Fix Up (26 page)

But I shouldn't, Not after I broke up with him, not after I shattered his heart after he gave me his whole heart without holding anything back. The sweet bliss disappears, and I'm left with dread and fear. I worm out of his arms, bringing my arms up to cover my naked breasts before I start putting back on my clothes minus my underwear after kicking off my heels. I feel Duke's eyes on me, but I can't face him.

"Skye?"

I freeze in the middle of my task to button up my jeans and sigh before resuming my work. I don't turn around, but I do hear him walking around to stand in front of me, with all his naked glory to blind me. My cheeks instantly warm, but I don’t know if it’s from embarrassment of lust I’m feeling underneath it all. Damn it, it’s too confusing even for me.

"Don't say a word." I put my underwear in my purse, put on my shoes with a grimace and straighten.

"You can't blame alcohol for what happened. You didn't finish your beer, and I just had one. We weren't drunk," he says, his voice stern.

I nod and shoulder my bag. I never imagined I'd be in such a predicament. I always thought that I'd never be the kind of girl to leave right after sex, but I always thought that I'd be the one getting left after sex. After all, Sean did it several times when we were together. Only Duke never did. He never left me when he knew I needed him, even when he was freaking out. Me on the other hand ... I run my hands on my face suddenly tired. I'm not tired like you are after a mind blowing orgasm, it's the kind of tired that makes you want to hide from the world in your bed for the next decade or so.

"I know, but I have to go."

"Should I understand that it means nothing at all? That you just wanted to have sex so ..." he trails off, his voice conveying the same hurt I heard the last time we had a confrontation. How much more of them will we have before he definitely hates me? Would it be better for both of us if he hates me? I'm not sure I'd be able to accept hatred for me. Just thinking about it makes me want to throw up. I bring a hand to my stomach.

"Why did you take the job here in Seattle?"

"I told you." He runs a hand on my cheek, his fingers whispering on my heated skin. "I can't leave."

I can't just stay like this. He thinks he wants me, to be with me, but he only sees a small part of me. I'm getting better, but there're parts of me I’m dreading to let out. It's worse with him, the man I love and that I want him to have a certain opinion of me. He saw me breaking down, he saw me angry, he saw me sad, he saw me afraid, but he never saw the despair in me, not the darkest despair in me that I let out only with Dr. Marshall. But he needs to hear this. Duke needs to hear and see who I really am instead of this magnified version of me that is polluting his mind.

"You know what I think most of the time since Sean abducted me?" I don't wait for his answer. Locking my eyes with Duke's and taking a deep breath, I see the fear in his intense eyes. "I think that it would have been easier for me if I'd died that night. Sometimes I even wish I'd died because it's hard to love, hard to live, hard to wake up and deal with everything. So yeah, I guess I'm dealing better with pain than happiness because in myself, I really think that it'd be best if I was dead. It's breaking my heart to feel that way when I think about what you had to go through with Juliet. You don't deserve that."

Duke is all misty-eyed, but he doesn't say a word. He grits his teeth and crosses his arms tightly over his chest, hiding part of the tattoo over his heart. Only his loud breathing is breaking the silence between us.

With a trembling hand, I grab the door knob, ready to run away. "You deserve someone happy to live instead of someone fighting to want to live." I turn the doorknob, but I'm halted in my move by Duke's arm. He snakes it around my waist and pulls me against him, my back to his chest and his strong hand flat on my stomach covered by my light blouse, now all wrinkled.

He inhales me in, his lips behind my ear. "You're fighting, Skye, and loving me is your first battle won." He kisses me behind my ear, and I shiver against him, my palms flat on the wood of the door. "I know how you feel because I felt that way until I first held you in my arms. Let me hold you, let me love you, let me in." He kisses me again, lingering a little longer than previously. "Don't be afraid to show me everything about you because I'll love you even more. Knowing that you're fighting, Skye, it shows how brave, how strong you really are instead of just giving in to your darkest thoughts like I did. So please, take me back."

"No."

His hand on my stomach balls my blouse before it relaxes again. He blows in my hair but he doesn't step back. “Yes, you will, and we're moving in together as soon as my graduation ceremony is over. I'm not letting you slip away."

I push his arm away and turn around. My breasts brush his chest. He's leaning toward me, his mouth a breath away from mine. "What are you talking about?"

