Beyond Eighteen (3 page)

“He has already forgiven you,” she said,
focused on packing.

“But what if he finds later that he
can’t?”

“But he did.”

“But what if—”

“Wilson, stop it! Don’t you see what you
have? Just stop messing it up and be okay with what you have right
now. Max wants you to go home with him. He wants
you,
home,
with him,” Joanie steamed as she zipped her suitcase. I can always
tell when she reaches a point of frustration with me; she tends to
get short and her gestures become really exaggerated. I didn’t say
another word, just finished packing.

“I’m sorry. I know you’re scared, Wilson.
But Max loves you. I see it every time he looks at you. Even when
he got in his car and drove away, something inside told me he
wouldn’t be gone long. I mean, don’t forget this is the guy who
just gave up his career to be with you,” Joanie said as she heaved
her suitcase off the bed.

My throat went dry and my heart thumped in
my chest. It really hadn’t hit me that Max wouldn’t be returning to
Wesley; that when I went back, he wouldn’t be my government teacher
any more. I would return to his room with someone else taking his
place, writing words that he was supposed to scribble across the
whiteboards; words that I will inevitably have to erase. My heart
sunk. It was like I’d gotten a hole in my favorite pair of shoes.
Suddenly what used to be the thorn in our relationship had become
the missing piece to our puzzle.

He wouldn’t be the comfort I’d look forward
to in the middle of my day. I wouldn’t have the moments of stolen
glances and light brushes on my skin as he walked by my desk. Even
though I knew it had to be that way, I could feel myself aching for
what was left behind in a blink of an eye.

“Seems strange that he won’t be at Wesley,”
I said as I, too, pulled my suitcase off the bed and dropped it to
the ground.

“Yeah, I guess so. At least you won’t have
to deal with the pressure of getting caught,” Joanie snickered.

I nodded my head, not really understanding
where my feelings of loss were coming from. I was getting what I
wanted, and yet I felt a wave of sadness break over me.

“You got everything?” Joanie asked as she
tugged at the handle of her rolling suitcase.

I looked around, nodding my head. “Yeah,
looks that way,” I answered in a lulled tone as I shuffled toward
the bedroom door.

Joanie noticed and stopped walking.

“What do you want? Tell me now. I’ll back
you up, but you gotta tell me what you want.” Joanie coached as she
clutched my forearms and stared into my eyes until I wiggled and
dropped my sight to the floor.

I guess she could tell I was struggling. But
when you ooze your struggles out of every pore in your body, people
are liable to take notice.

“I don’t know, J, maybe it’s the fact that,
less than several hours ago, I told Max that I kissed Nick while he
buried his father. And as all of that was bouncing around in my
head, you reminded me that he gave up his career for me. I really
don’t want him to hate me for ruining his life. So yeah, I have
just a couple of things on my mind…that’s all.”

I struggled not to lose it. I didn’t want to
cry. All I wanted to do was spew out all the poison that was
filling my head. And poor Joanie seemed to be the closest person
who was available to work all of my crap out on.

“Oh, Wilson, stop whining about what you
don’t have or what you did or didn’t do and look at the second
chance you have with the most amazing guy you’ve ever met,” Joanie
huffed.

I didn’t say anything. Sometimes in life
things decide to show up and make changes. Today was one of those
days. I grabbed the handle on my suitcase and started for the
door.

“Sorry,” Joanie mumbled.

“Don’t worry about it, Joanie. I just want
to get back to who I was before all this shit came down. I just
want to go back to my life,” I said, feeling steamy tears starting
to roll down my cheeks.

I flung the door open and huffed out of the
room with my head down. Unfortunately, I didn’t see where I was
going and ran into Nick. He wrapped his arms around me, trying to
make sure I didn’t bounce back off of him. As I looked up at him he
looked hurried and tired. Dark circles had crept under his eyes in
the few hours since I last saw him. He looked like he hadn’t slept
in days. With his hands firm and hot against my back, I inhaled his
Aspen scent that once made me want him but now only made me sick to
my stomach.

“Whoa, Wilson. You okay?” he asked as he
leaned away from me searching for my eyes. He dragged his hands up
my back and around my shoulders.

I couldn’t say anything, I was shocked that
he was even here. I thought he’d left. I nodded and tried to pull
away from him. He placed his hands on either side of my face.

