Come to Me Recklessly (33 page)

For hours, I drove.

Aimless.

Over near deserted streets, passing by vacant parking lots, storefronts closed down for the night, I roamed through all the disorder that had taken over my heart and mind. Exhaustion threatened to pull me under, my eyes puffy and red and unable to see far enough into the mess that had become my life.

When I could go no farther, I pulled up outside the slumbering house, cut the lights and the engine.

God, what was I doing? Funny, how after everything, this was the one place I felt I could go.

Resigned, I stepped from my car and stumbled up the sidewalk. Above, the night was dense, the trees still and the air full. I drew in a heavy gulp of it and wiped my soggy face, knowing I had to look a total mess. Nothing to be done about that. Like they wouldn’t clue in that something had gone horribly wrong when I showed up at their house at three in the morning, anyway.

Softly I knocked on the door.

Movement rustled from the other side and the door cracked open to a sleepy, frowning Jared. “Sam?” He stepped back, opening the door wider, scraping a hand over his face to wake himself up. He wore only his boxers, obviously drawn from bed.

God, could I feel any worse for doing this? I peered up at him, tried to conceal the torment in my words, but it just leaked through like water through a sieve. “I’m so sorry for waking you up, but I didn’t have anywhere else to go.”

His frown deepened, but not in annoyance. “Hey, don’t worry about it for a second. You know you’re welcome here anytime.”

“Thank you,” I said, and he ushered me in. Subdued lights from the kitchen illuminated the space, and Aly emerged at the end of the short hall that led to their bedroom. She squinted at me. “Samantha?” In sleep shorts and a tee, she shuffled forward, craning her head. “Are you okay?”

“No,” I admitted. And I thought I’d cried myself dry, but when I saw her face fall in sympathy, I broke.

Quickly she crossed the room and pulled me into her arms, shushed me and soothed me while I quite literally cried into her shoulder.

Jared stepped back, giving us space, but still there with unwavering support.

And in spite of every emotion I’d been wrung through today, or maybe because of it, I finally truly understood what friendship meant, what I’d been missing for all those years.

Little muffled cries stirred up from Ella’s room.

“I’m so sorry for waking you all up,” I apologized profusely, wondering if either of them could even understand what I was saying through my trembling voice.

Aly stepped back and rubbed the outsides of my upper arms. “No apologies.” She squeezed in emphasis. “Jared and I both told you before, you belong here, with us. If you need help, we’re here, night or day. Understand?” She gave me a warm smile. “Besides, Ella was due to wake up to eat any second.”

Sniffling, I nodded. “Okay.”

“Why don’t you go sit on the couch and I’ll make you a cup of tea. Sound good?”

“Yeah.”

She turned to Jared. “Would you get Ella?”

“Glad to.” He headed down the hall. The echo of his muted, tender voice filtered down the hall from his daughter’s room.

Slipping off my shoes, I took a seat on the couch and drew my knees up to my chest, hugging them, searching for some kind of comfort that seemed impossible to find.

Still, being here?

It helped.

I rejected another call from Ben while Aly flitted around in the kitchen, quick to return with a steaming cup.

“Thank you,” I said, accepting it. I blew at the hot liquid before I brought it to my lips to take a sip.

Aly settled at the opposite end of the couch, crisscrossing her legs in front of her. Jared sauntered in, swaying Ella in his arms.

“Mommy time,” he said softly, easing that sweet baby girl into Aly’s arms. Ella wiggled and grunted, little legs flailing as she was situated against Aly’s chest. Jared ran his hand over the back of Ella’s head and dropped a tender kiss to Aly’s forehead. She lifted toward it, her eyes dropping closed as she relished his affection.

“Love you,” she said.

“Love you.” He glanced over at me, his expression uneasy, questioning, before he tipped his attention back down to Aly. “Why don’t I let the two of you talk?”

“Thank you,” she whispered, smiling a smile reserved only for her husband.

Awkwardly, Jared stepped back, slipped around the couch, and walked toward their bedroom. We both watched him over our shoulders as he went. He paused just before he disappeared into their room, eyes earnest when they locked on mine. “I know Christopher can be a complete idiot.” He shook his head. “I mean, we all can. Messing shit up every turn we take when it’s the last thing we want to do. But I think you should know I’ve only seen him spun up over a girl twice in his life.” Hand propped on the doorframe, he hesitated, then said, “Both times, that girl’s been you.”

Gratefulness and sorrow hit me full force. I flinched but tucked his words in deep. He dipped his chin before he disappeared into his room.

For a few minutes, Aly and I sat in silence while she situated Ella to feed her. We drifted on the charged quiet, Aly running her fingers through the thin strands of Ella’s dark hair, looking down at her tiny cherub face. It was such a gentle scene of pure, unadulterated love.

It filled me with a yearning unlike anything I’d ever known and strangely comforted me at the same time.

Aly glanced over at me, turned back to rub the bottom of Ella’s foot. Ella grunted in satisfaction. “I’m guessing it was my brother who put that look on your face?” Aly ventured.

