Things Remembered (Accidentally On Purpose Companion Novel #3) (17 page)

It felt like something ugly and spiky was rolling around in my mouth. It was
that
word.
It
was ugly and spiky.

Kyle’s eyebrows came down a little, but other than that, he didn’t react. He sat still, watching me, and waiting for me to continue.

“It would have come up eventually,” I said, shrugging dismissively. “It was impossible to really avoid, because not so deep down, I blamed Grant for what had happened to me. I know it’s unreasonable and unfair to blame him, but I did. He left me the same day Shari was buried. I was still in the hospital because of the overdose. My best friend was just put in the ground. Living was already hard, but then he left.”

Kyle shifted in his chair. “That is terrible timing, but why did he leave?”

He’d asked me the question before, but I had avoided telling him the truth because Kyle and I didn’t discuss emotions. But, he’d seen me in my underwear. Sharing the emotional shit with him couldn’t be any worse than that.

“He told me he didn’t want to watch me kill myself. I told him I was ready to get clean, but he didn’t believe me. Anyway,” I sighed. “After he left, I didn’t see any point in getting clean. There was no one left to give a shit about what I did or didn’t do. I had Tack, but I didn’t have Tack. You can’t exactly depend on another junkie. I had no one
grounded
left in my life to live for, so I stopped caring. I was out there alone. Those men raped me and it didn’t matter to anyone.
I
didn’t matter to anyone.”

I needed a minute before I could continue. For years, I was a dried up well and didn’t cry. Even in situations when tears were almost a requirement, I didn’t cry. I started to believe there was something wrong with me—well, more than what I already knew about. Since Grant returned to my life, however, I discovered that the well wasn’t so dry after all. I didn’t want to cry in front of Kyle, though, so I was quiet until I had some control over my emotions.

“The first time things began to heat up between Grant and me, I had a flashback. We didn’t talk about it, but he backed off for a little while. Things started to heat up again, and Saturday night it was pretty intense. I was fine—I was more than fine. I
wanted
it, but then he pinned my hands above my head. For a minute, I didn’t even know where I was, if I was with Grant or with
them
. I freaked the hell out.” I absently shrugged a shoulder. “I told him what happened. He listened carefully the whole time, but when I finished,
he
freaked the hell out. He went into his room and destroyed an innocent mirror and a lamp. Then he left. Again.”

Kyle narrowed his eyes and leaned forward. “What do you mean he left?”

“I mean that he got on his bike and drove off into the night like a bat out of hell without a word to me. Not one word. He didn’t come back that night. In the morning, I gathered most of my personal items, took my dog, and came home. He showed up a little while after I got back.”

“Did he tell you why he left?”

“Yeah, and…” I sighed again. “I get it. He had a VPE—violent psychopathic episode. He said he left so that he wouldn’t accidentally hurt me.”

Kyle’s eyes grew distant for just a heartbeat. He was no doubt thinking of his own rage when he’d hurt Emmy, but then his eyes were clear again and he was back in the present.

“So, what happened?”

“I sent him away,” I said quietly. “I basically told him I wasn’t good for him or his kids, and I’m not.”

Kyle looked away from me. I doubted that he actually agreed with me, but he wasn’t going to try to argue with me, either. He had felt the same way a few years ago when he and Lily were first together and she got pregnant. He had a lot of demons to expel before he could feel worthy. I knew my demons would be with me forever, that they were cemented to my soul and there would be no extracting them. I knew I would never find the worth that Kyle eventually found.

“So, you’re popping pills because you’re upset about Grant,” Kyle concluded.

“That’s part of it, but I also can’t stop thinking about the…what happened. As a matter of fact, over the past few weeks, I’ve been dreaming about it a lot. There’s that, and all the other usual bullshit baggage I carry around. I already feel like a broken person, but yesterday I felt like I was going to crack wide open. I always knew that I was mentally ill, but yesterday I…I don’t know…had an episode. I wanted to feel better. I
wanted
to get high, but instead, I took the pills and was blissfully ignorant of the world for many, many hours.”

