Fucking Licia.

Goddamn Regi.

What did you expect would happen?

You don’t want him.

Now that he’s moved on you suddenly need him?

I couldn’t get away from the Alehouse fast enough. The demons in my head chased me as I clattered down the sidewalk towards my car. Though I wanted to rush away at a breakneck pace, I was hobbled. Mostly because of the ice. Winter in Wisconsin made me wish for the tropics; a sugarcane beach with a cabana boy, turquoise blue water, and a Mai Tai in hand.

Instead, I lived in the Midwest, and in January the cold was unavoidable. It might not be actively snowing, but I wished it would. Just to have an excuse to stay at home wrapped in blankets. I’d worn a pair of stiletto-heeled boots. In the middle of winter. Yeah, that wasn’t my smartest idea. Fashion before function was my long-standing motto. I’d wanted to look good for Regi. I dressed up knowing he’d be at the Alehouse tonight for the Brewhouse social, a get-together I hosted every week. It had begun as people in my social circle I’d wanted to keep in contact with after I graduated college, and branched out from there; all co-eds and graduates making connections and mingling. Shifting from academia to the real world was jolting enough without losing friends in the process.

Regi didn’t mingle. He didn’t need to. Yet, he always came. No matter how cruel I was to him. He showed up with hope in his hands like a balloon and puppy-dog eyes that made me feel like a shit-heel for how I treated him.

Over the years, I’d expected his hope to deflate. It never did. He held on strong, secure in the knowledge that we’d be together. That someday I’d get over my “issues” and accept him. That his love would somehow heal me.

How stupid was that? It was loony tunes.

Regi didn’t realize I couldn’t just “get over it”. I had a mountain of daddy issues, and no matter how much he loved me, he couldn’t fix me. I wished he could. God, I wished. But I’d long ago realized that I could never trust a man.

Thanks, dad.

I finally reached my car and sagged against it. I sucked in a few shuddering breaths. The cold air burnt my lungs and iced the molten hot tears on my cheeks.

Why did this hurt so much?

I was fucked up in the head. I wanted to be normal. I was the worst sort of women. A heinous bitch toying with a man who loved me. I held Regi at arm’s length while craving his attention. I pushed him at Jo, praying he didn’t take the bait, but hoping he would. I knew if he did anything with Jo I would finally be able to sever the invisible heartstrings which refused to let go of Regi and the normalcy he embodied.

I didn’t ask for him in my life. I didn’t want him there.

I am such a liar.

Nothing worked.

Why didn’t it work?

I hung my head as failure and hope had a colossal battle inside my heart.

For two years, I’d thought I would never see Regi again. That he’d moved on with his life, and left the memory of us behind. We’d met in a piss-poor town in nowheresville Wisconsin, and I didn’t blame him for looking towards the future. I did the same.

And then, one day, he showed up as if our time apart hadn’t existed.

I’d pushed him away emotionally. When that didn’t work, I became downright cruel.

I tried everything. I fucked around. When he realized I wasn’t about to commit, he fucked around too. But, I think that was the problem. He only slept with other women, he didn’t date them. He used them like tissues while I stomped on his heart.

There were times I would get jealous, and I would yank him back into my bed. He came every single time, playing my games without complaint. Deep down I knew If I ever crooked my finger and stopped dancing around him, he would be mine. Irrevocably loyal and happy for it. He would have made some girl an amazing boyfriend. He’d been born to be monogamous. Except he’d fallen for me.

And what had I done with his gift?

I’d turned him into a man-whore.

Women thought Regi was the worst sort of guy, not realizing I’d ruined him. I was okay with him screwing around with other women. I was a modern woman. It would be damn shady to tell him to keep himself celibate when I wouldn’t even talk to him. He was a man, not a saint.

I just hadn’t expected this situation. Licia wasn’t just anyone. She was my little sister.

The image of Regi and Licia burned me, and the tears fell faster. If I didn’t get out of here now I was going to lose my shit. I couldn’t. Not until I was safe and away from the wreckage of my life.

Licia.

Why is it Licia?

Seeing my little sister on her knees before Regi, her mouth swollen, filleted me. I was a fish flopping around with its head cut off and too stupid to realize what had happened; nerves firing; muscles spasming, but nothing to control it.

My chest hurt. The shreds of my heart spilled from an invisible wound that no amount of mental berating could heal. It hurt so damn much. Worse than anything I’d experienced before. I’d thought I was immunized against the pain of relationships. Fuck, how had I gotten it so wrong?

Yanking open the car, I dropped into the passenger seat before anyone found me.

I hadn’t wanted Jo to follow me. God, what was I going to do about her?

