Come to Me Quietly (Closer to You) (10 page)

When we finished, I gathered our plates to do the dishes. Christopher grabbed them a couple of beers. I passed. The two of them moved to the couch, and Christopher flipped on the TV and turned it to a game.

Once I finished the dishes, I went into my room, picked out a book, and retreated outside to the balcony. I settled onto a chair. The small lamp mounted to the wall shed muted light on the words splayed across the pages. Tonight it seemed impossible to focus on them. Instead I watched the lightning touching down in the distance, the gathering of cumulus clouds as they rose high and ominous in the night sky, illuminated in the bright flashes of light. Nothing could compare in beauty to a desert storm.

I got lost in it.

I jumped when the balcony door slid open. My face flashed up to meet Jared’s smiling one.

“What are you doing out here all by yourself?” he asked as he stepped out onto the balcony.

“Just relaxing.” I drew my feet up onto the chair and hugged my knees to my chest. “It’s so beautiful out here.”

Jared slid down against the wall the way he always did, his knees bent and his feet flat on the concrete. He dipped his head to the side as he lit a cigarette. Smoke curled up around his face, casting him in a veiled halo. He inhaled deeply as all the weight seemed to drop from his shoulders. He exhaled toward the sky, spoke quietly. “This was always my favorite time of year.”

“It’s always been mine, too.” I hugged myself a little tighter. “I love that I can feel the monsoon coming… building up.”

A comfortable silence coiled us together, as if we both were lost in the memories of the summers we’d shared long ago. They’d been so easy and good.

“Do you remember that lightning storm we got stuck in?” he asked before he took another drag, leaning forward to rest his forearms on his knees. “When we were at the tree fort and the storm came really close?”

Mild embarrassment tugged one side of my mouth into a smile. “Yeah.”

Jared’s laughter was warm, a low rumble from the deepest part of his being. “God, you were the cutest fucking kid I ever met. Always trying to act so tough so you could hang out with us. But the second that bolt of lightning struck out in the field, you froze.” He chuckled and smoke filtered from his open mouth as he lifted his face to the night sky.

And I could see it, the bright flash of energy that sizzled through the air when the lightning struck just a hundred or so yards away.

Quietly, Jared continued. “Christopher hightailed it out of there, but no matter what I said, there was no getting you down from that tree fort. God, that was probably the worst place to be in a lightning storm.”

My voice softened as I floated through the ripples of his memory. “You sat with me in that tree for an hour while it poured rain down on us.” Even then, his arms had been warm as he sheltered me from the cold. A comfort. And he’d promised me he’d never leave me behind.

Warmth swam in the pools of his blue eyes. “We were in so much trouble when we finally got home. Your mom was so pissed off at me. Said I should have known better than to keep you out in that weather. Mom busted my ass when your mom sent me home… . I must’ve been grounded for a week… ” He trailed off, and he dropped his head, his fingers twitching in agitation.

I raised my face to meet his when he finally looked back up at me. “And you never told it was me who’d begged you to stay.” I hesitated, drew in a breath, before I said, “You were my best friend, Jared.”

A wistful smile ridged his perfect mouth. Then he shook it off and stamped out his cigarette. “It’s hot out here. I’m going to head inside.”

I nodded away his excuse. Guess that time I’d dipped my toes in too deep.

“Okay,” I mumbled, turning my attention back to the horizon, as Jared climbed to his feet and slipped back inside without a parting word.

An hour passed before I finally gathered my things to go inside. I pulled the slider open to find Jared and Christopher on the couch, watching a game. The room was dark save for the images playing out on the screen. Christopher seemed absorbed while Jared seemed detached.

And I didn’t know what it was, but a surge of bravery flooded me. I took a chance. I passed close by the back of the couch and wove my shaky fingers through Jared’s hair. It was soft. So soft. He trembled beneath my touch. I suppressed the overwhelming need I felt to bury my face in the haven of it, maybe to press my nose to his neck and inhale. To breathe him in. Instead I edged around the couch and said, “I’m going to bed. See you two in the morning.”

Christopher seemed to barely notice me and tossed me an offhanded “Night,” oblivious of whatever was building between Jared and me.

