Heart Breaker: An AnguiSH Novella (4 page)

Breaker

             
Something is off with Ash.

             
But really I shouldn’t complain.

             
I mean, what guy complains when his girl pushed the envelope further than she’d every pushed it before in the bedroom department?

             
A moron like me.

             
Because Ash and I not moving to that level before marriage was more than just for her. My own weirdness prevented me from admitting that it was for me as well. I mean, I’d just gotten a little bit of a hold on who I was outside of that house, in the world. I was still visiting a psychiatrist twice a month. I’d moved to a new doctor—Dr. Dooms.

             
I spent the entire first session cracking jokes about his name.

             
And the second.

             
Ok, the third too.

             
I needed to wait just as much as she did.

             
Her mouth went places it had never roamed, her hands were just as loving, but there was a neediness, an almost desperation in her touch. It scared me. I loved it, don’t get me wrong. But it worried me just as much.

             
It just didn’t seem like her.

             
That next morning over breakfast she was in a stabby mood. Everything got stabbed, her eggs, her sausage, even the pancakes were slaughtered and then covered with butter pecan syrup.

             
“What did that pancake ever do to you,” I asked her.

             
She didn’t answer. She was stuck somewhere else.

             
I walked my fingers across the table and touched her free hand and she flinched slightly.

             
“Sorry, I was just thinking.”

             
“About what? Tell me, Ash.” I lowered my voice to a whisper, “And what the hell was last night?”

             
Her snotty tone matched her stabby attitude, “What you didn’t like it?”

             
“Of course I did. It was just a little aggressive for you. You’re not normally like that. It was almost like…”

             
“Like what Your Highness?”             

             
“Like you were trying to prove something.”

             
“Do I need to,” her voice quivered that time.

             
“Prove something to me? No, never. You’re evading my question. What are you thinking about that has you making a massacre out of breakfast?”

             
She shrugged and put her fork on the plate, “Nothing, just nothing. I’ve got to get to work. Why don’t you call me when you get done with…” she waved her hand, “whatever.”

             
Getting up from the table, she came around to my side of the table, bent down to my eye level and said, “I love you, Breaker.”

             
But before I could answer, she was gone.

             
Instead of going directly to the library, I took a walk around campus to clear my head. Before long I’d found myself in front of the fountain in the middle of the quad area. That fountain was one of my favorite things about campus.

             
I looked through all of the handprints in the concrete, looking for mine and Ash’s, they were there somewhere, intertwined, and making a crude heart between our hands. She thought it was cheesy of me to suggest sneaking onto campus to do it, but now we were immortalized in this place. Anyway, it was significant to me in more ways than that. It was a mark of me getting healthier, getting out into the world, making my mark somewhere other than in my house.

             
I took a picture of our hands together with my phone and set it as my wallpaper. The university clock rang out a song, telling me it was noon. The last thing I wanted to do was be stuck in a study room with Touchy Girl, but I looked at it as facing another fear of mine.

             
The text that I received the other night was from this girl. I’d figured that out the day before when she texted me during class and then waved her phone at me when I pulled my phone out—all proud of herself and shit. She told me to meet her in the study rooms towards the back of the library—Room 2A, second floor, first room.

             
I looked in the room and she was indeed studying and looking not very successful at it. I went in the room that smelled faintly of old French fries and Eva perked up at my entrance.

             
“Hi Breaker, I was afraid you weren’t gonna show up. I hope you’re not angry for me texting you. You didn’t get in trouble with your girlfriend, did you?”

             
She didn’t look one bit sorry, even if I had.

             
“No, Ash is not the jealous type. She’s really not. Anyway, why would she be jealous of someone I’m tutoring.”

             
“Well, I really need help with the study guide. So, would you rather stay here with me while we figure out the answers—or maybe we can figure out some other way for me to get the answers.”

             
And there it was. She didn’t want a tutor. She wanted someone to cheat off of.

             
This is the kind of people I was hiding from in my house.

             
“Well, I hope you’ve reserved this room for a while then. It took me about four or five hours to finish this study guide.”

             
She blew off my threat, opening her book and prepping her work area.

             
We got to work. I kept staring out the window while she looked up answers, thinking about Ash. Sooner or later she would tell me what was going on with her—she always did. Just as I was thinking about her, I swore I saw her or someone that looked a lot like her, peek around one of the bookcases and then bolt in the other direction as the movement caught my attention.

             
Eva struggled—a lot. Even with me helping her. I actually pitied her. After two hours and only ten questions answered, she blew her hair out of her face and shut her book.

