January, Seven Years Earlier
Samantha slid up my body and draped herself across my chest. Uncontrolled, my heart hammered, my racing pulse skipping beats, a thunder of love and devotion pounding through my veins.
I’d never imagined I could share something so intense with another person.
Feel so close to someone.
Like we were connected on another level.
And we hadn’t even had sex.
Did I want to? Did it just about kill me to stop when she was offering herself up?
Hell yeah.
But I respected her way too much for that.
But this? Maybe it was even better.
Telling her I loved her for the first time and knowing she trusted me… knowing I could trust myself with her… made me feel like someone different. Like someone I wanted to be.
Gentling my fingers through the locks of her still damp hair, I kissed the top of her head. Contentment seeped from between those lips that had been my complete undoing. “I love you,” I murmured quietly, reiterating the admission that had come so naturally.
I’d finally realized it when the worst kind of fear had torn through me when I saw her floundering in the pool. It’d been a physical type of pain. Gripping. Suffocating. There’d been zero hesitation, and I’d jumped in after her.
I hadn’t come close to understanding just how severe her fear was until I’d dragged her out. Weeping and trembling and completely in shock, Samantha had fallen to pieces in my arms. It’d killed me seeing her like that.
What I really wanted was to kill the person who was responsible for it.
I squeezed Samantha protectively.
Jasmine.
That fucking bitch.
I’d never met anyone so vile. So vicious. Every chance she got, she was in my face. Unrelenting. Acting like a temptress when really she made me want to puke. She was so delusional she believed she could somehow lure me away from the best girl in the world.
Not a chance.
Samantha had nailed it.
Jasmine had made her the target of her jealousy because somehow that bitch had her sights set on me, like she thought me different from any of the other guys she’d gotten on her knees for.
Her mission had become making Samantha miserable.
But even I couldn’t believe what Jasmine had pulled tonight.
Soft fingers trailed along my collarbone. “I love you so much,” Samantha whispered, peeking up at me.
“You’re my world, Samantha. Everything I do, from now until the end of time, I’m going to be doing for you.” I leaned in, kissed her with all the tenderness I felt for her. And that was the thing with this girl. She made me feel good, like just being around her made me part of something greater. Something bigger than all the empty, frivolous ambitions that fueled the thoughts and actions of most of the people I hung out with.
What used to fuel me.
Samantha had all these beliefs that there was something greater than just this world that I’d never given much thought to, permitting little time or credit to ideas that seemed so ambiguous. But she had this light about her that I was drawn to, and I saw it in her little brother, too, something different and unique that I’d come to crave. I wanted to see it glow in Stewart when I did or said something that brought him joy, to watch it burn in Samantha when she just sat and appreciated the sky.
I found myself wanting to contribute to it. Be a part of it.
Guess there was something in her that made me want to believe.
She made me better in all those places inside me I’d never really liked. I’d always been a selfish kid. A punk who liked stirring up trouble just for the fun of it, getting a rise out of the people around me purely for my pleasure. Didn’t want to be like that anymore.
I hugged her again. “We’d better get you home.”
She nodded like she really didn’t want to go, but she let me help her stand. I resituated her clothes. The deepest blush rushed all over her face as her thoughts so obviously strayed back to ten minutes earlier when we were partaking in things that weren’t all that innocent.
But this girl was mine and I was hers, and I couldn’t find one thing wrong with that.
I threaded my fingers with hers. “You ready?”
Nervousness flitted across her face, and she squeezed my hand. “I think so.”
“I won’t let her hurt you ever again, Samantha. I promise you.”
Nodding, she snuggled up to my side. “I know you won’t.”
I led her across the room, unlocked the door, swung it open.
Ben Carrington stood on the other side, his fist raised like he was getting ready to pound on the wood. A sneer transformed his face when he saw me standing there.
The fiercest swell of possessiveness rose inside me, squeezing my lungs about as tight as I squeezed Samantha’s hand. I edged in front of her, like I could cut off the asshole’s view. “What are you doing here?”
His brow creased and he cocked his head to the side. “What am I doing here? I think the better question is what is Samantha doing here?”
