Carter (19 page)

“Just for now.”

“I can’t live without us, Leah.”

I wiped another tear. “That’s the problem, Carter.”

I learned I couldn’t show him that he wanted more. I couldn’t force it out of him. Maybe, in the end, I just wasn’t the right person to do it. Maybe, someday, he would meet a girl who opened his eyes and made him want to be more.

Letting go was the only way to salvage us.

He needed to follow
his
dream, and I needed to follow
mine
.

It was hard, and we were going to be lost in the start, but if we learned to look within, we’d pave our own paths. And maybe one day those paths would intersect. Either way, that wasn’t the point. The point was to work on ourselves. To love who we are before we love someone else.

I’d miss him. I’d probably love him forever. At the end of the day, I learned a harsh lesson, and it would change me forever.

An uncommitted love will always end in heartache.             

I remember our goodbyes like it was yesterday.

It was bittersweet.

We’d spent two weeks together, trying to prolong the last remnants of our friendship. I could feel the buzz in him. The excitement he shared with the guys was infectious. They packed their things and got ready to take off one early morning.

Carter’s hopeful face was permanently embedded in my memories.

There was also heartbreak in him too.

Out front, beside Rome’s jeep where the rest of the boys sat, Carter took me into his arms and hugged me tight. He didn’t say anything for a while. Everything important had already been said. I was too choked up for words.

Then he pulled back. He took my face into his hands and he looked down at me.

For the first time in my entire life, I watched a tear fall from his eye.

“I don’t know if I’m making a mistake,” he whispered. “And the problem is, if I am, I’ll probably be too late. You’ve always been wiser than me, Leah. More mature. I’m jealous of you for that. For always being so tough, and for always believing in me. I’m never going to forget that. You’re the only person that’s ever looked at me and saw worth. I’ll be thinking of you every minute I’m gone. I…” He stopped and took a few breaths.

“It’s okay,” I whispered.

He nodded stiffly and just as I went to pull back, he took a step forward and dropped his face to mine. He kissed me, softly and slowly. It felt like our first kiss. Exciting enough to make my blood run faster, but tame enough to feel the line that was drawn.

“I’ll see you,” he told me with conviction, pulling back to look at me.

I forced a smile as he turned away. I caught the look of panic in his eyes, and my being shook. I kept myself rooted there, ignoring the way my heart screamed for him to stay. That sick need inside of me rose to the surface, begging me to keep him. That I was wrong.

But I wasn’t wrong. We needed this.

He climbed into the front seat beside Rome, and he didn’t look at me once as he put his seatbelt on. He kept his face forward as Rome honked his horn at me and waved.

I waved back and watched them drive off.

Carter took my heart with him, and it would be a very, very long time before another one grew back.

“You did the right thing,” Melanie told me later that day. “You let him go because he wasn’t ready. That was selfless of you.”

“I’ve spent too long being selfish,” I replied, already wrapped up in a warm blanket of numbness. “It’s time for him to live now.”

“Do you think he’ll still be punching people for being dicks?”

I smiled wistfully. “I bet you he’s punching someone right now.”

Carter

Months would pass before I realized what she meant about wanting more.

Years would age me before I learned just what she meant about love.

And at the end, I would realize I was a complete fuck-up piece of shit for letting her go.

END OF BOOK ONE

Thank you for reading!

Book Two will be out in a few weeks.

All comments/reviews are welcome and appreciated!

Thanks to my amazing street team for their continual support, and for every single reader for taking a chance on me time and time again!

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Sneak peak for book two is a page away!

-RJ

Prologue

Carter

The first thing I felt was ice cold water against my legs.

My eyes flew open, but I saw nothing. I blinked rapidly and tried to shake my aching head to gain some clarity. But everything was black.

I was hysterical. I flailed my body, feeling constricted and in shock. I tried to make sense of all this, but I was too disoriented to string a single thought. I couldn’t understand. My brain wasn’t registering. I felt short-winded and terrified, trying to piece one and one together in complete darkness.

I heard the sound of metal groaning above my head, and the freezing cold water moved higher, sitting now at hip level in my seat.
My seat.
I was in a fucking seat. I remembered that much. My hands shook as I tried to undo my belt, and my breaths turned to short pants. What the hell was happening? I didn’t know. I opened my mouth and shouted out a bunch of gibberish as the hysteria from within climbed to dizzying heights.