             
“I’m done. I’ll get the answers somewhere.”

             
“You’ve only got ten done. There’s four more pages.”

             
“Oh well,” she shrugged and headed out of the room.

             
I rolled my eyes at the ludicrous way I’d chosen to spend my afternoon. After I left, I decided to go home and get some studying of my own in. Ash texted me late in the afternoon and told me she was on her way home. Since she’d been weird that morning, I didn’t know what to expect.

Ash

             
The guilt wrapped its hands around my throat and squeezed at random intervals after that day. I’d not only doubted Breaker James, but I’d gone to the library and spied on him—trying to catch him in some kind of trap.

             
I skipped out on work that day, and after spying on my love, went to my apartment and confessed everything to Stephanie. To my surprise, she didn’t egg me on or high five me for my efforts. She warned me—thoroughly. She encouraged me to confess and really talk to Breaker about my fears.

             
She didn’t want me to end up like her.

             
I only heeded some of her words. I heeded the ones about not distrusting him again. I ignored the ones about confessing—I was too ashamed of my own actions. I was terrified of what he would think of me. 

             
The next few weeks were strained. Breaker knew something was up with me, but I refused to tell him what I’d done. Stephanie and Oz had decided to stay friends for a while, opting to build a better relationship than to lose what they’d had.

             
After we all finished mid-terms, the four of us went to dinner and then went out to play mini-golf. We were having a great time when Oz spotted a girl who was checking out a guy on the next hole down.

             
“She’s so obvious about it,” Stephanie shrilled. Then she elbowed me, “She needs some sneaking around lessons from you and me, huh? At least we know how to check on our men without getting caught.”

             
Some things go in slow motion when you don’t want them to. Falling down—getting hurt—getting caught—all you can hear is the drumming of your heart in your ears and it feels like your chest hollows out gurgle by gurgle like a gallon of milk with a hole in it. Breaker’s gaze was focused on me and I could feel the heat of it.

             
“What does that mean,” he said softly.

             
“Oh shit,” Stephanie covered her mouth. “I told you to tell him.”             

             
Cue the spotlight.

             
“I’ll tell you later,” I said, trying to pick up my golf club and get to the next hole.

             
“Tell me now, please. It’s obvious you’ve told everyone else. Why make me wait?”             

             
“Fine.” My cheeks heated in embarrassment. “I went to the library that day, with you and Eva. I just wanted to see—to make sure. But it’s fine. I mean, everything is fine.”

             
How many times did I say fine?

             
“No, Ashland. I don’t think it is fine. Oz, can you take her home? I need some air.”

             
“We’re outside Breaker,” I sassed him.

             
“Maybe I need some fresh air. Did you want Oz to drive by my house, make sure I’m not cheating?”

             
I opened my mouth to answer, but it was too late. He’d walked out of the place and far away from me.

Breaker

              I shouldn’t have left her. She never left me when I was at my worst, so what kind of bastard was I to leave her when she’d messed up?

             
Her phone rang what seemed like forever before she answered.

             
“Hey,” she whispered. So unsure, so unlike my Ash.

             
“I need to see you.”

             
She sighed into the phone, “You do?”

             
“Yeah, now. I’m coming to get you on the bike.”

             
“I’m here. Come get me.”

             
I drove home, picked up the motorcycle and raced her way. I didn’t want another second to pass by with her wondering what I thought of her or me wondering why she could fathom me ever cheating on her—not one more second.

             
Ash was outside waiting when I got there. She didn’t hesitate to hop on the bike  but she did falter in her hold on me. She barely fisted my shirt, when she got situated and that just wouldn’t fly with me. I needed my girl’s arms holding onto me.

             
Need didn’t seem like a strong enough word for the way I craved Ash.

             
Never had.

             
I grabbed her hands and wrapped them around my waist. She leaned into my back. But there were no playful squeezing of her thighs or accidental roaming hands on this trip. She wasn’t herself—then again, she hadn’t been herself since that day with Eva.

             
I brought us to a stopping point outside of the quad. She took off her helmet and I was temporarily brought back to the first time I saw her. Her raven hair shook my world and her unconcern for my pity party fascinated me. Something down deep inside me knew that with Ashland in my life, I would never be the same.

             
“What,” she said. Her voice was still whispery.

             
“I’m bringing you back to the beginning.”

             
She stole a glance at the quad and then nodded.