"Do you remember what I told Dr. Marshall when I saw him at the market?" He brushes away some of my wild locks getting in my face. "I told him that you're the kind of woman you only meet once, and once she's in your life, you don't let her go. You're my future, and I know you don't believe me, but you're my eternity. You and no one else."

I shake my head, gaping at him like an idiot as my heart is fluttering in my chest. He's weakening my resolve, and he knows it. He's not afraid of my dark mood, not appalled by my shameful admission, and he trusts me. He believes in me, has faith in me because he knows I can win the fight for my happiness, and I know I can too. I just hope that I'll want to long enough for it to work.

I think again about what just happened between us. I felt amazing, and it's not just because the sex was so great, but because it's him. Since I’ve met Duke, he’s always had that effect on me, making me feel alive, making everything else disappear but us, and that safe feeling is what I get when I'm around him. And the love. The love that is so strong that most of the time I forget how I can hurt him, how I can destroy him and myself at the same time.

I have to ask myself one thing now that he's in front of me, now that he bared his soul once again and probably for the last time if I say no again. Do I want a life without him in it, or am I pulling away because I feel safer that way?

I let tears fall down my face and Duke's eyes close from the pain he's feeling. I'm shaking from head to toe. I wrap my arms around his waist and kiss him over his heart. "I love you."

He shivers and embraces me tight. "I thought you'd leave again," he mumbles in my hair, his voice choked. "Never do that again, Skye. Don't leave me ever again."

I nod against his chest and force back my fears, that nagging feeling I have that screams at me that I should have turned my back on him. It's a long way to my happiness, but he's still ready to fight for us, and I know that when one of us loses a battle, the other is there to have the other's back. We're the worst roller-coaster ever, but I think we're used to bumpy rides. I can’t keep on pushing him away, even if I do think it’s too destructive for him.

Chapter Fifteen

SKYE

"Are you sure you want to go alone?" Duke asks me for what feels like the thousandth time. He parks not far from the little hotel where Sean's mother is staying. His fingers are playing on the steering wheel, showing how nervous he is.

It's only been two days since we made up, and the only time I’ve spent away from him was when one of us had to use the bathroom. I think he's afraid that if he lets me out of his sight I'll change my mind, and I can understand his worries. What have I done since we met? I’ve pushed him away and doubted when he wasn't the one doubting or pushing me away. But I think it’s different now. For some reason, telling him that sometimes I think about death lifted a weight from my shoulders. Letting out the ugliness made some room for all the love he’s giving me.

"It'll be easier if it’s just the two of us. I’ve never had the chance to talk alone with her, and I think ..." I sigh and shrug. "Maybe I have a tiny chance that way."

He leans toward me and kisses my temple. "Promise me that you're not going to spend months beating yourself up if it doesn’t work."

I smile softly at him and nod, but I don't mutter the words. I know I'd feel awful if she goes back to her abusive husband, and he knows it too. He waves at me and chuckles tightly. I'd be surprised if he doesn't have grey hair before he’s thirty with how much he worries about me.

I unbuckle my seatbelt and kiss him quickly on the lips before I climb out of the car, ready to face Sean's mother. At least, my parents told me they didn't have to do much to convince her to meet me again. It must be a good omen. I hope.

In the simple lobby, I don't bother asking the tall blonde lady at the front desk the room number. Sean's mother texted it to me earlier today. With a brisk pace, I walk to the one and only elevator and press the button to the fourth floor. The doors close, and I gaze at the floor, avoiding the walls of mirrors around me. It always makes me uncomfortable having all these mirrors around me.

Ding.

I take a deep breath and find room 405 not far down the hall. Bracing myself and ignoring the loud beats of my heart in my chest and the lump taking residence in my throat, I knock at the door with force.

She opens the door, and what I see is more painful than I can express. Her left cheek is slightly swollen, and even though she has put some make up on to hide it, I know she’s received a strong slap from her husband.

My eyes are watery, but I don't say a thing. It would be useless to ask her what happened because I know that it would be as ridiculous as not answering the question fast enough. The reason is not important, but the action is. I blink, fighting my tears and force a smile, a sad one she mirrors as she lets me come inside her tiny bedroom.

The bedroom is painted in an old kind of red, the kind that is faded by the years. The comforter on the bed is a little wrinkled on the right side like someone had lain down on it. The curtains are open, letting the sun in, but everything in here feels ... uninviting for some reason. I guess I may be projecting my own feelings and fears.

