Tackled by Love (24 page)

“But that’s not me!” I shout. My hands clench into fists as rage and desperation set in. Someone has to see that I was never involved in those vicious pranks.

She studies me for a moment before responding. “I believe you, but my opinion isn’t the one that matters.

“Will you talk to her? Please. It’s killing me knowing that she’s crying and upset over something she thinks I did and I can’t hold and comfort her. Please talk to her.”

She sighs. “Okay, I’ll talk to her. But I can’t make any promises. She’s pretty traumatized by her childhood and tries hard to bury it. I know Valerie just resurfaced years of bad memories with her little stunt. How you ever married that twat is beyond me.” She shakes her head and heads up toward Autumn’s house. I stand there and watch, hoping to catch a glimpse of her when she opens the door. I’m disappointed when Layla doesn’t knock and just walks in.

Rubbing at my chest in an attempt to dull the ache that resides there, I walk slowly to my car. Once I’m seated, I rest my head against the steering wheel. How the hell am I going to convince her that I’m not at fault here? I don’t know the answer to that yet, but I do know that I’m going to strangle that bitch Valerie for causing this.

“Put. The ice cream. Down.” Layla walks up behind me while I have my head in the freezer, sneaking a bite of comfort food. I haven’t used food as a way to deal with my emotions in quite a while, but old habits die hard. Sighing, I drop the pint of ice cream back in the freezer and chuck my spoon into the sink.

Facing her, I squint my eyes at her and place my hands on my hips hoping she sees that I’m annoyed. Before I can say anything, she beats me to it. “Come out with me tonight,” Layla whines. “It’ll do you some good and get you out of this funk.”

“I’m not in a funk, Lay, I just don’t feel like driving 30 minutes out of town to some silly bar where guys think it’s cool to pop their collars.” I plop down on my couch, having no intentions of getting out of my sweatpants and t-shirt.

“It might help you get over—“

“Don’t say it.” I warn her, holding up my hand. Pressing her lips together, she moves her hand across them like she’s zipping it shut. I haven’t talked to Landon in the last month since my run in with Valerie. The possibility of him helping plot the harassment I endured on a daily basis is gut-wrenching. He hasn’t given up, though. Every morning there’s a single tulip lying on my porch with a handwritten note. On the rare occasion that I allow myself to block out all the bad, I think back to the first time he gave me a tulip. It was our first date and it was probably the happiest I had ever been. It’s a bittersweet memory, since the dark cloud of lies and deceit hang over it, almost blocking it out entirely.

I know he says he didn’t do those things, and part of me believes him. I just can’t take the risk. It’s one thing to have people in your town make fun of you. It’s something completely different when you find out it came from a person you care about and is supposed to care about you. Doubts about us were already plaguing my mind. Add this on top of everything else and I don’t know how I’ll move past it. Our relationship would be built on a foundation full of doubts and mistrust, and that would only result in disaster.

“Pleeeeease.” Layla is persistent, I’ll give her that.

“Seriously, I don’t feel like it. I’d have to shower, shave, get ready; I just don’t want to go.”

“Fine.” Crossing her arms over her chest, she pouts like a petulant teenager. “I’ll just stay in with you then.”

Folding my legs under me, I turn toward her. “You really don’t need to babysit me. I’m fine, I promise.”

“Autumn, you’ve been moping around here for a month now. Your apartment is starting to smell—“ I wrinkle my nose in offense—“and the only time you leave is to go to work. And you wouldn’t even do that if I didn’t convince you not to quit.” I called in sick the day after the big blow up since I didn’t want to see Brenda. I told Layla I was going to put in my resignation because it would be too hard to work with Landon’s mother. Layla talked me out of it, and I’m glad she did. Brenda has been really respectful of my privacy, but sometimes I can tell she’s dying to question me about Landon.

“I’m not moping, I’m just…relaxing.” It’s a lame attempt to cover up the fact that I have been a little sad lately.

“Relaxing from what? Your busy social life? You need to live a little.”

“Okay, I’ll go out with you next time.” This pleases her because she flashes me a huge smile, seemingly proud of herself.

“I know what you need. You need to laugh, and I think I’ve got just the story for you.”

Teasing her, I roll my eyes. “Uh oh, another famous Layla story. Wonder what she has in store for us today,” I say sarcastically. Layla’s known for building up stories only for them to fall flat when she finally spits them out.

“No, this is a good one. Promise.” She moves around a little, getting comfortable on the couch. “You remember that guy I’m dating? David?” I nod. “So we’ve been getting hot and heavy for a little while now.”

“Wait,” Sitting up I interrupt her, “how long have you been seeing David?”

She looks up at the ceiling in deep thought. “About…a month or so. Why?”

“You just made it seem like you’ve been seeing him for longer and I wanted to make sure you weren’t holding out on me.”

“Never.” She winks and keeps going with her story. “So like I was saying, we’ve been doing the deed. A lot. He keeps asking to put it in my butt.” Thank God I’m not drinking anything, because I definitely would have spit it all over my living room.

My eyes widen in shock and disbelief. “I can’t believe you just said that. Geez, Layla, don’t you have a filter?”

“What?” she shrugs. “That’s what you love about me.”

“True. Continue.” I wave my hand, gesturing for her to keep talking as I try to mentally prepare for whatever she’s about to tell me.