“She’s with me.”
He scoffed. “Yeah. And do her parents know that?”
Samantha wriggled out from behind me, still clutching my hand but moving toward Ben. I wanted to yank her back. “Just… don’t, Ben. You always make things a bigger deal than they are. Christopher was just taking me home.”
“Really? Because it seems like a pretty big deal to me when you’re at a party, locked in a room with this piece of shit, when you’re supposed to be at home asleep in your bed.”
Panic shook her, and she took a pleading step forward. “Please, you can’t tell them.”
Frustration billowed from the sigh he released toward the ceiling, as if he were dealing with a disobedient kid. He set his hands on his hips. “Did I make you a promise, Samantha? I told you before I wouldn’t tell them. And I won’t. But what I won’t tolerate is you sneaking out with this asshole. I can’t even believe you’re here. I’m really disappointed in you.”
She hung her head in shame, chewing at her lip while she stared at her feet.
My fist curled. I wanted nothing more than to mash the guy in the face. He knew nothing about her, nothing about her dreams and desires, that she needed a little freedom to figure out who she was and what she wanted to be.
So no, bringing her here wasn’t my best idea.
But he was acting like she’d just robbed a bank.
“She’s fine.” The words came out with a challenge.
“Doesn’t look that way to me.” He gestured with his chin to Samantha, whose clothes were still all damp, her hair tangled, more from my fingers twisted in it than anything else, but he sure as hell didn’t need to know that.
“I was just taking her home.”
He shook his head. “Wrong. I’m taking her home.”
I bristled and took a step forward, just hating the bastard. What it was about him, I didn’t know, but he rubbed me wrong in every kind of way. The way he treated Samantha like a little girl but looked at her like he wanted to eat her. Nah, he wasn’t all that much older than us, but something about him was off. Like he got off on her cowering to his will.
I smiled when this time she didn’t. “No, Ben, you’re not taking me home. Christopher is. And we’re leaving. I’m tired and I just want to go home.”
In irritation, the corner of his mouth twitched, and he gulped down whatever thoughts he was having. “No more of this,” he warned her, but his tone was soft, like he was trying to convince her of what was best for her. “You don’t belong here, and I don’t want to hear about you sneaking out with him again.”
She nodded, then pulled at my hand.
Every part of me wanted to turn around and put him in his place. But Samantha didn’t view him the way I did. Clearly she revered him on some level, respected his position with her family, appreciated his words.
I didn’t trust him for a second.
I slipped my arm around Samantha’s waist, glanced back at Ben right before we hit the top of the stairs. Smug, he stood there with his arms across his chest, like he held a straight flush and had just laid down his hand.
Protectively, or maybe it was just to rub it in, I pulled Samantha closer, and she buried her face in my side when we hit the stairs. That protectiveness lifted and rose, rumbling like a storm in my chest as I led her back down into the depravity of the scene where I never should have brought her.
I could give Ben that much.
Samantha didn’t belong here.
Beauty shouldn’t be exposed to trash like this.
With my free hand, I guarded her face when we were met with all the curious stares. Jasmine leaned against the wall. When we walked by, her mouth coiled with a satisfied smirk, making her look like the snake she was.
She didn’t dare say a word, because I was pretty damned sure she knew from my expression I would have snapped.
Outside, the night had grown deep, the air crisp and cool. Chills flashed across Samantha’s skin.
“Damn it.” I wrapped both my arms around her in an effort to get her warm. “I should have found you a change of clothes before I brought you back out.”
She smiled up at me, her face aglow, illuminated in the half-moon. “I’m perfect, Christopher.” She turned her face toward it. “Even after everything, tonight was kind of amazing, wasn’t it?”
I chuckled, dropped a kiss to her forehead. God, yes. Fucking incredible. “You’re amazing.”
“You just love me, so you’re blind,” she teased, knocking her hip into mine while she walked.
I hugged her close. “Not blind… but the love thing you got down pat.”
I helped her into my car and drove the two miles to her neighborhood. I parked at the head of her street, cut the lights, and went around to meet her at the door. Our footsteps were subdued as we made our way toward her house so I could sneak her safely back through her window. Same way I’d done what felt like a million times before.
