Picking up the Pieces (4 page)

CHAPTER 6

PAST

Summer 2005

I woke to the sun pouring into my room through my window. Remembering the events of the night before, I lifted my arms over my head with a huge smile on my face, stretching out my body and cherishing the dull throb I’d never experienced before. Not only had I lost my virginity, but I’d lost it to my best friend in the world. A man that I truly loved.

I turned over to get a look at Luke sleeping in my bed for the first time only to discover that I was alone. A quick glance around confirmed that Luke must have snuck out in the middle of the night. I could only assume he was worried about Grams coming into my room and catching us. I reached for my cell on the nightstand to check for messages and was surprised to find that he hadn’t, at the very least, sent me a text. Looking at the time and seeing that it was already past ten, I made the decision to call him first. This was our last day together before he left for basic. I wanted to be sure to get as much time in with him as possible.

I started to feel that ball of worry in my stomach when the phone went to voicemail.
Maybe, he’s still sleeping
I thought to myself, but deep down I knew it was more than that.

***

“You did
what
?” Savannah screamed. I’d just told her about my night with Luke and she was freaking out.

“Will you please calm the hell down?” I asked. The last thing I needed was for her mother to overhear our conversation. I grew up in the typical, middleclass suburban neighborhood of Cloverleaf whereas Savannah’s family was from the
richer part of town. Her mom was already convinced that I was beneath Savannah’s social standards, so I didn’t need her knowing I’d slept with the boy she referred to as white trash when she didn’t think we could hear. I could never figure out where Savannah got her loving nature from. Her mother was a country club snob and her dad was always “working” out of town. Neither of them had an ounce of the compassion that their daughter had.

“Calm the hell down? Are you serious! You lose your V-card to your best friend and this is the
first
I’m hearing about it? I kinda hate you right now.”

I collapsed onto her bed as I played the night again and again in my head. “It’s not like we’d planned it, Van. I know it sounds cliché but it just happened.”

“Just happened… Like it slipped in? My
ass,
Emerson Grace! Losing your virginity doesn’t
just happen
.”

I let out a frustrated huff of air. I was uncomfortable enough having to discuss this with Savannah. She wasn’t making it any easier. I might have been loud mouthed about some things, but when it came to sex, I couldn’t talk without turning the color of a cherry tomato. It was humiliating. “I don’t mean it like that, ass face! You know what I meant. We didn’t go into last night planning on sleeping together. I didn’t even think about it happening until he was lying in my bed, holding on to me.” I ran my hands through my hair as I tried to put last night into words that would make sense. “It’s like it just all clicked into place, you know? I was lying in bed and he climbed through the window and I just… I just knew.”

“So what’s that mean for you guys? Are you, like, a couple now? How’s that going to work with him going into the Marines?”

I felt the tears pricking the back of my eyes. She was asking all of the questions I’d been asking myself all day. I didn’t have any answers, and I desperately wanted some. “I don’t know, Savannah.”

She sat down on the bed next to me and wrapped her arms around me. “Hey, come on now. Why are you crying?”

I sniffled and tried my best to pull myself together. “He’s not answering any of my calls or texts, Van.” Saying it out loud made the anxiety even worse. Once it’s vocalized, it’s no longer just in my head, it’s real. “I woke up this morning, and he was gone. Just
gone
. I’ve tried calling but it keeps going to voicemail.” The tears started again, and I was having an even harder time controlling them. “What if he regrets it? He’s leaving tomorrow. What if I don’t see him again?!” The thought of that was quickly sending me into hysterics.

“Hey now, none of that.” Savannah started rubbing the back of my hair in soothing motions. “Of course he doesn’t regret it.”

“How can you know that?” I wanted so badly to believe her, but I just wasn’t sure. I had this feeling, deep down in the pit of my stomach, telling me something wasn’t right, and the more I tried to ignore it, the worse it got. “We’ve never gone more than a few hours without talking, and now that we’ve had sex, I can’t get a hold of him? That can’t be a coincidence.”

