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See, an absolute sweetheart.
***
Aaron
I stood and watched her walk away from me. Each step acted like a sledgehammer to my soul. How could I have said all those things to her?
It was like I’d been possessed. I had watched the whole conversation from outside my body, cringing as each stance seemed to strike her like a physical hit. But no matter how much I’d yelled at myself to stop, I couldn’t seem to find a way to.
The words had been the truth. The same with the feelings. I showed and told her almost everything that I’d felt and gone through after she’d walked away from us. All the things that I’d pent up inside me. It all came out…and it had been ugly and horrifying. Something she didn’t deserve to bear the brunt of.
And when I thought about how she flinched away from me, the way I’d manhandled her, I wanted to die. I’d never acted like that before towards anyone, and it shamed me.
“What the hell did you say to her?” T.J. grabbed my arm and threw me up against the log wall, making the picture frames rattle. It wasn’t lost on me that I was now in the same position that I’d had Becca in. The only difference was that I was closely matched in size and strength with T.J. Unlike Becca who was half a foot or more shorter and probably half my weight.
“I-I…” I hung my head. How did I tell them about my shameful behaviour. It had been bad enough that they had to witness and help me through my initial breakdown and sex-capades, but this, this was something worthy of them taking their anger out on me. And I’d deserve every hit they gave me. Even then, it wouldn’t be enough to make up for the way I treated Becca.
“She didn’t come back. Jason came out and said that she had a headache and he was driving her home.” Brice leaned up against the wall beside me.
“Shiiit.” Both their eyebrows rose. It wasn’t often that I swore, only when I was extremely worked up. And I’d sworn a lot during my talk with her. “I followed her to talk. She’d looked so upset on the deck and I wanted to make sure that she was okay.”
“But?” T.J.’s hands fisted at his side.
My shoulders drooped. “But watching her walk away from me, from us again, triggered all my hurt, betrayal, and most of all, my fear.”
“So, you let her have it.” The disappointment came through loud and clear in Brice’s voice. But it was tempered with understanding. We were all still hurting over what happened. Without knowing why she ran, none of us were able to find closure or healing. If she’d broken up with us, telling us that she didn’t want us, it would have been horrific, but we would have dealt with it. The wound would have been deep, but clean, allowing us to heal. Instead, what she did acted like a poison covered knife. After her initial stab when walking away without a word, the poison counted to seep inside us and festered. Nothing we did acted like an antidote. We never managed to clear it from our system.
“I did.”
“What did you say?”
I glanced at T.J. who stood so rigid that one strike would shatter him. “Um, maybe we should go back to our cabin to talk about this.”
T.J. looked around before nodding. “But don’t think this gets you out of telling everything that happened. I know you’re hurting. We all are. But getting her back is the most important thing.”
Of that we were all agreed. I could only hope and pray that my stupidity hadn’t sunk our chance. If it did, I don’t think that I’d ever be able to forgive myself.
Chapter 5
Becca
A groan tore from my throat as pain stabbed my temple. The light streaming into my room through my open curtains was too bright for my open eyes. As they slammed shut, it felt like my lids brushed across grit from how dry my eyes were. Even my throat felt scratchy each time I swallowed. It was almost like the worst hangover I ever had. Too bad my symptoms didn’t come from drinking.
After Jason dropped me off last night, I managed to sequester myself in my small bedroom that took up part of the storage space over the garage before anyone saw me. Alone, I was able to suffer through my breakdown without disturbing any of the family that milled around. Tears, yelling into my pillow, and the throwing of all my old stuffed animals that had remained behind when I left home were just some of the behaviours I indulged in.
By the time I passed out in my bed, I thought that I’d worked through all the hurt, anger, betrayal, guilt, and shame, but from the way my heart hammered as I thought about it, I wasn’t even close. Too bad I hadn’t smuggled any alcohol into my room. If I had then maybe I wouldn’t have felt the way I did. Being drunk had to have been better than this.
“What am I going to do?” I asked the universe as I forced myself upright, noting that I hadn’t even removed my swimsuit or the cover-up I’d put when we ate out on the deck. The strings had bitten into the flesh on my shoulders as the top twisted around my breasts restricting my arm movement. “Crapitty-crap-crap.”
“What was that, dear?”
My shoulders slumped when I heard my mother’s voice through the door. I crossed my fingers and hoped that she didn’t come in. Looking the way I imagined I did, my mom wouldn’t hesitate to badger me until she knew the reason behind it. And that was something I couldn’t handle at the moment. “Nothing, Mom. Is there something you wanted?”
“Just to let you know that I was going to the hospital in an hour and wanted to see if you wanted to come.”
The choice was clear: either stay at home where I could continue to sit and stew over my failed love life and the fact that Aaron—and probably the others—were out having the grandest time with multiple women and men while I sat on my ass at home, studying like crazy as I tried to forget about them, or I could go visit my Nan. At least at the hospital I’d be able to focus on something other than myself. “Yeah, Mom. I’ll come with you.”
“Okay, dear. Sam made breakfast this morning. He put some aside for you.”