Air filtered regretfully from my nose. “I think he’s the only one who’s capable of it.”

“So… are you two…” She trailed off, confusion and question in her tone, like she was trying to catch up to the events that had led us to this place, when the truth was, I was having a hard time keeping up with them myself. I kept replaying and replaying everything Christopher had said, the pleas and the explanations I didn’t know how to piece together with what I’d seen that night.

“Yeah,” I finally confessed. The word was raw.

Well, we
were
.

Her face was downturned, but I didn’t miss the flash of a smile that quirked at one side of her mouth.

“Are you really grinning right now?” I accused, trying to keep back the incredulous, confounded laughter that seemed to want to work its way out.

God, I had to be losing my mind.

Here I was, sitting on a couch in the middle of the night with the sister of the man who had yet again broken my heart. And she was making me laugh. The same way she always did, with that uncanny ability to dive below the surface, to reach out and pluck the positive from every situation that seemed entirely hopeless.

“What?” This time she let her smile widen, slanted it over at me, full and on display, her shoulders up to her ears. “Shouldn’t I be excited that my friend finally got that screw loosened that had her wound up so tight?”

She winked, just accentuating the horrible joke, and this time I barked out a laugh that was hoarse with all the tears I’d shed. “Aly, you’re terrible. Terrible.” I cast her a trembling smile. “Thank you,” I said again, this time quieter, letting her know how much I appreciated her.

“Seriously, Samantha.” She sucked in a breath, as if she was trying to gather her thoughts. “You and Christopher… when you’re in the room together? There’s no question where either of you belongs. I’m not sorry that it makes me happy that you found each other.” She blinked hard. “But what I am sorry about is that it led to this. You want to tell me what happened?”

Starting at the beginning, I told Aly everything, how much I’d loved him and how much I’d believed he’d loved me. My parents and all the rules they’d imposed with the intention of snuffing our love out. I tried my best to describe how horrible it’d felt to find him with Jasmine, how it’d wrecked something in me that I’d never thought could be repaired. I left out none of the sordid details, exposed myself in that time’s innocence and the lessons I’d learned the hard, hard way.

And to be honest, it felt good to have it revealed.

Yeah, Ben knew all about it. He’d been there. But for years, he’d held it over my head as a fault to belittle my judgment, pouring continuous salt in that forever festering wound.

Nervously, I picked at the hem of my shirt. “The worst part of it all was finding out someone I thought was committed to me wasn’t at all. I lost so much faith that night, seeing him with her and then Ben breaking it to me that he’d been with her all along. It killed something inside of me, Aly.”

Regret slowly shook my head. “But being with him now? That part felt alive again… like I could really breathe again for the first time in seven years. How pathetic is that?”

Aly shifted in her discomfort for me. “Not pathetic, Samantha. It means you love him. Wholly. That he’s a piece of you and when he’s missing you feel the vacancy. You can’t blame yourself for loving someone.”

She swallowed and continued. “I’m so disappointed he put you through this. No matter what the circumstances or how difficult the situation, there’s no excuse for him sleeping with her. He knew how miserable she made you. And I know my brother is prone to making all kinds of terrible mistakes. But I also know he’s not a terrible
person
. I see the way he looks at you, and if one thing is obvious, it’s the way Christopher feels about you.”

I chewed at my bottom lip, fidgeting more, and a confused, hopeless sound worked its way free from my throat. “Tonight he told me Ben lied. He said he’d only been with her once. Of course, that was after he lied to me about ever being with her in the first place.”

She paused, seemed to consider my words as she stared out into the darkened room. She turned to look at me, her chin tipped up in intensity. “Do you believe him?”

“I don’t know. He sounds sincere, and every part of me wants to believe him. But my greatest fear is that desire is just another weakness… wanting him so much that I’m willing to delude myself into believing he really cares about me. All these months, I fought my feelings for him because I didn’t trust him. Then the second I give him my trust, he turns around and crushes it again. The ironic thing is nothing in the past even mattered to me anymore, Aly. I was willing to forgive him for everything, if he’d just
respect
me enough to be honest with me.” I pressed both my hands to my chest. “If he’d just love me and respect me and tell me the truth. That’s all I asked of him, but he couldn’t even give me that.”

Slowly, she exhaled. “I’m no expert, Samantha, but one thing I’ve learned is men tend to take the worst paths to try to protect whatever means the most to them.” She laughed lightly. “Stupid and destructive, and it doesn’t make it okay, but it’s the truth.”

For the umpteenth time tonight, my phone lit up, and I groaned toward the ceiling when Ben’s name appeared on the screen. Both he and Christopher had been calling incessantly. I pounded at the screen to silence it, tossed it to the middle cushion between me and Aly.

“God, I wish he’d give it a rest tonight. You’d think after twenty rejected calls he’d get the message that I don’t want to talk to him.”

Aly gestured to the phone with her elbow, now cuddling Ella against her chest. “If things don’t work out with my brother, will you go back to him?”

“No.” With pursed lips, I shook my head. “No matter what, that’s over. I love Christopher, and going back to Ben wouldn’t be fair to either one of us.”