I am a terrible friend.

Jo didn’t know about my history with Regi. Didn’t know that I was all shades of fucked up. She was supposed to be my best friend, and I kept so much from her. I didn’t deserve her in my life. She called me her lifeline. But I knew she would drop me if she ever knew the things I held back.

I wasn’t worthy of her.

I’m not worthy of Regi.

A deep shuddering breath whimpered free. I fumbled with my keys. My hands were frozen; polished icicles instead of fingers. They keys fell, clanging to the floor, and I scrabbled for them, getting ice and salt beneath my nails as I pawed at the mat. Finally, I slammed them into the ignition and started my Ford, ready to drive home and forget this night ever happened. I would dive into a movie marathon and lose myself to a perfectly-plotted script where everything bad was righted before the credits rolled.

The pain wouldn’t let me.

The tidal wave of hurt I’d held at bay crashed over the levees and flooded me. The tears came, streaking down my cheeks in salty streams. I dropped my head onto the steering wheel and let the shame, sorrow, and defeat carry me away. With my tears came the memory of the first time I’d seen Regi.

How handsome he was.

How perfect.

And how I would never be good enough for him.

Mia

It was Licia who first noticed the moving van next door one January afternoon during my senior year of high school. I’d only been eighteen for a month, but I had already begun daydreaming of all the places I was going to go once I graduated.

“Mia come see this! We have new neighbors.” My then thirteen-year-old sister squealed, her voice loud enough that it carried over the thump of music beating into my eardrums. I’d just finished studying, geography wasn’t my favorite subject, and I was zoning out to the Pitch Perfect soundtrack. Usually, Licia didn’t bother me. But she was hyper about something, bouncing and keyed up enough that curiosity won out. I yanked my earbuds out just to see what the fuss was about.

The Alicia — excuse me Licia — of the tween era was a sullen teenager trying to find her place in life. The number of sighs, eye-rolls, and pure insolent fucking attitude I’d received as answers to simple questions had made me want to strangle her scrawny neck. With mom never around, I got to play parent. I didn’t want or need that responsibility of being a constant babysitter to my sister.

But I’d known if I didn’t do it, who would?

Part of her attitude problem stemmed from the fact that Licia was trying to find herself. She hadn’t grown up. At least not physically. She looked ten in the face of other girls her age who looked older. Hell, some of the kids in her grade looked better than I had, and I was considered ‘legally’ an adult.

Stretching my legs, I got up and joined her at the window. She ushered the blinds aside and pointed to the moving van outside the Hanson house. It hadn’t even been a U-Haul, but a legit moving van with all the bells, whistles and two burly movers pulling down a metal ramp from the back. They’d rolled a big couch onto the blacktop, but weren’t moving towards the still-shuttered house.

Old man Hanson’s son had finally collected his dad last year and shoved him into an old folks home. At least that was what the local gossips spouted. He’d put the house, a roomy split level, up for sale a month after. A few months after that the for-sale sign had been tagged with sold. But we hadn’t heard a peep of the new neighbors until the van showed up.

“Do you think we should tell them what a shit-hole they're moving into?” Shullsburg, Wisconsin was what happened when the coal mines closed in the 70’s and there hadn’t been another industry to take its place. While it wasn’t technically “blighted”, there wasn’t lot to do. Housing was cheap, so that was one good thing about rural Wisconsin at least. The local economy might have had an uptick over the past few decades, but it was never going to be the bustling hub it once was.

“It’s not that bad,” Licia said, but there wasn’t any heat in her voice. Now that she was getting older she saw as well as I did that there was nothing to do in Shullsburg. You were born here, lived here, and died here.

I refused to allow that to be my fate. Back then, I’d already applied and was admitted, to the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Eighty glorious miles away from Shullsburg. I’d needed to stay in the state due to tuition costs, but I was moving to a legit big city. The capitol of Wisconsin. You couldn’t get any more big city unless you went to Milwaukee. I’d considered it since it was clear on the other side of the state. But none of the colleges there had interested me.

“I wonder why they’re moving here.” There weren’t a lot of job prospects in Shullsburg unless you were into transportation, the farming industry, or crossing state lines to work at the casino in Dubuque, Iowa.

My mental musing was cut short as a dusty champagne-colored sedan pulled up behind the van.

“Oh look, that must be the new owners,” Licia whispered with excitement.

The back door of the car blew open, and a fluffy golden dog burst out, making a wild dash through the side yard separating the Hanson house from its neighbor. A kid around Licia’s age, all arms, and legs in that way young boys were, squealed as he lurched out behind him and gave chase.

