Broken Fairytales (33 page)

I ran my fingers thought his hair and bro
ught my hand to rest on his cheek.
“I don’t want you to go,” I said softly, and he leaned down and kissed me
again
, taking me away from my doubts
and unce
rtainty about what we were doing
and what the consequences
of
my actions
would be.
 

I took his hand and started to lead him out of
the room, and h
e silently followed me upstairs, both of
us
knowing what was going to hap
pen, but not acknowledging it.
The sexual tension that had been bouncing between us since we’d stood next to his motorcycle a few hours earlier hadn’t waned any throughout the night. It was pulsing again as
I led him down the hall, past Keely and Chase’s empty rooms to the open door
to my room.
He walked in, and I automatically locked the door behind me before crossing the room to my iPod player and choosing the ‘shuffle’ option.

I smiled at him and
crossed the room, so I
was standing in front of him.
In that moment, I knew I
was going to sleep with Zack
, and he knew it too
.
I
knew I was throwing away five years with Ben for a guy I hardly knew
, but it was what I sudde
nly wanted more than anything.
I didn’
t
think about the future or consequences or even if Zack would call me the next day. For one of the first times in my life, I lived in the moment, going after what I wanted so badly, never knowing if the decision I was making was good or bad. I just didn’t care.

“It’s n
ot too late for me to leave. Think about it, princess. Is this really what you want?
” Zack
asked
softly, and I could tell he was just saying that because he thought he should.

“Yes
,
it is,” I said, reaching forward and pulling his shirt up over his head. 

***

Zack’s arms were around me and my head on Zack’s chest as we
listened to the
music
emanating from my iPod.
I knew my mother c
ould
come home
anytime, but I
couldn’t bring myself to move.
I was too comfortable
, lying there, tracing the lines of his visible tattoos. So far I’d f
ound what he said was a Celtic k
not on the upper part of his left a
rm and
some kind of design with the letters ‘L’ and ‘E’ woven into it on the upper part of his right arm
. He also had more lines of script on his rib cage, but I couldn’t read what they said in the d
ark
.

“I like your tats,” I said, teasing him slightly as
my hand traced patterns on his bare chest
.

“Oh yeah?”

“Do they all mean something?” I asked, looking up at him.

He nodded. “Of course. I wouldn’t permanently brand myself with anything that didn’t have some kind of meaning.”

I nodded as I rested my head on his chest again, waiting for him to tell me what they meant, and knowing when he didn’t, that I probably shouldn’t ask. He’d tell me if he wanted
to
.

T
he song
on my iPod
changed
then
from something fast a
nd up
beat to a soft melodic tune
I knew all too well.  It was
Fall Away
by
Liar’s Edge
and was
one of my all-
time favorites.
What surprised me more was Zack singing
quietly along with the lyrics.
I looked up at him in question.

“You know this song?”

“Sure. They’re
a
Durham
band
. I listened to these guys all through college.”

“Wow, not many people have
heard of them
.
They’re
one of my favorites.”

“Yeah,” he said,
his eyebrows r
ising slightly. I nodded.
“
Mine too.
I’m actually surprised yo
u have the album. It was never released
nationally.”

“No, it wasn’t, but I picked it up at a show
they did almost two years ago.
My best friend
Rachel and I are big fans.
We kept waiting for them to become famous, or at least tour again, but they never did.”

“Yeah, I heard they broke up.
It’s actually been a while since I’ve heard this song,” he said, sounding sort of melancholy.

“I lis
ten to it constantly.
They’re pretty amazing.
The lead singer is incredible.
I love his voice –
n
o offense
, of course
.
I love your voice too
.
”

I realized it was proba
bly bad form to compliment an
other guy’s musical talents whe
n Zack was a musician himself
.

He
laughed.
“None taken,” he said, leaning down to kiss me.

When he left, it was
late, but I called Ben anyway.
I left a message, telling him that we needed to talk.
I couldn’t keep what I’d done
from him.
I couldn’t ignore my feelings for Zack and pretend that I was still in love with
Ben.
It wasn’t fair to him.

***

The next day, when he called me back, I told
him I needed to take a break.
I explained that I had a lot going on, I needed some time to think, and I didn’t think it was fair to hold him back.
I wasn’t going to tell him about Zack,
simply because
it would hurt him too much
, and I still cared about Ben, even if I wasn’t in love with him
.

Ben
argued th
at he only wanted to be with me
and could live with whatever I wanted
as long as we didn’t break up.
I swallowed hard after that comment
since it sounded so desperate, and I knew I couldn’t give him even close to what he wanted
.

After an hour
of
back and forth
,
tears and pleas and every bargain under the sun,
I finally got fed up and
said, “
Ben,
I slept with someone
else
.”

