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The darkness inside was more familiar.
Cleo: Where are you? Please tell me.
The sixth or seven text from Rapunzel herself, Pretty Pretty Princess acting like she cared about me too. Maybe she did, maybe she didn’t. I honestly didn’t care, and she wasn’t my problem anymore. I’d gotten what I wanted from her and Dad had gotten what he wanted from me. I’d come down here to be a part of his sickeningly perfect family.
How fucked that he always won.
I knew that as another one of her texts pulled in, how she was worried about me and needed to see me. My heart twisted more than I wanted it to, and roaring, I threw that shit on the beach. I wanted to knock my own damn head in.
I just wanted the pain to stop.
So much pain, always goddamn pain, and it was feeling too familiar, too normal. I’d learned to deal with it being so far away, away from him and his faux apologies. But coming here now, being in his life…
Meeting her.
It fucking sucked. All of it had fucking sucked, and I should have listened to my boys. I should have never come down here. I knew that now because as soon as my phone buzzed again, I dug it out of the sand. More texts from
Cleo, more goddamn texts.
Cleo: Please. Please.
Me: The beach off 150.
It was in these moments I was happy I didn’t self harm. Because if I had a switchblade, I had no idea what I’d do in that moment.
Roaring again, I punched the air, tossing my blunt. I put it out, then waited. Waiting for what I didn’t know, but the moment I heard a busted up station wagon in the distance, I knew exactly what I was waiting for.
What’s wrong with me?
I told her she couldn’t have that part. She had everything so why was I giving her this, me? I didn’t know, but the moment a car pulled up to mine and the air filled with the scent of cherries, I no longer associated it with whore.
It was just her, Cleo with her hair down to her ass and explorer shorts on that made her look like a goddamn wet dream. She wore them high-waisted, tight and belted at her flat tummy. Her brown boots and tank on, she’d changed before leaving the house. Or I guessed, had taken off her sweater. She’d been wearing the same shorts and boots.
Why the fuck had I noticed?
Her hair swaying in the wind, she pressed her curvy body against the hood of my car, everything about her close enough to touch. She wore no makeup, never did, and I took inventory enough to notice before looking away.
She trembled in the wind. “Hey.”
Hey.
Always so innocent, awkward and I hated that turned me the fuck on like a motherfucker.
Silent, I folded my arms, and she pushed off my car to stand in front of me. This was better, no more of her goddamn thighs burning me through my shorts.
“Jaxen, I’m…” Always with the Jaxen, always so formal and uptight. That was just her, couldn’t help being herself. “I’m just so sorry.”
More sorries. Sorries from everyone, now her like they meant anything. Was she sorry for taking everything from me? For being the replacement kid? The only good thing my dad had done for me was be completely absent from my life. I didn’t have to deal with his influence, got to be raised by two amazing women. I guessed my dad had done something for me in the end.
I started to spout off some mouthy shit, to tell her exactly what I had to my dad. How I hadn’t cared either, that I was glad they all had each other, that she should leave me the hell alone.
“I don’t know why I keep doing these things.”
But then she said that, making me look up. She had actual tears in her eyes, unable to even look at me. She really was shivering now, holding her arms. “I ruin everything. I ruin everyone’s family.”
I twitched, the words foreign. I had no idea what she meant.
Until, I did.
