Someone to Love (37 page)

I guess Blair was right—Blair who was the
first to gouge my heart out, or so I thought. The misery Blair
caused was nothing in comparison to the utter desolation that set
in after hearing—
seeing
Kenny in action with my own freaking
eyes.

But I know she loves me. You can’t fake
emotion like that. Can you?

I head outside and a crisp breeze knifes
through my clothes in cold steely jags.

The late February sky holds a stainless shade
of grey as if someone were about to place a lid over Carrington,
cover us up for good and a part me wishes they would. The pines
still manage to cast detailed shadows over the snow in blues and
lavenders, deep navy, dark as night. The strong scented evergreens
light up the air, fresh and cleansing.

My phone goes off just as I arrive at the
stream. It’s a number I don’t recognize, but I stop to take the
call before I hit a dead zone.

“Hello?”

“
Cruise
? I’m so sorry to bother you.
It’s Rayann, Blair’s mother.”

Every muscle in my body tenses as my
bloodstream fills with concrete. What if Blair hurled herself off a
cliff? Or what if she stuffed a bottle of pills in her stomach? I’m
sure there would be hell to pay, and undoubtedly it would start and
end with me.

“Nice to hear from you.” I manage to fake the
kind sentiment. “What’s going on?”

“It’s Blair.” She wails when she says her
name. “She’s been such a mess. She doesn’t eat anymore. All she
does is mope about how she ruined things between the two of you. Is
there any way you could talk to her? Maybe you could take her to
dinner and get this whole thing straightened out.” Her voice rises
with hope. “You do know that Stan and I think of you like a son.
People make mistakes, Cruise—big ones. I really pray you’ll find it
in your heart to forgive her.”

I blow out a hard breath.

Is that where this is headed? Can anyone
really expect me to walk away from something so fantastic with
Kenny and step back into a dead relationship with Blair again?

“I’m sorry she’s having a tough time.” I do
mean that. Blair and I weren’t always riding on the crap wagon. “I
really hope the best for her, but I’m pretty sure what we had is
long over.”

We exchange niceties before hanging up, and I
mute the damn phone.

Dad waves from the porch before making his
way over—so much for time to think. On second thought, it’s
probably best I don’t.

“Morning.” He says with an ear-to-ear grin,
and I’m almost afraid to ask why he’s so ungodly jubilant. It looks
like one of us got lucky with a Jordan woman last night and it sure
as hell wasn’t me. “Mind if I join you?”

I look up at my father in this new light, the
older gentleman with graying hair, the newly-minted playboy—the
friend.

“Not at all.” I lead us to a bench
overlooking the stream that braids itself through the property,
quiet as a yawn. My grandfather used to tell me stories of catching
trout here, but I haven’t seen a fish longer than my thumb since I
was thirteen. The runoff from a nearby hillside keeps it flowing
straight through winter. I used to come out here after the Blair
debacle, then Kenny brought me a moment of peace, and here I am
again.

“You have an upsetting call?” He points to
the phone still cradled in my hand. He’s wearing a pair of jeans,
which is unusual for him, and a baseball cap of mine that Mom must
have lent him. We resemble each other enough for me to know what
I’ll look like in about twenty years—that is if I eat like hell and
forget the directions to the gym.

“Blair’s mother.” I rattle the phone before
diving it into my pocket. “She’s trying to play matchmaker. I’m
sure Blair put her up to it.”

“You ever think of getting back together?” He
winces when he says it. The flesh on his face looks thicker than I
remember as a child. A smile is permanently embedded in the lines
beneath his eyes. “It’s never too late to make things right.”

“
Never
is the operative word. Let’s
just say I’ve been given a reprieve. A dying man doesn’t run back
to the guillotine.”

He lets out a warm laugh straight from his
belly, and it feels good to be out here with him, sharing a moment,
even if it is a pretty crappy moment for me. Not that I plan on
highlighting the heartache I’m having with Kenny anytime soon.

“I had a relationship once that I let go of
too soon,” he starts. “Never forgot her. Thought about her every
day of my life after I let her walk through that door.” His gaze
softens over mine.

I have a feeling I know exactly who he let
walk out that door, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to follow in
his footsteps.

I’m going to fight for Kenny.

I just hope there’s something to fight for in
her eyes.

Kendall

Heart of Glass, Heart of Stone

A glimmer of light pours through the curtains
and rouses me just enough to let me know I’ve got one hell of a
power headache pumping through my skull.

I let Ally talk me into hanging out with her
at the party last night, well after Lauren disappeared with Cal.
Turns out, no matter how hard I tried to bring him to his so-called
cheating knees, he held onto his resolve and, apparently, his
relationship. Lauren burst out of the closet and the rest was
make-up sex history.

Of course, I’ll have to confess everything to
Cruise since it’s his friend from the gym, or things are bound to
get really weird the next time Cal’s around.

I pull my hair into a ponytail and head to
the kitchen. There’s a plate on the table loaded with eggs and
bacon, two slices of my favorite kind of toast, and my heart melts.
The way Cruise loves me is indescribable. It feels like heaven to
be cared for like this.

There’s a note set to the side.

Going for a walk, be right back.

