Finally, her gorgeous green eyes look back at me and she presses, “Would you tell me the truth if I did? Tyler never did.”
“Tyler wasn’t ever involved in anything serious.” I ignore how everything in me turns cold at the mention of his name. Being with Addison … knowing he was her first. It hurts to swallow as she keeps talking. Especially after the memory of my father. I don’t like to remember.
She answers me, “Your version of serious and mine are different, I think.”
The time passes as I fail to come up with a response. She doesn’t need to know about any of this shit. It would be better if she didn’t.
Another second. Another thought.
“Is that why you left him?” I ask her and although it hurts deep down in my core, I need to know if her idea of what he did for work is what made her leave him. I don’t say his name though.
“I don’t want to talk about that night.” Her answer comes out sharper than I expect. With a bite and a threat not to question her. It only makes me that much more curious.
“The night you broke things off?” I ask her to clarify. That night isn’t the one that haunts me. That’s not the night that’s unspeakable to me.
Addison stands on shaky legs with her back to me. Finding her packed bag and unzipping it as she speaks.
“I just don’t like thinking about how the last couple of times I saw him I was turning him away,” she says with a tinge of emotion I don’t like to hear. The kind of emotion that’s indicative of love.
A love I know for certain he had for her.
“You weren’t the first seventeen-year-old girl to end a high school relationship,” I remind her and also me. It was puppy love. That’s all it ever was.
“Yeah well, I didn’t know what it would lead to,” she says and her voice trembles as she slips on a pair of underwear and sweatpants.
I’m not sure I want to know the answer, but I have to ask. “So if you could go back?”
Addison’s quiet at my question and I walk toward her although her back is still to me. “If you could go back, you’d still be with him?” Her hesitation makes my muscles tighten. My fist clenches as a tic in my jaw spasms.
I’ve been kidding myself to think otherwise. Of course she’d be with him and not me. My breathing comes in ragged as she answers.
“If he were here now--” she starts to say, but I cut her off.
“He’s not, and he never will be.” The anger simmers. Everything that’s been pushed down for so long rises up quickly. All the years of control and denial.
The hate that my brother was taken from me. And the pain of knowing it was my fault and that I’ve never told a soul. I could tell her now. But I never would. It’s too late to confess.
Addison turns to face me with wide eyes. “Don’t say that.”
Maybe it’s the denial, the guilt that plagues me. But I sneer at her, “You think it’s easy for me? You got over his death far easier than I did.”
I don’t see the slap coming until the sting greets my cheek. My hand instinctively moves to where she’s struck me. I flex my jaw and feel the burn radiate down the side of my face.
Her beautiful countenance is bright red with anger and her eyes are narrowed. I’ve never seen her this full of rage. Never.
Her hands tremble as she yells at me.
“You don’t know how many nights his death haunted me!”
I do.
Her voice wavers and I know she’s on the verge of tears. The kind that paralyze you because they’re so overwhelming. But instead of giving in to grief, she screams at me.
“You don’t know how I blamed myself to the point where I begged God to just kill me and let me take his place.” She takes each breath in heavily.
I do.
Adrenaline rushes through my blood. The hate, the shame, and the unrelenting guilt surge within me. And I can’t say anything back. I can’t have this conversation with her.
When I don’t say anything, when I feel myself shutting down, she snaps. “Fuck you,” she tries to yell at me but her voice cracks as she grabs her bag and storms out of the room.
She doesn’t have her shoes on and she’s not wearing a bra under my shirt.
“You’re not leaving?” It’s meant to be a statement but the question is there in the undertone. All because I said she got over his death easier than I did? It’s a fact. I fucking know it is.
“Yes, I am,” she snaps as she turns around just as I walk up behind her. I have to halt my pace and take half a step back as she cranes her neck to bite out, “How dare you tell me that it was easy for me.”
“You don’t know-” I try to tell her that she has no idea how well I relate to her pain, but she doesn’t let me finish.
“Leave me alone.”
She angrily brushes under her eyes as she quickly descends the stairs with me right behind her. The front door is right there and she makes a beeline for it.
She’s out of her fucking mind if she thinks I’m letting her leave here like this. “Addison. Wait a fucking minute.”
“Don’t tell me what to do,” she yells back and tries to whip open the door. My palm hits it first, slamming it back shut.
“You’re not leaving like this,” I warn her. My muscles are coiled, but it’s the fear making me wound so tight. She’s leaving. And she’s not coming back.
I can feel it in every inch of me.
“Yes, I am,” she replies, though with shaken confidence.
“The fuck you are.” My words are pushed through clenched teeth.
“If you respect me in any sense of the word, you will let me leave. Right now.”
“Addison, don’t do that.”
“I mean it, Daniel. I need to be alone right now.”
“I want to be there for you.” I don’t know how true the words are until I’ve said them. And oh, how fucking ironic they are.
“Well, you can’t.” She shuts me down.
Her green eyes stare up at me and all I can see is the same look she’d give Tyler when he was being clingy. The look that so obviously said she needed time and that she was overwhelmed. I get it now why he always hovered.
I’m afraid if I let her go now, she’s never coming back. I can’t lose her. Not again.
“I’m coming by tonight.” I give her the only compromise I’m capable of.
I lower my arm but she doesn’t respond. With a swift tug she pulls the door open and walks out, bare feet and all.
I stand in the doorway and watch her reach in her bag for flip-flops then put them on at the corner of the street.
She keeps looking over her shoulder, maybe to see if I’m coming for her.
And I am. She knows better than to think otherwise.
But I’ll let her get a head start.
FIVE YEARS AGO
He hovers. Constantly hovering.
We all know why. It’s so fucking obvious every time he brings her around.
She’s waiting to run.
She’s cute and sweet, but there’s something about her that makes it almost painfully apparent that a kid like Tyler could never hold on to her. It would take a man to keep that cute little ass.