But tonight the lights weren’t all dimmed. Every light in the house blazed through the windows. Samantha gasped when she saw her mom standing on the sidewalk in her robe, her arms crossed over her chest, clinging to herself as if she were trying to protect herself from an outcome she didn’t want to face.
“Mom.” Samantha started to run for her, her sandals smacking on the pavement, fear in her voice. “Is Stewart okay?”
Her mom jerked her head up. Relief flashed across her face, which had already been stained with tears. “Yes, yes, Stewart’s fine. Thank God you’re okay. I’ve been worried sick about you.” She hugged Samantha, then pushed her back, holding her by the tops of her arms, and that relief twisted to anger.
Five feet away, I stopped. Panic surged.
“Do you have any idea what I’ve been through tonight? I went in your room and you weren’t there… I… I thought something terrible had happened to you.” Her mouth trembled. “Don’t you think we have enough stress, enough worries with your brother? And you’re going to put us through this?”
“Momma,” Samantha begged with desperate apology in her voice. “I wasn’t trying to hurt you.”
The front door opened, and her father stepped out behind them. He shut the door with a low click. Probably an inch or two shorter than me, he was still tall, but he was also thin, his build unthreatening. Even the way he carried himself was unassuming, modest and simple, his head held in a permanent bow.
But it was the silent rage brewing in his eyes that told me I had every right to be scared.
Shit.
I wet my lips, having no idea what to say, because I’d just been caught red-handed with his daughter. Samantha had lied up and down about the two of us, swearing we were nothing more than friends so I could get into their house and have those few hours with Stewart in the afternoons, so I could be at her side, tortured with not being able to touch her, but satisfied in knowing I’d be alone with her soon.
It was blatantly obvious there wasn’t a lie in the world that could get us out of this.
Her father’s voice was cold. “Go inside, Samantha.”
“Dad,” she pled, reaching for him.
He stopped her with a disappointed hand. “Do not argue with me, Samantha. There is nothing left for you to say. Now, go inside and to your room. You’re going to be in it for a very long time.”
Dread knotted in my stomach, and I chanced a step forward. “Please, Mr. Schultz. It was my fault.”
His attention jerked to me. “Yes, I completely agree with you. This is one hundred percent your fault. My daughter was always obedient until the day she started spending time with the likes of you. You think I haven’t seen the way she’s changed in the last few months? All of it’s your fault.”
Samantha’s mom heaved out a sob and her hand flew to her mouth. “Have you been drinking?”
Flustered, Samantha frowned. “What? No, of course not.”
I saw the second it dawned on Samantha’s face. The fucking beer that slut had dumped on her had soiled her clothes with the stink of alcohol.
This just got worse and worse.
Samantha’s mom clearly mistook the shift in Samantha’s expression as some kind of guilt. “I’m done with all the lies, Samantha. No more. It ends now.” She pointed between me and Samantha. “All of it. It ends now.”
Stumbling back, Samantha shook her head in short, furious jerks. “No.”
Her father answered for her mother. “You have no say in this. You’ve already proven you can’t be trusted. You made the choice to disobey and now you have to face the consequences.”
She swung around, her fist pounding at her chest. “What choice? You never gave me the choice! You give me no freedom at all… no room to experience life, no room to make mistakes. This isn’t fair!”
I took a step forward, my hand extended toward her, knowing she was only making it worse. “Samantha… baby, don’t.”
Mr. Schultz pushed her behind him, his angry words directed at me. “She’s not your concern.”
He was completely wrong. She was my only concern.
He looked at his wife. “Sally, take her inside and see that she gets changed into some warm clothes.”
Mrs. Schultz nodded and shuffled forward, nudging Samantha toward the door. In yearning, Samantha looked back at me. Fear and worry were etched all over her sweet face.
And it hurt watching her disappear inside, because I knew with every fiber of my being, nothing was ever going to be the same.
Frantic, I pushed Samantha up against the hard brick wall.
She hit it with a grunt. Frenzied hands slipped down my sides and under my shirt, almost as fevered as my hands that sought out every exposed inch of her skin.