I can’t see.

I can’t fucking see.

I didn’t know what I was doing.

I couldn’t even undo my belt.

I felt claustrophobic and trapped.

I’m helpless, and I’m going to die right here.

“Here, I got you,” said a familiar voice. I recognized it as the flight attendant that’d offered me peanuts before take off.

Julie.

That’s what she said her name was.

It was a relief to my ears.

Hands touched mine and I heard the belt snap open.

“Move,” Julie cried out. “The water’s getting higher. We have to go. Now, now, now!”

“I can’t see,” I choked out, hardly able to believe the vulnerable sound was coming out of my own mouth. “I can’t… I can’t see. Everything is black.” I let out another trembling breath. “Don’t – don’t leave me.”

Her hand gripped my arm, pulling me up and out of my seat. I could hardly stand straight. I felt like I was tilted at an awkward angle, and all my body wanted to do was fall forward. But the water rushed all the way inside, climbing within seconds to my face.

“I’ve got you!” the woman screamed. “I’ve got you! Don’t let go! Hold on! We have to swim out of here!”

I took a deep breath and did as she said.

I was disoriented. I couldn’t see, but the hand around mine meant everything to me, and it was taking me up and up. I kicked and swam, but I felt scorching pain in my other arm. It was broken. That was the only explanation, and it hurt. Fuckin’ hell, it hurt more than anything.

Suddenly, something large passed between the link to my only hope, and I was torn from her. Jolted back without warning, I scrambled to have that hand back on mine. I extended both hands out in every direction, waiting for that grip in the darkness to come back to me.

But as the seconds passed, there was nothing.

Nothing but the screams I felt from within.

The fear of death washed over me. I kicked and swam, not knowing what was up and what was down.

Had I swam in circles?

My lungs ached, my head was dizzy, and my body felt like it’d been pounded by the icy cold water. I was moving nowhere. God, I was probably swimming in the wrong direction. Deeper and deeper into the water.

I’m dying.

I’m dying.

And the worst part of all was I had nothing to think of that could soothe me in death’s arms. Nothing but… her, but she was gone now and it was all my fault.

I’ve got nothing.

You couldn’t take money to your grave. You couldn’t take awards or fake bitches vying for your attention for the sole reason of being in the spotlight. None of that meant anything to you when you were knocking on death’s door.

I was going to die a lonely man with a life filled with regrets.

Regrets I would never fix.

What could I have done differently?

A vague curtain of light took over my senses and a sharp breeze whipped past my face. I immediately realized I’d surfaced from the water, and I desperately gasped in the air and coughed. I taste blood in my mouth, and I swallowed the coppery taste down as I shouted incoherently and spun around in the still water.

I still couldn’t see, but I was out.

I’m alive.

Chapter One

Leah

2013

24 years old

“I’m leaving you.”

Standing behind the couch, I could do nothing but blink at him. I sort of figured that out like ten minutes ago, but whatever.

I watched Brett race around the room, packing away his X-Box and video games. I think I was sadder to watch those go than him.

“Why are you dumping my bestie again?” Mel asked from the couch, feasting on her popcorn as the commercials aired in the background. “I think I need to hear it out of your mouth because I’m a little stumped.”

Brett paused, shoving back his dark hair out of his eyes. He looked at us with exasperation and menace, like we were too thick to understand. Pointing at me, he said to her, “I know who she’s been with! That rock star all over the magazines! I can’t compete with that. I didn’t sign up for this dishonesty! I saw him at the checkout today, and I swear to God, he was mocking me. Telling me I’m nothing but second best!”

Mel glanced at me with wide eyes before she replied to him, “You saw him at the checkout?”

He stiffened for a moment and straightened his posture. Looking away, he muttered under his breath, “Yeah, I saw him.”

“The real him?”

“Well, it was the magazine, but he was staring right at me, so yeah, it was real in a different sense.”

When Mel looked back at me, I could do nothing but shrug. Honestly, I really didn’t care. I’d toughened it out with the guy for two months, which was a feat of its own. He was funny, sure, but in that too-awkward-and-need-to-be-pitied kind of way. He had some wicked video games, which made work nights on the couch pretty fun, and the sex….

