Take My Hand (16 page)

“Don’t feel uncomfortable when you’re with
me,” I said because I knew she did and that’s why she was trying to make light
of the situation. “No good can come of you keeping it all hidden inside.
Believe me if you let it fester, eventually it will start controlling you.” I knew
this only too well. The only difference is
I
deserve to feel guilty for the pain I’ve caused. “Know that you can talk to
me whenever you need to. Or even if you just
want
to. I’ll be here for you, doll.”

Another tear bled from her eye and I caught
it with my finger before it had chance to reach her flushed cheek. That was the
moment everything changed. The moment my whole world started to spin on its
axis. The moment everything I’d strived to keep locked away started battling
its way to the surface, threating to explode at any moment – threatening
to ruin this wonderful friendship I’d become reliant on.

While I was wiping her tear away Emily
grabbed my hand and flattened my palm against her warm cheek. She closed her
eyes, tilted her nose towards my hand and inhaled deeply, purposely. Her breath
hitched and her body began to tremble ever so slightly – so subtle you
probably wouldn’t even notice unless you were feeling it too.

Peeling her eyes open slowly she
tentatively leaned into me and positioned her beautiful face so close to mine I
could feel her every breath wrap around my skin like a comforter. I knew what
was coming. I
wanted
it to come. But
I couldn’t let it.

“No, doll,” I sighed, pushing her away as
gently as I could yet using every ounce of strength my body held.

“Oh,” she mumbled nervously, setting her
cheeks alight. She chewed on her bottom lip – the one I would’ve given
anything
to be able to chew on right now
– and stared down at her hands which she was now knotting together on top
of her knees. “Sorry, I…” she trailed off.

The rejection swamping those entrancing
eyes of hers caused my heart to swell painfully, choking me. She was embarrassed
– but not in the cute way I adore. She thought she’d made a fool of
herself. She thought I didn’t want her.

She had no fucking idea.

I was leaning in towards her before I could
even comprehend what I was doing. I took her soft face in my hands and moved in
so our noses were almost touching.

“Don’t think I don’t want to kiss you,
doll. Don’t think you’re not the most beautiful fucking girl I’ve ever seen.
Don’t think I’m not feeling what I
know
you’re
feeling right now… because I am,” I told her. A confused look swept over her
face which melted into a sigh – almost like she thought I was pacifying
her. “But I
can’t
kiss you. Because
if I kiss you, I’ll want to fuck you. And if I fuck you, I’ll want to keep you.
And that just can’t happen.”

As a more intense look of bewilderment
invaded her eyes I found myself praying to a god I don’t even believe in to
give me a sign that I
could
do this.
That I could have her, take care of her,
love
her… without destroying her.

He didn’t answer.

“I should get going,” she practically
whispered, teasing herself away from me.

Fuck. She felt rejected and embarrassed.
I’d hurt her already and I hadn’t even kissed her.

“Don’t do this, Emily,” I pleaded, taking
her hand in mine and squeezing it tightly. “Don’t let this ruin what we have
here. Don’t let
me
ruin what we have
here. You’re my best friend. I love spending time with you and I don’t want to
lose that,” I admitted but it did nothing to dull the offense in her eyes. “I
wish I could explain why I can’t do this with you. I wish you could see that
I’m doing it to protect you.”

“Protect me?” she asked - for the first
time sounding altogether pissed at me. “Protect me from what, Dex?” I let out a
frustrated groan and pinched the bridge of my nose between my tense fingers.

“From me. I’m protecting you from
me,
” I confessed solemnly. She sighed,
exasperated.

“
Why?
I feel things when I’m around you that I can’t switch off – I’ve
tried, believe me. If you really do feel those things too then why punish us by
refusing to see what happens?”

“I’m not punishing you.” I’m punishing
myself
. “You don’t understand.” Holy
fuck what the hell was that? For a second I could’ve sworn I felt a tear on my
face and I rubbed it away. Sweat. That’s what it was. I was nervous. Being
nervous makes you sweat.

Yeah, I definitely hadn’t turned into a
giant fucking pussy.

Honest.

Fine. Don’t believe me then.

“What don’t I understand? I know about your
past and I don’t care. I’m not some wishy washy bimbo who doesn’t understand
what she’s getting involved with you know,” she snapped.