“Anyway, so I keep telling him no. I’m up for adventure and trying new things, but I’m not down with putting it in my butt.” She shakes her head to emphasize her point. “That’s an exit only hole for me. But I started to feel bad because he seems to really want it, so I tried to meet him in the middle and compromise.”

“Let me guess, you let him put in just the tip.”

“No!” She smacks me on the leg like the suggestion offends her. “I went to the sex store and bought a butt plug.” Her tone is so casual, like people talk about butt plugs every day. I, on the other hand, am completely out of my comfort zone and would really rather not talk about this.

“This is totally TMI!” Throwing my left hand over my eyes I shake my head at her.

“Oh, relax, it’s a small one.” Waving a hand at me, she dismisses my discomfort. “I brought it to David’s and told him I wanted to use it. Of course, he was down. This sucker is lubed up like you wouldn’t believe, and I’m looking at it like yep, that’s going to go in easy. Nope, not at all. That shit hurts! I was tense and it was burning a little, so I switched positions and got on my hands and knees.”

Oh God, please make her stop. A shudder rolls over me as I fear that I’ll never be able to look at my friend the same way again. Unfortunately, she’s completely oblivious and keeps going.

“David is helping me slide it in and I’m trying my best to relax and not tense up. He popped that thing in and I reared up and said, ‘Oh my God, I think I shit!’”

I lose it. Unable to control myself, I laugh until I’m clutching my stomach in agony. It isn’t until I feel the wetness roll down my cheek that I realize I’m crying. Layla joins in and can barely get through the rest of her story.

“I turned around, fully expecting a mess to be on my sheets, luckily it was all good. But that’s what it feels like. Like you just took a shit. It’s horrible. The whole time I felt like I was prairie dogging and I couldn’t wait for him to finish,” she says through her laughter. My abs feel like I’ve done a million crunches, my cheeks hurt from smiling so hard, and I’m pretty sure I’m out of tears by the time we stop laughing.

The silence settles over us once we’ve managed to catch our breaths. “Thank you.” I look at her and give her a small smile.

“Anytime.”

For the last month, I’ve been wondering if I’m going to be okay. People don’t realize the affect words can have on others. You can’t unhear the things that are said, and you can only ignore so much before you start believing it. It’s amazing how a person can string together a group of syllables to form words. Those words form sentences. And those sentences have the ability to completely tear a person down.

Words.

The most powerful weapon out there.

Will I ever truly heal from the damage done to me as a child, emotionally and mentally? The verdict is still out on that one, but Layla just showed me that there’s still hope. I didn’t realize how much I needed that laugh. It was therapeutic in a way, giving me a huge release of emotion that didn’t involve crying or lashing out in anger. And it feels good.

For the first time in a month, I can say that in this moment, I feel good.

One whole fucking month has gone by and nothing. Not a damn word. I can’t say that I’m surprised though. I wouldn’t talk to me either if I were in her shoes. Doesn’t make it suck any less.

My mom won’t give me any information, saying she doesn’t want to get involved, and her friend Layla is like a steel vault. So all I can do is go over there each morning, leave a flower and a note, and hope she reaches out to me one day. I am persistent, if nothing else, and I refuse to give up on us. It’s killing me not knowing if she’s okay and thinking that she hates me. I’d give anything just to hold her, smell her citrusy hair, kiss her soft lips, and hear her sweet voice.

“Is there any way you can convince Valerie to tell Autumn she was lying?” Elliot asks. We’re sitting at Dale’s having a few beers and a bite to eat.

“There’s no way in hell she’d do that. You know the kind of person she is. She wants me as miserable as fucking possible.” Grabbing a couple fries, I drag them through some ketchup before forcing them in my mouth. My appetite has been off for a while now and I usually have to choke down food. After everything with Autumn, I had told Elliot about the side of Valerie I had no idea existed. I thought he’d be more shocked by the stuff she did in high school, but apparently I’m the only one late to this party. He knew what a bitch she was even back then, and it still amazes me that I was completely fucking clueless.

“That’s true. I don’t know what to tell you then, man. Maybe just wait it out and see if Autumn comes around.” Picking up the beer, he brings it to his lips and takes a swig. At this rate, I’ll be waiting forever. There’s no way in hell she’s going to talk to me if she thinks I’m the cause of her past heartache.

“I’ve got to do something. Each day I’m away from her is killing me. I feel her slipping right through my fingers the more time that goes by.”

“I wish I could give you more advice, but I’ve got nothing. Good luck with that, man.” He slaps me on the back a few times and we finish off our beers before heading home.

***

It’s three o’clock in the morning and I can’t sleep. I’ve spent an endless amount of time staring up at the ceiling trying to decide how I’m going to win Autumn back. I know the first step is getting her to listen to me, but I know that’s easier said than done. She’ll run the other way as soon as she sees me coming, that I’m sure of.

Suddenly, it’s like a light bulb goes off above my head. Even if I had the opportunity to talk to her, there’s no guarantee that she’ll believe me. There might be a lingering doubt in the back of her mind forever. So maybe she doesn’t need to hear it from me, but straight from the source of this whole problem.

Valerie. Fucking. Lane.

Elliot had mentioned this but I quickly dismissed it. There’s no way in hell Val would do that out of the kindness of her heart. But what if I gave her something she’s been wanting in return for fixing this fucked up situation she put me in?

Me: We need 2 talk meet me @ 8. Coffee shop.

I’m not expecting a response right away since it’s three in the morning, so I’m surprised when my phone buzzes a few minutes later.