When Our Worlds Collide (15 page)

And I did exactly that.

At least I was until my phone started to buzz on my night
stand. I’m woken from a deep slumber that I was thoroughly enjoying. I reach
over in a confused haze rubbing the sleep from my eyes. My breath leaves my
lungs as I spark my phone to life. The moment I see the text I instantly regret
not ignoring it. There’s no going back now. I can’t pretend it didn’t happen.

Chapter Twenty-Four

-Graham-

Tonight is even worse than Monday. My father is at it again,
destroying every last inch of this family. They must be in the kitchen. The
sound of his voice echoes down the hall through our front entryway. I attempt
to escape upstairs before he even knows I’m home. He catches me before I can
finish the climb of the first set of stairs. He takes long strides towards me
until he’s standing inches away from my face. I can smell the whiskey on his
breath, his drink of choice. Just the smell alone makes my stomach churn.

“Did you get your curveball down at practice? The last time
I saw you pitching you looked like an amateur. You won’t gain the attention
from scouts that way, son,” he yells slurring most of his words. Slur is
becoming his first language. I manage to hold back a laugh when he calls me
son. Must be a joke because the man in front of me is not my father. He hasn’t
been for a long time. An even bigger joke is him criticizing my pitching. The
last time he was actually at a game was probably last year. Alcohol makes him
delusional.

“I’m not really in the mood right now,” I snap back in
annoyance. I know my attitude will only set him off. After this week I don’t
care. I purposefully look straight into his eyes challenging him.

“Not in the mood? Not in the fucking mood? You know what I’m
not in the mood for…your piss poor attitude.” When he speaks he spits a little
in my face. I tighten the grip on my baseball bag to stop myself from knocking
him out like I always dream of doing.

My mom comes down the hallway with the usual fearful look on
her face. That look of fear seems to be plastered on her face more and more
lately. She grabs ahold of my father’s arm with a determination to stop his
assault. He shoves her against the hallway closet slamming her back into the
bronze door knob. The sound that the connection makes thickens the air. I reach
down to help her from the ground where she is now cowering in the corner. A
look crosses her face. She’s only afraid of what kind of marking his assault
will leave this time. Luckily it’s on her back which will be easier to hide
compared to the other ones.

I anticipate the hit before I actually feel his fist connect
with my ribs. A shooting pain spreads across the plane of my ribcage causing me
to barrel over onto the cold tiled floor. There’s no controlling the verbal
wince I express. It only means that I deserve one more good blow. He’s fucked
up in the head like that.

When the abuse first started I can remember him saying that
if I cried, shed any tears, then I would receive an extra blow. I was eleven. I
was a large eleven year old who couldn’t fight back when everything in me was
screaming at me to do just that. My mother used to always clean me up explain
to me that he didn’t mean it, that it was her fault for him being the way he
is. I believed her. As I got older she warned me that if I retaliated then she
would get the brunt of the punishment. I never did understand why she just
couldn’t leave him or at least tell someone what was happening to us behind
locked doors. It could have saved a lot of hurt, a lot of destruction.

Most people would argue that I should give him what he deserves
but when I look down at my mother leaning against the door I know why that was
never an option for me. I’m strong, much stronger physically than she could
ever hope to be. Taking a hit is worth saving my mother from that type of pain
that he is inflicting on me now.

After a handful more of kicks my father ripped me away from
my mother’s side. Once I was out of the way he grabbed her by the arm. Her face
contorts into a grimace from his strong hold. She’ll need to wear long sleeves
for a week from the pressure. She follows him up the stairs and into their
bedroom without a single word to her son. I try straightening my back as best
as I could. The pain only got worse, but I forced myself up from the ground.
Standing in the hallway I listened to my Mom trying to calm my father down.
He’d pass out into his usual drunken slumber soon. He couldn’t cause any more
harm tonight. I’d never leave her if I knew he would be awake to wreak havoc on
her.

The pain from his assault reminded me why I needed to see
her. She knows me. She sees me.

I sent her a text as I pull out of the driveway.

I need u, Ken. Unlock ur window. C U in 15.