I could tell that she wanted to believe what she was saying, but it was obvious she was concerned. “Well, then screw it,” she said with conviction. “If he won’t answer his damn phone, then you get your ass over to his house and confront him. He’s leaving tomorrow. You need answers, and if you don’t get them before, then you’re going to be miserable. Don’t let him leave with any unanswered questions, Emmy. You’ll regret it forever.”

She was right, I knew it. I had to talk to Luke face to face, but the thought of that terrified me. “Okay. Yeah, you’re right.” I sucked it up and tried to be optimistic even if it was fake.

“Damn straight I am,” she declared. After several more minutes of pep talk, I left Savannah’s. She hollered out as I was walking out the door, “Now go over there and kick his ass into gear.”

Once I got home, I did something I’d never done in preparation to see Luke. I actually tried. Meaning I went for the full hair and makeup effect. I spent a good twenty minutes on my outfit selection, and I even spritzed on a little perfume. I knew it was ridiculous, but after the night we’d had together, I knew our relationship had changed for good. Gone were the days of just throwing on a ratty pair of sweats and tossing my hair up in a sloppy knot on the top of my head. I wanted Luke to see me as a woman, not just one of his friends.

I decided on my best pair of dark skinny jeans and my navy and white striped blouse that hung off one shoulder. I paired my outfit with my tan ballet flats, and as I inspected myself in the mirror, I begin feeling a little more confident. I managed to table my wavy, chocolate locks in some semblance of order, and my light gray eyes were accentuated with a soft, shimmery eye shadow. Even I was willing to admit that I looked pretty good, and I was my worst critic.

All that confidence disappeared at Luke’s doorstep. My stomach was a jumbled up wreck of nerves by the time I opened his front door. Knocking was pointless at Luke’s house. His mother—preferring to spend her evenings at whatever bar hadn’t kicked her out that week— was never home, and he never bothered to lock the door. If someone were to ever knock, he would just holler out that it was open anyway.

The idea of Luke spending his last night at home alone made me sad. Whether or not our relationship went anywhere, I still wanted to be there for him.

I found the front door unlocked, as it usually was, and I pushed it open. “Luke,” I called out. I didn’t want to freak him out by not announcing my presence. I heard a muffled sound coming from down the hall, toward his room. “Luke,” I called again as I got closer. He didn’t respond but the noises were getting louder. I felt a ball of dread forming in the pit of my stomach again.

I was right outside his bedroom door when I heard the distinct sound of moaning. I could tell instantly it wasn’t just Luke. His door was halfway open and when I peeked in, I wanted to die. Tears instantly started streaming down my cheeks, ruining all of the work I’d put into my makeup. Luke was sitting on the end of his bed, pants unbuttoned and unzipped, hanging down around his hips. There was a girl on the floor in front of him, cradled between his knees. Even if she hadn’t been naked, it was still clear what they were doing.

Luke’s head was thrown back in ecstasy, the muscles in his neck pulled tight as he groaned out “God, Allison, that feels so fucking good. You’re so perfect.”

“You like that, baby?” she responded in a nasally, baby voice.

Allison? How the hell could he do that?!
Luke knew what a bitch Allison Crabtree was. She’d made it her life’s mission in high school to make every day a living hell for me. If there was one person on the face of this earth that I could claim I truly, irrevocably hated, it would be Allison Crabtree. And Luke
knew
this! He knew how awful she’d been to me and here she was, on her knees with his dick down her throat, one day after he’d been with me. As if that weren’t bad enough, the fact that he was telling her she was perfect was a direct shot through my heart.

I had to get out of there. I didn’t even care if they heard me. I hoped me crashing their little party ruined their night. They both deserved it. I spun around and ran down the hall as fast as I could, knocking over a small side table in the process. I could barely see through the blur of tears in my eyes, but I was determined to keep going. Once I reached the front door and passed through, I slammed it as hard and I could. I didn’t slow down until I reached my front yard. Once there, I realized that the last thing I needed was for Grams to see me so wound up, so I sucked in huge lungfuls of air, over and over, trying to get my breathing under control. I wiped the tears from my eyes, and when I was convinced I looked halfway normal, I headed inside.

