His anger dissolves as he responds. “She’s been wearing those humongous sweats and shirts for eight years. And I haven’t seen her hair down for about the same time. And here she was, standing right there”—he points at the door—“in leggings with her hair down. Smiling. I don’t remember her smiling. I mean, she smiled, but it never reached her eyes, but when she saw you, she was almost fuckin’ shining. So I guess I wanted to see her like that for a bit, maybe.” He shrugs, and fuck me, but I understand him. I understand because I have a little sister too. And I would kill anyone if they meant her harm. “Did I really fuck it up that bad?” Uncertainty is clear in his voice.
“If you told me about that first, I could have thought of how to present that information to her, but not now. The damage is done.” I shake my head and step around him, ready to leave.
“I thought you were just trying to fuck me over.”
“Justin, I didn’t even know your sister went through that.” I stop and turn toward him. “Shit, I didn’t even remember you had a sister. My life doesn’t revolve around you, for fuck’s sake.”
“All right.” He looks distraught. “We can explain it to her.Ican explain it to her.”
I look at him like at an idiot. He really doesn’t understand what he’s done. “You truly don’t understand, do you?” His clenches his jaw but doesn’t say a word, so I walk back to him and get in his face. “Just to make it clear for you. Every time I touch her, she’ll remember that night. Every time I kiss her, she’ll remember that night. Every fucking time we do more than just kiss, she’ll be remembering that fucking night,” I nearly yell. “Every. Fucking. Time. Because I wassafefor her. Someone not connected to the nightmare she went through. But now, you took it away from her. You took it away from me. She will never look at me the same. Never.” I take a deep breath. “And I love her too fucking much to force her to live through it every single day,” I say as the last nail in the coffin and walk away, leaving him standing in the front yard of the perfect house of his perfect parents with my perfect woman inside.
The woman I’ll never get to touch again.
ChapterTwenty-Four
ALICIA
He walked away, taking my heart with him. I hear muffled voices in the hallway behind the door, but none of them come in. At some point at night, Mom’s head pokes inside, but when she sees my face, she closes my door with tears in her eyes. I want to be alone.
But I cause pain for everyone I love.
Closer to morning, when I have no tears left and my face looks like it was stung by a whole hive of bees, I get to work. I go downstairs, where it’s quiet and empty, to grab a few garbage bags and run back to my room. I try to be stealthy and not wake my parents up.
I clean my room from the disaster I caused. It takes me a good three hours, but I don’t stop at the damage I caused. No, I trash the remnants of my old life.
Of eight years being stuck.
Of years being fake before that.
I only keep a few pictures from when I was a baby, but my school years are gone. School years when I was too focused on how I looked and not how I felt. That one college year when I was obsessed with what other people thought of me. All gone.
I take my mom’s car and drive to the store and buy new paint. Ignoring everyone in the house, I walk to my room and paint it the new color. I ignore the knocks on my door, the phone calls, and the voices. I’m trying to erase everything that makes me hurt again. But no matter what I do, it still hurts. I still see them, and I still see Mark, and they are still in the same room. No matter how much I’m forcing myself to divert my mind somewhere else, they always keeps coming back to the same place.
And I hate it. It makes me mad! I don’t want to associate him with the most painful period of my life, but I do it anyway. I can’t help it.
I moved almost everything to Mrs. Jenkins’s house, and now I have to find time to go and bring it back. When Mark won’t be around. Or will be. I don’t know which scenario I yearn for the most.
The next morning, the door opens without a knock. I’m sitting on the bed with big headphones over my ears.
“Alicia,” Justin calls, and I ignore him. “Alicia, talk to me. Please.” The mattress dips under his weight as he sits at my feet. “I’m sorry.”
I keep ignoring him and scroll through my phone faster. Maybe if I do it long enough, he’ll disappear.
“I’m sorry for what happened.” His voice cracks. “I didn’t know you loved him.”
“Loved him?” I put my phone down. “Loved him?” My voice raising. “It’s not just love, Justin. Because the feeling I have for him is different. He’s like oxygen. It’s aneed. I need him. But after what you said… I can’t look at him without thinking about that. Do you understand? About seeing him as a part of that night?” I smack the pillow in unrestrained anger.
“I’m sorry, Alicia. I truly am sorry.” His forehead is wrinkled. There are dark circles under his eyes.
“When you fucked up with Kayla, I was on your side and thought you made a mistake. You know, it happens. You’ll learn your lesson and get better. But you didn’t. You are the same jerk.” I grab my phone again and hide behind the screen, wishing this interaction to be over.
“I know I shouldn’t have said that, but it doesn’t change the truth, you know. A fact is a fact. He was there.” There’s less remorse in his voice this time, and it pisses me off even more.
“I didn’t know that, Justin!” I throw my phone away in rage. “I was fine before I knew it.Fine.Finally. Do you understand? I wasfine!”
He looks around, avoiding my eyes. “Maybe you can go back to him if you love him so much. If you call him, you know, I’m sure he’ll be here at your beck and call.” He chuckles at his own unfunny joke.
I lean closer to him. “He’s not a dog to be on my call, Justin. He is a person. An amazing one. You’ll do better to remember it.”