“Good night,” Jared whispered, his eyes trailing my steps, locking on mine when I paused to look back at him from my door. His expression made it clear he was the furthest from oblivious.

It took him an hour, but finally I heard the light tapping that tickled my ears and escalated my pulse before the door cracked open. A sliver of light from the hallway bled inside as Jared stole into my darkened room.

I lay on my bed, waiting.

Chuckling, Jared crossed the room. “Christopher just left. Said he has some girl he promised he’d go see. Don’t think I’m quite interesting enough for him.”

Jared climbed onto the bed beside me. He didn’t hesitate to twist his finger through a lock of my hair as if it belonged there, didn’t hide the heave of contented air he pushed from his lungs. He settled so close to me I was sure he could count the thundering beats of my heart.

“Haven’t you figured that out by now?” Still I whispered. I wasn’t sure why.

Throaty laughter ricocheted against my walls. “Yeah… I might have noticed. What is up with him, anyway? Is he happy?” Jared turned a fraction, blinking toward the ceiling. “It’s like he’s chasing after something and can’t seem to find it.”

“Aren’t we all chasing after something?”

Lines deepened on Jared’s brow, a frown marring his face. “I don’t know, Aly.”

I inched forward. In the small space separating us, I relished the warmth I felt radiating from his body. My hands went to their safe spot, to his T-shirt-clad chest. I was still too fearful to touch the skin I wanted to disappear into.

“I think he’s happy, Jared, but he changed when you were sent away.”

Jared stiffened under me, because for the first time, I
jumped
. I was ready to submerge myself in the dangerous waters that held Jared under. I’d been treading them for too long.

With honesty, I opened my mouth. “I think it was fear… fear of losing someone who was so important to him.” I’d never forget Christopher’s eyes that night, when we’d found ourselves face-to-face in our hall, listening to our mother sobbing in her room. The vibrant green had waned from his eyes as Christopher had lost the last bit of his childhood, his innocence replaced with pain. Haunted. There was no other way to describe it. When I thought of what I saw in his eyes that day, I sometimes wondered what he had seen in mine.

“He ended up breaking up with Samantha about a week later.” Christopher had dated her for a year. I was pretty sure they’d been each other’s firsts. She was devastated, but Christopher had just seemed numb to her pain like he was to everything else. “He started going out all the time,” I slowly continued, knowing I was traversing dangerous ground, “hanging out with random girls. Now I can’t really tell if it’s a habit or a game or if he’s subconsciously guarding himself from something he doesn’t want to feel.”

Jared’s lips spread into a thin line, as if something that had nagged at him had been confirmed.

“It’s all so meaningless to him,” I said quietly, self-consciously fidgeting with Jared’s shirt. “I hate that those girls mean so little to him… that sex means so little to him.” I tipped my face up and captured his gaze. My mouth opened and closed as I struggled with what to say. As much as I didn’t want to know, I couldn’t keep myself from asking. “What about you? Have you ever been in love with anyone?”

Jared tilted his face away as if he didn’t want me to see his confessions waiting there. He wavered before he spoke. “Sex is like fighting for me, Aly. It’s a release, nothing more. I use girls just as shamelessly as Christopher does. Maybe in a different way. I don’t know, but in the end, it’s the same… It means
nothing
.”

I winced. Jealousy was not a pretty emotion. But it hit me hard. I’d grown so accustomed to this place that was ours that it’d become easy to imagine that this was all either of us had ever known… just the quiet of my room and the steady beat of our hearts.

In it, nothing else existed.

But Jared had known so much, so much pain, so much loss.

He’d known girls and what it felt like to be touched.

Was it wrong that I wanted that, too?

Pushing past our boundaries, I let my fingers climb up his chest and over one of his shoulders. Sinewy muscle jumped under my hands, beckoned me forward just as assuredly as they fought to resist my exploration.

I held my breath when I reached the bare skin of his neck. Every inch of my body lit, flames licking through my veins and blazing in my stomach. Shivers coursed over the surface of my skin.

How was it possible that one person could affect me this way?

I glanced up at his face. Turbulent blue eyes stared down at me. In them I felt a range of emotions, a warning, an appeal. Anger and affection. Most of all, I saw fear.