She waves at the only chair in one corner of the room, and she sits on the bed, her eyes never leaving my face. I shake myself and take a seat. It feels like some kind of work interview; it's quite unsettling.

"How have you been?" she asks me, her voice shaking. God, she sounds so broken, much more so than the last time I saw her which was only few weeks ago.

I take in her wrinkled clothes, her pale face despite the make up, and her hunched shoulders. "I'm on my way to being fine. I'm still making some mistakes at times, but ..." I bite the inside of my cheek, nervous to say something that would make her angry and ruin my efforts. "But I have people willing to accept me, so it helps."

She nods and begins to play with the hem of the bed comforter. "Sean told me you saw him."

I nod and press my lips together when I remember our confrontation. There’s no other word to describe it. “I needed closure, and it helped me to see that he's not at all like the guy I first met and that he probably never was that guy in the first place. Your husband broke Sean, but I think Sean has always been unstable.” I cringe a little when I see the sadness in her eyes, accentuating the thin lines around her eyes marking the years. “I’m sorry.”

She forces a small smile and releases the comforter to run a shaking hand in her hair. "Are you really going to try and convince me to leave my husband?"

I sit straighter, taken by surprise. And I thought I'd have some time to ready myself before launching into such a talk. Apparently not. “Yes, because if you agreed to see me, it means that you're ready to think about it, aren’t you?’’

"I married him at nineteen, got pregnant at barely twenty. He was the first man I loved, Skye."

I frown and shake my head. "Don't you think it's the same with Sean and me? He was my first real boyfriend, the first guy I gave myself to, body and soul. I didn't marry him and spend decades with him, but he was the first man I loved too."

She looks away, but not before I see the shame distorting her pale and violated face. “I can't just leave." She shakes her head, and I'm now wondering if she's not trying to convince herself more than anything else.

"Of course you can." I smile at her, even if my heart is breaking at seeing the first silent tears falling from her haunted eyes. "It'll be hard. He'll give you a hard time and more than once you're going to doubt your choices. But don't you think at this point you’ve suffered enough? Don't you think you've got a right to happiness too? The first time he hit you was the time when he broke up with you, not the other way around."

She dries her face with shaking hands. "And what will I do? Go back to my parents and tell them what happened? Skye, I'm almost forty!"

"And?" I put my elbows on my knees and support my head with my hands. "They'll be there for you. Isn't it what parents do?"

"I'm afraid."

Of course I know what she means! That fear is consuming her, putting to shame the self-preservation she should focus on. But right now, I feel a weird kind of thrill inside of me, making my stomach do somersaults with excitement at the thought that she's closer to giving in. She just needs the right push. "Who wouldn't be? But you have to do something for yourself for once. It's not too late, and I need to know that you're safe."

"Tell me why I stayed with him? I don't understand what happened to me, to him."

I lock eyes with her again and entwine my fingers in my lap. “You were in love. You thought it was a slip up that would never happen again, and then it happened again. After some time you told yourself that it was because he was tired, maybe drunk, and you still loved him. So you said nothing. And when, slowly but surely, he polluted your thoughts and made you believe that it was your fault, and even if you knew it wasn't your fault, you accepted his explanation because it was easier than thinking that the person you fell so hard in love with was just a monster you couldn't even recognize. You have to deal with the fact that he's not the man you thought he was, not the man you fell in love with. That's one of the hardest things to do."

"But how do I do that?"

I think about Dr. Marshall whom I saw yesterday and who was happy for me that I was back with Duke, even if I saw some pain in his striking blue eyes. He really helped me and still does even if it doesn't look like it since I'm still so unstable, but he helps me to deal with my emotions, with my thoughts. "You have to see a psychologist." I stand up and sit next to her on the bed, careful to not touch her. I don't really know if she's hurting somewhere else, and I don't know if she's like me, dealing poorly with body contact. Still, I want her to know that I'm there, beside her. "Tell me you'll do it."

She takes a deep breath and nods, more tears falling down, her chest heaving. "I'll do it. I'll try to do it."

All the tension in my body leaves me, and I exhale deeply. "If you need to talk, I'll be there. For once, you're going to fight back. It'll hurt, but at the same time, you'll find some pieces of yourself over time."

