Let Me Love You (Love #4) (16 page)

“I’m fine, Mom.” I lie, to her and myself. “I promise.”

She reaches out but stops herself short. She wants to comfort me but after the first nightmare that she woke up to she knows she needs to give me my space. She tried to pull me into her arms but the feel of her skin against mine freaked me out and I started thrashing my arms and legs trying to get away. “Honey, you are far from fine. You used to be able to talk to me about everything.” Mom yawns, but it’s not enough that she lets me be. “Nothing has changed, Honey. I’ll always be here for you but you’ve got to talk to me, Jaylinn, tell me what’s going on. Does your brother know anything?”

I shake my head, cringing at the thought of how he would react if he ever found out. Hunter would absolutely lose his shit. “No, Mom. No one knows anything except Cooper, and right now I want it to stay that way.”

Mom sighs; I can tell it hurts her that I won’t talk to her. “Honey…,”

“Not tonight, Mom.” I swallow hard, trying to give myself the courage to push her away. “We’ll talk, just not tonight, okay? Go back to bed and we’ll talk about it later.”

Her shoulders slump in defeat and it hurts that I’ve made her feel this way. “Alright.” She leans forward and kisses me on the forehead. I try not to flinch away but if I did, Mom didn’t let on.

I roll onto my side to face the light, too afraid to turn it off. I grab my phone to check the time, it’s a little after five in the morning. At least I slept a little longer tonight than I have been lately. I never used to have nightmares this badly before. I found that if I exhausted myself enough throughout the day that I would sleep through the night by myself. If Cooper was home and I was wrapped up in his arms, warm and safe, they barely ever came either.

I click on the photo gallery icon on my phone and swipe through. Most nights this seems to calm me down. It’s like flashes of all the good times that Cooper and I used to have together. It’s kind of torture but those were the good memories and the only ones I want to hold on to. I want good memories, not the tainted ones that my brain and the monsters under my bed are holding me to.

I stop on one of my favorite pictures of us. We were in Seaside two summers ago, before things changed between us, walking on the boardwalk.

I was jumping up and down like a little kid, “Cooper, take me on the Sky Ride.”

Cooper looked at me like I had lost my mind; he looked to the ride and back at me. He said something but with the sound of a little girl walking by crying I didn’t hear him. Before I even understood what he had said Cooper was running towards the entrance of the ride. I ran after him and beat him by a hair.

He throws his arm around my shoulders, “Since you won, you pick the color seat.”

“Oh wow,” I say playfully.

The ride operator cocked an eyebrow at Cooper.

“Well, come on.” Cooper coaxed.

“Pink.”

The operator rolled his eyes because we were now holding up his line. After two benches go by a pink one rounds the corner. Cooper and I are standing where the operator instructed. The bench hits the back of our legs and we sit down.

Cooper hands the operator some cash, his eyes never leaving mine the whole time. “Thanks man.”

The operator smiles and nods at us before pulling the bar over our laps.

Cooper puts his arm over my shoulders again and pulls me closer to him. I smile up at him and then turn to look out over the ocean. The waves crash onto the shore but just past the white caps everything is calm and peaceful.

“Hey,” Cooper whispers in my ear, drawing my attention to him.

Chills sweep over my body from the heat of his breath against my cool skin and it’s everything I can do not to give into that heat. I turn towards him and his eyes are fiery, a desire even I can see. An undeniable pull was building between us and the way he looks at me now, that pull was becoming magnetic, something neither of us wanted to turn away from. It would feel unnatural to turn away. Things over the last month or two have been getting intense. The exchanging of long looks are more often, the hand holding was something new, and the protectiveness over me when we were around his friends was at an all-time high. It wasn’t something I thought anymore, I felt it.

Cooper cups the side of my face with his strong hands and runs his thumb over my bottom lip. My heartbeat skyrockets, my breathing hitching at the sensation. It’s everything I can do not to sigh.