Tentatively, I dropped my gaze and watched as my fingers trailed down over his shoulder and traced the ink on his left arm. This arm was covered in blacks and grays, twisted shapes and faces that screamed his horrors. On the inside of his wrist was scripted
Lest I forget
.

Jared shuddered as if the contact caused him physical pain. But he didn’t pull away, and he released a stuttered breath across my face.

“Were you scared when they sent you away?” The question came so softly I thought perhaps I’d only uttered it in my head.

Still it sucked all the air from the room.

Frozen, Jared remained still, a million emotions spilling from his silence, before he finally spoke. “I was pissed, Aly.” He grunted through the words. “It wasn’t supposed to turn out like that. I thought I’d finally found a way to pay for what I’d done, and I managed to fuck that up, too.”

Chills crawled along the surface of my skin. Jared had just confirmed my greatest fear. All these years I’d tried to convince myself otherwise, that there was no chance Jared would have tried to take his own life. Asked myself,
How could he?
Convinced myself I’d just misunderstood because it seemed impossible to believe.

And to know he’d been angry that he’d failed?

Confusion and hurt and fear saturated my spirit because I couldn’t help worrying he’d try again.

I tried to swallow the lump wedged in the middle of my throat. “Maybe it turned out the way it was really supposed to be.”

Hard laughter rocked from his chest. “Nothing turns out the way it’s supposed to, Aly. And even if it did, I would only ruin it. You need to remember that. I warned you that you’d regret doing this… .” His fingers twisted deeper in my hair and he shifted to palm my neck with the other hand. He squeezed to emphasize our
friendship
, so hard it almost hurt. But it was my heart that hurt.

“How could I regret you?” I brought my hands to his face, held them there, gave in to the smolder singeing my skin. “I missed you, Jared. So much. They sent you away, and I thought I’d never see you again. Do you know how much that hurt?”

But I knew he really could have no idea.

How could he?

“I thought about you every day,” I admitted, burrowing my head farther into the bed, farther into his warmth. We skirted along the edges of an embrace, his hands on my face, mine on his, the expanse between us so great I wasn’t sure we’d ever be able to cross it. “What was it like?” I asked, lifting my face to his.

He paused, his breath palpable in the room. “I don’t know, Aly. It sucked, I guess. People were always telling us what we could and couldn’t do, all the while they were calling it a rehabilitation center. There were some really good guys there, ones who just did some stupid stuff. I always hoped that maybe it did them some good. Most of us there were hopeless, though. It wouldn’t matter what punishment we had, there was no chance of coming up with a different result.”

Hopeless. I blinked, trying to understand, to make sense of the tone in his voice. “You felt you were like that?”

Sadness swelled in the room, a thickness that made my skin crawl with goose bumps.

“They let me out when I turned eighteen, Aly.
Eighteen
.” His voice cracked. “How fucking ridiculous is that? As if I’d paid my dues? As if spending two years of my pathetic existence behind bars would make up for what I’d done?”

Anger rushed from him, these waves of rage that pounded and fought against my spirit. Jared’s body jerked, and I could feel him trying to hold it back, to hold it in. His face contorted as if he were trying to block it all out. “What kind of bullshit is that? She was worth so much more than that.”

“Jared – ”

In a blink, he shot off my bed and onto his feet.

Shocked, I twisted around and scrambled onto my hands and knees as I faced the man standing in the middle of my room. Agitation spun through him, twitching his muscles. My breaths came heavy and strong, mixed with the hostility seeping from Jared’s pores.

Jerking both hands through his hair, he glared down at me, his eyes frantic. “Just don’t, Aly.” He touched his chest with a fisted hand, then dropped it. “Please don’t say something that means
nothing
.” He squeezed his eyes shut. “Please. Not you, too.”

When he opened his eyes, the walls were down, everything bared to me.

Devastation
.

It was the only thing I saw.

My heart twisted, this pain slicing me through to the core, cutting to the place where Jared had been a fantasy in my mind. There I’d imagined he had somehow still been whole and not what I saw now, a mess of the few mangled pieces of himself that now remained in the wake of his ruin.