Ben didn’t respond
at first.

“How could you do that to me?” he
finally
asked
. His tone was cold, and I could hear how deep my confession had cut him
.

“I’m so sorry
,” I said, because it was the right thing to say. I’d
honestly
never wanted to hurt him, truly
, and was so pissed off that I hadn’t had the guts to end things before they went too far
.

“No you’re not,” he said, and
I could hear
him trying to hide
the emotion in his voice. “Fuck, Emily! I was going to propose to you when we got back to school.”

I waited a few moments before respond
ing
, my stomach clenching at the thought that he really had no clue
as to
how far we’d drifted apart. He refused to see it.

“Ben, I am sorry. I never wanted to hurt you, but I just think we want different things.”

“I’ll say
,” he
snapped. “That’s obvious by the fact that you fucked someone else.”

I bit my lip not sure how to respond to that.
It was true.

“Why did you do it,” he asked though gritted teeth.

“I don’t know,” I said, knowing I could never explain it to Ben.

“Was this all part of your new bad girl image? Was it?”

“What
are you talking about?”

Ben laughed, a short non-humorous laugh. “Oh please. You getting wasted and hanging out with your loser brother and that punk chick and getting your fucking nose pierced. Was this just the next step on your path to see how far you could fall this summer?”

I gasped at his words. They were so harsh. “How did you know about my piercing?”

“Rachel showed me a picture. Thanks for lying about that by the way.”

“Ben, I didn’t tell you, because I knew you’d react this way!
What I’ve been doing this summer is nothing. They’re things that most normal people our age do. Hell, getting drunk and going to parties are things you do all the time!”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean I want my future wife to do all that. I liked you because you were sweet and pure and good. I liked that you didn’t get wasted and dress like a slut and whore around like most girls I know. I guess I just expected more from you, and maybe that was my fault.”

I sucked in a deep breath. “You’re right, Ben. It
was
your fault. You’re the one who put me on some pedestal with a halo on top o
f my head and expected me to never
to get tired of being the same boring person day in and day out. Couldn’t you see that I was breaking? Couldn’t you see that I was miserable and exhausted and literally falling apart?!”

The tears were streaming down my face by that point. I was so tired of going
a
round and
a
round with him, and his hurtful words were crashing down on me, making me feel
like
a horrible person for just trying to be myself.

“Then you should have talked to me instead of avoiding me. You should have told me what you were dealing with and let me help you. You should have told me you weren’t happy. We could have done something about
it
together.”

I could tell his earlier resolve was fading, and the hurt he was
feeling
was apparent.

“Ben, I couldn’t talk to you. You – our relationship – was one of the things that was making me unhappy. I’m so sorry, but it was. I never should have agreed to get back together with you, but I was scared, and you looked so sad, and I didn’t want to hurt you.”

“So you staye
d with me out of pity?” Ben accused
harshly.

“N
ot completely,
”
I said, wishing I could take it back. Oh God, I never should have told him that.

“So instead of just ending things, you cheated on me with some random guy?”

“Yes,” I said, fresh tears falling down my cheeks at the thought of what I’d done.

“Who is he?”

“No one,” I said, not
wanting to share the intimate details about Zack. Ben didn’t need to know who he was.

“Who is he?
!
” he screamed, his voice reverberating in my ear.

“His name is Zack. He’s just a guy I met.”

“
Just a guy you met and you slept with him. Well I hope it was worth it. I hope you had fun.”

“Ben don’t,” I pleaded with him, knowing by his sarcastic tone where the conversation was headed.

“
Did you like it, Emily? Did you? Did like it when he kissed you and touched you and stuck his dick–”

“
Stop it, Ben!
”
I screamed
, cutting him off.

I didn’t want to hear it.
I couldn’t listen to him say what I knew he was going to say. He would make me sound cheap and easy and make Zack out to be a martyr, and we weren’t any of those things. True, we weren’t in love, but how many people wait until they’re in love to have sex. I wasn’t sixteen. Mayb
e I had just wanted to have sex
and that was it. Ben was making me out to be a whore because of it, and I knew he was pissed, but it still didn’t give him the right to belittle me like that. I wouldn’t stand for it.

I slammed the phone down before he could get another world in edgewise.

Chapter
Seventeen

“What the hell is going on in here?” Chase asked, storming into my room a minute later, finding me sitting on my bed, shaking and crying, still holding my phone in my hand.

He instantly crossed the room, sat on my bed and put his arms around me, pulling me against his chest. I l
et my phone fall from my hand
and drop onto the
bed
, as my fingers gripped the c
omforter on either side of me.
I continued to bawl, unable to speak as my tears drenched the front of Chase’s blue t-shirt.