I plastered the length of my body against hers, desperate to feel her. “God… I miss you.”
What I wouldn’t give to kiss her slowly. To savor that sweet mouth I craved like nothing else. To have the time to tell her she meant more to me than anything else in this world.
But we didn’t have time.
We had five fucking minutes.
And I wasn’t slowing down.
I assaulted her mouth. Every piece of me was coming unhinged, this consuming want tearing through my senses.
“Christopher,” she cried when I pulled back a fraction, and I descended on her with more intensity than before.
In the last two weeks, I’d barely seen her. Glimpses of each other were all we’d been given, shadows and seconds stolen in the hidden corners at school. Her parents had even made her transfer out of the one class we shared.
It was complete bullshit.
But Samantha’s sin was spending time with me, and they were seeing to it that she repented.
Two minutes earlier, when I saw her walking out the cafeteria doors, I’d hauled her behind the building, the area obscured by tall, thick shrubs.
“It’s going to be okay,” I whispered harshly at her mouth, unsure who I was promising.
I just knew it had to be.
I deepened the kiss, my tongue slipping between her lips. Warmth skimmed my insides when she returned the kiss, but in a tender, soft way, with a sadness that weakened my knees. I cupped her cheeks and eased away, this time promising her. “It’s going to be okay.”
Anguish brimmed in those blue eyes, and she swallowed like she didn’t want to speak. “No… it’s not.”
I kissed her harder. “Yes, it will.”
She began to shake her head. “No, it’s not.” Tears streaked down her face and into the palms of my hands. “We’re moving.”
I jerked back. “What?”
She chewed at her bottom lip, and for the first time the act didn’t send my thoughts straying toward sex. Instead I wanted to weep. “What?” I asked again, a rock sinking to the pit of my stomach.
“My parents put our house up for sale. Stewart is officially in remission. They said they want to make a fresh start.”
Anger and resentment ballooned in my chest. They accused Samantha of being dishonest? Of being a liar? Right. There was no doubt in my mind that this had nothin’ to do with Stewart. This was all about stealing this girl away from me.
“They’re taking me away from you, Christopher.” She knew it, too.
“Where?” The word dropped from my mouth like a stone.
“Somewhere across town. They haven’t decided exactly yet.”
Distorted relief pelted me. Across town. That I could handle, and I needed to hang on to something. I forced a hopeful smile, brushing my thumb across her bottom lip. “Hey, that’s not so bad. We can figure it out.”
“Why are they doing this to us?” Her voice was a pained whisper.
I dropped my forehead to hers. “They’re just trying to protect you from what they don’t understand, Samantha.”
From what I really didn’t understand.
“There’s not anything that will keep me away from you,” I said, the frenzy silenced, and instead I pulled her into my arms, hugged her, refusing to let her go. “Nothing.”
“Nothing,” she whispered back.
When you’re young, you think the world is yours to take. When in reality, the world is just lying in wait, holding out for the perfect opportunity to show you that it’s going to take everything from you.
It takes time to build something good. Effort. That effort I’d been so shocked I wanted to put in when I first started things up with Samantha.
But it takes only one second to destroy it all.
Over the last four months, I’d watched while everything important to me was stripped away.
While I sat helpless.
Fucking powerless to do anything to stop it.
When it rains, it pours, and all that shit.
But it hadn’t just poured.
It was a torrential flood.
One week after Samantha told me she was moving, I got a call from my dad to come straight home.
I was busy being a punk, figuring out how the hell to get alcohol for the party we’d been planning all week. If I didn’t get to spend time with my girl, then at least I’d had this to look forward to. It was supposed to be something special for my best friend, who was turning sixteen.
For months, I’d given him crap that he was just a kid, fifteen, teasing him that I had to drive his sorry ass around.
Of course, he’d turned around and tossed it right back at me, rubbing it in that my girl was younger than him by four weeks. If he was nothing but a kid, then that made me some kind of creepy perv for touching her.
We both knew those three months really didn’t matter.
But what we didn’t realize was how much one moment did.
All it took was one moment to change everything.
