Broken and Screwed 2 (The BS Series) (22 page)

“What?”

“You’re off the hook, Ang. I know you tried to be a friend to me last year, but let’s just admit this. It was hard being my friend. I get it.”

Her tears started falling again. She crumpled to the ground and began to rock back and forth. She just kept crying.

I knelt beside her. I didn’t touch her. I wasn’t going to comfort her, but I knew she needed to be released. “I know you tried to be my friend. I think you did a good job, but with the whole mess of my family, I wasn’t a normal person. I’m still not a normal person. Pain and grief, loss and mourning, then being abandoned, a person can only take so much. Eventually, if they don’t get support or love, they’re going to fall under all those strikes, you know?”

She started sobbing, deep gut-wrenching sobs and she buried her head in her knees. Her shoulders jerked forward with each sob.

Frowning at her, she was the one crying while I had been the one hurting. It didn’t make sense to me, but I still said, “You have a good future ahead of you. I know that I was holding you back. I was like an anchor with all my stuff. I get it. I do. Beth and Hannah, they’re like me. They get it and they’re not scared to be around me. Neither’s Jesse. I get him, no one else does.”

She looked up and wiped at her face. “Have you told him?”

“About?” But I knew. It had never been put into words. I was still scared of what would happen.

“Alex, I was at your house. Your parents were never there. I mean, come on. Stop playing dumb. Just say it,” she snapped.

Reeling, not from her tone, but that she really knew. She actually knew. My heart began racing, pounding in my chest, and panic started again. It was rising.

“We live in a small town, Alex.” She kept going. I tried to shut her out, but I couldn’t. “My mom’s cousin works at the law firm you’re parents used. I know about the stipulations on their stipend for you. That you can’t communicate with them? That you can’t even call them or visit them? That if you want to hear how they’re doing, you’re supposed to send an email to your dad stating your reasons for even asking in the first place. Are you kidding me?”

I couldn’t hear anymore. I wanted to box my hands over my ears. My heart was trying to claw its way out of me.

“I know, I know. Blah, blah, your fucking parents blah. They’re horrible people. They’ve been horrible to you. I saw them last weekend and I couldn’t stand it. I wanted to go over and smack your dad. I wanted to shake common sense into your mom and ask why they could do this to you? You haven’t done anything to them!”

“I could’ve…” I couldn’t have. A storm was inside of me. I could’ve peed my pants and I wouldn’t have felt it, but I forced myself to stay there. Everything in me screamed to run, to hide, but I couldn’t. I stayed put. I stared straight ahead and I made myself hear what else she was going to say. Angie was going to rip the Band-Aid of denial I had put over myself. I had started to peel the ends away, but she was about to rip it all clear.

All the agony from last year and summer was about come flooding back. My hands curled into my legs and I held on, waiting for it.

“You were the most perfect daughter they ever could’ve asked for. Your brother died. You worshiped him. You gave your virginity to his best friend and I know some of that was because of Ethan. It wasn’t all about you and Jesse. I don’t know how, but I know some of that was about Ethan. Maybe you were trying to connect to another person who loved him like you did, I don’t know, but your parents should’ve been there for you. They weren’t, Alex!” Angie was shouting now. She was still sitting in the driveway and she was yelling, but it wasn’t at me. It was for me. “And your mom, come on. You really think she tried to kill herself? I don’t. I think she wanted attention. I think she wanted a reason to leave and to justify it in her head that she couldn’t care for her daughter anymore. I know those nurses that took care of her. They said she hadn’t taken enough to kill herself, just to put herself to sleep for a while. She’s the one who called the ambulance. She told the 911 operator to call her husband, but her daughter could not be told a thing.”

I was faintly aware of a door opening, but I couldn’t look. The tears were blinding me now. Searing pain paralyzed me as I tried to breathe. The breaths grew shallower and shallower. I was struggling to breathe as the agony filtered in.

Angie’s disgust came out, loud and clear, as she continued, climbing to her feet now. “And you never said anything! Why didn’t you say something? I would’ve been there for you. I would’ve gone to the counselor if I knew for sure. I didn’t know for sure. I thought maybe, but it took all last week to ask around. Finally, people started talking about it, but I knew. I knew something was going on. They were never home. Every time I came over, they were never there. And you could go anywhere. You came over all the time. You never had to call your parents for permission for anything. And that depressing house. I mean, seriously, Alex. They left you in that house? All alone in that house?!”

I shot to my feet now. “I wasn’t alone.” My chest was being split open. A hole had formed and she was ripping it to pieces. “Ethan was there!”

