MARISSA
The sun fell on my face. My eyelids turned red as I arose from my deep sleep, sleep that had been only broken by Wyatt when he woke me twice to make love.
Make love.
Yes, because that had been what it was. We made love. Intense, earth-shattering, life-altering love.
I pressed my thighs together at the thought. A smile stretched my mouth wide, waking the muscles in my face in a burning sensation. Gently and blindly with my face now partially pressed in the pillow, I searched for Wyatt in the bed. My palm only met wrinkled sheets and an askew pillow. The mattress was still warm from where he had been, probably a few short minutes before.
I groaned and finally opened my eyes, squinting in the burning sun as it hit me straight in the eyes. Slowly, I sat up and brought a hand to my head as a dizzy spell hit me. I was so not a morning person.
I threw the cover off me and stood up. I rubbed my eyes and then stared at Wyatt’s shirt from yesterday. It was wrinkled beyond recognition on the floor. When I bent to retrieve it and brought it to my nose, Wyatt’s smell hit me. It was musky from a full day wearing it and a hint of fading cologne and something that was so him and that never failed to make me tingle all over and want to bask in his scent. Not creepy at all.
I chuckled at my thoughts and quickly put on the t-shirt, sans panties. If this morning went well, I’d be graced with another round with Wyatt. I bit my lip to keep my smile at bay as best as possible and padded out of the bedroom, eager to find my man. My man. I'd be damned if it didn't sound good.
I walked along the short hall and came in the living room, open kitchen to my right and the front door right in front of me where Wyatt stood, his back to me in only his snug boxer briefs and something in his hands.
His breathing, labored, rung loud in the apartment, giving me goosebumps. Contrary to the goosebumps he usually gave me, these came from apprehension. Something was odd here. He was too still. Too tense. Too…
Then, I saw what he had in his hand. It looked like an ancient stuffed animal, like the ones I used to have in my childhood bedroom lining both my bed and one of the two windows. From here, it was apparent it suffered through the years, so much so that I had to focus on the faded greens to identify the animal. It was a turtle. The shell was a forest green, so dark I first thought it was black. The legs, one of which was missing, and the head were of a light green but smudged in parts and mostly faded to a grayish color that barely reflected the old shade. Some white stuff had fallen at his bare feet. It was weird how my eyes seemed to stay glued to that part of the old thing. Better that than pondering why did Wyatt had such a tight hold on it, or where he found this since he looked like he just opened the front door.
“What’s that?’’ I asked with my voice still laced with sleep. I was glad it didn’t show my nervousness.
His grip tightened further on the stuffed turtle, and more of the white stuff fell to the floor. He closed the door then and turned around. That’s when my heart stopped in my chest. It stopped and broke into thousands of pieces, pieces then crushed to ashes.
I didn’t know Wyatt like the back of my hand, but I could read him well. I always perceived when he retreated from me, when he wanted distance for one reason or another, but this time only cold came to me. It was so damn cold my skin felt like I had been outside in the wind for hours. I started trembling and gripped the hem of the t-shirt that came to mid-thigh. His t-shirt. With his smell that enveloped me.
His face had lost the warmth that had been there last night. His traits, hard and closed off, only made me want to retreat and hug myself. His eyes, so dark, didn’t twinkle anymore, not like when they had these past few days whenever I was around. And his body, so beautiful and attractive, was so tensed that he appeared ready to get hit.
“Please, don’t,’’ I pleaded brokenly, my voice rough and choked as emotions I didn’t think I’d feel already when with him threatened to overcome me until I fell to the floor and rocked back and forth with distress.
He closed his eyes then and turned around. Was he disgusted by my weakness leaking out of my eyes? Was he turned off that I couldn’t contain my crumbling hopes inside and my love for him now wasted?
Anger then took me over, anger at the loss he forced, at the mangled heart in my chest. “If you do this again, I’m not coming back this time, Wyatt.’’
The silence that followed my words stretched out, but he didn’t turn around. His back expanded then, wide, his muscles playing at his deep inhale.
“Then go.’’ Flat voice with nothing there to hang onto, to give me hope, to make me think he wasn’t fully determined. Just two words, two shitty words to end this, us, just when he had given me hope for more.
***
MARISSA
I pushed open the door to InkSpired the next morning, conscious of my bloodshot eyes and the lack of colors in my cheeks, but I kept my head high, my brows furrowed and my lips pursed.
After spending hours yesterday crying over my stupid heart and my failed “relationship’’, if it had ever been one to begin with, I woke up with the kind of anger at the world that helped me leave my bed without shedding too many tears. It also assured me that I would be able to do my work without too much trouble.