Ruin it all.
Jared was driving back from getting his license and cut in front of an oncoming truck.
His mom, Helene, was killed. Jared was critically injured.
For an entire week, I’d sat beside his hospital bed, silently begging him to live and wishing Samantha could somehow be at my side. I’d needed her there, to let me know everything was going to be okay the way I’d promised her it would be. Needed her to let me know I wasn’t alone. That no matter what shit we had to make it through, we’d make it.
But Samantha never came, and even when Jared recovered, he never really woke up. Yeah, he breathed and his heart still beat, but guilt had robbed him of everything else.
Inside, Jared was dead, and somehow that managed to kill some part of me.
Helene had been like family, my mom’s best friend, our families best friends. When we lost her, everyone and everything fell apart. My parents became distant, not because they didn’t care, but because the wind had been knocked from them. Depressed, my mom had struggled to find her own feet, to figure out how to breathe again, and my dad was desperate to help her find her way.
All that time I had to sit and watch the guy I considered my brother, my best friend, lose himself. He tried to hurt himself in every way, his self-loathing evident for all to see. Before long, he was using. The only time he wanted anything to do with me was if I was up for going and getting high with him, but he’d gotten himself in much deeper than just smoking a bowl now and then. He’d done nothin’ but stare straight through me when I’d gotten up in his face, first threatening him, then pleading with him to stop.
Every day he faded farther away.
Did it make me a bastard that after all of this, after everything my family was going through, the hardest part was watching Samantha slip through my fingers?
Her parents saw to it that she had zero contact with me.
Being without her got harder and harder. I was trying to hold on, to find some kind of confidence in what we had, but every day I became more uncertain.
Loneliness had become my constant partner, this hollowness I couldn’t shake. It made it hard to breathe, difficult to get out of bed. My grades sucked, and I was one missed day away from flunking out.
Sad part? Not one fucking soul was there to notice.
So here I sat at another lame party I didn’t want to be at, drowning in my very own personal pity party.
From the corner of the room, my glazed-over gaze wandered the riot overtaking Marcus’ living room. Everyone was laughing, talking too loud, people making out, living like nothing mattered. This was the same house I’d brought Samantha to that fateful night, the night when upstairs I took the plunge, told her I loved her – and then everything fell apart.
That hollowness throbbed.
I lifted the bottle to my mouth.
Why did it feel like she’d deserted me?
I knew it wasn’t her fault, but it sure as hell didn’t feel like she was fighting for us. All she was doing was letting her parents win.
Her sixteenth birthday had come and gone. That day, I’d never even seen her. Didn’t get to kiss her. Didn’t get to tell her how much I loved her and missed her and wanted her.
I definitely didn’t get to make love to her, and that shit sucked.
But I’d wait. I’d wait forever because that’s how much I loved her.
Going to Samantha’s window at night was no longer an option. Her parents kept her under lock and key, and Samantha said trying to sneak by them wasn’t worth the risk. The only time I ever saw her was in those quick interludes at school, like when we’d sneak behind the cafeteria.
But that was never enough, and I knew that, too, would soon be coming to an end when she moved across town and switched schools.
Now the FOR SALE sign in their front yard boasted a SOLD sign beneath it. Only three weeks and we’d lose the little contact we had.
It left all these broken, aching places vibrating inside of me.
Hating life.
Hating everyone.
Especially Samantha’s parents.
How could they do this to us?
“There you are,” Jasmine purred. The stupid slut tried to crawl onto my lap.
I pushed her off, didn’t give a fuck that she stumbled back and knocked into the wall. “Stay away from me,” I warned, knowing my voice was slurred and filled with all the loneliness that seemed magnified in my heart tonight.
She laughed. “You sure that’s what you want? Looks like you could use some company.”
I sure as hell could, but not from her. “Fuck you.”
She laughed again. “Whatever. You let me know when you give up on that little tease of yours and decide you want someone who can take care of you.”
I sneered. One side of her filthy mouth curled in satisfaction, before she sauntered away to join her pack of bitches at the other side of the room.
I lifted the cheap bottle of tequila, chugged the quarter that remained, and let the darkness close in.