"And what about my son?" she asks, her eyes on the bare wall in front of us. She's pleading for some miracle, but I can't see one. Maybe having therapy will do him some good, maybe he'll be able to control his violent urges and his anger, but nothing is certain. He seems so lost to me that I don't see it coming and really, I'm not going to hold my breath for it.

"You're his mother, so you'll be there for him."

She puts a hand over mine still on my lap before she quickly retreats. “He’s different with me, Skye. He's always worried for me, you know."

I know it. He's always been worried for his mother because of his dad, and I really think she’s the only person on this earth able to help him, to reach for the good part inside of him. I can't understand this or him and I never will, but I do think he's not only made of darkness. I'm not sure it'll be enough, and I don’t want to lose sleep over him. Not again. Never again.

"Yes, and it's good, but I'm past the phase where I wonder if he could be different, better or more stable. It's over for me, but I really hope for your sake that he'll improve." I stand up and she follows me. "Leave your husband, and if you need help in Boston, I know my parents would help you. Seek help instead of closing yourself off. I know what I’m talking about.’’

She takes a good look at my face, maybe seeking something to latch onto and find the strength she needs in order to claim her life back. I don’t know what she finds there, but a small smile appears. “You’re a very strong young woman, Skye. I never realized until now how strong you are.”

I smile and feel a little bolt of happiness strike through me. I’ve spent so much time thinking that I'm weak and hearing someone other than my family and friends telling me how strong I am makes me proud. I made some mistakes because I was a coward, but I just recently understood, mainly thanks to Duke, that living is how I show my strength. Just living.

*  *  *

DUKE

I keep on watching the hotel front door like a hawk. I’d lie if I said that I’m not frightened that this encounter won’t mess with Skye’s head. It’s something I need to work on. I know spending most of my time worried that some mess is going to derail my girl or us isn’t a way of living. We talked about it the other day when we got back together. It makes me realize how pessimistic I am.

I make a move to grab my cigarettes in my jean’s pocket and curse under my breath. I lean my back against the passenger car door, and I feel the first sign of needing nicotine hit me. Why am I doing this again? It’s probably one of the dumbest things I ever decided on doing, quitting cigarettes right before my final exams, right before graduating. All of that for a girl. No, in fact, it’s for the girl. I smile ruefully and look down at my biker boots all beaten up, the laces ready to break on my left foot.

Suddenly, I hear the hotel door. I look up and see Skye slowly walking toward me with a small smile on her beautiful and delicate face. She frowns a little bit when a lock of frizzy hair comes into her right eye, and I can’t help the goofy smile breaking out on my face.

“By your smile I guess it went well.” As soon as she’s close enough, I engulf her in my arms, making sure to feel all of her against me. When her arms wrap around my waist and her small hands latch onto my back, I feel like I’m eight feet tall. My heart still hammers in my chest whenever she’s close to me, and now having her back for good if I’ve got anything to say, I feel like the luckiest bastard in the world. Even with all the bad that went down between us.

“I think she was finally ready for me to tell her that she truly needs to find an out. I didn’t even have to push; her husband did that on his own.”

I tense a little bit. Just thinking about a woman getting abused by her other half brings me back to Skye and that first time I saw her with Sean’s marks on her body. I think I’ll never forget that or how it made me feel. I push down the anger ready to coil around my muscles and instead focus on the warm body pressed against me.

“How do you feel now?”

She shrugs and kisses my chest, just where my heart is under my flesh and bones. She tilts her head upward to lock eyes with me. “Relieved that she’s getting out of that marriage, but …” She shakes her head softly. “Will it be enough? Maybe she’s going to go on a self-destructive path and—”

“And you don’t have to take care of her. She needs to find her own path, Skye. Just like you did and like you’re still doing. You helped her, keep that in mind and focus on your own life.”

She nods and brings a hand to my face, running her fingers along my jaw so softly that I barely feel her skin on mine. I’m dying to close my eyes and just let go, but we’re in the middle of the street and while kissing the hell out of her doesn’t seem like a bad idea, taking her in my car would definitely be frowned upon.

“Let’s start with our exams. I still have a lot to study for tomorrow.” She groans and disentangles herself from me. I bite back a caveman groan and instead tug on my hair hard enough to distract me from what’s going on in my pants.

“I have better plans.”