Cheaters Anonymous (2 page)

Must have been all the guys beating him up after they found out their girlfriends cheated with Scar.

I pulled the stained paper over his upper lip, where the scar I remembered feeling beneath my mouth gave his a slight, sexy lift. I couldn’t help but smile and feel my insides tingle with warmth.

“I know you,” he mumbled and my breath locked in my lungs for a moment. Was it possible that he remembered insignificant me after so many years? Did he ever have any regret over leaving me with nothing more than a note after our night in the cave? Honestly, it didn’t matter now. It shouldn’t have mattered. He knew where I lived, and he never called. Besides, Scar Wagner most likely still held onto his cheating ideals, which meant that we had too much in common. As much fun as we’d probably have, I wouldn’t want to hurt him. And I wouldn’t want to get hurt either. It would be only a matter of time before one of us cheated, and I didn’t want to go down the road of instigating infidelity again – especially in my own relationship. What was I thinking?
I
hadn’t even had a relationship since the last time I’d seen him.

I’d been trying to get healthy for over a year now, and it was beginning to work. While it was still difficult to believe in the happily-ever-after, at least I wasn’t upset about the prospect of spending the rest of my life alone. I’d abstained from sex, substituting self-love in its place. While there was probably nothing better than a man’s strong tongue on me, or a nice thick cock inside me, I had learned to do without them.

And I wished I could take full credit for my recovery, but I couldn’t. If it weren’t for that one dreadful night that scared the living shit out of me, I wasn’t sure whether I’d ever have found the strength to seek help. It took a man’s hands around my throat in a dark alley, his pants down at his ankles, and the barrel of a cold gun pressed to my temple for me to realize how dangerous my addiction had become. The memory of him ripping my panties off from underneath my dress was still fresh. The feeling of helplessness as he pushed himself inside me would remain with me forever. Disgust and shame still overpowered my every muscle.

That night at the hospital had been a wakeup call. Luckily someone had found my near-lifeless body. The son of a bitch had decided I’d be better off dead. Bruised cheeks, blood-shot eyes, and two broken ribs later, I made a choice to heal. Thank goodness Chris had been on duty when I was admitted. She was able to keep what had happened quiet, and she vowed to kick my addiction’s ass. It was the fear I held onto that forced me to stop. The never-ending pain in my limbs overwhelmed the need to feel pleasure.
That
I could never forget. I concentrated on my job, took longer shifts, and lost myself to work. Dates were off limits, men were off limits, and the more time I spent at the hospital working, the better I felt. Chris was the only co-worker I told my problems to. With her help, I left Washington and moved back to New York for a fresh start – a new beginning. She had been my saving grace.

No more finding myself lying in a foreign bed in the morning beside someone I didn’t know or recognize. The last walk of shame I took was two years ago. It had taken me a while to figure out how I could have allowed my life to stray so far off its path, and the only answer I could find was Scar Wagner. For years I ached to find that pleasure he’d shown me in that cave, hoping and praying that one of the men I slept with would be it. None of them could measure up, and I never slept with any one of them more than once. My every decision trickled down to him. I didn’t blame him; that would be wrong. But it didn’t change the fact that I had let a man indirectly affect my way of living.

“You’ve had a lot to drink, Mr. Wagner.”

He cringed when I voiced his last name.

Yes, at one point Scar’s family issues had made him despise his last name. But I thought he was over that.

I picked up a blanket from the warming drawer and covered him before turning to Olivia, who was standing at the foot of the bed with the spatula in her hand, still staring at the patient’s crotch. The tented fabric seemed to have risen, and for a second I debated checking him again. But when I saw him give Olivia a crooked smile, like he knew exactly what the sight of him was doing to her body, I was pretty sure he was just excited to see her.

Same old Scar. Definitely dangerous, and inevitably not good for me. I need to keep my distance.

“He can be dismissed when he sobers up. If the toxicology report comes clean, of course,” I said to her as I lowered the bed. She typed my notes on the tablet for the next practitioner, as my shift would probably be over by the time he sobered up. “Olivia will take care of you, sir. It shouldn’t be long now.”