He looks down at my lips and then licks his. “I’m going to kiss you. If you don’t want me to you’ve got to stop me now.”

I want him to kiss me, God, do I want him to. I think he knows this. My cheeks color under the intense heat of his gaze, giving me away. I stick out my tongue and slowly wet my lips before Cooper groans and crashes his lips to mine. His kiss is urgent, controlled and demanding, nothing like the kisses that we shared in the past when playing games as kids. I can’t deny that the kiss sparked something in the both of us. It did. I can feel it and I’m sure he can too. This kiss has meaning and passion behind it. It has promises and magic. It’s as thrill seeking as the carnival and as calming as the ocean.

I rest a hand on Cooper’s thigh and one on his chest to angle myself more towards him. He slides the hand that’s cupping my face into my hair. With a sigh, his tongue traces the seam of my lips and I open, giving him the access that he wanted, begging him for it. The kiss starts to get frenzied but suddenly Cooper stops. He leans his forehead against mine, breathing heavily. He wants to say something, but he doesn’t because his words wouldn’t be heard anyway.

“Jesus,” I giggle, finding some words to put into perspective what that was for us, or at least for me.

Cooper chuckles and places another soft and gentler kiss on my lips this time.

Just before the ride comes to an end I reach into my purse and pull out my phone, wanting to capture the memory. Leaning my head against Cooper’s shoulder, he kisses the top of it just as I press the button.

A perfect picture.

I’m not sure what time it is when the smell of coffee drags me from my room later that morning. I couldn’t fall back asleep after my nightmare so I picked up my
Kindle,
needing to escape from the real world for a while. Soon enough I’m lost in something other than myself, which is nice these days.

Mom’s sitting at the kitchen table flipping through a magazine when I walk in.

“Morning.”

She looks up over her coffee mug, “Morning.”

I can’t stop thinking about the way she looked at me last night and the feeling she must have had, knowing she couldn’t do anything for me.

After I pour myself a cup of coffee, I find my way over to her and take a seat at the table. “Did you go back asleep?” It’s a silly question to ask because I know she didn’t, her eyes are still tired and they’re underlined with bags. It makes that feeling I have inside embed a little further, knowing she’s lost sleep over me.

I sigh, knowing I need to talk to my mom because there’s no way around it anymore. I’m dreading this talk but now that I don’t have Cooper, my rock, for support, I’m going to need someone else to keep me moving forward. MacKenzie is too wrapped up with Ryder and Olivia now. Hailey has enough on her plate and needs to keep her blood pressure down. Jackson and Chloe are trying for another baby so I don’t want to stress her out about this either. No way could I ever talk to Hunter, and Mason and Jackson are just out of the picture. I have a few friends from the soccer team but none that I would share this type of stuff with, so really the only other person is my mom.

I take a deep breath and say what I never expected I would this morning. “Let’s go out into the living room and talk, Mom.”

We both refill our cups of coffee and sit on the couch. My stomach is in knots from the fear and anxiety of having to relive that night again. Part of me hopes that I can get it out without a panic attack but there’s no saying that won’t happen.

I look over at my mom, take a deep breath and begin. My voice is steady in the beginning and holds a certain amount of regret for what I’m about to say. “I’m going to start from the beginning.” I let out deep breath. “This is hard for me mom, but just let me get through it, okay?”

“I don’t like the sound of this.” Mom looks concerned, her eyes searching mine for a clue as to what’s to come. I’m not sure what she sees when she looks at me but I wonder if it’s anything like I feel; cold and empty.

“And I don’t like that it happened.” I say, my voice flat.

So I start from the beginning of the night and as I speak I’m in that moment again, as if it’s replaying for me with every detail that I didn’t remember it being. It’s vivid, so real and frightening that I fear, when I’m done telling her, I won’t be able to come out of it.

Mason promised Hailey that he would stop going out so much because he didn’t need to worry about getting laid every day, so Cooper had been riding solo to the parties most days or he would go out with his friend Eli. On rare occasions, the boys actually got a Saturday night free, but most of the time they were away at games.