Our eyes met and I could see how shattered I
had left him. Everything that made him desirable dissolved when he
looked at me. All that was left was a moment that nobody could take
away from him; even if it had just been a spark of weakness on my
part.

“Hey Wil, we’d better get downstairs. Nick…”
I heard Joanie say from behind me as I felt her hand clutch my
arm.

Nick smiled at me before acknowledging
Joanie.

“Here, let me at least take your bag
downstairs for you,” Nick said to me as his hand slid over mine. I
pulled away and he snatched my suitcase.

I heard Max’s voice fill the hall with, “I
got that.” He was marching from Cindy’s room, his face wrought with
determination and a touch of disgust.

I felt every inch of my skin tingle as my
heart fell into the pit of my stomach.
God, please don’t let
them get into a fight here. I just wanna go.

Max reached out and claimed the suitcase
from Nick. They both stood across from each other, filled with
testosterone. A silent moment of tension built between them, their
arms stiff and widened from their sides. Both inflated their chests
to make the point they were not going to be the one to yield. I
couldn’t stop the trepidation from pummeling me. Guilt rippled
throughout my entire body, settling right where my shoulders meet
my neck. Max’s jaw tensed and his breathing sped up as they stared
each other down.

“Wilson, I’ll meet you and Joanie at the
car,” Max snarled. He didn’t take his eyes off Nick. It wasn’t
until I didn’t move quickly enough that he turned toward me.
Resentment blanketed his face and it paralyzed me. Joanie pulled on
my arm, dragging me down the stairs and out the front door.

The chilling Aspen air ripped and snapped
across my face, pulling me out of the trauma of watching Max and
Nick exchange those death-filled stares. I was sure they were
eventually going to escalate into fisticuffs.

“Wilson, the last thing we need is to be
there if they explode into a fight,” Joanie lectured me. I wanted
to answer her, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t figure out what was
stopping me from running back into the cabin and throwing myself
between them. I could visualize the whole dramatic moment in my
head: Max swinging at Nick, then Nick blocking his punch and
grappling him to the floor. Tumbling back and forth, struggling to
make fist-to-face contact, both fighting for me. Pride or fear? It
would be hard to tell.

Anxiously, I licked my lips before catching
them between my teeth. The freezing moisture clung to the corners
of my mouth. I wished I had some Chap Stick to relieve the sting of
mistakenly wetting my lips in the Aspen chill. I wished I hadn’t
drunk those gallons of Bacardi before I kissed Nick. Hell, I wish I
never
kissed
him. But like my grandpa used to say, “If
wishes were fishes, we’d all have a fish fry.” Don’t ask me what it
means, I couldn’t tell you. All I know is it always seems to flash
in my mind when I regret making stupid choices. God, I miss my
grandpa. He always seemed to have ways of making me feel better,
even when what he said didn’t make sense.

“Great, how in the hell are we all going to
fit into that car?” Joanie pondered as she broke through my reverie
of all the sequestered memories of my grandpa. She was swaying back
and forth, trying to keep herself moving so she wouldn’t freeze
over. My eyes dropped to Max’s two-seater BMW Z4.

“I don’t know,” I mumbled as I paced back
and forth next to the car. I knew how uncomfortable it was trying
to make out in that car, so I had no idea how the three of us were
going to fit. But to be truthful, I didn’t care. Max was still
upstairs with Nick and I wasn’t the least bit okay with the idea
that they could, at that very moment, be trying to kill each
other.

I walked around to the driver’s side of the
car; my breath clouded my vision, and every part of my body that
protruded past my torso was hammered with below-zero temperatures.
I should have known when I pulled on the door handle it was going
to be locked.
Great…just my luck. Max is upstairs with Nick,
doing God knows what to hurt him, and I can’t keep the thought of
going back in there from swirling in my head.

~ Max ~

At what point am I going
to either kick Nick’s ass or walk away?
I
had every reason to beat the shit out of him. I could feel the rage
vibrating in my chest. I’d reached a point of saturation with
everything that had occurred in the last couple of days. I needed
him to fucking bleed, pay for taking advantage of my girlfriend in
a moment of weakness. The muscles in my arms started to restrict,
my hands began to twitch, and every message they received from my
brain was pure anger. Right as I felt my body lean off kilter and I
was going to either walk away or punch him, Nick took a step back
away from me.

