Facade (19 page)

“If you don’t mind being cheesy with me, I think the festival sounds fun.”

“I’ve never done cheesy before. Might as well give it a try.”

We walk to the car and this time I drive. It’s not hard to find because half the streets are closed down, directing all the traffic in the same direction. Luckily we find a parking spot quickly and head to the festival. It’s only midmorning, but it’s already busy. The air is crisp, but everyone’s walking around like us, bundled up, though they have steaming cups in their hands.

“It smells like apples,” I tell him. “I love the smell of apples. There’s something comforting about it.” I shiver, but then feel a sudden burst of warmth when Adrian puts an arm around me.

“I don’t want you to get too cold on me. I have plans for you later on today… though it might be fun to warm you up.”

Another laugh tumbles from my mouth. He chuckles, too, and I nuzzle closer to him as we walk. I love this side of him. That’s almost so carefree, even though I know it’s another mask for the pain inside. It feels real, though. I want it to be real.

“Do you have a childhood memory with apples?” he asks. It takes me a minute to remember that I’d just mentioned them.

“No…” A ghost of a memory floats into my head. “You know what? I never even thought about it, but I do.” It all starts to form in my brain and I can’t help but let it out. “I was about thirteen. My dad had been away working for over a week. Or we thought he was working. He traveled a lot and I always missed him…”

It had all been a lie. I hate missing him and knowing how much I loved him when none of it had been real. When he’d lived a double life and hurt all of us.

“Where was he?” Adrian asks.

“With his girlfriend.”

“I’m sorry.”

Not as sorry as he would be if he knew my dad and the same woman were in a car together, driving by his house a year later.

“What happened?” Part of me doesn’t want to tell him. Doesn’t want to share anything positive about my dad with Adrian because of what my father did to his family. But I want to talk about it. I want to open up with him whenever he asks because I don’t want there to be secrets between us. I’d like to find a way to reveal them all and for us to be okay.

“He came home and saw me sitting in the window watching for him. He didn’t even come in the house. He just called me out and we jumped in the car and he took me to the fair that had come to town and we ate caramel apples. He made me feel special. After him being gone, I wanted that time with him. We laughed and he told me about his trip and we talked about Maddox and trying to get him to play football again.”

At the time, I’d thought it was perfect. My best day. Yes, I’d been daddy’s girl for a while now and I’d always thought that was good. That it was okay, but now I hate that part of my past.

“It sounds like it was a happy time. What changed, Little Ghost? What ruined that day?”

My head snaps up to look at him. “How did you know?”

“You let your emotions into your words. I think you have a big heart that’s been bruised, but you’re better than me because you keep letting it beat. You let it get stronger. So tell me, who ruined your day. Who bruised your heart?”

I stop walking. There’s people all around us, but it feels like we’re the only two in the world. Everyone else manages to fade away and as I play his words in my head and as I feel his intense stare, I know there is absolutely no man in the world as beautiful as he is. Yes, he’s closed off and freely admits to using sex and drugs to hide from the world. Yes, when we first met he told me he wanted in my pants, and yet he makes sure I know we go at my speed. That I should never do something I don’t want to do for him. So despite his shortcomings, to me, he’s beautiful. His heart is more scarred than mine ever could be, but he cares. He might not know it, but he feels for people. It’s so easy to pretend to listen, but he really does. I don’t think anyone listens and really, really thinks about my words the way he has. Like each one of them is important.

He walks forward, which makes me walk backward and we’re suddenly leaning against a tree.

“Let me bandage your heart the way you did my hand.”

My eyes fill with tears. Who would have known this boy who is so hard on the outside could be filled with such beautiful words?

“My mom… she was angry when we came home. She’d been planning a special afternoon for them, but it was too late for them to go by the time we got back. She told him it was okay and smiled and hugged him, but when he went upstairs, she told me it was my fault. That I was always trying to get all the attention and that I was selfish. She said I ruined their day on purpose. I didn’t know, Adrian. I swear I didn’t.”

He pulls me to him. My arms feel at home around his waist, with his body so close to mine. His chin rests on my head, and his arms are around my shoulders.