I moved onto patient number... well, I usually lost count after the first few. And when I finally got home and closed the door behind me, I slid my back down against it and brought my knees to my chest. At last I could let my guard down. Taking in full breaths, as if I haven’t had enough air all night, I felt dizzy. My hands trembled, and the sound of my heartbeat drummed in my ears. I hadn’t expected my feelings for him to return that quickly, and as much as I wanted to stay away, I knew it would be pointless.

Scar’s visit to the hospital kept me restless at night, with my hand between my legs, trying to find that familiar climax for which I had been aching for the last six years. I wasn’t successful.

C
HAPTER
2

Eleven years earlier

Sitting underneath the bleachers, I pulled my legs up to my chest and closed my eyes, and listened to the hum of vibrating metal that bounced from one end to the other. During the past week, this new hiding spot had given me the most peace of the day. As the cheerleading squad stopped their routine, the noise of the student population in our high school blended with the aluminum whirr. I lowered my shoulders and leaned my head back against the metal stand that supported the seats above me. Nine and a half more months and this place would be abandoned. The dreaded summer break would begin, and without quiet places like these to hide underneath, I would be forced to leave this city. Maybe a fresh start at university was exactly what I needed? I’d only been at this school since last March. Dad’s job meant we moved from one big city to another, and my lucky draw this year was a private neighborhood of mansions on Long Island so that Dad could commute to Manhattan. We lived in what I assumed to be one of the more prestigious areas, where all the kids in the neighborhood went to the same private school.

I opened my eyes as the smell of pot permeated the air. A few feet away, a boy I’d seen around school sat down and leaned back, pulling in a lungful from his joint. His eyes lazy, he let the smoke out slowly before turning my way.

“Want a hit?” he asked.

“Sure.”

May as well live it up while I can.

For me, by the end of the year this place would be history, and my social life would morph from non-existent to completely dead. But maybe we’d stay in Washington for a bit longer than a year – that was the plan, at least. This time we’d be moving with mom only. Dad was staying behind, though he’d promised “nothing would change.” Actually, tired of watching him lie and cheat, I had been praying for a while now that our life actually would change. Mom had finally smartened up.

He shuffled his way toward me and hit his head on one of the bleachers. While he didn’t make a sound, I chuckled at the surprise in his eyes when he looked up with that expression of wonderment at how the metal seat had gotten there. For someone of my frame, crawling underneath the bleachers wasn’t an issue. But he totally didn’t look like he belonged here – which made him perfect company because I didn’t feel like I belonged anywhere.

I took the flawlessly rolled cannabis and brought it to my lips. Feeling his gaze on me, I looked to the side at his
Yeah, baby
smile. He must have been smoking for a while now.

Feeling moisture at the tip, I inhaled. Watching a football practice, we passed the shrinking doobie back and forth. It was a good thing we were sitting upwind; otherwise, one of the coaches could have caught us.

“Look at those fools.” He pointed to a couple. Sherry, the cheerleading squad’s captain, was wearing her practice uniform as Bradley ran up to her in that bulky way, making each step look as if it had been rehearsed to perfection by every single football player in the world.

“What about them?”

“She’s completely oblivious that’s he’s cheating on her.”

“How do you know?”

“Guys brag.” He shrugged.

It took a moment for the pot to kick in, but when it did, I saw the pair all over each other in slow motion. I laughed – but in my ears only heard a snort.

“Good shit?” he asked.

“It is.”

“Watch this.” He brought my attention back to the field. A girl from the squad stomped over to the pair, jutting her manicured finger into Bradley’s chest. I didn’t know her name. They exchanged what looked like a few angry words.

“Oh, oh,” I chuckled. “Cat fight?”

“Nah, their claws are still growing. And they’re both hoping to win Brad over. Another three years, maybe we’d see some hair tugging and nail scratching.” He shrugged again. It seemed to be one of his favorite gestures.

Brad was definitely on the top of the hotness scale, and I wasn’t surprised that every girl in the school wanted a piece of him. I’d do anything just to be part of the popular crowd for one short day.

