”
The hits kept coming. His words continued, faster and faster, revelation after revelation. It was too much, too difficult for me to comprehend. The anger, the hurt, those were things I understood. A friend wouldn’t do what I did, ghosting them. And if either of them had done that to me, I would have felt so betrayed, so broken that I wouldn’t have been able to function normally. But I had—did?—loved them. That was the difference between us. So why did he suggest I shredded his heart?
Unable to take his onslaught any more, I knew I needed to speak up. I needed to make amends for my behaviour. “I-I’m s-sorry—”
“No. No you don’t get to just be sorry. Not right now.”
“But—”
His fingers pressed against my mouth, cutting off my words. “You didn’t want to talk earlier, so now it’s my turn.”
I nodded. My heart raced. I’d never seen Aaron this worked up before. Not even after their devastating Bowl loss during their third year because all three of them were injured during the game from some questionable moves.
“You broke something in. Sent me into a deep spiral. Because of you I went on a fucking spree—” I gasped. His language continued to shock me. But he couldn’t really mean actual sex with people because he didn’t sleep around. It was against his morals. What happened that night between the four of us had been an aberration caused by alcohol. But what if he meant exactly what he said?
Something of my thoughts must have transferred to the look on my face because he nodded. “Yes. It’s exactly what you’re thinking. I slept around. I had sex with women. With men. With whomever offered to try to take my pain away.”
His words horrified me. They shattered what remained of my intact heart. I’d been prepared to hear and see through the press that one or all of them had girlfriends or got married. The knowledge would have gutted me, but I would have been able to deal with it, knowing that they were happy. But this…to know that he took what we’d done, what had been so special, and basically stomped on it by just jumping into the sack with anyone…with everyone. To become what he always railed against…
I couldn’t listen any more. The tears that I’d managed to keep at bay so far threatened to spill their banks. The last thing I wanted at this point was to let him see how his words affected me, how deeply they wounded me. I wrenched my head out from under his fingers and slid against the wall, gaining space between us.
He didn’t move a muscle.
And the moment I was clear of his body, I turned and hightailed it back through the house towards the patio.
I couldn’t stay here any longer. To see him. To see Brice and T.J. and then act like nothing happened, I couldn’t do it. My acting skills weren’t that great. I needed to go home and lick my wounds, to try to put myself back together after I allowed myself to finally fall apart.
I was out the front door when I realized I didn’t have a car. “Just crap-fucking-fantastic.” I dropped to the top step of the front porch. Now what am I going to do? Can I really go back in there to find someone to take me home?
For once, luck was on my side. The door behind me opened and Jason stepped out.
“Becca? What are you doing out here?” He took one look at my face and dropped to the stair beside me. “It’s not your grandmother is it? I heard she had a stroke.”
“No, it’s not her.” I dabbed at the tear that decided to make a break for it. “I just can’t…I need to go…”
He wrapped an arm around my shoulder. “Well, you’re in luck.” He held up his cell phone. “I just got a call from Katy. Her mom got called into work, and now she’s stranded at a party and wants to come home. And since I’m the sober one, I said I’d go get her before coming back to pick up Peter and Jarrod. Do you have everything?”
This was why I’d dated Jason in high school despite my mother’s obvious dislike of the idea. The man was an absolute sweetheart. It didn’t matter that he had muscles built from hard work both at the gym and on the construction site. It didn’t matter that his skin was a canvas showcasing tattoo after tattoo. Nor did his sexuality define him. What shone through was his heart. The man loved fiercely. He helped those who needed it without any expectation of return. In the days of old, he would have made the perfect knight in shining amour who abided by the code of chivalry.
“Thank you so much, Jason. You’re a lifesaver. And if you hadn’t said anything, I would have left without my bag which is out on the back deck.”
He dropped a kiss on the top of my head and gave me a little squeeze. “Then you sit right here and I’ll go get it. I’ll tell them that you have a headache so I’m taking you home.”
