AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I feel everything for you!” I scream at him because it’s true. “But now I’m stuck between my heart, which is new to the game, and my brain, which has steered me in the right direction my whole life! I don’t know what to do! I don’t—” I feel so many emotions, I can’t catch my breath, and the closer he walks to me, the harder it is.
“Please. Please let me help you.” Whitley whispers to me. I know my eyes are wild as he slowly comes close to me.
My blood is pounding in my ears. I’m sure I sound like I’m suffocating with every breath I take. I am scared to let him come close, but he wraps me up, and I can’t help but embrace the calm. How can this be so wrong, so…against all the rules, when it feels so right? My mind and my heart settle the second I am wrapped in his embrace. But that voice in the back of my head still tells me that it isn’t enough. That we’ll never be enough.
“Whitley, please, go.” Tears stream down my face as the last word comes out in a barely-there whisper. Each word has killed me. My tears feel like they’re burning my skin, and I can feel the exact path that they take.
He pulls back from me and sees the pain that is clearly etched on my face. I can’t continue to look at him, though. It hurts, and it’s the worst thing that I’ve ever felt in my life.
“I’m not giving up on this, on us, or on you.” he gives me a kiss on my forehead, and I can’t stop the choking sob that escapes me. He releases his hold on me and quickly dresses. I see his feet go past me from the corner of my eyes as he heads out the door. I bravely look up at him but wished that I didn’t as I felt a small piece of my soul completely shatter and die when he left without looking back at me.
My cell ringing snaps me from the memory that is eating up my heart and soul. I don’t know if I am going to be able to continue to ignore him. If something hurts this bad, should I ignore it? Does he feel the same way about me? Is he in just as much pain as I am? How the hell am I this fucking broken after just meeting him?
Fuck!
I need to speak to someone. I need to know if I’m going to be miserable for the rest of my fucking life or if I should take the chance and allow myself to love him. The ringer on my phone stops and immediately starts up again. In an attempt to get myself out of this self-inflicted depression, I answer it.
“Yeah?”
“Got another envelope dropped at my place.” Copper states matter of factly. I open up a new screen and get ready to start looking into whatever was provided this time.
“What’s in it? What’s it say?”
“It’s just pictures of Mallory. Some that we had, some that we didn’t. None of them giving us anything to tell us what the fuck happened to her.”
I groan and rub my hands up and down my face. Nothing we’re getting is helping. Nothing is giving us that screaming clue telling us what we need to know. He’d taken pictures of the photos and sent them to me, and I couldn’t find anything in them that could tell me anything. Copper goes back and forth with me over everything that we have so far when I hear a noise outside. I want to go out there and see him. Tell him I’m sorry and that I can’t handle this. That these two days have been pure hell for me, and I don’t want to keep up this bullshit charade that I can do this. I can’t. It’s become clear. I really fucking can’t.
“Hey, do you know a cop named Whitley?”
“What?” he asks.
“Whitley. A traffic cop. You know him?”
Copper is quiet for a moment, and I’m worried that I just completely fucked up. Whitley made it clear that he was terrified about what the others at the station would do to him should they find out he’s gay. Did I make his situation worse?
“Sorry, I had to think about it. I’ll be honest and say I let all those assholes leave my mind the second that I was fired, but no, that name doesn’t ring a bell at all. Why? What’s up?”
“I got pulled over,” I lie. When the small amount of silence becomes awkward, I add, “I got a speeding ticket, and if you were chill with him, I’d ask if you could get him to throw it away.”
This makes him laugh, and I know right then I did fuck up.
“Dude, just go into the system and wipe it yourself.” he continues to laugh, and I join in, hoping to salvage my fuck up.
“Honestly, I didn’t even think about that. Fuck, I’m tired. My mind has been going crazy trying to figure all this shit out. I really didn’t think about it.”
“Man, I get it. We’ll figure it out one way or another. But listen, I gotta go. Gotta take Ellie to the doctor. Talk later, brother.”
“Later. Wait!” I shout out, hoping he hasn’t hung up yet.
“‘Sup?”
“Listen, we’ll talk about this more, but long story short…. I’ve been getting emails from the station from someone claiming that they want to help.”
“Wait. What the fuck—”
“—Later. I haven’t gotten into anything with them because I don’t know who the fuck it is, but today, the email said, “Ask Anderson. He’ll tell you. It’s a lot harder to get rid of me than it was to get rid of him.”
There is a small intake of breath before he speaks, “That’s Sarg. We can trust him. Look. I really have to fucking go, but I’ll head over when I’m done with Ellie, and we’ll work this out. Cool?”