“You went when your dad told you to. There was nothing wrong with that. If she said that to you, she didn’t know you. Not in the way that matters. Your heart beats so strong, I feel it against my chest. You make mine want to catch up, to match the rhythm.”

His words are too much. They’re everything and as much as they build me up, they break me down too. I do the only thing I can think to do, what I need to do, and close my mouth over his. It’s the first time I’ve been the one to kiss him and I can tell he’s holding off, letting me take the lead. I wish I could feel him, really feel him through all our clothes and jackets, but his lips are the perfect tease. The perfect prequel to Adrian and how he feels and what I know he can and will do to me later.

He moans and I think it’s probably the sexiest sound I’ve ever heard. But then he’s pulling away. I want to grab him. Yank him closer and never let him go, but people are walking next to us now.

We find the source of the apple smell and it’s a booth with the longest line. We wait in it and people talk about how they make the best hot apple cider in the United States. Adrian chats easily with people in line around us. It’s a different side of him. He talks to them differently than he does Colt, Cheyenne, or me. He holds me against him as he does it, so I can’t see his face. I try and study the sound of his voice the way he seems to know mine, trying to gauge if it’s another of his masks or if for this moment in time he’s really opening himself up. If he’s really trying to pretend to be like everyone else.

When it’s our turn, he orders us both cups and we walk around, sipping it like all the locals do. There are booths and games. We play some, and he doesn’t vow to win me a stuffed animal like you always hear about. I think I love that about him. Love how real he is.

Most of the booths are made up of locals, crochet blankets on sale, handmade hats, gloves, and painted coffee mugs.

We look at everything. I know this can’t really be his idea of a good time, but he’s here and I love that. There’s nowhere else I’d rather be than with him right now.

The air starts getting colder and the pull to the hotel room and being alone with Adrian becomes stronger. “Do you want to go back now?” I ask him.

He looks at me, promises of pleasure in his eyes. “To be alone with you? Do you have to ask?”

Laughing, I say, “Yes, I know. You’ve been trying to get into my pants for a while now, and you finally made it.”

The words were meant to be a joke but there is a change in his look. The playful smile I’ve started to get used to fades before he says, “You know that’s not all this is about, right? I’m not one to make promises I don’t know if I can keep. I won’t insult you by doing that, but… it’s not just about that.”

“I know.” The words come out steady and strong because they are. “I’m not asking for promises. And I know how honest you are. Maybe in the beginning that’s what it was about, but I can see the change.”

In that moment, I could swear he’s stripped bare. That he’s proud. I want him to be that. Want him to be proud of who he is because he deserves it.

“Full of so many surprises.” His finger skates down the side of my face.

“It’s true… I owe you that. I owe you more truths than that one.”

“One at a time. That’s all we can do is take it one at a time.”

We’re quiet most of the way back to the hotel. During the short drive, I wonder what’s on his mind as guilt hammers down on me. Things have gone too far. It’s been too long for me to have any kind of real excuse for not telling him. The thought of hurting him makes an ache build inside me. One so strong and fast-moving that I feel like it’s breaking me apart. The words are there and I need to get them out and hope, hope there is some way to make him understand. Some way that this won’t hurt him.

We take the last corner on the way to our hotel. “Adrian. I—”

He’s not looking at me when he says, “Oh shit!”

From there everything happens so quickly it’s hard to follow. Adrian jerks the car into a nearby parking spot, jumps out while it’s still running. The door hits another car and he leaves it open. And runs. I look up ahead of us and see cop cars, an ambulance, someone on a stretcher, and people all over the sidewalk. My heart drops.

Turning the key, I jerk it out of the ignition and run. Run to find Adrian.

I can hardly breathe as I push my way through the people. My breath doesn’t matter, though. I don’t know what happened or who’s hurt, but it’s not important. All I see is Ashton. I feel him. Red clouds my vision as I try to work my way through the crowd. I see the ambulance that came to our house. The people who tried to take him from me.

Please don’t be dead, please don’t be dead, please don’t be dead.