Because all that perfect light dimmed, narrowing as it thinned, flickered as it threatened to completely blink out.
God, how desperately did I miss it?
The tortured sounds of my mother weeping echoed from behind her closed bedroom door. I stood on the other side of it at the end of the hall, reeling, my head spinning with the magnitude of what’d happened tonight.
Three months ago when Jared had caused that accident, I’d thought it impossible for my life to get worse.
I’d been wrong.
How could he?
I pressed my hand against the wall to hold myself up.
How could he?
Jared had been granted a second chance at life.
And he’d tried to take it.
From the depths of my soul, I knew it.
The two deputies from the sheriff’s department who’d sat on our couch asking us questions had left fifteen minutes before, insinuating that my best friend was nothin’ more than a drug addict, a junkie after his next fix, breaking into the neighbors’ house, tying up the owner, and stealing his car. They were charging him with all these bullshit crimes instead of realizing he’d just been crying out for help.
They’d found the car in flames in the lot where we used to play, the place that was so special to us growing up, where I’d taken Samantha just because I wanted to share a part of it with her.
Somehow Jared was no longer in the car, and they’d found him on the ground beside it.
Overdosing.
I gripped my hair, swallowing down a wave of pain.
They’d found a shit ton of heroin on him with all the paraphernalia to go along with it. Of course, I already knew about that, but like an idiot, I’d never said a word because I’d been trying to protect my friend. Even when he’d gotten busted at school a few days before, I’d tried to pretend like I didn’t know how bad it’d gotten.
Now I’d give anything to go back and take the title of snitch to save him.
Because when they mentioned the gun he’d stolen from the Ramirezes’ house, I knew.
I fucking knew.
Asshole was trying to take one more thing from me.
How could he?
How could this even happen?
The overwhelming urge to punch something rose within me. To destroy something. My forehead dropped to the wall, and I panted against it as I listened to my mother’s torment on the other side, my dad trying to convince her of all this bullshit, telling her Jared had earned whatever he got. My hand fisted against the wall, and I wished I could break through it, push all my anger out, rid my body of all this insanity.
But that anger only flared, this prowling hatred bounding through my spirit, filling me up and forcing everything else out.
What happened to the God that Samantha believed in? The one I’d started to trust?
Was he missing in all of this?
Or did he just not exist?
Because not one thing about this was fair or just.
I sensed my little sister, Aly, slowly approaching from behind. Shaking, I turned around to look at her. I’d always thought of her as so young. Innocent. But there was a profound horror in her eyes, this deep sorrow of someone who understood. I wanted to go to her, hug her, tell her everything was going to be okay.
But I knew it wasn’t going to be.
Everything was ruined.
Jared was getting sent away.
Samantha was going away.
And I was finally going to lose it all.
I clutched Aly’s shoulder when I passed, hoping to give her some kind of comfort when I had none to give.
“Christopher,” she pled, reaching for me.
I said nothing, just shook off the hand that landed on my arm, fumbled to my room and grabbed my keys, and ran out the door.
All I wanted was Samantha. For her to make it all go away.
But I couldn’t have her, so instead, I headed out to one of those parties where I didn’t belong but that were the only places where I really felt welcome.
And I tried to convince myself that I didn’t give a fuck anymore.
What good was it anyway? Caring? Wanting more?
What bullshit.
It took me all of half an hour to get shit faced. Good for me. I’d become a fucking pro.
It took Jasmine even less time to start in.
She crawled onto my lap, her disgusting hands all over my chest. Nausea rolled in my stomach, bile burning in my gut and rising in my throat.
And everything hurt.
My head.
My heart.
I tossed Jasmine off, stumbling as I staggered to my feet and outside, gasping for air.
Marcus came up beside me, clapped me on the back, and like the fucking awesome friend he was, he gave me something foreign that I swallowed down, two little pills I so clearly needed. For two minutes I stood there trembling with remorse, knowing I was giving myself over to the same bullshit Jared had, but then this sensation came rushing in, coursing through my veins, clouding everything out.
Everything except for Samantha.
Samantha.