“You only know what I’ve told you,” I
retorted and regretted it immediately. She shrank back. Her face drained of color
and she looked… winded? Shocked? Hurt yet again?

“So, tell me,” she muttered apprehensively.

“I can’t,” I choked out – that damn
sweat leaking from my eyes again. Guess I was more nervous than I thought.

“Even after the way I’ve opened up to you
tonight?” she barked. “After the way I
stayed
with you last night even after you tried to make a show of me in front of
those cheap sluts? Even though I’m offering myself to you on a FUCKING platter
when I’ve spent my
whole
life shying
away from people. Have you any idea how hard that was for me?”

“I can’t,” I repeated.

I couldn’t look her in the eye. I couldn’t
watch her expression as I destroyed her too. In my peripheral vision I saw her
bend to the floor to grab her purse then I felt her get up from the couch.

“Goodbye, Dexter,” was the last thing she
said to me in what would probably be forever. When the slam of the door came I
threw myself backwards onto the uncomfortable couch and rammed my fists into
the back cushions a few times before throwing my quivering hands over my face.

Then that damn sweat started pouring
rapidly down my stupid fucking face and I had to wrestle with every damn muscle
in my body not to reach for the half-empty bottle of Jack I knew was hiding
under my sink.

Emily

Three
tortuously long weeks have passed since I laid myself out there for
Dexter. Three weeks since I made an almighty fool of myself and three weeks
since I ruined the best thing that’d ever happened to me.

I haven’t heard from him since. He
hasn’t text or called and he hasn’t shown up for Uni once – leaving
me
to put together
our
assignment which thanks to him I’m sure we’ll fail. I’m
assuming he’s spoken to his tutors about his absence because I’ve not been
asked if I know where he is. I’ve heard from Jared that he’s been in work as
scheduled and I’m sure he’s filled Rachel in too because she asks me no less
than twice an hour what happened between us that night. The only answer I feel
able to offer is ‘I don’t know’. Because I don’t. And I have to face the fact
that I probably never will.

I keep replaying the last words he
muttered before falling asleep after his ‘private party’. ‘I’m losing her’, he
said. I’ve tried numerous times to find similar sounding words – words
that I could’ve mistaken for the ones I
thought
I heard. But there were none. Because those
were
his words. I chose not to mention it the day after. He was
clearly struggling with something and me being foolish and gullible, I thought
we had all the time in the world to get to that conversation.

I need to let it go because I’m
tormenting myself. I’ve convinced myself countless times that whoever he was
losing was the reason why he wouldn’t kiss me, and then
un
convinced myself just as many. I
hate
what I’ve become lately – a whiny, wallowing mess. No
better than the clingy, annoying girls in some of the books on my Kindle
– the ones who I
loathe
reading
about.

As if the last three weeks weren’t
painful enough, the nightmares I’d almost forgotten about have returned with a
vengeance. They started the night after Dexter took me to the beach and it’s
made me afraid to go to sleep because I’ve started to see Livvie’s lifeless
eyes staring back at me before I’ve even drifted off. So I spend most nights
curled up on the couch with a strong black coffee in one hand and my Kindle in
the other.

But even Travis Maddox can’t stop the
nightmares from coming.

Eventually the urge to sleep gives in
against my will and my baby sister is right there. Her fine, blonde, saturated
curls are clinging to her petrified face every time her little head bobs above
the water. She’s screaming. She’s pleading with me. She’s begging me not to let
her die.

But I do.

I always do.

Every night I watch her die all over
again. I have to see her face turn white. I have to feel how cold her tiny body
gets as her eyes stop focusing on me. I have to sit on the grass by the pond
and listen to my mum yell at me for being so selfish and stupid.

The nightmares stopped when I was
thirteen – I don’t know why, and I don’t know why they’re back now. Chris
is the only person who knew about them while I was growing up – or at
least he was the only one who acknowledged them. Therefore when my first one in
six years left me shaking and screaming and clinging to my bed while he was
staying with us, he was by my side immediately. He stayed an extra couple of
nights than he planned to, and he backed up my story to Rachel that I couldn’t
remember what it was about. But of course he’s got his own life to lead and so
he had to leave eventually. Now I’m left alone with the nightmares and a
concerned Rachel who thinks I need to see a doctor.