I remember Colt and walking up to the house to find him on the ground. Knowing I was too late. That he would die like Ash.
Ashton
. Oh fuck, pain pierces my chest again. I’m shaking and people are crowding me and I can’t get through.

“Watch where you’re going!” someone says, but it doesn’t stop me. I have to save them.
Don’t die, don’t die, don’t die.

Please Ashton don’t die.

My vision blurs. My chest aches and my legs beg me to fucking stop. What can I do? Who the fuck am I? If I couldn’t save a helpless little boy who only wanted to be like me, who wanted me to protect him, what the hell do I think I’m going to do here?

I push through the front of the crowd and I see him. I see that little boy with the big eyes as they look up at me. He’s bloody and hurting, the light gone from those eyes that looked at me like I was something. Like I was somebody.

“Ash!”

The image morphs and it’s not Ashton anymore. It’s someone I don’t know, lying on a stretcher.

“Adrian?”

The sound of Delaney’s voice brings me back to the past. Ashton and blood and a broken little boy.
Why couldn’t you save me?
I rub my eyes. I’m fucking cracking up and I know it. Ashton hadn’t said anything, but I know it was there. I thought it as I held his bloody little body, memorizing the injuries as though that could make them mine instead of his. “I’m sorry.”

I’m so fucking sorry. When will it ever end? Do I deserve it to end? Why did I have to screw up so bad? He was perfect and innocent and I still see his blood on my hands. Fuck, I want to be clean of it, but I deserve to wear it. Deserve to see it every day because he’s in the ground and he would have loved me. He
did
love me and I killed him.

“It’s okay. You don’t have anything to be sorry about.”

She touches me and I shake it off. “He’s dead. He’s dead. He’s dead.”

Even to my own ears I sound insane. Maybe I am. Maybe I’ve always been. But he’s fucking dead because I should have been protecting him.

“He’s okay. Look. He’s talking to EMTs.”

Ash is gone again. The guy is probably my age. He’s on the stretcher just like I thought, but he is sitting up and he is talking. There’s a car and a bike and I know he must have been hit, but there’s no blood. No empty brown eyes, locked on me.

I’m fucking losing it. I hate that she sees me like this. Hate that I’m
like
this.

“Come on, Adrian. Let’s go. Come inside with me.”

“Adrian! Where’s Ashton? What happened to Ash?”
Angel’s voice slams into my head now.

“Adrian?” Delaney.

“Adrian?”
Angel.

I push my way through the crowd. I need to get the fuck out of here. Delaney’s on my heels, but I can’t make myself stop. Up the stairs, down the hall, unlock the room. It’s all on autopilot. She storms in right behind me as I’m grabbing my bag and shoving stuff inside.

“What are you doing?” she asks, out of breath. Christ, I’m being an asshole to her. She doesn’t deserve this.

“Leaving.”

“Why? Stay. Talk to me.”

Honesty finds its way out of my mouth. “Leaving is what I do. My feet itch to run and my hands itch to write and my mind is going and going and I can’t fucking shut it down.” Stopping, I turn to look at her, which is a huge mistake. It makes me want to stay. “Sometimes I feel like I’m taking so much in and I can’t stop it. It overloads my fucking head and I can’t forget. I just want to fucking forget.”

“If you go, let me go with you.” She steps closer. “If you need to write, I’ll be your paper. I have no idea what I’m doing here. I don’t know if this is the right thing, but whatever you need, if you need to try to forget, let me help you.”

What I want is to take a really big bong hit and get the hell out of here.

She takes off her jacket. Her scarf. And somehow the voices in my head are quieting. I don’t want the weed. Don’t want anything but her. “I have no idea what I’m doing,” she says again before pulling her shirt over her head. My little ghost drops her arms, and it slowly falls from her hand.

Her breasts heave up and down with her breathing. She’s biting her lip and I know she’s nervous and I know I’m a bastard for wanting to take her up on this.

“You’re too good for that, for me to use you.”

“Then don’t…” Her voice is so low, so soft, but it’s all I hear. “Don’t use me. Just make me feel good, Adrian. Let me try to make you feel good too.”