I felt bad for Sherry for only a moment. Then I remember her prancing around school inserting pamphlets of a photograph of me looking back at my own ass with a red stain on the back of my white pants. I’d sat on a ketchup packet in the cafeteria, but it certainly didn’t look like a condiment on my ass. She showed the picture to Brad. And then I didn’t feel so bad anymore. She had destroyed me the first week here; the bitch deserved to be cheated on.

I tried to concentrate on the commotion in front of us, but the after-effects of my inhalations were too good to ignore. I opened and closed my eyes quickly, and then looked from side to side. The time slowed. As I watched the threesome, weird anticipation brewed inside my chest. My heart beat faster, and I wondered whether it was the pot or the unveiling fight out on the field. Brad stepped from one foot to another, and I was pretty sure he was stuttering too. When Sherry slapped him, turned on her heel, and stomped off, I couldn’t help but feel a rush.

He deserved the slap. She deserved to be alone. I just wished the other girl had some smarts too and left him as well. Instead she hung on his arm like some kind of a medal around an Olympian’s neck. It made me sick to my stomach, admitting that I would probably have done the same.

Still, my satisfaction was priceless.

When I looked to the side, I noticed a huge scar running up my weed buddy’s arm. “Where did you get that?” I asked.

“I fell down the stairs.”

“Fell?”

That look in his eyes told me he’d had some help with his ‘fall.’ “You’re new here, aren’t you? What’s your name?”

“Julia. We moved from Denver last March.”

“Well, Jules. If you want some of my advice, don’t get involved with any guy. There are no pretty rainbows at the end of that road. The only thing you can do is help a girl like that out. Get her out of a relationship before it’s too late. And the best way to do that is to be the one who takes the guy away and makes the girl see what an asshole he is. Look at her.” He nodded toward Brad’s new prize. “She’s so gonna get hurt.”

“You sound like an expert.”

“I’ve seen enough. I’m Nick, by the way, but my friends call me Scar.”

“So what, do you just flirt with a girl and make sure the guy sees it to break them up?”

“It’s a bit more complicated than that, but yeah, that’s the gist of it.”

I wondered whether Scar would cheat on a girlfriend.

“I know what you’re thinking. And yeah, I’d cheat too.”

“But you haven’t.”

“No, but I would. It works both ways. It’s human nature to procreate, and people seem to miss that point. Monogamy is not natural. That fact should have been accepted by the population long ago.”

“What about those people who make it?”

“Anomalies. Those exist in nature too. Sixty percent of marriages have an unfaithful spouse – and those are the ones honest enough to be a statistic. Since humans are a species with an instinct to survive, they’ll lie to further their own agendas, whether it’s career or personal. Infidelity is in the genes, and it ruins the anomalies forever, creating an infinite loop of cheating. Sooner or later the anomaly will stray as well and will defend their action by calling it a rebound.”

I’d never heard a boy my age speak with so much knowledge of infidelity. I thought I was the only one who’d already been exposed to it. My innocence had been stolen by watching fights brew between my parents and by the herds of women filter through our house. A belief in love – true love, the kind you’d sacrifice your own happiness for – never even had a chance to grow.

“You should write a book,” I said, but in his dreamy state he probably didn’t hear me.

Could Scar be an anomaly? And why did his words hit home more than I wanted them to? Because they were the truth. What he said to me had been proven over and over again. Everybody cheated, including my father. I’d never want to stay in an unfaithful marriage, yet my mother had let him cheat for years. She just sat there, watching – and until recently, she didn’t do anything about it.

But Scar was right. I hoped my mom could go through with the divorce, and given her recent dates, it seemed she was finally acknowledging that the marriage had failed. In fact, I knew she’d already gone on the rebound and I didn’t think she wanted to bounce back. The only bounce I saw were her boobs when her much younger boyfriends came into picture and she ran right into their arms. Could I blame her? They were hot and young enough for me to date.

I met up with Scar under the bleachers for the remainder of the year until school finished. Though he didn’t know it, he gave me a piece of my lost innocence back. He made my life worth living again. My grades picked up and school wasn’t as boring. I finally had a chance to get into medical school without my parent’s financial support. I remembered those few months at Scar’s side as the most honest ones in my life. Unfortunately, I would get one last sour lesson about men before I left for Washington.