Jake
I turn back three times. Three.
I’m fuming, fucking wild that she could discount us, me, so easily.
No one important.
Is she fucking kidding?
I pull back into the darkened street of the motel and slam on my brakes. Going back would only induce further argument, more hurt, and deep down, I know nothing positive could come from further confrontation. Nothing more than harmful words and broken hearts.
Deep breathing, I punch my steering wheel and turn back around, back toward Carnation. Back towards clarity. I make a mental note to check my steering at work tomorrow, it’s suffered a fair share of beat downs thanks to my self-induced frustration.
I knew she couldn’t be completely open with Joseph, but shit… Stretching my fingers out, I work to relieve the tension and the discomfort within my body. The annoying part is, I get her point. I understand her fears, her reservations. Just not enough to understand her acceptance of such a second-rate life. How can she not see that she deserves to be happy? That her life means more than living in such a state of misery? More importantly, how can she think her dad would begrudge her, her happiness? There has to be more to it. There has to be. Something deeper. Surely.
I could go over and over this in my head but why? To cause me further pain? To plague my mind with further doubts, more unanswerable questions? No. It’s not healthy. Aubrey made her choice, time and time again. I was just the fool that kept going back. I’m a fucking joke.
Brakes worn down, tires probably bald, gas running on empty, I arrive back in Carnation, feeling as good as the Charger probably does. Unfortunately, a few hours of care, a little elbow grease, and a few new parts can’t fix what seems to have broken inside of me.
The street is dark, and I’m regretfully aware that Archer and Annabelle seem to have arrived home only a minute or so before me, their car doors opening as they jump down from Annabelle’s car.
I move fast, eyes averted, folding from my car and moving fast towards the house. “Hey Jakey,” I hear her voice, but it’s soft enough to pretend that I didn’t.
Ignoring Annabelle is a first for me, but what other defense do I have right now? She’d see it written all over my face, maybe not the finer details, but she’d know something was up. You don’t spend the greater part of your life building a friendship with someone for them not to know when you’re hurting. I just don’t have it in me to concoct a lie that I have no doubt would be glaringly transparent, causing further questions.
I sprint up the steps, keeping my gaze on my feet and hope with everything that the front door isn’t locked. “Jake,” she speaks louder, her voice sounding closer and I breathe out a sigh of relief as the door opens, allowing me access immediately. I keep my feet moving, up the stairs and into the bathroom, locking the door behind me.
Her voice echoes up the stairs, and I can sense her concern, her uncertainty at being ignored. Moving forward I twist the taps of the shower as I hear her footsteps on the stairs.
Archer’s loud voice echoes her ascent, and I relax slightly. “Belle, the fuck are you doing?” Her words are lost to me, the noise of the shower causing me to strain my ear at the door, waiting for her retreat. “Baby, it’s late, he’s probably just finished a gig and wants to crash, he wouldn’t have heard you.”
“Oh, he heard me,” she rebuts, their voices now just outside the door.
“Well, maybe he’s me from seven fucking years ago and needs to jack off after an interaction with an infuriating woman. Know how many times I legged it up these stairs, my cock so fucking hard I thought it’d snap off? I wouldn’t have stopped for anyone either.”
I smile despite myself, as true as Archer’s words would most definitely be, I know the comment was made for my benefit. He’s working to move Annabelle from the house and give me the space he understands without seeing me, that I need.
“Gross,” I hear a soft thud as Annabelle hits Archer’s arm in mock disgust. “That’s disgusting. Not you jerking off thinking of me.” I can hear the smile in her voice and can imagine the look being shared right at that moment. “But seriously, don’t speak about Jake doing it, not around me anyway.”
I want to gag at their interaction and hope this isn’t a new tactic to move me from the bathroom because I don’t have the stomach to wait that conversation out.
“Belle, baby, let’s go, leave the kid. I’m not comfortable standing outside the bathroom when Jake may or may not have his cock in his hand,” Archer continues, earning himself a disgusted snort from a thankfully retreating, Annabelle.
I wait a breath as her feet sound down the stairs before relaxing. “Kid, you good?”
I smile at my brother’s concern. “Yeah, I’m good.”
“Need to talk?”
I shake my head at the closed door. “Nah, just need a little space from the world.”
A soft thud hits the door, Archer’s version of a fist bump and I reciprocate. “Know where to find me when you’re ready.” He doesn’t wait for a response, his heavy footsteps following Annabelle’s descent.
His words were carefully chosen, not an invitation to talk if I needed him, but an instruction that he was concerned, and that meant whether I cared to or not, we were discussing what was going on. I respect that, doesn’t mean I plan on seeking him out anytime soon, but the knowledge that he’s there is support enough.