His movement was enough to break the rage
that entranced me. But I still wanted to rip his face off and ask
questions later.

“
I’m standing here asking
myself why I haven’t kicked your ass yet,” I said in a seething
growl.

Nick just stood there, the unspoken words I
waited to tumble from his mouth never showing up.

“
You never brought her to
the funeral today. You took advantage of her. She was hurting,
expecting you to be a friend and instead—”

“
I
was
her friend. I’m still her
friend,” Nick spouted back.

“
No you’re not. You stay
the hell away from her. You hear me?” I snarled as I moved closer
to him, my finger pointed straight at his chest.

“
What are you gonna do?
Kick my ass? Go ahead, I’d like to see you try,” Nick roared as he
threw his hands in the air. “If Wilson wants me or needs me, I’ll
be there for her,” he continued as he gained confidence with his
words and tapped his hand flat against his chest.

Is this asshole for real? Doesn’t he see
that he’s already lost? That I have the girl?

“
You’re not worth it,” I
spat as I seized Wilson’s suitcase and walked toward the stairs.
That’s when I felt his arms catch and lock around my neck. I
stumbled. Wilson’s suitcase jetted forward and fell down the
stairway. I managed to thrust my elbow into Nick’s gut before he
fell on top of me. His knee pressed harshly into my back.
H
is forearm tightened
around my throat and he pulled up before dropping his face next to
my ear. I reached back as far as I could but couldn’t get a good
grip around his neck to get him off me as we teetered on the top
step of the stair case.

“
Fuck you, Max. Yeah I
kissed her, and it was really good. She wanted me so bad. I pushed
her up against the refrigerator and I could feel her heat against
my chest. She liked it, like she couldn’t get enough of me. She
tasted so fucking good. If Cindy didn’t walk in, I bet she would
have let me take her right there in the kitchen.” Nick’s voice was
raspy and low.

His words echoed in my head, something in my
mind snapped, and before I knew it I had him flipped over. I was
sitting on his chest with his arms pinned under my knees and my
fists caved into his face. I was beating the shit out of him. It
was as if every fucked-up moment surged through my fists and I had
to make him to pay for ruining my life.

“
Max! Stop it.” I heard
someone scream. It was Cindy. She ran over shouting “Get off of
him! Oh my God, I think you killed him!”

Suddenly the sound of the
room tuned back in and I heard Nick moaning. I looked down at him.
Blood was coming out of everywhere and my hands were covered in it.
I felt my fingers burn deep in the joints as I opened and closed
them. I could barely rotate my wrists; they were tight from the
compression of my fist against his face.
What in the hell did I just do?

I got up off Nick and stood over him. Cindy
dropped next to him and cradled his head in her hands. It was a
side of her I don’t think anyone has ever seen. The strong, pungent
smell of metal from his blood mixed with my adrenalin and suddenly
my stomach churned and I felt the urge to yak.

I looked at Nick’s face still gushing blood
from his nose and a cut above his eye and knew I just had to get
out of there. I glanced at Cindy without apology before I turned
and went downstairs. I was still in shock that I could even punch
someone so viciously without any desire to stop.

Wilson’s suitcase was
lying on the floor. I scooped up the handle and noticed Nick’s
blood, still covering my hands, transferring from my grip. The last
thing I’d want to do was scare Wilson, so I headed to the bathroom
just past the kitchen and washed my hands. The cool water stung
like a son of a bitch in the cuts and scrapes on my knuckles until
my skin began to numb from the chill of the water. I watched the
blood—Nick’s blood—mix with the soap suds, coloring them a pale red
as splashes of water imbued with blood tinted the white porcelain
sink. It seemed like it took gallons of water and forever to get
the blood off my hands. I splashed cold, refreshing water across my
face, hoping to relieve the fire that seemed to scorch my skin.
Instead, the water trailing down stung my neck. I examined myself
in the mirror. My neck was covered in red marks from Nick trying to
choke me out. I pulled on the collar of my jacket, wrapping it
around my neck to hide the marks as best I could.
Shit, how in the hell did I get a bloody
nose?
I grabbed a clump of toilet paper
and got it to stop bleeding.