With a free night, Mason, Eli, Cooper and I all went out for pizza. Cooper and Eli were talking about a party at one of the frat houses that they wanted to go to. Eli looked over to me and asked if I was going. It seemed like it was going to be a good time by the way they were talking, so of course I wanted to go. I didn’t feel like going back to my dorm and doing homework. Cooper and Mason both shot that idea right down. No way could I go; girls like me didn’t belong at parties like that. I was a little hurt but damn it I wanted to go and see what all the hype was about. Girls from my soccer team were always talking about them and I wanted to check it out for myself. The thought of showing up with Cooper and Eli was a little exciting and powerful since they were pretty popular around campus. Plus I wanted a little of Cooper’s attention. So that night I wasn’t taking no for an answer, I was going to that party no matter what. After a few bats of my eyelashes, Cooper agreed. He wasn’t happy about it and bitched and complained the whole time. We dropped Mason off back at the house they were renting then the three of us headed off to the party. Eli was in the back texting away on his phone while I sat up front with Cooper.

The whole way there he was giving me the, ‘don’t leave your drink unattended, don’t take a drink from anyone you don’t know’ speech. I felt like he was treating me like his sister and I didn’t want that. I was a little irritated with him by the time we got there so I tried to keep him at a distance, needing some space. I figured I would be safe, I knew he would be in the house somewhere; Eli was there too, as were a few of the girls from the soccer team.

A few hours passed and one of my friends introduced me to a guy named Kevin. He was nice enough and kind of cute, with his piercing blue eyes and blond hair. I had been drinking since arriving at the party so for all I know he could have been the ugliest guy there, but with beer googles on I couldn’t tell. Cooper came over and checked on me a few times and was keeping my beer full. It was his way of looking out for me; he didn’t seem to trust anyone here at the party. Kevin got up to go the bathroom and asked if wanted him to bring me a drink back. I looked down and my beer was empty again so I told him yes. After countless beers I wasn’t thinking clearly with all the alcohol in my system.

I had almost finished the drink that Kevin had got me when I started to feel the room spin and I suddenly didn’t feel very well. I never drank to the point of throwing up, I was drinking a lot that night but I still knew my limits.

“Can we go sit down for a few minutes?” I asked Kevin as I felt myself starting to sway. I grabbed onto his shoulder to steady myself.

What is going on with me? I’m sweating and feel so dizzy.

“It’s hot as hell in here.” I whine. “I wish someone would open up a window or something.”

“You want to take a walk up to my room and cool off for a bit?” He asks in a low raspy voice that had me wondering what that meant. “I’ve got the air conditioner on up there.”

“Oh no,” My words come out as a slur, “Cooper would kick my ass.” My eyes feel heavy and I’m really tired.

Kevin throws an arm over my shoulder, “I don’t see Cooper around anywhere.”

I shake my head back and forth and the room fades in and out. I know I drank a little more than I normally do but I shouldn’t be feeling like this. I reach up and attempt to wipe the back of my hand over my forehead but miss and wind up hitting my nose. I wait for the pain to kick in but everything feels numb. I lean back against the couch as my stomach rolls.

Kevin stands up and holds a hand out to me. “Come on, let’s get you upstairs and cooled off. You’ll feel better, I promise.”

The way he said I’d feel better didn’t sit right with me but I couldn’t argue. I couldn’t get the words together to argue.

The last thing I remember is being lifted into the air and floating away.

I take a minute to collect myself before continuing. I look over to my mom; she’s gripping the coffee cup in her hands so tightly that the tips of her fingers are white. I look out over towards the window, it’s a cold, dark, gloomy day, matching my mood perfectly.

I take a sip of my coffee and place it on the coffee table in front of me. I reach for the throw blanket on the back of the couch and lay it over me, bringing it up to my shoulders and feeling very cold.