“Knock knock!” Jared yelled when he
threw open the door to our flat unexpectedly.

“Bloody hell, Jared it’s eight thirty in
the morning! What are you doing here?” I barked at him, scared to my wits end.
“And how did you get in?” He jangled a heart-shaped keyring with a solitary key
hanging from it.

“Rachel gave it me for emergencies.” She
did
what?
 
Why? She
must
have been drunk. I planned to have her over that later.

“And scaring the crap out of me early in
the morning is an emergency?”

“No. But feeding you is an emergency.
You’ve lost weight,” he noted, holding two crammed McDonald’s bags in the air.
“It’s making you ugly.” Rolling my eyes and laughing softly I stood up and took
a bag from him. “And nothing helps you put on weight like a Double Sausage
& Egg McMuffin with deep fried hash browns.”

 
Jared winked at me and I giggled again.
The second I took the bag from him the smell of grease danced up my nose and my
stomach growled for the first time in three weeks.

“Hey, Rach, get your arse out here!”
Jared hollered in the direction of the bedrooms. “I come bearing food!”

A few minutes later Rachel wheeled in
from the short hallway. The moment she clapped her eyes on the brown paper bags
she started rubbing her hands together.

“There better be pancakes and sausage in
there with my name on it,” she said in the obnoxious tone only Rachel could get
away with.

“Madame,” Jared replied, standing up
with her polystyrene tray and passing it to her, while rolling his other arm like
a waiter. She flipped the lid eagerly and then looked at Jared like she wanted
to squish him like an insect.

“There’s no maple syrup in here. You
can’t have pancakes without maple syrup. It’s the law,” she clipped.

“NOBODY MOVE!” Jared, blasted like there
was a real emergency, scaring the life out of me for the second time this
morning. “No need to panic, everybody stay calm!” he yelled as if he was
addressing a crowd. Then he plucked the shoulder of his white shirt and spoke
into it like he had a radio device attached to it. “We have a code red
situation over here, sir. Rachel Mason has got
no
maple syrup. I repeat,
no
maple
syrup.” Rachel glowered at him, giving him the evil eye. “EVERYBODY DOWN! SHE’S
GONNA BLOOOOOOOW!”

“You’re such a twat, Jared
Mattheson,” Rachel said before setting her lips into a tight line.
Though I could tell by the strain her cheeks were under she was trying
desperately hard not to laugh.

“You’re such a fuckin’ drama queen,” Jared
teased her. “Here,” he added, pulling a tiny carton of maple syrup from his
pocket and tossing it Rachel’s way. She caught it effortlessly. I have always
wondered if being unable to use her legs has given Rachel some kind of
superhuman powers in her arms, because believe me that girl could beat any big
burly bloke in an arm wrestle.

Her lips morphed from a tight line to a tight
smile and then I saw a look being exchanged between them that I’d never noticed
before. It was Rachel’s ‘I’d so do him’ look, followed by Jared’s proud ‘you’d
so do me look’. I’d seen the look in question on both of them numerous times
– but never once aimed at each other.

Had I missed some major life event unfold
during my three weeks of wallowing? Or was I just so tired I was imagining
things?

**********

After screwing up the breakfast wrappers I
chucked them in the bin and then showered and changed for Uni. My chest felt
tight the whole time. I don’t like going to Uni anymore – it’s… lonely.

“You not coming?” I asked Rachel when I
noticed she was making no attempt to move. I on the other hand, was flitting
around like a blue-arsed fly trying to find my car keys. There was still over
an hour till my first class, but you can
never
set off too early in London. I could’ve probably set off last night and
still been twenty minutes late today.

“My creative practices class was cancelled so
I’m not leaving for another couple of hours.”

“Well just give me a bell and I’ll come and
get you,” I offered. I don’t like Rachel taking public transport alone. And
yes, that’s completely prejudice of me, but I can’t help it. I worry about her.

“No you won’t. You’ve got enough on your
plate today. You memorised all the Frappuccino’s yet?”

“Damn,” I sighed. Did I mention I crossed off
Number 9 a few days ago? Well, I did.