“Ethan’s dead!” she shouted back. “Newsflash, Alex! Your brother’s been dead for two and a half years now. It’s time to move on!”

“What do you think I’m doing here? I’m trying, Angie.”

Her face clouded over and more tears came. She began shaking her head, “I can’t. I just, I tried to be a good friend to you, but I knew something was wrong. I knew it, but you never said anything. I couldn’t be there for you if you didn’t tell me. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because you couldn’t handle it! Your parents love you. Your boyfriend worships you. You don’t know what it’s like to feel as much pain as I did and to watch everyone else have what I didn’t. You don’t know what that was like.”

“Because you didn’t let me,” she whispered, pressing the back of her hand to her mouth again. “You didn’t let me in. Why didn’t you let me in?”

The truth slid free in me. I hung my head as I whispered, “Because if you had known, you would’ve left me too. I only had you.”

“Oh my god,” she gasped, wrapping her arms around me. She jerked me against her and hugged me as if her life depended on it. “I am so sorry. I am so, so, so sorry. I really am. I am so sorry, Alex. You’ll never know how sorry I am.”

Slowly, I hugged her back. I was clinging by the end.

She began to rock me back and forth, smoothing a hand down my hair and back. “I don’t know if I would’ve been there for you, but I think I would’ve tried. You never told anyone. No one knew, not really. You got good grades. You were so damn perfect. Too perfect, but I knew something was wrong. I felt it and they were never home. I’m sorry I didn’t know until now. I really am sorry.”

She held me and we both cried. I wasn’t sure what I was crying for, but it was the good kind.

Angie left
not long after our crying session. I was relieved. It wasn’t that I wasn’t grateful for her visit, but I could only handle so much. When I went back inside, Hannah and Beth acted like they had never snuck outside or overheard anything at all, but I knew they had. I was okay with that. This is why I was friends with them. When the game was done, Hannah got an invite from her sister to an after-party. She made a crack how this wasn’t going to happen again so they went. When Jesse came home later, I could tell he wanted to go too so I went with him. It was then that I learned their after-parties were something else. We drank out of gold-trimmed glasses. I got one with sparkles inside. That was also where I learned how much I didn’t fit in with the other basketball girlfriends. Was I one? Jesse and I hadn’t talked about it at all, we weren’t official, but I was family. I contented myself with that. I was Jesse’s family. No one else could take that claim from me.

The night ended without any great event happening, which I was grateful about. My drama meter was full and tipping to the overfull capacity.

Tomorrow was Ethan’s birthday.

So when I woke up the next morning, the urge to drink hit me full force. A truck had run over me and it wasn’t from being hungover. Rolling over in bed, there was no Jesse beside me. The need for booze just doubled, but then the door opened and he came in. He was shirtless and his chest was glistening from sweat.

“Hey,” he said. “We were shooting hoops outside.”

“Yeah.” I headed to the bathroom. My senses were screaming at me to escape, to get drunk, to do something so I couldn’t feel anymore. Jesse would’ve understood. He was the only one, but it was too much. I missed Ethan. The sense of being cheated railed inside of me. He should’ve been alive. He should’ve been playing hoops with Jesse, not whoever had been. The anger in me was bitter. It was starting to boil up.

I wasn’t in the shower long before Jesse came in. I felt him before I saw him. His hands touched my hip and he moved me back against him. Pressing into him, need surged within me. I gasped as he kissed my shoulder and trailed up my throat. My skin sizzled from the path he left. As his mouth lingered under my chin, I began panting. Molten lust was swirling in me, taking me over. I turned around and my breasts were flushed against him now. He pushed me to the wall and swiped a kiss over my lips. It was the faintest of feather touches. I was throbbing between my legs, needing him inside of me and I pulled his hips closer, grinding on his leg. His lips moved over mine as I felt him grinning. He enjoyed making me squirm. Growling, I tried to nip at him, but he chuckled and moved back. His hands anchored me in place, still to the wall, as he bent low. My eyes closed, I knew where he was going. As his lips touched my stomach, I gasped from the onslaught of new sensations. Desire pulsed in me, one with my heartbeat. It grew with each beat. His lips moved farther down and I arched my back out. I needed him now. I needed him in me.