Grams was in the kitchen making dinner. “Hey, Emmy darlin’. Supper’s just about done,” she called over her shoulder when she heard me close the front door.

I tried to speak through the knot in my throat and was shocked that my voice came out sounding relatively normal. “I’m not really hungry, Grams,” I called out as I headed to my room. “I’m just going to lie down. I think I’m coming down with a cold or something.” I
hated
lying to Grams. She’d been such a strong influence in my life for so many years. I respected and loved her with all of my heart, and not being truthful with her hurt deeply. But there was no way I could let her see me like this. I didn’t want to have to think about what I’d seen, let alone talk about it. I just needed time. Once my head was clear, I’d be honest with her.

I got to my room and headed straight to the bathroom to scrub the ridiculous makeup off my face. Throwing on sweats and tossing my hair back into its signature sloppy knot, I climbed in my bed and cried myself to sleep. Luke had succeeded in doing the one thing no other guy had ever done. He’d managed to completely annihilate my heart in just a matter of seconds. That had to be some sort of record.

By the time I woke the next day, he was already gone.

CHAPTER 7

PRESENT

Spring 2013

Lizzy, Stacia, Savannah, and I walked into Colt’s sporting our ‘I’m with the band’ t-shirts. It was tradition for us to come and show support for the guys whenever they played close to home. And just because Luke breezed back into town like a stupid-ass hurricane, didn’t mean I was going to break tradition. These were my boys and I was going to support them.

Jeremy had been playing guitar since he was little, and sometime around sophomore year of high school, he joined forces with Gavin, Brett, and Luke to start a band. After Luke left, the other three kept at it and eventually added Dillon, a guy Jeremy worked with at his body shop. The four have been playing together ever since. They mainly play covers since none of them are any good at song writing, but they still kick ass, and it’s always fun to go to their shows.

We made our way to the front of the crowd by the stage as the guys started setting up. “Hey, check it,” Stacia said as she pulled open her purse. Looking in her bag, we spotted a pair of zebra print boy short panties with the tags still on them.

“Um… Stacia, why do you have underwear in your purse? You preparing for a car wreck or something?” I loved all of my friends equally, but Stacia was the girl in the group that always did or said off the wall things. Half the time she didn’t make any damn sense, but we all loved her for it.

I looked up to see her rolling her eyes at me. “
Noooo
,” she responded like what I’d said was the stupidest thing she’d ever heard. “I bought them to throw on stage to Gavin.

“Wait…” Savannah interrupted. “You
bought
new panties to throw at your boyfriend on stage?”

“Well, yeah. I’m not gonna throw my
actual
panties up on stage; that doesn’t seem very sanitary. Besides, all my undies are part of a matching set; throw one pair and I can never wear the bra again. That’s just a waste.”

“God I love you, girl,” Gavin declared from behind Stacia as he wrapped his arms around her waist and kissed her neck. The two of them were a ridiculously cute, somewhat idiotic match made in heaven.

The guys were halfway through their set, and the girls and I were having a great time shaking our asses and screaming out that we were doing different members of the band. I opted to scream out that I was banging the drummer, strictly because out of all my guy friends, Brett was the one that annoyed me the least. This, of course, meant that he farted and burped just a
little
less than the other guys.

All
a sudden, the air around me felt electric. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that the sudden change was due to the fact that Luke was walking through the doors of Colt 45. My body had some sort of physical reaction whenever he was within a few feet of me.

Damn traitorous body!

I tried not to show any emotion when his eyes met mine but when I caught a glimpse of that bleach blonde, trailer trash slut, Allison Crabtree on his arm all I saw was red… as in blood… as in I was gonna cut a bitch. I just couldn’t fathom how he could walk into a public place, where he
knew
I was going to be, with that skank beside him.