…

…

Well, the sex was possibly the most important thing I would
not
miss about Brett the fucking Dentist. I still could not shake the memory of my first encounter with him in bed just two weeks ago – after weeks of kissing and unsatisfying make-outs – and the way he spread my legs wider than anyone had ever spread them before, until my bones ached. He settled himself between them and stared at me for a solid ten seconds. It was like he was trying to stare into my soul, but he wasn’t. Not even close. And when he finally entered me, his dirty talk was dirtier in the sense it rotted my brain cells just hearing it.

“You like that? Oh, yeah, I know you like that! Pull my hair, baby. Pull my hair!”

He didn’t have hair.

“Come on, baby, do it.”

I remember scratching at his head, pretending to pull, and the weirdo actually growled like it was seriously happening.

I cringed at the memory and continued to watch him tear apart my apartment, searching for his stuff, only he barely left his things behind. When he was finally done, he came to me, carrying a box of his games, and stopped in front of me.

“We could have had something, Leah,” he said, despairingly. “It could have been amazing had you not fucked up your past.”

“Technically, we could never have had something,” I replied, flatly. “Pasts sort of can’t be changed, Brett.”

He sneered. “Maybe. Have a good life.”

“You too.”

He stomped out of there after that, slamming the door behind him.

For a long moment, there was that thick silence in the air. Mel and I just stared at each other, unsure of what to say, trying to digest the lunacy of the situation.

“Leave it to you to find the fucking crazies, babe,” Mel snickered, dispelling the silence.

“It’s that goddamn dating website. I don’t know why I keep falling for it.” I made my way around and collapsed on the couch next to her, idly watching the television as I spoke. “They always seem so promising.”

“Stop going for the looks.”

I nodded, agreeing. “You’re right. Maybe I’m just shallow and my knight in shining armour is some six hundred pound janitor at a maximum security prison.”

“Well, look, if you hit the clubs again, you can find some really good opportunities.”

“No,” I disagreed. “Those are usually one night stands, and I can’t stand to be
that
emotionally detached.”

“Better than a guy asking you to pull his hair during sex when he doesn’t even have one single fucking hair on his head.”

I considered that for a moment and nodded. “You’re right, I’ll give you that.”

“Then we’ll go out tomorrow and find someone.”

I sighed and shook my head. “Nah, can’t do tomorrow.”

“Why the hell not? It’s a Saturday. It’s bad enough we haven’t gone out on a Friday night after a week from hell.”

I looked at her and raised a brow. “It’s that time of the month, Mel.”

She paused and looked back at me. “Oh,” she said, slumping her shoulders. “Shit.”

“Yeah.”

“Isn’t she moving too?”

“Yeah.”

“When will you be back?”

“Not until late at night. I’ve got spin class, and I’ll be fucked by the time I’m back. Go out without me and have fun.”

She looked disappointed, but she nodded anyway. I grabbed my book off the coffee table and started reading just as she flipped through the channels. We were couch potatoes. Five years of being broke had forced us to depend on the god that was the television to dull the boredom.

We were financially better lately than we’d ever been before. She was no longer a waitress, but a bartender working at a high-end bar closer to the city. The drive was a bit brutal for her, but she said the tips made it worth it. I was a low level accountant, but my pay had done wonders compared to before. With more money to play with, we commuted a lot into the city for retail therapy. Being out of the condo meant distancing ourselves from the old stir-crazy days in front of the television. We were still in Abbotsford, in a nice, quiet condominium that had all the modern conveniences, and we were comfortable.

“Holy shit,” she suddenly whispered from next to me.

I looked up from my book and at the television. I immediately tensed at the images of Carter’s face all over the screen. He was walking out of some restaurant, his head down, hand wrapped around another that belonged to his latest piece of fluff.

Honestly, how many times did I have to watch the same thing just with different chicks in different places? You’d think I’d have gotten used to this by now, but the trigger of emotions that ran rampant through my body in the seconds that followed these moments proved otherwise.

The paparazzi had ambushed him like a pack of wild fucking dogs, and they were howling questions at him, all of which went unanswered. He didn’t respond to any of them as he forced his way through the crowd just as his bodyguards stepped in to ward the evil men with cameras away.