“Jesse,” I groaned. My hands twisted into his hair, keeping him in place and just holding on at the same time. “Please…”

He was unyielding. Gripping my hips with both hands, he knelt down and his tongue dipped into me. A strangled scream came from deep in my throat. It was gargled and I was panting heavily for him. My lips were pressed to keep any more sounds from escaping, but I couldn’t focus. My hands moved and gripped onto his shoulders. My fingers kneaded into his corded muscles. I couldn’t do anything against the torrent of pleasure coursing over me. He was working me closer and closer. A moan slipped from me and then my body jerked. I shot over a last wave, climaxing as his tongue laved around me. He rolled back to his heels with a wicked grin. Gazing down at him, a feeling of elation through me, I couldn’t do anything more as my body continued to tremble.

His eyes darkened and he lingered on my lips. Shooting back to his feet, he jerked my hips out from the wall and he slammed into me. I gasped again at the sudden push, but renewed need took over and my hips moved with him. He began thrusting, working both of us into a frenzy. This was what I needed. This would always take place over feeling or thinking. I just needed Jesse. I just needed him in me and all else flew away. He tensed as he grew closer to coming, then he gripped my legs and pushed us both over the edge together. A second explosion burst forth and I was helpless against it. Wave after wave came over me. I could only tremble underneath their power. Jesse held me up. His own body was trembling as well and then he pressed a soft, lingering kiss to my lips. He breathed against me, labored and choppy from what we had just done.

He picked me up and carried me to the bed. Then he gazed down at me. He was solemn and I knew he could see into me. He saw the anguish before he dipped down and took my mouth again. So many pent up emotions were in that kiss. Grasping my hair in his hand, he fell down on top of me. I felt his need. I felt his anguish. Then I began kissing him back and I gave him everything. He had taken the lust before, my physical need for him, but this kiss was different. This was the baggage kept locked away. It was unleashed, along with Ethan’s ghost that I had never freed. The haunting, the turmoil of being left behind—all of it was given to Jesse. I felt his own ghosts being let go, then he rolled us over and we lay there, side by side. Our legs and arms were intertwined, but I couldn’t let go of him.

Jesse pressed me into him. He had hardened again and he slid into me. He rocked against me, this time slow and tender. He went deep and touched the bottom of my core. Tears fell free from me as he showed me his love. I gasped as I felt it.

We never said the words. There had been no discussions about us, but Jesse loved me. It reached inside of me and took root where the bad emotions had been. He made love to me and afterwards I felt scraped raw on the inside. Everything hidden and stored away was now on the outside.

He cupped my cheek and whispered as he curled on his side beside me, “I know what day it is.”

Ethan was there. He was beside us. I could feel his presence.

Jesse spoke again, “Do you want to go somewhere?”

I nodded. I couldn’t talk anymore.

He pressed a kiss to my forehead and then got up from the bed. We dressed in silence. My eyes were trained down. I couldn’t see into him. New dams would break free again, but Jesse didn’t seem to mind. He packed a light bag for us, disappearing upstairs. He came back with two bottles of liquor and put it into the bag. Then he drove us to a hotel. It was a ritzy place and as he checked us in, I realized he had already made the reservation ahead of time. When? My eyes shot to his, but he only held them in a long drawn-out gaze. He was going inside again. I felt him seeping into me and I turned away. The wall had fallen down between us. I knew that we would be changed after this night.

We had always come together, but this was different. It was on different ground. The rules had changed. I no longer knew the expectations, but then I needed to admit to myself, I hadn’t known for a while now. The rules had started to change, to blur together, when I moved in with him. No, even before that. It had started to change when Jesse called me on the first day I moved into my dorm. I heard it in his voice, but I hadn’t accepted it, not fully. I couldn’t hide from it any longer.

Getting into the elevator, Jesse swiped the card for our floor. The access was otherwise restricted. And then we went to a larger suite. We stepped inside the door to a large apartment structure, but Jesse went into the back bedroom. He put our bags on the couch and pulled out the bottles of liquor. One was put in the refrigerator and he poured the other into two glasses. Handing me one, his eyes held mine captive again. I flinched under the weight but held firm after that. He could see all he wanted. I knew it was the same inside of him.

My chest lifted with a deep breath.

It rattled inside of me.

We spent the day and night in that hotel room. We did what we always did on Ethan’s birthday. We drank and we had sex. Unlike the time in his bathroom, this wasn’t romantic. There was nothing sweet about it. It was what we did on those two days of the year, except we had missed Ethan’s anniversary the summer before. We made up for it this time. We pushed all the demons at bay, all the emotions of missing him, and we used each other to fill that void.