I rubbed my hands over my face, trying to focus, realizing suddenly I was standing at the end of her street, my brain spinning when I ended up at her window.
I shouldn’t have been all that shocked. My soul knew that was the only place I wanted to be.
My vision blurred, and I struggled to stay upright, my knuckles begging at her window, rapping at the pane.
A surge of grief tore through me, pressing through the numbness, tugging me in places I didn’t understand. It nearly brought me to my knees. I doubled over, feeling sick, all those threads of sanity being snipped away one by one.
God, I almost wept when I saw Samantha’s face appear on the other side of her window, and I let that sanity go, no longer clinging to anything else, because she was the only thing I needed.
Slowly, she cracked the window open an inch, and I shoved it wide, crawling over the windowsill and into Samantha’s arms.
“Christopher.” My ears pulsed with her voice, but it sounded distant and fading.
I needed her closer, wouldn’t let her go.
“Samantha… oh my God, I need you. Fuck. Need you.”
And her skin felt so good under my hands, like warmth and comfort.
I’d gone without it for too long, and there was nothing I wanted more. Nothing could touch this despair except for her.
Her mouth was even hotter, my tongue pressing in, searching for that balm, for a way back to what we’d been, before she’d been stolen from me.
She was on the floor, and I was over her, on her, seeking. My hands were frantic, tearing through our barriers.
I thought maybe I was dying, this suffocating suffering. Only Samantha could give me breath.
“Samantha.” I felt her name whimpered from somewhere within, like a plea, a cry, and I struggled to get her closer.
I could hear her calling me, too, this reflection of pain that echoed through her room. And that pain was palpable, tangible as it cut and clawed into my skin. Fear pounded through my chest, and somehow I knew it was hers. Her voice sliced through the haze, breaking through the tortured numbness.
Something sharp.
A vicious sting.
My own fear clogged my throat, and I scrambled back, squinting to see her in the darkness of her room.
She was curled into a ball, rocking. Rocking. Praying to her God to make me stop.
Her top was torn wide open.
And I wanted to cry when this awareness fell over me, this sickness when I realized what I’d nearly done. The top two buttons of my jeans were undone, and my fingers shook uncontrollably when I reached up to my face. Blood coated my fingertips from the deep scratches her nails had slashed across my cheek.
What had I done?
On my knees, I slid my hand along the carpeted floor in an appeal. “Samantha… please…”
I wouldn’t have. I would have stopped.
Wouldn’t I have?
She flinched, curling up tighter. Her mouth shook, and she silently cried, her face turned toward the ceiling, like she couldn’t bear to look at me. I could barely hear her when she spoke. “Please, go.”
I fumbled forward, keeping myself low, as if that could wipe out the disaster of my actions. “I just need you… please… listen… I wouldn’t have…”
She choked, her voice an anguished whisper. “I don’t even recognize you anymore. Please… just go.”
“You promised me… you promised me we’d make it.”
She lolled her head in my direction. Her expression alone destroyed the last good thing in me. Because I knew it was done.
“I trusted you,” she said, the words breaking as they scraped from her throat. “My parents were right to protect me from you.”
I swallowed over the heartbreak. My chest burned with it, this fiery anger as I stared down at the one person who I always believed would have faith in me.
Instead she looked away.
I tried to climb to my feet but fell back to my knees. Like the cursed, I slid along the floor on my belly, grunted as I hoisted myself up and over the windowsill. I landed on the dirt ground with a hard thud.
Two days had passed. Two days since Jared took those extra steps to ruin his life. Two days since I’d turned right around and ruined mine.
Riddled with shame and bitterness, I sat back on Marcus’ couch and lifted the bottle to my mouth.
No, I wasn’t getting so fucked-up that I could hurt anyone else. Not ever again. When I’d woken up the previous morning with my head splitting in two, I’d sworn never again. I’d never allow myself to lose that kind of control, my mind nonexistent in the abyss of all that blackness.
But my heart was already broken, and the bottle I clutched in my hand worked just fine with that kind of pain. So I chased that numbness, the dulled sense of accepting that nothing mattered.
Nothing mattered because there was nothing left to fight for, and I was giving in.