“Oh no, he didn’t just come in here with that walking advertisement for VD!” Savannah hollered above the music. Sensing that things just got nuclear, my girls flanked me, anxiously waiting for shit to go down. Luke must not have been as detached to my moods as I’d assumed because he narrowed his eyes at me, tilted his head and studied my expression, then quickly turned and glanced back at Allison. I could see it in his face the moment he realized his colossal mistake.

Allison retracted her claws from Luke’s arm long enough to head over to the bar and he took that as his opportunity to approach me and my band of killer Barbies. “I like the shirts,” he said, pointing in the general area of my chest. I wanted to slap him.

“Yeah, well what can I say? I like to support my true friends whenever I can,” I replied snottily. Seeing Allison set me off, and I wanted to take every opportunity to hit him where it hurt.

He actually had the nerve to look at me with remorse in his eyes. “Emmy, can we talk?”

Before I could even get a word out, Allison snaked her arm around Luke’s waist from behind and plastered her fake boobs to his side, wrapping herself around him like a syphilis infested anaconda. “Hey baby, I got somethin’ for you,” she said, attempting a sultry voice that came out sounding like baby talk.

I just couldn’t help myself. When someone gives such a perfect opening, you just have to grab it.

“And I bet I know what it is,” I sing-songed. “Just remember Luke, herpes is the gift that keeps on giving.” With that I booked it to the bar with Lizzy and Savannah behind me, howling with laughter. Stacia was still by the stage, singing along with Gavin and the rest of the guys. Her attention span rivaled a three year old, and the minute I walked away from Luke, she’d forgotten all about our standoff.

“Unbelievable,” Lizzy declared. “Not only is it bad enough he’s actually here, but is he really stupid enough to show up with
her
?”

“Obviously, he is because here I am, and there they are.” I pointed out to the dance floor where I’d left Luke with his slut de jour.

“I want to claw her eyes out,” Savannah told us, positively seething.

I looked over at my friend with an evil smile spreading slowly across my face at the visual she just created. “Well, if that bitch has the nerve to approach me, you’ll get your chance, Wildcat.” I tried my best for the next half hour to ignore the both of them. But even with all my best avoidance maneuvers, I still wasn’t good enough to get away from Luke. They must have taught him that shit in the Marines or something, because he eventually had me cornered at the bar. I’d gone up for a refill and he took the opportunity to pounce.

“I didn’t come here with her, you know.” He spit the words out so quickly I almost missed their meaning.

“It’s really none of my business, Lucas. You can come here with whoever you want. No accounting for taste, of course.”

He rubbed the back of his neck, and I remembered from our childhood that that was something he did when he was extremely nervous. He locked eyes with me again and continued. “I wouldn’t do that to you, Emmy. She caught me outside as I was walking in.”

If I could have killed him with a look, there was no doubt he’d be lying on the floor in a puddle of blood right then. “You wouldn’t do that to me?
Really
? Because I seem to recall, in vivid detail I might add, that you’ve already done exactly that to me once before.” I tried to push him away but he was too strong. It was like trying to move a brick wall.

He wrapped his hand around my arm and towered above me, getting so close we were practically nose to nose. “I fucked up. I know that, but I’ve been trying to talk to you about it since I got back to town.” He might have been whispering, but that didn’t take away from his menacing tone. “You haven’t given me one fucking chance to explain…”

I cut him off right there. I jerked my arm out of his hold and pushed him back with all my might. I no longer cared about making a scene. “
Explain?!
” I yelled a lot louder than I intended. “You want to fucking explain? You’ve had eight years to explain, Lucas. Eight.
Fucking
.
Years
!” I was beyond livid. “You want to
explain
to me why I walked in on that slut deep-throating you one day after you slept with me? You honestly think you’ve got a good excuse for that?”

When I finally stopped yelling, I noticed that the band had stopped playing and everyone in Colt’s was staring in our direction.
“Yes!”
he roared. “I want you to let me fucking explain why I did that!”

“Oh, please,” I said, so much sarcasm dripping from those two words you could drown in it. “Let me know what excuse you have that’s so good it can fix the damage you caused that night. I’d just
love
to hear it.”