·
Find a job

“I’ll do it this afternoon.” I was starting
my first shift at Starbucks tonight and the woman who interviewed, and
subsequently offered me the job, suggested it would be in my best interest to
learn the menu before I started. I’ve looked over it a few times but nothing
seems to stick. It’s like my mind is too full and it won’t even consider
processing any extra information.

Plus, there’s got to be like fifty million
kinds of Frappuccino on there – not to mention everything else they sell.
Seriously, whatever happened to plain old white with two sugars?

“I’ll run the iron over your uniform while
you’re out,” Rachel said.

“You don’t have to do that. I’ll have plenty
of time when I get back.”

“I want to. I’m excited for you! It’s
Starbucks, Ho! We
love
Starbucks.”
Yeah, we do. In fact I’ve probably had more Starbucks in my life than I’ve had
hot dinners so I bet you’re wondering as much as I am why I don’t know the
bloody menu off by heart yet.

“You’re the best, Rach. Let me know if you
change your mind about that lift.”

“For fuck’s sake, you still here?” she
teased.

“I’m going, I’m going.” Then I slung my bag
over my shoulder and made my way to the car.

**********

I knew Dexter wouldn’t be in class
before I even set off this morning, so why did my heart sink all over again
when I wandered over to his empty seat and sat down beside it? After mentally
slapping myself across the face I set my bag down on the desk and took out my
books. Glancing at the clock I noticed I was early for the first time ever and
still had twenty minutes to kill before the tutor arrived.

I looked around and felt a pang of
jealousy watching everyone else chatting along to the people sitting next to
them. A few weeks ago that’s what I would’ve been doing. Now I had no choice
but to sit here looking like ginger-no-mates.

“Emily right?” A girl’s voice startled
me and I spun myself around to see where it was coming from. I was facing a
blonde girl, sitting on the desk behind me and twiddling her ponytail around
her perfectly manicured fingers.

I nodded.

“You’re friends with Dexter aren’t you?”
she asked eagerly.

“Not really,” I shrugged, my heart
stuttering.

Not at all in fact
.

“Well do you have his number? It’s just
we spent the most
amazing
night
together on Saturday and I left my number with him but I’m thinking I must’ve
scribbled an extra digit or something because he hasn’t called.”

I think I stopped breathing. No, I
definitely
stopped breathing. The blood
drained from my face so quickly I started to feel a little faint.

“You okay? You look kinda green,” Miss
Blonde said, backing away slightly as if she was worried I was going to spew
all over her designer dress.

“Um, no. I erm, I think I’m coming down
with something.” I stood up from my chair, the legs screeching against the
highly-polished floor, and prepared to run faster than I’d ever ran in my life.
But not before scrolling through my contacts. “Here,” I said, holding up my
phone in front of her with Dexter’s details illuminated on the screen. Her eyes
lit up like fairy lights and she copied it down quickly. If
she’s
the kind of girl Dexter wants, who
am I to stand in his way?

“Thanks,” she beamed, tapping her feet
excitedly against the floor.

I was already running before I could
reply.

**********

How I made it home without driving
straight into a tree I don’t know. Not that there are many trees in the centre
of London but you get my drift. My eyes were swollen and cloudy, but I wouldn’t
let myself cry. Not over
him.
Not
over a guy I clearly meant jack shit to.

See what he’s done to me? I never used
to swear before Dexter but now I feel that bloody frustrated all the time it
just keeps toppling out of my mouth.

“Why are you here?” Rachel asked,
clutching her hand to her chest. “I think I just shit my knickers!”

“I live here,” I deadpanned, heading
straight for my bedroom.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa there, missy.” She
grabbed my arm as I tried to pass her. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” I tried to lie. But then I
made the mistake of making eye-contact with her and every millilitre of water
my body contained came spilling out through my eyes with excessive force.

“Hey there, girly. Talk to me.” Rachel
steered herself towards the couch one-handed, never letting go of me with the
other. I had no choice but to follow and I plopped myself down on the couch and
snorted (I was really
ugly
crying
now) in my tears. Using her superhuman arms to hoist herself from the chair,
Rachel sat beside me and threw both arms around my shoulders.