Yesterday I’d tried. I’d sucked it up and made one last valiant attempt. With my heart lodged in my throat, I’d dialed Samantha’s home number.
On the first ring, it’d chanted that three-beat chime, the one that warned I’d reached a number that had been disconnected.
And now that’s all I wanted to be.
Disconnected.
To pull the plug on every one of these emotions wringing me tight.
It hurt too bad, and I didn’t want to feel anything anymore.
That afternoon, I’d sat in the quiet of my room and poured my heart onto paper, sifting through myself for the remnants of her light, dug deep for the few things left within me that I still cared about. I’d ended up with three letters.
One was for Jared.
One for Stewart.
The other for her.
I’d sealed them up in envelopes, same way I sealed off my hemorrhaging heart. I took two out to the mailbox and hid the other away.
Now I sat on the couch, draining an entire bottle of Jack. I slumped back, and the empty bottle slipped from my fingers and hit the floor. Muddled faces floated through my vision, the party loud and obnoxious, but somehow I felt as if I was watching it from above.
Detached.
Hands slipped over my chest, a warm body pressing firm at my lap, a hot mouth on my neck.
I groaned, and my cock reacted. My fingers dug into skin as a distorted pleasure reverberated through my body.
She laughed, and the tip of her nail trailed down my chin to the neck of my shirt. She clutched it and tugged. “I told you one day you’d come to your senses.”
I laughed in her face, an incredulous, crazed sound, because she couldn’t be further from the truth.
I’d lost every last one of them, all except for the physical need to let it go, to give in and take the one thing within my reach that would let me feel good.
Jasmine pulled me to my unstable feet.
My parents were right to protect me from you.
I let her lead me upstairs and into the dimly lit room.
How she knew I’d follow, I didn’t know. Maybe I was bleeding defeat.
And I hated her as much as I always had. But I hated myself more.
She kissed me and I kissed her back, but it didn’t feel anything like the kisses I gave Samantha. It felt empty, and the hollowness inside screamed out.
It clashed with the nerves shooting across my skin where her hands touched me, rushing up and down, spurring the coil of lust that fisted in my stomach.
Samantha left me.
Numbly, I helped her undress me, watched idly when she stepped back and undressed herself. She pushed me back onto the floor, the same floor where Samantha had promised herself to me, where I’d told her I loved her and I’d given in to the delusion that somehow all of our firsts would belong to the other.
But that was nothing but a stupid fantasy. I was never good enough for her. Somewhere inside, I’d always known it. Known I was only going to hurt her, and hurt her was exactly what I’d done.
I didn’t stop Jasmine when she straddled my legs. She moaned my name when she lowered herself onto me.
And it felt so wrong, but everything had gone wrong a long time ago.
She rode me and I just lay there, wanting to erase every memory. Hate filled me up so full I wanted to vomit. Hate for Jasmine. Hate for myself. Hate for Jared for being so selfish.
Most of all, I hated that Samantha had given up on us so easily.
She’d said she loved me.
She’d said we were forever.
I’d fucked up… but I’d thought… I’d thought that’s what love was supposed to be about, finding a way through those faults, making them right and ensuring we never committed the same sins.
Turned out what I’d done was unforgiveable.
Or maybe she’d just never really cared all that much.
I turned my gaze from Jasmine, couldn’t watch the victorious expression on her face.
Instead I looked off into the distance and let the physical pleasure consume me.
A destructive reprieve.
Even still, I couldn’t rid my mind of Samantha’s perfect face. She was all I could see, that beautiful, sweet girl, all that blond hair and those blue eyes. A sad smile tugged at me when I thought of that mouth.
And God, I wanted to picture her happy, like she used to be, but she was standing there drowning in all the sadness I’d caused her. The tears and the hurt. The girl falling to pieces over her own broken heart.
Softly I smiled, somehow hating her and still wishing there was a way I could take away all her pain.
But there was not one fucking thing I could do. So I shut it off and turned back to Jasmine. I grabbed her hips hard and fucked her like she’d been begging me to for months.
And for a few mindless minutes, skin was the only thing I felt.