Stepping on the gas, I speed up and pull into his driveway. We didn’t arrange to see each other tonight, but right now I need him. I need him more than I’ve needed anyone for a long time.
I’ve been so numb. So numb, that right now I feel like I’m being slammed with all the emotions at once. And not one of them is good.
Pulling up at his house, I see he’s not here. Where is he? Why isn’t he here? I know he isn’t a social man.
I call him again—there’s no answer.
Hitting the steering wheel, I try to think of where else he could be. I should drive home, but I don’t want to be by myself right now.
Pulling back out, I go to the one place I was told never to go to again. I don’t stop on the way, and when I pull up to the front of the gigantic gates, which let me in, I spot his truck straight away. Taking only my keys with me, I walk in. It’s not a party like the last few times I’ve been here, it’s tamer, quieter. There’re a few people sitting at a bar, Blaze not being one of them.
I look around for Marcus, and don’t see him.
Harper spots me and waves me over.
“Oh God, you’re here,” she says in a tone that doesn’t sound happy. But I’m not in the mood to dive into that right now, because I need to find Marcus.
“Yeah, look, I don’t want to stay. I need to find Marcus. He isn’t answering his phone.”
“I know where he is.”
Turning around, I see her, that same stupid-ass blonde. I don’t even care what her name is.
“Where is he?” I ask, almost desperately.
She pulls the door open completely and it reveals she’s naked. “Do you really want to know the answer to that?” Her eyebrows raise in question.
“Yes.”
She steps out and points in. Stepping up closer to her, but not inside the room, I see him. He’s asleep on the bed with no shirt on and a sheet covering his bottom half. I look up to her and know straight away she’s won.
“He was in the mood, so was I. Didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”
She did, of course, and she meant it because she’s a cunt like that.
“You fucked him?” I ask, looking incredulously where he’s lying asleep. Not a sound comes from him. Marcus looks so peaceful, so fucking beautiful. I hate him and love him all at once.
He’s made me numb.
Or perhaps death has.
And those two? They are like twins.
I don’t know who I am anymore.
Is it because of him?
“Come on, sweetheart, you do have eyes, right?”
My angry eyes fly to her, the blonde bitch. I want to pull her hair out, but I won’t. I won’t stoop to her level. Stepping away, a hand touches me, and I pull away.
“Rochelle,” Harper says, as I turn to leave.
I run to my car and see Blaze standing at the entrance, watching me. Putting my car in reverse, I leave as fast as I can. My eyes fill with water as I head straight to my sister’s house. It’s the last place I can go to. My mother will ask too many questions, and I need to be with someone. Being alone right now isn’t an option.
Wiping at my eyes, I manage to drive to Kat’s house, which isn’t too far from mine. And when I get out she comes over with Annabelle on her hip.
“Roch?”
“Can I stay tonight?”
“Yes. Of course.”
I walk past Kat into her house. She’s in the middle of cooking so she passes me Annabelle and I sit with her, playing on the floor.
“Do you plan to tell me why you’re here and not with Marcus?”
“No.”
“Okay. Did you guys have a fight?”
“No,” I answer truthfully, pressing buttons on Annabelle’s fake phone, which makes all kinds of whirring and dinging noises.
“How is it going with you two then?”
“Fine,” I answer.
“Lord, Rochelle, tell me more. You’ve been so checked-out since Tan died. No one can talk to you without you giving them short, snippy words, and no one knows what to say to you.”
“That’s fine.”
“Do you talk to him?” she asks.
I lean over and cover Annabelle’s ears before I answer her, “We fuck.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” she says, then I smile and kiss Annabelle’s cheek. “You love him though, right?”
“I think so.”
“You either do or you don’t.”
“I love who he is with me. He helps me when he doesn’t even know he’s doing it.”
“He lets you be silent,” she says, as I look up to her. “I can tell straight away he isn’t a man to push you for answers, or to give them.” Kat’s right about Marcus, he lets me be. “He would push you if he loved you. He would want you to be okay.”
“I am okay.”
“Why are you here, Rochelle?” She holds up her hands. “Not that I don’t want you here. I do. I really, really do. But I won’t be like Marcus because I need to know.”
“A man came to my work today, he grabbed my throat and scared me. I don’t want to be alone.”
“Oh my God, how can you just say that so blasé.” Kat shakes her head. “I’m calling the cops. You need to report this.” And that’s exactly what she does.
A man in uniform arrives quite quickly, and I recognize him. He coughs when he sees me and tells me he’s sorry for my loss. Yet again. Then I give him all the information and he leaves. Kat has put Annabelle to bed, so it’s just us now.
“Does Marcus know?”
“Know what?”
Her hand slaps my leg, and she pinches the skin as hard as she can. She’s frustrated with me.
“Ouch.”
“Yeah, that’s right. You feel that.”
“I feel everything,” I scream at her. “I felt it the worst when Grandma and Grandpa died,” I say to her, my voice still loud. “I felt it when his lips touched me, and I knew I was falling in love with a man who couldn’t love me back, but I fell anyway.” Taking a deep breath, I continue, “Then I felt it even worse… hell, it ripped my soul out… when she jumped. When I watched my best friend dive off a bridge because her demons were too big to handle. How do you think that felt?” I scream. Pushing her hand away, I stand. “And I feel it in the way he touches me, as if I’m his everything. So that’s what I’m doing, letting myself get lost in the way he touches me. Letting myself lose myself in him. Because the pain… the pain of everything else is too much for me to bear.”
“Rochelle, you need to end this. I don’t know who you’re becoming with him. You need to end it.”
My phone rings, and I see his name come up on the screen, so I answer, “Hello.”
“I’m home now. You were looking for me?”
“I’m coming over.” I hang up and stand.
“You aren’t staying?” Kat asks.
“No, I need him.”
“No, no you don’t. You need you.”
“No, right now I need him,” I say, walking out and going straight to him.
Chapter Twenty-Five