             
We sat on the edge of that fountain, that risqué fountain. The pose had been chosen by the Art Department and it was beautiful. But two lovers embracing caused quite a stir. Whoever in the Art Department that decided the fountain should be kept under wraps until its completion was a genius. It was a modern Rodin sculpture, The Kiss.

             
“Tell me,” I demanded more than asked. Things hadn’t always gone smoothly with Ashland. And I knew that I was more than she bargained for when she and I began to fall in love—and not in a good way.

             
“Where?”

             
“Wherever it was that began the thought process of me
ever
cheating on you.”

             
She twiddled with the edge of her shirt sleeves until she was ready.

             
“It started when you came back for me, I guess. When you held me that first time and I realized how big and muscly you’d gotten—you should see how girls look at you.”

             
“Not good enough,” I growled unintentionally.

             
“Well, just little by little my insecurities grew. You didn’t need me anymore. You were on the upside of the roller coaster ride. You had gotten better by yourself. Look at you, you’re like a heart breaker now. I guess it just festered. Then there was the thing with Steph and Oz and it just triggered something in me. I don’t know. It just consumed me.”

             
I couldn’t help it. This was a really serious moment, but the only thing I could do was laugh. The most beautiful, intelligent, sexiest and smart mouthed woman I’d ever met and she was afraid I’d leave her?

             
“Why are you laughing?”

             
That made me laugh even harder.

             
“What the hell, Breaker James Collins? Fine, laugh it up.”

             
But then she started laughing with me. I drummed it up to a culmination of things. Our tense relationship of late, classes, and time apart.

             
Still lost in laughter, I grabbed her, yanking her to me, setting her on my lap. I hugged her as tight as I could as our laughter died down to a stillness. She held her belly and let out an ‘ouch.’

             
“Let me just get this straight. You thought that some muscles and getting out of the house could make me just starting jumping and humping with the first girl that showed me some interest?”

             
“Jumping and humping,” she bellowed, slapping me in the arm.

             
“Answer the question, Ashland.”             

             
“I hate when you call me by my whole name. And it sounds pretty stupid when you say it like that.”
              I pulled her tighter against me, “Because it is stupid—and wrong. I need you whether I’m sick or if I’m well. I’ll need you for the rest of my life. I didn’t fall in love with you because of how you helped me. I fell in love with you because of who you are. I’ll try my damnedest never to break your heart. You know why? ”

             
“Why?”

             
“Because you offered me that heart when no one else would. You offered it to me freely. And you offered me all of it. I will never break the greatest gift you ever gave me.”

             
Tears fell down her perfect face and I tried to whisk them away with my hands.

             
“Don’t cry, Ash.”

             
She engulfed me in her embrace. Her arms linked around my neck, her hands fisted my hair. Those long glorious legs wrapped around my waist and she held me tighter that night than she ever had. I rubbed circles with my hands on her back and she groaned and rocked into me. Lights in the quad around us shone on her hair and created a halo around her as she backed out of my hold and cupped my face in her hands.

             
“I’m so sorry. I’ll never doubt you again.”

             
I grazed my hands on the skin under her shirt, “Yes you will. You will doubt me. But next time, just talk to me. Remember how you used to talk me down from my panic attacks? Next time, come to me, let me hold you and talk you down from the mountain. Got it?”

             
“Got it. Why did you bring me here?”

             
“Because when we were here, putting our hands in that concrete,” I pointed to the spot, “That was the first time I really felt like I would never go back to who I was. Throughout all the counseling, the meetings and all that crap—making my mark with you here was when I really felt free of it. For me, this place is a new beginning.”

             
Ash smiled at me then—the smile of weightlessness after so much time of feeling heavy. I recognized that smile. Hell, I think I invented that smile.

             
“Ash,” I whispered before I took her mouth with mine. Her warm tongue tasted like cotton candy. This was no regular kiss. Her movements as her legs curled around me once more reminded me of the girl I fell in love with. The girl who ducked under my arm and wouldn’t take no for an answer. The girl who, in her own way, forced me to face my own demons and offered to hold my hand through the fight. This is the girl who tempted me in my backyard then and who tempts me by just breathing now. She’s the girl I fell in love with. She’s the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with. She’s the mother I want for my children. She’s owns the arms that will one day hold our grandchildren.

             
Ashland Cormier is everything.

             
She broke free, “Don’t ever say jumping and humping again.”

             
I chuckled, “Damn baby, I was saving that line for our honeymoon.”

             
She groaned, “Ugh, here we go again.”