“Jesus,” Mel muttered. “They treat him like he’s royalty.”

“Rock stars sort of are,” I returned numbly.

“Do you hear what they’re saying?”

I didn’t have to hear it. The clip cut off and a new story of Carter emerged, this time of him with some long legged model.

“Buzz has exclusive footage of bad boy Carter Matheson and Panda Alwright doing the dirty on camera. No, folks, not the dirty as in another Carter sex tape. No, I’m talking a fight that occurred out front of a club that resulted in Alwright throwing her suspected engagement ring at him. Seems like trouble in paradise for this bad boy.”

“Buzz?” I let out in confusion.

“That’s the program’s name. They call themselves Buzz. Like, you know, the latest buzz and they’re all over it with their team of paparazzi.”

“And what’s this chick’s name?” There was no way I’d heard it right.

“Panda Alwright.”

I grabbed the remote and muted the garbage and turned to her. With one raised brow, I stared at Mel sceptically. “Don’t fuck with me, Mel. What’s the girl’s name?”

She tried to keep a straight face but ended up bursting into a fit of giggles. “Her name is
Panda Alwright
.”

What was it with Carter and these horrifically named girls? First Pomposa, and now Panda?

“She’s the spawn of another famous model,” Mel went on to explain. “I guess around the time she was born, her mother had been a spokesperson for this ‘Save the Pandas’ charity foundation.”

“Oh, my fucking god,” I cursed, shaking my head. “Why do celebrities do this?”

She just shook her head, laughing into the couch cushion.

When I looked back at the television, I was surprised their story was still going on.

“I’m going to bed,” I told Mel, standing up. “I’ve got a big day tomorrow.” Mostly, though, I needed to be away from the television. I didn’t like hearing one shred of information about Carter. Too many memories, and I’d done well up until this point to avoid them.

“Night, Leah,” Mel called out to me as I disappeared inside my room.

Now
this
was my sanctuary. It was more of an office than a bedroom, filled with bookshelves complete with every book I loved, no matter the price, bought specifically to adorn these walls. My desk was huge, taking up practically one side of the room, and the surface was covered with magazines of every passion I’d taken up since being on my own without the baggage of relationships.

Aside from my attempt with Brett, of course. He’d been my first in… two years? I couldn’t remember such insignifances.

My magazines ranged from exercises, to investment opportunities, to photography. I’d done what I could throughout school to get my mind off Carter, trying hard to instil my independency, and mostly trying to convince myself that he was right all along. Love was overrated. It wasn’t real in the way I thought it was, and even though some men had caught my attention throughout the years, they never held my interest for long, or at least long enough to screw them.

I collapsed into bed and set my alarm on my cell phone. I was annoyed to find a text message already there.

Brett:
Maybe I made a mistake.

I rolled my eyes.

Me:
No, Brett, you didn’t. You’re right. I’ve done a huge injustice to you keeping that info to myself. I’m a treacherous liar and I don’t deserve you.

Ha, what a joke. Whatever, it would make him happy.

Truth was, I hadn’t necessarily lied to him about my past. I just didn’t find it relevant to bring up my sexual history, and it wasn’t like I asked. If Mel hadn’t accidentally spilled the beans a few days ago about Carter and me when he was around, I never would have known the guy had massive insecurities. That sort of manly complex was not attractive, at all.

Brett:
It’s such a shame. I’ve just never met a girl with a fifty inch television and fabulous as fuck speaker system. It made gaming so wicked.

What the actual fuck?

Me:
Take care, Brett.

And never contact me again!

*

“Leah.”

Nudge.

Nudge.

Was she seriously waking me up at this ungodly hour?

“Leah, wake up!”

I opened my eyes slowly, exhaustion plaguing me as I glared at her.

“Christ, Mel!” I hissed, tempted to shove her off the bed.

Until I saw her face.

Immediately, I sat up, recognizing the no-bullshit look on her. Her eyes were wide and frightful. She didn’t look like her normal giddy self, and I felt my heart plummet.

“What?” I whispered.

With trembling lips, she put a hand over mine and her eyes glistened. “It’s Carter. They… they say the jet he’s on is missing. It… it never landed.”

End of Sneak Peak