I pull the back collar of my shirt upward, over my head and from my body. Her scent is all over it, rubbed into the material from my body. The sweet hint of strawberries clouding my mind and making me ball the cotton into my fist in frustration before throwing it forcefully into the basket by the shower. Ma will wash it tomorrow, and all hint of Aubrey King being draped across my body will be gone. From the material at least, unfortunately, my memory can’t be as easily wiped away with soap and a spin cycle.
Shedding the rest of my clothes, I treat their existence much the same as my shirt. Angered by their presence in my life and more importantly, my want to smell them, to inhale her scent. I stand at the bathroom mirror, eyes skating over my naked body. I take in the red marks from Aubrey’s teeth, the scratches decorating my back, passionate caresses from her fingernails and I will myself to regret them, to despise their visibility on my body. But I can’t. I feel like I’m drowning in a tidal wave of dread. Apprehension that maybe not tomorrow, but over the days to come, her marks upon my body will disappear, and I’ll be left with only the haunted memories, with the what ifs of what could’ve been, if she’d just thought I was worth it.
I move my hand upward, wrapping along the side of my neck, fingers pressing on my pulse point. The small spot of skin Aubrey’s lips would seek. I remember the feel of them resting there, kept still to hold the rhythm of my heart within her body. She’d stay there for long minutes, eyes closed over as she let the steady beat course along the skin of her parted lips, into her mouth and echo silently into her body. I didn’t realize what she was doing the first time it happened. I thought she was panicking about what we’d done, regretting what we’d shared, but then she’d slowly kissed the spot her lips had rested, a smooth caress onto my skin, her tongue sliding across to taste. In that moment, I knew it was something more, something more personal, more intimate. After that first time, every time she did it, her fingers would mirror the pattern of my pulse, right over my heart. I don’t think she even realized she was doing it, always completely caught up in that personal moment.
Squeezing my neck tightly, I resent the memory, the sadness that’s overcome me knowing that I’ll never feel that again. Pulling my hand away in a tight fist, I punch at the wall beside the mirror, cracking the plaster.
I’m not a violent person. My temper isn’t unmanageable. I’m the calm one, the one that can always see reason. Always laid back and happy, but right now, all I can think about is breaking things. Relieving the built-up frustration, anger, and disappointment in how this has all unfolded by causing physical damage to something else. Breaking something to move the focus away from my bleeding soul. Normally I’d fall into my music, lock myself away and play until my hands were cramped and aching from holding my guitar. But even that doesn’t entice me, not right now. Now, I need my release in another way, and my brother is the only person I imagine would understand that.
Stalking from the bathroom and into my room, I throw on the first pair of jeans I stumble across. Searching for my cell, I flick Archer a text and go out back to wait, nervous energy pulsing through my veins. Cracking my knuckles, I watch the grass wondering how the fuck I’m going to explain what I need.
“Kid,” Archer’s gravel draws my attention, and I turn on my heel to seek him out. Dressed much the same as I am, his torso is naked, jeans hanging low on his hips, feet bare.
Our physiques are starkly different, and for a brief moment, I reconsider my need for pain. My height is greater than his, slightly, but he has me on bulk, easily. My body is slender; I work out, but the muscle built on my body is lean. Not Archer’s. His is built with thick walls of muscle, and he’d easily have thirty or forty pounds on me.
“I wake you?”
Shaking his head, his eyes skate over my restless movements.
“Annabelle crashed?”
Nodding at my question, he moves closer, trying to read my intention.
“Hit me.”
His feet cease their approach and his whole face morphs in disbelief. “The fuck, Kid?”
“Hit me,” I repeat, my voice quiet, but the desperation I feel easily leaking into the words.
Understanding stains Archer’s features, and he sighs loudly. “Been you,” he lifts his strong jaw in a single tip of his chin. “I don’t know what’s got you to this point, but I wanna inflict pain to whoever caused it.” He assesses my posture, my fidgeting, and sighs. “You think you want that pain, but it ain’t healthy, Jake.”
“Hit me,” I urge, desperately. “Just this once.”
“Fuck me,” he mutters, his hands pushing through his hair, bracing the back of his head, his biceps bulging under the crack of his knuckles.
“Please,” I whisper into the night. “I just… Music won’t cut it, and I feel so fucking twisted inside, I need another outlet. I need to push it out. Don’t make me look for a fight somewhere else. I came to you because I knew you’d get it.” He considers me for a moment longer, and I hate the silence, the indecisiveness in his face. “I need it.”
“You think you do,” he stonewalls, his forehead creasing in uncertainty.
“Does it help? The impact? The pain?” I push, moving closer.
“For a split second,” he answers immediately, his words honest.
“Then help me. Give me that second of relief. Hit me.”
He blows air from his nose forcefully, and I relax slightly, his gesture giving me the indication that he’ll concede. “I ain’t gonna hit you,” he starts, and I close my eyes in defeat. “But, you can hit me.” My eyes blink open, quickly, scanning his face. “Keep away from the face, don’t wanna explain any of this to Belle, bruises on the body I can blame on the work site.”