I was mad at myself, felt stupid for trusting Wyatt and opening myself up like I did, but I was also aware that none of this was my fault.
Wyatt was the asshole who broke my heart. Granted, I gave him the opening to do it, but he was the one with issues and the constant need to hurt someone.
I gritted my teeth when Sophie’s eyes widened at the front desk, but I held my hand up to silence her. “Nothing to talk about.’’
“O-kay.’’ She blinked at me behind her thick-framed glasses and eyed me as I made my way to the hall without another look back or greetings words for Kam and Jade already prepping their stations. “No hello? No nothing?’’
I clenched my hands at my sides, but said nothing and kept on walking to store my purse in the lockers on the far back of the office. Once my bag was safely locked away, I pressed my forehead against the cold metal and breathed in deeply. The chilly metal didn’t ease my headache or relax me in any way, but I still managed to get my heart to beat at normal speed and unclenched my fists. The pain inside my chest where Wyatt had run a wrench through my heart still hurt. The pain didn’t lessen, but after spending almost twenty-four hours in pain and a state of intense distress, I reasoned myself to my new truth.
I would hurt a long time because of Wyatt. It wouldn’t go away with a few tears, a pint of ice cream devoured and four chick-flicks watched on Netflix.
Usually, when you broke up with someone, or someone treated you like a used tissue; you could say goodbye without risking crossing paths with them too often, or at all. With Wyatt, things were a lot trickier. He was the adoptive son of the woman who had abandoned me at birth, the biological mother who welcomed me into her life now and wished to develop a relationship with me.
How could you escape someone when their life was entwined with yours?
“Hey.’’ Sophie’s voice, hesitant and soft, startled me out of my thought.
With a last deep breath, I turned around and offered her a sad smile that had my eyes burn with tears I didn’t want to let out again. I had cried way too much already.
“What happened?’’
I shook my head and shrugged at the same time. Even my body language was a mess. I had no idea how to say it aloud. A broken heart hurt a lot more than I was sure of before I met Wyatt. It gave me pause as to wonder if I had been in love before, if I wasn’t screwed up inside to fall so hard and so fast for a guy like Wyatt who had started by acting out against me, by hurting me knowingly.
“Is it about… uh…’’
“Yeah,’’ I said and closed my eyes, leaning against the lockers behind me. “I should have never let him in.’’
“Oh, Mar, it’s not yours—''
“Don’t tell me it’s not my fault,’’ I stopped her, eyes now open and hard on her. She sucked in a breath at the look on my face, and the brief hurt registered on hers had me apologizing in a whisper. “I’m not made to be with someone who’s a mess. This whole thing screamed of a heartbreak waiting to happen, but I let him drag me into his life. God, and I thought…’’
“What?’’
She walked in and closed the door behind her, protecting me from the nosey Jade and Kam’s critical eyes. She crossed the room and leaned against the lockers next to me, putting her head on my shoulder. She was too short to wrap an arm around my shoulders when we were both standing.
“Saturday night was… I don’t know. It was different. I was sure that it meant something.’’
“Didn’t you tell me he was scared of getting attached? Maybe he freaked out again.’’
“It wasn’t that at all, believe me.’’ I dried a tear that fell and cursed loudly in the quiet office before I pulled away from the comfort Sophie gave me. She’d have me in a pool of tears in no time if she kept on mellowing me. “It’s not my problem anymore anyway. I won’t feel like shit because of him. It’s over.’’
“Mar…’’
“I’m serious, Sophie. I’m not a fucking martyr, and I don’t need a guy to be happy. I better focus on my career and finish this never-ending apprenticeship. My life doesn’t revolve around Wyatt Burton.’’
“Alright, alright.'' She placated me in a soothing voice. "You should have called me yesterday.’’
“Why? So, you could watch me cry my weight in tears and eat a nauseating amount of ice cream? I needed that time to myself, and I felt too shitty for letting a hot guy win me over when I should have been running in the opposite direction.’’
“Too bad hot guys always seem to find their way in our lives,’’ she said and forced a cheerful smile to her face, just to try and cheer me up. “Come on, let’s get started on this day and then we’ll grab a beer or two at the bar tonight. We’re long overdue for a girls’ night and what best than a girls’ night to trash talk the male population?’’
***
WYATT
I pressed decline when my mom’s name flashed on my phone. It was the second time today, the seventh time this week and it was only Tuesday. I glared at the phone on the coffee table. When it didn’t ring back, I let some of the tension in my shoulders go.
