The alcohol clouds my judgement and the memories of that morning after so many years ago. The knowledge of knowing what happened to me, but no true memories of who. Walking out of that house, knowing the man who’d hurt me was somewhere inside sharing the conquest with his friends. I was a story, a stupid girl who’d allowed a stupid thing to happen. The room sways and I close my eyes feeling the rhythm. Hands on my hips, a warm body presses in tightly from behind. A strong hand on my stomach, fingers stretched wide.
I wiggle my ass and hear a moan.
My body stiffens when I realize what’s happening. But before I can say anything the warm body is no longer behind me and I am being drug across the dance floor toward the exit.
The cool night air hits my face, and I am spun around, my back against the outside brick wall.
And I am staring up into Aaron’s cold angry eyes.
“Did that help?” he asks, leaning in and placing one hand on each side of me. “Letting some random man touch you, did that solve the fucking problems in your head. Did it help you win the bullshit game you’re playing?”
I stare at him, my stomach rolling uncontrollably.
“Trying to force me to hate you isn’t going to work. You want to act like an asshole, you want to push me to react, well I’m reacting. I fucking care Kendall, it’s too late, that won’t go away. But right now, I can’t be anywhere near you.” He steps back and I instantly feel the loss of his closeness. I feel all the wrongs and I know there is no way to right them.
“Fucking take her ass home,” he says as he steps back and spins around. That is when I notice Sophie and Jillian waiting a few feet away.
“Aaron,” I holler and he holds up his hand without looking back and waves me off. I start in his direction and Sophie places her hand on my arm.
“You need to let him cool off, Kendall.”
“What did I do?”
“Truth?” she asks and I nod. “I don’t know what happened before you two came inside but what I do know is in all the time I’ve been around Aaron I don’t think I’ve ever seen that look in his eyes.”
“Can I help you?”
I spin around and practically trip over my own feet. “Um, yeah.” I already know without asking that this is Aaron’s mother. He may look exactly like his father, handsome and tall, but he has his mother’s eyes. “I was looking for Aaron.” Nervous energy courses through me.
She smiles. “He and his father left early this morning for a last minute trip to the Memphis area. One of the other guys was supposed to go with Randy but Aaron volunteered.” A knot forms in my stomach knowing I’m the reason he so eagerly took off. “They’ll be gone through the night.”
“Oh.” My throat burns. “Okay, thanks.” I start to walk back toward my Jeep when she speaks again.
“You must be the disrespectful girl in the blue dress.” If she wasn’t smiling brightly while saying these words I think I would die right here in Aaron’s driveway.
“I’m sorry about that, I uh…” have no clue what to say.
“Don’t be.” Aaron’s mother shrugs with a laugh. “I love the fact that Joan was put in her place. That woman can be vicious. However I do hate that you had to put up with any of that at all.”
I’m used to people treating me different. It has been that way practically my entire life. “I’m not the sweet southern belle kindof girl.” I force a smile still feeling off-kilter knowing I sent her son more than two hundred miles away.
“No, but you are the girl my son is falling in love with.” Her words stop me dead, like frozen in time, my mouth hanging open slightly in surprise.
“I don’t know about that, ma’am.”
“I do, a mother always knows,” she assures me. “It’s in the way he talks about you, without saying your name. The way his eyes light up whenever I ask him if the woman he is seeing is special.”
“He may be singing a different tune right now.” I laugh nervously.
"Every couple bickers, it’s what keeps the fire burning.”
“Well, I tossed a gallon of gasoline on our fire. I may have even snuck in a stick of dynamite for good measure.”
She smiles bigger.
“I can see why my son is so enthralled by you. You may not be a sweet southern belle hun, but you are intriguing and quite beautiful. He says you keep him on his toes.”
“I may have really messed things up.” Here I am confessing my wrongs to a woman I barely know. A woman who is the mother of the man that has me flipped upside down and doing things I never thought I would.