“I don’t—” I begin, but he cuts me off.
“Trust me, being able to connect your fist helps more than being on the receiving end.” He waits a beat, a breath for me to move, but I don’t. “I’ll add, I get this, the need to feel in control by using your fists, so right now I’ll give you it, but eventually, you’re gonna talk to me about what’s fucking with your head. Understood?”
I nod mine in agreement, and he moves closer, raising a single brow in challenge, his lips quirking to the side in a small smile. He’s getting off on this. As much as he’d deny it, he enjoys the adrenaline his body produces in the excitement of a fight.
I reconsider for a moment, for a single second before I let the festering anger cloaking me, overtake my doubt. My fists flex with agitation, and I roll my shoulders under the tension. I let Aubrey’s face come into vision, and at first, I feel an overwhelming sense of sadness, of loss. Then I recall her words, no one important, spoken so easily, so freely, without concern and my sadness is quickly replaced. Replaced with the burning rage I’ve felt for months, at myself, at her, at David.
I start with David. With the way I’ve heard him speak to her. The way he dismisses her work, her feelings, her thoughts, so thoroughly without a single consideration to what that does to her. I hate him. Hate that because of Aubrey’s deep-seated fears, he wins. He gets to hold onto one of the most amazing women I’ve ever met, without the slightest effort. That thought alone fires my temper, and I swing out, connecting with Archer’s abdomen. My fist feels the twinge of pain from connecting with solid muscle and it feels good. Only for a split second, but it’s a second I’ll take. I hit again, just under his ribs and he grunts quietly from the impact, eyes closing over in the discomfort it brings.
From there, I forget myself. I attack David. I attack Aubrey. But mostly, I attack myself. I hit Archer’s body, every punch powered by the revulsion I feel for myself. I grunt with each effort of my punch, echoed only by Archer’s rough exhales of air when I connect painfully enough. I let the pain of every shared moment with Aubrey, with every forbidden touch, every impermissible feeling I have for her release with the force of my fist slamming into my brother.
I don’t know how long he lets me continue, but my body lags in fatigue. My swings are less coordinated and my blows no longer cause even the slightest discomfort, not to me or Archer, making me desperate. This obviously shows because Archer steps into my space, hugging my body to his and ceasing my attack.
I struggle for only a second before sinking against him, a tortured sob breaking from my throat. Hitting his chest, my face a mixture of sweat and tears, I feel broken.
Archer gives me this too. This broken moment that will be shared only between he and I. This brief moment of nothing, where I want nothing more than to sink into the abyss and stay there.
“It feels hopeless. Right now, anyway.” Archer pushes me back, meeting my eyes. “Awful as it feels, hitting rock bottom isn’t always a bad thing, kid. Acknowledging it helps.” I wipe the tears from my eyes using my thumb and forefinger. “Only way to go from here, is up.”
Swallowing deeply, I nod at his declaration.
“Guessin’ it’s about a somebody?” he asks cautiously, and I nod again. His head bobs lightly in understanding. “Wanna share the who?”
I don’t answer, verbally or not and he smiles in consideration. “Imagine, she’d be worth it if it’s messin’ with you this much. Wanna tell me about why she’s put you in such a state?”
Exhaling heavily, I watch him for a beat before answering. “Turns out my feelings were stronger than hers, she doesn’t actually want me.”
Shock plagues his face as he shakes his head. “Kid, if you’re this messed up, feelings are reciprocated on her end, no way you’d be this fucked up if they weren’t. You wouldn’t read something that wrong.”
“Yeah, well, I did. It’s done. Was done well before it should’ve even started.”
I step away from his space, hands on my hips as I look over his skin. “Did I even do any damage?”
He laughs. It’s quiet in the night, his head turning to the side in amusement as his body shakes with the effort of his laugh. “There are a few sore patches that’ll no doubt bruise up.”
We’re silent for a moment as we share a small smile. “Feel any better?”
I think about his question and try to find an honest answer, but I can’t. I can’t actually determine if I feel better or if I feel worse. In all honesty, I feel a little numb. So that’s what I tell him. His lips turn up as he considers my words, nodding lightly.
“You know you need me, I’m here. Even if it’s just for you to throw a few punches, within reason,” he smirks, and I return it easily. “Jake, you’re a good man. The best I know. I know there is something bigger goin’ on than you’re letting on, I get that’s your business, and you’ll share when you’re ready. But, if this woman can’t see that pushin’ you away is the biggest mistake of her life, maybe I was wrong, maybe she ain’t worth it.”
He watches for his words to connect, coming closer to hold the back of my head and pulling me into a tight embrace before leaving me standing in the backyard of our childhood home, no closer to understanding how that fuck I let myself get here, or how to go about piecing my life back together.