Licia giggled and I cracked a grin. We’d always wanted a pet, but mom was allergic to everything cute and fuzzy.

The car’s front doors opened, and an older man and women stepped out to meet with the movers. Parents maybe? How nice that they were a solid family unit and not a broken one like mine.

I ran my fingers along the glass. Flashes of watching dad leave popped across my eyes. I hadn’t thought of him in a while, yet his memory lingered like a specter just waiting to jump out and fuck my day up.

I shook the ghost away.

I refused to think of mom, dad, or Dan, her newest disgusting hookup.

I wasn’t prepared for the final piece of the new neighbor puzzle to make an appearance. The tallest damn guy ever unfolded from the back of the car. He was tall, like skyscraper tall, how is the weather up there, jolly green giant, enormous. My breath caught. Every nerve ending in my body lit up like Christmas lights in a blaze of glory. I’d never felt arousal before, but I was sure that sudden hot pulsing feeling between my thighs was it; a dull ache that tingled my girlie parts and made me want to squirm in place.

The boy — man — ran his hand through a mess of tousled inky curls, disheveling them before he stretched his arms overhead. Usually, I didn’t like longish hair on a guy, but I had a feeling it was stunning on him. He was built like a college athlete. Maybe a runner. His broad shoulders were hugged by some soft-looking flannel, and his jeans hinted at sturdy legs. He was lean, caught in that sexy in-between of youth and grade-A beefcake. My pulse thumped wildly, and I leaned closer. Wanting. Needing to see more of this Zac Efron-esque hunk moving in next door.

I hadn’t thought I was vain until I got a look at that body. I hadn’t even seen his face and I was hot all over.

What color are his eyes?

I jerked back.

Hold the presses.

Nope. That thought wasn’t happening.

Do you really think you’re good enough for him?

I flinched away from my internal monologue. The moment I had even a nice thought the doubt rushed in. I tried blotting the voice out, but it held fast.

Your dad doesn’t want you.

Your mom wishes you were never born.

Don’t you remember what she said the last time you found her?

Look at him. He’s fucking perfection.

And you’re not.

Fat little puta. You’ll never be anything more than a spic wishing you were upgraded to white trash.

I closed my eyes and let the barrage flow through me. It was a reminder of the life I had and nothing could change it. Physically I shook my head. But I couldn’t hide from that little voice. It sounded just like my dad. It had been with me since he left; born of his indifference to a screaming nine-year-old child banging on the glass; tears and snot and gasping breaths fogging the window; the tortured, confused witness to him lugging himself out of her life in two suitcases and a box.

My mind replayed the shrill screams as mom chased after him, and the vicious backhand which had knocked her flat.

Then the nasty racial slurs he’d flung at my Hispanic mother chased around my head. That slap had given him enough time to escape into another future without a low-born wife and two mestizo kids. Sometimes I thought Licia was lucky. She barely remembered him. She didn’t remember the fights and the fists. I was glad he was gone in a way, but at the same time, I missed what he should have been.

A sanctuary. A father. The glue that held our family together.

But me? I remembered it all. The silence. Then the promises from mom that he’d come back.

Then the booze.

And the blood.

And the hate when I saved her.

Wanting a guy, any guy didn’t belong in my thoughts. I refused to get into a relationship. Period. Everyone got held at arm’s distance. Mom made sure I would become a man hater by being the most codependent woman on the planet. Since dad left when I was nine and Licia was a toddler, and after mom’s suicide attempt, there was a carousel of new men in our lives. Some lasted a week, some months. Dan, her newest fling, was going on six months. Six long months where I had to shove a chair beneath the door handle to make sure he didn’t sneak into Licia’s and my room at night.

I shuddered. He wasn’t the first one to do it. I’d told mom once about her “boyfriends” predilection of trying to get some jailbait pussy, and she’d slapped me. It was up to me to protect Licia and myself since mom didn’t have a maternal bone in her body. She always put her men before us. I wished I could blame her. But she needed something, anything, to fill the void inside.

I would never be that way. I would never fall into the trap where I needed a man that much. I would never be that weak.

Never.

I glanced over my shoulder. I caught Licia’s gaze reflected in the window as she watched the parents chase their kid and dog around their new yard. Her face was a mask of yearning. Of hope withering on the vine. Dad wouldn’t be coming back, but I knew she wished he would.

Her sadness wore a different face than mine.

Mine had hollowed me out. Made me feel worthless.

Hers filled her with anger. She overflowed with resentment.

We were both so fucked up. Even at that age. I couldn’t save her because I was drowning too.

I turned away, pretending I didn’t see her misery and left her to stew in it.