He grabbed me by the arm and jerked me through the crowd toward the door. He handled me roughly, but it was still evident that he was holding back his strength because he wasn’t hurting me at all, just taking complete control. We made our way out the door and into the parking lot, Savannah, Lizzy, Jeremy and Brett hot on our heels.

“If you don’t let her go right fucking now, I’m going to beat the shit out of you!” Savannah hollered. “You might be a Marine, asshole but I’ve got a fucking black belt in kick-your-ass kwon do! Don’t test me.”

Jeremy was on her in a second. “Shut up, Savannah,” he said with more authority than I’d ever heard him use with her. “Let them handle it. Emmy doesn’t need you to interfere.”

She spun around fast as lightning. “Are you fucking kidding me, Jeremy? Just because you let him sweet talk his ass back into your good graces, doesn’t mean the rest of us have to buy into his bullshit.”

Jeremy’s eyes were fierce. I had no idea what the hell was going on in his head. “Savannah, for Christ’s sake. For once in your life just
shut the
fuck up!
Luke and Emmy need to talk this out without you in the mix. I know how much you love to stick your nose where it doesn’t belong, but I swear to Christ, woman, back the fuck off.”

Holy shit!
Savannah was going to cut his junk off and feed it to him. “Are you insane?!” Savannah’s voice had reached a pitch that only bats could hear.

“Maybe, but you know I’m right.” I could see Jeremy working to calm his temper. He took Savannah’s elbow and started leading her away with the rest of the group following.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she asked, losing steam fast. Jeremy had never talked to her like that, and I knew she was just as startled by it as I was.

“I’m gonna take your ass home. You won’t leave those two alone if you stay here, so I’m not letting you stay.”

She didn’t even bother to fight back, just let him lead her away. Right before I was yanked back into reality, I recalled thinking that I was so gonna have to get the story on that the following morning. Luke stepped in front of me and blocked my view of my friends’ backs. “You gonna let me talk now?” he asked.

I rolled my eyes at him. “By all means, speak.”

He started pacing and running his hands through that thick black hair. “That night we were together—” he started.

“You mean the night you took my virginity?” I offered snidely, hoping to make him cringe.

“Yes,” he hissed out then started pacing back and forth. “You told me you loved me, and after you fell asleep, I was just lying there thinking about how you deserved so much better than me. I knew that if I didn’t do something, you’d wait for me. I couldn’t let you put your life on hold for me when I knew I wasn’t worth it.” He stopped pacing and came to stand directly in front of me. “If I’d let you do that, you would have eventually realized what a piece of shit I was, and you’d have regretted it. I couldn’t stand the thought of that.”

I felt the tears pricking the back of my eyes, and the lump forming in my throat made it hard to speak. “You said that I would never lose you. You promised me that.” The words came out soft and broken.

He walked up to me and grabbed my face between his hands. The contact was a knife to my heart. “I know that, baby girl, and it killed me. Every day for eight years, I thought about how I hurt you. If it hadn’t been for a buddy of mine keeping my ass in check while we were in Iraq, I probably wouldn’t be here now… I can’t begin to tell you how much I regret the way I left you.” He spoke so quietly I almost couldn’t hear him. “I knew you’d come when I wasn’t answering your calls. I went and picked Allison up at some party, knowing how much you hated her. I knew if you saw me with another woman, it would be bad enough, but you would never be able to forgive me if you saw me with
her
. I did what I did so that you’d let me go. I wanted you to have the life you deserved. I wanted you to meet someone who was actually worthy of you.

“But what you saw with Allison was fake. After I heard you run out of the house, I pushed her off me and made her get the hell out. What you saw was never finished, and I
never
had sex with her. I just needed you to let me go, baby girl.”

I reached for his hands and pulled them from my face. “You were successful, Lucas. You wanted to prove you didn’t deserve me and you did that… in spades. I know now, more so than I did then, exactly how unworthy of me you actually are.”