I don’t hesitate slipping on my boots and
coat before heading out the door. I need to collect my morning
kiss. It’s practically a necessary vitamin to kick-start the
day.

The air outside is crisp. The wind picks up
and wraps itself around my bare neck like a scarf made of icicles.
If it weren’t for Cruise, I’d literally be freezing to death and
homeless. I guess I should be thankful Pennington didn’t have the
foresight to get me keyed in with the housing department—thankful
for his beer bong emergency that cropped up at the last minute.
It’s so strange how it all worked out. It’s as if destiny stepped
in and arranged every coincidence to work in our favor.

If ever there were a couple that was meant to
be, it’s Cruise and me.

Voices buzz through the shrubbery, and I
follow the sound over to a dirt trail.

“But I don’t love her anymore.” Cruise’s
voice resonates loud and clear through the thicket, it reverberates
through my skull like some horrible gong. Who doesn’t he love?

I lean into the fat trunk of a pine—my heart
already blistering from his words. Surely, they weren’t meant for
me. I peer over at him, seated next to his father.

“I regret every last thing,” he continues.
“Honestly, I don’t know what I ever saw in her. I don’t even think
she’s pretty.” His voice escalates as if he just woke up from a
long hibernation and wasn’t satisfied with what he found lying in
his bed. “She’s totally screwed up on the inside. I’m sure she’ll
blame it on daddy issues, and now she’s got her mother all over my
back. If I regret one thing, it’s ever asking her to marry me.”

My heart pulsates through me like a series of
grenades. It thumps through my ears until the world warps to the
deafening sound of a jungle drum.

I stagger backward and trip over a root. The
ground jolts, the entire universe spins on its axis as I gather
what strength I have left and head back to the house.

Tears pour like rain for the first twenty
minutes, as an entire cyclone of emotion rips through me. I hadn’t
seen the storm on the horizon. There was no time to batten down the
hatches. Cruise doesn’t love me anymore, and now he’s sorry he ever
put this ring on my finger.

I’m numb inside, a shell of who I was just an
hour ago. I segue into the hiccupping, slap-cheek red phase of the
ugly cry, but I need to pull it together.

I sent a text to Ally. She said I could crash
with her for a while. There’s no way I’m staying in the bed and
breakfast with his family, even if Mom, herself, has already taken
up residency there. I’ll fill her in on my trauma some other day.
Besides, I don’t think I could get the words to vomit from my
throat, not with this boulder of pain Cruise lodged in it.

The door jiggles, and everything in me
freezes. I wipe down my face with my T-shirt and brace myself for
what I have to do next.

Cruise walks in and beams a sad smile while
taking off his jacket. He looks resplendent, divine. How I ever
thought someone as godlike as Cruise Elton could love me, want me,
just shows how hard I’ve fallen.

“Look who’s up?” If I didn’t know better I’d
think he was hurt, but it seems like I’m the only one hurting in
this equation. He does a double take at my suitcase, packed and
ready to roll by my side. “What’s going on?” His features transform
with genuine surprise, and I’m almost sold on the fact he’s aching
to see me stay, but I know better.

“Just heading to Ally’s.” I shrug, running my
fingers through the back of my hair as if he didn’t just cut my
heart out with the knife of his tongue and unwittingly serve it to
me for breakfast. “You know, just getting out of your way. Rumor
has it your ex is interested in patching things up.”

“That’s what I hear.” He rides his eyes up my
body, slow, suspicious.

“So, I guess that means you’re still into
her.” My heart sinks—you could tie it to my neck and throw me into
the sea with the millstone it’s become in such a short time.

His brows dip as if to protest the idea. “Are
you into other guys, Kenny?” His strangled gaze remains
unmovable.

I take a breath and hold it.

What’s happening? This is, Cruise. A few
short hours ago, I would have bet my life that we were Garrison’s
next power couple, and now here we are, frying each other on the
skillet, searing our hatred over one another for the hell of
it.

Those hurtful words I overheard this morning
waft through my mind like the stench from a rotting corpse.

“Maybe I am into other guys,” I say it low.
“That’s how this whole mess started, remember?”

His chest lurches as if he were going to
laugh—cry, but he aborts the effort. “I guess I trained you
well.”

“Guess you did.” I glance down at his
grandmother’s ring still gracing my finger and gently pluck it off.
He doesn’t stop me or beg me not to do it with some impassioned
plea, which only solidifies what I heard him say.

This right here—this stabbing rejection is
real. Cruise and all his love for me was just another illusion. I
jumped into love believing it was a battleship that would withstand
the test of time when all it turned out to be was a paper boat that
dissolved to nothing beneath my feet.

“I suppose this was just a test,” I say,
holding up the platinum band a moment before placing it on the
table. “I guess I failed because a player never commits.”

Cruise closes his eyes an inordinate amount
of time and takes a breath that goes on for miles. “Look, I get it.
You’re not ready. You’re in college—you’re young. You want to see
what’s out there.”

His lips tremble, and for a minute I think
he’s going to tell me this is all some joke, that he still loves
me, that I should put that ring back on right this fucking minute,
but he doesn’t. Cruise is somehow trying to pass all this off on me
because he’s too chicken shit to admit the fact he’s over us—that
he never thought I was pretty—that I’m prone to blame everything on
my screwed up fatherless childhood.