It wasn’t until after another coupling and on my third glass of liquor when I looked over. Jesse was frowning to himself. I recognized the look from our first year and my gut kicked. That look wasn’t good. It meant there was more. Jesse was keeping something else from me. I sighed. I thought we had gotten all of it out, but that nagging voice in my head chimed up again.
You have a secret too.

Ignoring it, I sat up and pulled the sheet to cover me.

Jesse rolled his head against the headboard to look at me. “Hmmm?”

I put my glass on the bedside stand. I was already drunk. I didn’t need to spill the booze.

“Alex?” He sat up as well. “What?”

“You said some things before.” Frowning, I tried to remember what they were. Tapping my finger on my forehead, I searched and searched. “You said…what did you say?”

“If he were alive now, he’d know he was wrong. I mean, hell, he knew firsthand that being perfect wasn’t what it was cracked up to be. He tried to do everything your parents wanted and when he messed that up—”
Another one plagued me; he thought I hadn’t noticed. “
Him and me. That was it. He was supposed to have my back, not go off and get killed going to— He was supposed to be here.”

He got killed going to…to where? I wanted to ask Jesse that. I wanted to know what Ethan did, how did he know firsthand that being perfect wasn’t what it was cracked up to be? Those questions were burning in me, but I knew Jesse wouldn’t tell me. He hadn’t before, and he had distracted me successfully.

“What did I say?”

I swallowed the questions. Because if he told, if I made him tell, then I’d have to tell him my secret. I couldn’t do that. And as I shook my head and leaned over for another kiss, there was a part of me that didn’t want to know. I wasn’t sure if I could handle knowing a secret about my brother, not after everything I’d been through. My world fell apart the day he died. It had started to mend again. It couldn’t fall apart again. I wouldn’t be able to pick myself up a third time.

Because of that, I slid down and pulled Jesse on top of me. As his body started to move against mine and we joined again, I tucked that part of me away. I should’ve faced it head-on. I should always be willing to dig into the shadows, unearth what other lies have been told, but I couldn’t this time. I chose to pretend we were fine. I needed for us to be okay. Maybe I just needed Jesse while I had him, while that secret was still buried between us. And not just his secret, but my secret too. Maybe secrets weren’t that bad.

It was a month later when I was reminded how damaging they could be.

I checked my email after class with Cord and Jamie. Cord was fine. Jamie was still a jerk, pouting every minute he was around me. He thought I had influence over Jesse and could grant him permission to enter the house again. I had no influence, so I ignored him. The other girls in the room were less curious about me, at least outwardly. I still caught looks from them, but I was certain they were more stressed about next week’s final exam.

It was a relief.

But when I saw an email from my dad, my relief fled. Everything fled.

Alexandra,

I am writing to you with a heavy heart. While your mother is doing well—the life coaches have done miracles with her—we were contacted by our lawyers. There is a concern regarding the inheritance Ethan left you. You were named in his will and testament, but they require further documentation from you. If you could please contact Mr. Benson at the Benson, Filler, and Associates, I am certain that their questions will be answered. Please and thank you for your time fulfilling this matter. Your mother talks about you often. She has expressed an interest in visiting you. Her life coaches seem quite hopeful that reconciliation is possible, but I will express my concerns surrounding this situation. I fear your mother may suffer a relapse, and this is a matter I think upon daily. I will contact you with further information if your mother should decide to pursue this avenue. Until then, my thoughts and prayers are with you.

Sincerely, your father

P.S. We will be visiting Jesse Hunt this weekend. Your mother wished to attend one of his basketball games. We both miss Jesse so much. He was like a son to us. I would be appreciative if you do not create a scene, if we were to run across paths.

I sat there as a familiar numb sensation spread throughout me.

My mother talked of me often.

Her life coaches wanted reconciliation.

My father was uncertain.

Lawyers.

Ethan’s will.

Documentation.

Questions. Concerns. Thoughts. Prayers.

The numb feeling began to give away. Rage was filling in. As I sat there, my jaw clenched together, my teeth ground against each other, and I reached forward. Grasping the computer with both hands, I lifted the screen from the table and threw it against the farthest wall.

There were gasps, a few screams, but most of them were quiet.

Jerking down, I picked up my bag and left, but I knew the whispers had started. It’d be shared around school that Jesse Hunt’s girlfriend was a nutcase. My name would take on a different undertone. Alex, Alex who, they would ask. Others would tell them my full name. Alexandra Claire Connors would be known as a violent freak within an hour.

As I stalked out, I didn’t care.

I didn’t care about a goddamn thing.