I drove to her house on auto pilot. All I could see was the
look on my father’s face as he threw my mom on the floor as if she was a simple
piece of trash that needed discarding. That’s why I’ve stayed away from
relationships all this time. I never want to be the type of man that my father
is. That’s the type of man that doesn’t deserve the devotion of someone like my
mother.  

I park down the road from her house walking up to her
bedroom window like a true stalker to attempt to right all of my wrongs. There
are a lot of them. I stand in front of her window seeing only a small amount of
light coming from her bedside lamp. I tap lightly on her window seeing her
shadow as she sits up in bed. Slowly, she turns towards the window. Kennedy
wobbles over to open it for me. All I can see is her silhouette.

“Hey,” I whisper through the opening of the window. There’s
a look on her face. She’s confused as to why I’m standing outside her bedroom
window this late at night. There’s a hollow look in her eyes that scares me
most of all. Maybe it’s too late. I’m too late.

“Hi,” Kennedy whispers under her breath. She walks away
leaving the window open. I take it as an invitation to follow her into her
room. She gets back on her bed as I’m closing the window. “What do you want
Graham?” She demands with a harshness covering herself up with her blanket. The
scowl on her face makes me want to crawl back out the window the way I came in.

“I just need to talk to you. I just needed to see you.” I
confess in a whisper standing as far away from her as possible.

“Why are you whispering?” The smirk on her face reaches her
eyes. She tries hard not to laugh, even having to go as far as putting her hand
over her perfect mouth.

“You’re parents…aren’t here are they?” I shake my head in
embarrassment.

“No. They won’t be back until Sunday now,” she explains. I
sit on the bed next to her pulling my hands through my hair and as I do I let
out a low agonizing moan. “What’s wrong?” Kennedy’s voice is full of worry as
she jerks her body around to look at me.

Instinctively, I grab my ribs to try to suppress some of the
pain that radiates through my body. Kennedy leans closer. I can smell the
subtlety of her perfume. She grabs at the bottom of my t-shirt ripping it up
exposing my bruised ribs running her hand over the spot where he had punched.
My breath caught. “I’m fine…really.” Just her touching me causes my breath to
slow and my heart to race. Her skin feels hot against mine. I don’t think I’d
ever get used to that feeling.

“Graham Black, you are not okay. Have you even gotten a
chance to look at this? What happened to you?”

I need to be honest with her. She deserves my honesty. “After
baseball practice I went to Craig’s to play poker until pretty late. When I got
home he was beyond the point of being drunk. He started yelling at me about
baseball, and I kind of got mouthy with him. I guess my mom overheard the
confrontation and tried to come to my rescue, but he pushed her down. He didn’t
hit me until I went to help her up,” I explain everything without thinking
twice about it. The look on Kennedy’s face says it all. She pity’s me, for what
my father has done to me. I don’t want pity from her. I don’t know what I want
from her, but whatever she is willing to give I know now that I’d take it
without question. I’d gladly take something that I knew I never could deserve.

“Okay,” she smiles pulling back the covers on her bed. I
know what she means by the small gesture. I’m beginning to think that Kennedy
doesn’t care about all my faults. When she looks at me she sees someone
different than everyone else as if none of the bullshit matters.

“I haven’t had a chance to shower and I doubt you want me
lying down on your adorable pink sheets,” I tease her trying to lighten the
mood. Uncomfortable laughter fills the room. This will be the second time I
sleep in her bed. Also the second time, I sleep in a girls bed without a
preconceived idea that I’m going to get laid.

“You can take a shower. I put
your
toothbrush in the
drawer and there are towels in the closet in there,” Kennedy explains leaning
back against her pillow. I hate to admit it, much like everything pertaining to
Kennedy, but I find some sort of sick joy in having something to call mine in
her personal space as if I belong near her.

I don’t say anything, but as I get up from her bed I see a
hint of her sweet smile. I start the shower and gather a towel and my
toothbrush. I pull my sweatpants down and attempt to pull my t-shirt up, but
can’t lift my arms without having shooting pain running up and down my side.

“Kennedy, can you come in here?” I yell loud enough to break
the sound of the shower running. She walks in to find me wearing nothing but my
boxer briefs and my t-shirt.