“You should have called me,” he reprimanded.

“Sunday is the only day you have to spend with Lily and the kids without either of you having to be somewhere or do something. Why should I disrupt your happy family life just because I don’t have one?”

“I would have brought you home and you would have participated in our happy family life.”

“Or I would have fucked up the whole day for everyone.”

He looked doubtful but said no more about it. Instead, he said, “Lily is expecting you for dinner tonight.”

I hadn’t eaten since Saturday night, but I had no appetite. However, if I declined, Kyle would probably hit me over the head with something and drag me out of my apartment. I couldn’t tell him that I was fine while I clearly was not. I shook badly, head to toe. From his point of view, I probably looked like a junkie going through withdrawal, but that wasn’t the case at all. I was emotionally blasted and was barely keeping it together.

“Come on,” he said, getting to his feet and holding out his hand to me. “Pack a bag. Stay for dinner, stay for the night, and we’ll see how you are tomorrow.”

I hesitated a long moment. I didn’t want to appear as broken and vulnerable as I really was, but if I didn’t go, I couldn’t make any promises as to what state I would be in at the end of the night. I swallowed what little pride I had left and took his hand.

After pulling me to my feet, Kyle surprised me by pulling me into his arms and hugging me. That almost undid me, because Kyle Sterling doesn’t hug. He doesn’t show affection, except for his kids and wife.

I was just about to tell him how awkward I felt since I kind of hated him when he spoke softly in my ear.

“I know you feel like you’re not strong and that you aren’t worth the love and life Grant can give to you, but you
are
strong and you
are
worth it. You are good, Mayson, and deserving. You are more than what you think you are.”

He kissed the top of my head before releasing me. He took me by my shoulders, turned me toward my bedroom, and gave me a small shove.

“Those are the last kind words you’ll hear from me for a while,” he said grumpily behind me. “Go get your shit so we can go eat.”

Speechless, I shuffled into my bedroom to pack a bag. I didn’t look back, less he see the grateful single tear falling down my cheek.

Chapter Fifteen

Randy Walsh changed my life when I was only fourteen years old and he was seventeen. He was the first boy I’d ever kissed. He was my first real boyfriend, and he took my virginity in a cheap, dirty motel room the very same night he introduced me to Brown Sugar.

I was nervous about sticking myself with a needle, but Randy was kind enough to do it for me the first time. Later that week, I introduced Sharice and my cousin Tack to my new favorite pastime and changed their lives. In essence, I cut one of those lives short…

My mother hated Randy, but looking back, I can’t say that I blame her now. It was bad enough that he was almost a full-grown man and I was still a child. It was even worse that he was a high school dropout and a drug dealer. It was incomprehensible that he got me hooked on one of his best sellers, but to top it all off, he was an abusive asshole.

At first, Tack intervened and protected me from Randy, but as the drug dug its claws deep into my cousin, it became more important for him to get what he needed from my boyfriend than to keep him from punching me in the face. Sharice found another drug dealer, so she didn’t mind jumping in when things got physical, or shouting at him for calling me a fat pig.

I don’t know why I tried so hard to keep Randy. I guess it was the drugs because the man had no redeeming qualities. When my mom tried to separate us, I lost it and attacked her. A couple days later, my dad returned home from a business trip. A week later, he was in a grave, and I was the one that put him there.

Like I said, Randy Walsh changed my life.

During a brief period of sobriety, I ended things with him. He didn’t quite accept it, and would pop up from time to time, always with the enticing Brown Sugar to reel me in. Of course, it worked. I never went back to him all the way, but I went back to him enough to fuck myself up more and more each time. I spent two years sleeping on people’s couches, in drug houses, in jail, and even on the streets. My mom had cut me off, as well as most of my family. I only had Sharice and Tack, and in a sick way, Randy.

When I was eighteen, Grant moved back to New Jersey. He had come home to try to help Shari, and to help his mother cope with her drug-addicted daughter. For a little while, Sharice had been doing well. Since she was doing well, I wanted to do well, too, but I couldn’t do it. I tried and failed.