My days were made of darkness since I broke Marissa’s heart, hurting her to protect her better, but she didn’t know it. I bet she had been bitching me since last Sunday, calling me every name under the sun. She probably believed that I didn’t fucking hurt from missing her, from hurting her that way. Shit, for all I knew she regretted what happened between us when I could never regret it. She offered me temporary relief from my darkness, showed me life in another light, forcing me to open my eyes to what could have been if only I hadn’t been fucked from the moment I took my first breath.
The worst was since I had found my old stuffed turtle on my doorstep after someone made sure to knock and leave before I could catch who I knew was my biological father playing tricks on me, nothing happened. I was lulled into a false sense of safety, making me nearly believe that I fucked up one of the best things that had ever happened to me for absolutely nothing. But that wasn’t the truth.
I knew it in every bone of my body. I knew it in every beat of my heart.
My fucked up biological father, the man that had put that darkness inside of me, bid his time until I was weakened and he’d get me down. I had no idea what he wanted, but nothing good could come from this.
My life was on the brink of another change, and that change wouldn’t bring anything good to me. That was probably why I screened my parents’ phone calls, why it took Ralph to come to my place to get in touch with m. Why I hid away in my apartment and then worked at the gym harder under the watchful eyes of my boss who had warned me yesterday to curb my mood with the clients.
It was easy for him to say when his whole damn world wasn’t about to get destroyed, when he hadn’t taken out of his fucking chest his heart to stomp on it because of his son of a bitch biological father.
“You should answer that,’’ Ralph mumbled while munching on pizza leftover I hadn’t bothered warming up. I hadn’t eaten anything healthy since Saturday, and I didn’t see that changing anytime soon. I was in a 'fuck it all' mood. Better that than the scared little boy attitude I showed on Sunday after Marissa left and the tears I cried for five minutes when her absence hit me like a ton brick on my chest.
“It’s none of your business,’’ I bit out and kept my eyes on the TV. I couldn’t care less who got killed this season’s Games of Throne. In all honesty, I didn’t give a damn what Ralph thought of my piss poor mood or the way I glared at everything and anything, the way I shut him out when he asked me about Marissa, and I said that it was over and to not talk about it.
“I've had it with you. Shit, man, what crawled up your ass?’’ He threw the crust of his pizza on the open box and glared at me from his seat on the couch. I didn’t have to glance at him to see his annoyed face. I saw plenty enough in the corner of my eyes.
“I didn’t ask you to come here.’’
“Right. Because you’re avoidin' everybody. Shit, man, if you fucked up with Marissa again, take it on yourself, not on the others and do somethin' to get back with her.’’
“Shut up.’’
“I’m tired of—''
“I said to SHUT THE FUCK UP!’’ I screamed at the top of my lungs, my voice roaring so loudly my ears rang. My chest heaved, the up and down motion accentuation the sickness I felt growing inside of me, that same urge to puke my guts up always present since Sunday morning.
I turned to face Ralph, and the surprise on his face that had his eyes wide open and his mouth hanging wide didn’t register immediately. It sure didn’t stop me from reaching out to grab the neck of his t-shirt and pulled him closer to my face. He was leanly muscled, but still, a brick to move usually, but it was nothing against the madness within me, fed by my demons.
I pulled him close until we were nose to nose. My eyes planted in his dared him to open his trap and say some shit I didn’t want to hear again. He didn’t. He was smart enough to get that I was past my limits and that nothing good could come out of this moment.
A nagging voice in the back of my head whispered to me that I was fucking up left and right, but that didn’t stop me, even if that voice sounded an awful lot like my adoptive mother. She had been my conscience from the moment I had met her, and it had helped me calm down when I sometimes went on a rampage, but this time around, it did nothing to me. In fact, it only reminded me that what I had thought was a part of my past wasn’t.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Ralph. You think you have it tough for not finding success in New York and being back here with your parents that are getting on your nerves? Man, I wish I had that kind of issues to bitch about. Get out of my hair. Now.’’ I pushed him away so hard his back hit the back of the couch with a thud.
His mouth shut tight then and with a shake of his head, he jumped to his feet and walked out of the apartment.
Another person left that I drove away.
I put my elbows on my legs, hid my face in my hands and tugged on the roots of my hair. Desperation and fear clogged my throat. I swallowed and swallowed, but nothing could go past the knot there. I was drowning.
At least, they were all safe when he would come back.
At least, he wouldn’t hurt anybody but me.
At least, even if my actions didn’t speak highly of me, I knew that it was the price to finally be a good guy and protect the people I cared about… And the woman I loved with all my fucked up heart in spite of everything.