“What are you doing?” she asks trying not to laugh too hard
when she saw how contorted my arm was wrapped up into my t-shirt. The song of
her laughter abruptly stops when her eyes finally rake over my near naked form.
She bites down on her bottom lip forcing herself to look anywhere other than at
me. Her attempt is lost as her eyes linger below my waist. Having her sweet
eyes bulge out of their sockets gives me some sort of sick thrill.

“Umm…can you help get my shirt off?” I can’t stop the grin
that spreads across my face. A soft blush creeps up her neck and onto her
cheeks. 

“Yeah, okay.” Kennedy’s voice is at a whisper.

Kennedy walks over to where I’m standing stopping once we
are chest to chest like she had on Monday morning. This time her eyes are
different. They burn with an intensity that causes both of our breaths to
shallow. Her lips part as she looks up to me through her long eyelashes. I
don’t know what it is about this girl. I’m in a constant state of panic when
she’s around. No girl has ever made me nervous but whenever Kennedy looks at me
I forget my own name.

Kennedy isn’t oozing with sex and low inhibition, but the
way she’s looking at me now is as if she’s asking me to love her in the only
way I know how to. Her eyes are darkening by the second and in this moment I
know that I would do anything she asked of me. Nothing could go back to normal
for us after this.

Kennedy reaches for the bottom hem of my t-shirt. Her
fingers skim across the top of my boxers without losing eye contact with me.
She lifts up my shirt guiding both of my arms out of the holes carefully until
it’s pulled over my head. I manage to hold back the wince. She drops the shirt
behind my back trailing her hands back to my chest, but doesn’t drop them away
as I assume she will. Instead she moves her head to the side to get a better
look at my bruises in the light.

“How bad does it hurt, Graham?” her voice is raspy and damn
sexy the way it rumbled from her throat. “And don’t you dare lie to me because
I saw your face turn up when you moved just then.” She looks up at me with
concern still running her fingers around my bruised ribcage.

“It doesn’t matter. That’s not why I came here,” I explain.

“Then why are you here?”

I clear my throat. “I’m not a nice guy, but when you’re
around I keep finding myself trying to be that person that you described me to
be. I want to be someone that’s worthy of being in your life.” I reach up to
brush a strand of hair behind her ear. That was the most honest thing I’ve ever
said to anyone.

“I thought we were just going to be friends,” she argues.
There’s apprehension in her voice. I know that’s not at all what she wants from
me just like that’s not all I want from her.

“I lied to you. I can’t be your friend. I don’t know how to
be your friend.”

“I…I don’t…” she tries to utter something, but I cut her off
before I can convince myself that I am making a colossal mistake. I grab her by
her waist placing her up onto her bathroom vanity fighting the pain that crosses
through my ribs from the movement. Never losing eye contact with her I weasel
in between her legs to get as close to her as possible. My nose grazes against
hers. I’m delaying kissing her, not being positive if she will want me to close
the small gap separating us. Pushing strands of her hair behind her ear that
always seem to fall loose, she leans into my touch.

Kennedy’s eyes twinkle when she reaches her hand up to brush
against my face where a bruise has nearly healed. “Are you going to kiss me or
not, Graham?” she breathes out with such confidence
. God damn, this girl is
beautiful.

“I’m going to kiss you. You just need to tell me when to
stop because I’m pretty sure that I could kiss a girl like you forever,” I
whisper. I take my time leaning down. My lips hover perfectly over hers with a
gentleness that I wasn’t aware I possessed.

What starts out as sweet and innocent quickly escalates into
strong and passionate. Kennedy kisses me as if it’s her only chance. I run my
hand down her back until it hits the bottom of her shirt right above where her
shorts are lying on her pale skin. Knowing Kennedy’s inexperienced I know I’d
have to stop this before it went much further. My dick is telling me to push on
though. I hear a low soft moan release between our kiss causing me to grow
harder.

Kennedy moves her hand down my back until it reaches the
base of my boxers. This only makes me more aware to how little of fabric is
between us. I don’t even think Kennedy knows what she’s doing when she
playfully runs her finger on the inside of the elastic band. I need to be
closer to her, so I push what little room is between us connecting all of us.
She gasps once she realizes what she has done.