I was tired of being me. I was sick of being an addict but didn’t have the strength and willpower to stop being an addict. I knew that no one in the world loved me, no one in the world that cared. Tack only cared about his next high, and Sharice had to care for herself, and I couldn’t blame her for that. Randy was just as toxic as the drugs, and I seemed to be unable to completely quit him, too. I felt like there was only one way out of my life, so I took it. I swallowed a prescription drug and vodka cocktail.

I woke up a week and a half later in a hospital bed with a tube down my throat and my mother sleeping in a chair next to me. It was so surreal because I hadn’t seen her in months, but the first thing I noticed was the big rock on her finger. I didn’t know until a day later that she had remarried. I hadn’t been invited, nor had I been informed. I only found out when the doctor called her Mrs. Santini. I became incensed once she confirmed it. I made her leave and then barred her from any further knowledge of my medical condition.

When I got out of the hospital, I stayed at Sharice’s for a couple months. I was doing okay. I wasn’t clean, but I was trying to be. Sharice was trying again, too. She went to school and worked part time in the college library. I worked overnights at a nearby warehouse and took classes a couple days a week to get my GED. Grant also worked nights, doing security for a hospital. There were many mornings the three of us would convene in the kitchen, Shari heading out for the day and Grant and I trying to unwind from a night of work. When Shar left, Grant and I would continue to sit in the kitchen chatting. Sometimes he would make me brinner—that’s breakfast and dinner combined—and sometimes I’d make him a bowl of cereal because that’s all the cooking I’d do.

My favorite days were the ones that Grant and I were both off work on the same day. Sometimes we did nothing but sit on the couch talking and watching television all day. Other times we would go out to breakfast and run errands together. Sometimes we found something fun to do. It was almost always just the two of us, and I found that I really liked when it was just the two of us. He made me smile and laugh, he carried his end of any conversation very well, and he made me feel normal. Even when he saw through my excuses to slink away and get high, he didn’t treat me like the troubled young addict I was. He treated me like Mayson, just Mayson.

I started to forget that I was a junkie when I was around him, and my view of him began to change. He was no longer my best friend’s big brother. He was Grant, with his own cozy place in my life. I started to notice the way he moved, the growing muscles in his arms and legs, and the way his chest began to fill out his T-shirts. I watched his mouth when he spoke, and his laughter sunk pleasantly into my bones and contented my entire body.

Briefly, I began to wonder if something was developing between us. We were spending so much time together, and it seemed like we were getting closer and closer—physically and figuratively. We sat close together on the couch, he’d put his arm around me sometimes when we were out, and he wasn’t afraid to play with my hair or rub my back during an embrace. I started opening up more to him about my relationship with my mother, my failed relationship with Randy, my dad, and my suicide attempt. He told me about his relationship with his father, the girlfriend he had left behind in Texas, and his stagnant career.

“Why are you just a security guard?” I’d asked him one day. “You have a Criminal Justice degree.”

We were sitting on the couch, and he was playing with my hair. He tugged gently on a curl, stretched it out as far as it would go and then released it, letting it spring back into its spiral shape.

“I wanted to be a police officer,” he’d said distractedly. “But I can’t—in good conscience—be an officer of the law knowing that my sister is walking through the door with heroin, coke, and god knows what else. I wouldn’t want to turn my own sister in, and I wouldn’t want to ignore my duties.”

He had said it casually. He was only answering my question, but his answer had hit me hard. It was a wake-up call that shook me out of my daydreams about being with Grant Alexander in any capacity. He literally held back his own life because of Shari’s addiction. How much more would I hold him back if anything developed between us?

After that day, I purposely stayed out later after work so that by the time I got home, Grant was either gone or already in bed. I had a thousand excuses for why I couldn’t hang out with him, and I stayed out of his reach so that he wouldn’t touch me. He wasn’t stupid. He understood that I was pushing him away, and he had the grace to back off until we were merely cordial in passing each other.

Around that time, Randy made a reappearance. Feeling the need to get away from Grant, I spent more time with Randy. My drug usage kicked up a few notches, and soon, I started missing work and ditching classes. Sharice and Grant’s mom wasn’t having any of it. It was one thing for her to put up with Shari’s drug use because she was her daughter, but I wasn’t anything to her. She didn’t have to let me stay in her house, and I was soon homeless again. I had no choice but to go stay with Randy.

Things became very bad. He was still a cruel bastard. One night, almost in the same spot I met Shari at years before, on the side of a convenience store, Randy slapped me so hard that I stumbled into the side of the building. I had no idea that Grant just happened to be pulling into the parking lot at that time. There was a screech of tires as a car came to a sudden halt in front of us, blinding us with its headlights. A car door slammed, and a second later, Grant appeared in the light like some kind of avenging angel. He had asked no questions before his fist knocked out a couple of Randy’s teeth. He said no words before punching the man in the gut so hard that he dropped to his knees before curling up on the sidewalk, sobbing and groaning.

Without any words at all, he guided me to the passenger side of his car and helped me get in. He was so furious that he didn’t speak until we pulled into an empty store parking lot miles down the road. Then he turned to me within the confines of the car and gingerly put his fingers on my cheek where Randy had hit me.

“Does it hurt?”

“No. It’s a little sore, but it’s not bad. It’s not the worst he’s ever done.”

Even in the dimly lit space, I could see Grant’s face darken with anger.

“Why do you keep going back to him? You’re stronger than that. I don’t understand.”

I pulled away from his hand.

“He’s all I have,” I snapped.

“That’s not true!” he snapped back. “You have me!”

I stared at him, surprised and hopeful, but only for a few short seconds. There was no use getting lost in ridiculous fantasies of romanticism.

I slumped in my seat, crossed my arms, and said, “You’re Shari’s brother. You’re not my brother. You’re not my anything.”

He was quiet for a moment. I stared straight ahead, but I still felt his eyes on me.

“I can be more,” he finally said in a soft voice.

I laughed humorlessly. “You must have forgotten that I am a junkie and a complete failure at life.”

“You are a junkie,” he conceded. “But you are so much more.”

“That’s right.” I held up a hand. “I totally forgot to mention a thief and a whore.”

“That’s how you see yourself. That’s not how I see you.”

“I see myself that way because I
am
that way, Grant, and if you don’t see those things, too, then you are blind and stupid.”

“When I look at you, I see beauty and strength. I see more than the girl you are now, but I see the girl you can be.” His fingers grazed my cheek and down the side of my neck. “You’re a beautiful butterfly in the making, Mayson. One day, you’re going to get through this ugly caterpillar stage. You will wrap yourself in a healing cocoon and emerge more beautiful and stronger than ever.”

I stared at him. My heart thrummed heavily as his fingers traced over my mouth. He leaned across the center console and cupped my face in his hand. He held my gaze as his lips moved closer to mine, but just before he kissed me, I found my breath and spoke.

“Butterflies die quickly,” I whispered. “They don’t live that long. One day they’re fluttering about and the next day they are falling from the sky. That is if they don’t become food for a hungry bird first.”

To my surprise, he smiled.

“You’re such a smartass,” he said, caressing my bottom lip with his thumb. “You’re not pushing me away again, Baby Girl. I’m not going anywhere.”

I swallowed hard and whispered, “Why?”

It wasn’t just a question as to why he wasn’t going anywhere. I wanted to know
why
. Why me? Why did he love a girl who couldn’t love herself? Why did he see me as something I could never be? Why, why, why…

“Because I’m in love with you,” he whispered back.

As he kissed me for the first time, his love for me was my biggest Why of them all.

Standing in the shower, I blinked away my memories of Randy and Grant. They were two different people who had changed my life in two distinct ways. Randy had flipped my life on its head and shook me down for everything I had, but Grant had righted me and given me some of my dignity back. He had shown me what it meant to love and be loved, but I’d lost him once, and then I gave him up.