Five seconds later, my cell rang again. “Grrr…” I pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes, reclining my head against the back of the couch. “Which one is it?”

If all these calls were any indication, Ben wasn’t going to just give up. I’d have to go back and give him the truth I’d intended to tell him earlier today. Even if he didn’t deserve it, he would get my honesty. But it’d no longer come at my expense. No longer would I allow him to talk down to me or over me.

No more.

“Neither. It’s your mom.”

“Ugh.” I dropped my arms, shaking my head. “I’m sure Ben called looking for me and has her completely worried. Things didn’t go so well when I ended things with him earlier tonight.”

“Why don’t you let me answer it? I’ll just let her know you’re safe and you’re staying at a friend’s.”

“Yeah, that’s probably a good idea. Thank you… for taking care of me.” I gave her a soft smile.

The smile she returned was knowing, filled with sympathy and all the support I didn’t realize how much I needed until now. “I told you a long time ago I felt like we needed to be friends. Now I know we do.”

She grabbed my phone and accepted the call. “Hi, Mrs. Schultz, this is —,” Aly started to say, before she was overtaken by my mom’s hysterical voice on the other end. But her worry wasn’t for me. All I heard her screaming was “Stewart!”

Stewart.
 

Stewart.
 

Stewart.
 

The coldest chill slid down my spine, the empty feeling swooping in as if it’d drained all my blood with it. Hollowing me out.

No.

God, please, no.

Aly went pale, her voice so quiet I could hardly hear. “Okay,” she whispered. She pulled the phone from her ear and shakily passed it across to me. “You need to take this.”

I raked my hands over the top of my head and looked toward the ceiling.

“Fuck,” I swore, dragging them down and scrubbing my face, trying to clear my vision. I felt frantic.

Shock had knocked me stupid when Samantha had said Jasmine’s name, and that fucking lie had slipped from my mouth without my brain having the chance to consider the consequences. Jasmine represented every obscene choice I’d made in my life, and I wanted to protect Samantha from the knowledge of the vile person I’d been.

But I knew the second it hit the air I’d done Samantha wrong. She deserved the truth. What I had no clue about was the fact that she already knew.

God.

She fucking
knew
.

She had seen me when I’d been too lost in my own destructive world of self-loathing and hatred to even know she was there. She’d come back for me. She had loved me then, despite everything.

I finally got it. Why she’d been so terrified to start things back up with me when it was so clear she knew she belonged with me, the resistance she met me with at every turn.

It hadn’t been Samantha who’d given up. It’d been me. It didn’t matter that she’d told me to leave that night I’d stumbled into her room. I’d still belonged to her and she’d still belonged to me, and I’d just thrown myself away, didn’t wait or work or strive to make it right.

Didn’t put in the
effort
she deserved.

Samantha believed I’d betrayed her.

And I knew in my gut the reality was that I had.

I figured there were few things that could have been more hurtful for her than finding me with Jasmine. Still, she’d somehow found it in that forgiving heart of hers to give me a second chance. Of course, because I couldn’t help but be a fucking ignorant dickhead, I’d gone and screwed it up again.

I dug my phone out of my pocket and called her for what had to be the hundredth time since she’d fled out my door four hours earlier. My chest squeezed so fucking tight I could barely breathe when I listened to the sound of her recorded voice. It beeped, and I spoke, basically leaving the same message I’d been pleading all night. “Samantha… baby… please listen to me. You were never a game. Ever. Please… call me back. I can’t lose you again.”

Ending the call, I rubbed my forehead, trying to piece together everything Samantha had lived with as truth for the last seven years. I wasn’t surprised for a second to find out Ben had been feeding her his own lies, pumping her head full of deceit as another way to bend her to his will.

What I wouldn’t give to be able to go back and do it all over again. Tonight. The first time I saw her back at Aly’s house. Jasmine. Maybe even go back all the way to the night her parents had discovered we’d been sneaking around.

Do all of it over.

Love her the way only a girl like Samantha deserved to be loved. Fight for her. Show her and everyone who cared for her how much she meant to me, that I was dedicated, and that what I felt for her wasn’t just some teenaged crush that would fade. And no, maybe I’d never be good enough for her, because I doubted there was a soul in this world who was, but I wanted to prove I’d always be striving to be that person, striving to love her so much that maybe it’d make up for all of my inadequacies.

Relief pelted me when my phone rang in my hand.

“Damn it,” I muttered under my breath when I saw it wasn’t Samantha, but my sister. In a flash I realized that of course Samantha must have sought refuge there.

I accepted the call and lifted it to my ear. “Aly,” I said hesitantly, bracing myself for the attack I knew I deserved.

“Christopher.” She said my name with none of the anger I’d expected, but instead in a voice steeped in sadness.

My gut twisted. “What’s going on? Is Samantha there?”

“She was.”

Was.
 

In my panicked pause, she kept talking, her voice a strained whisper. “I know things fell apart between you two tonight, but while she was here, she got a call from her mom about Stewart. I don’t really have any details other than he was taken to the hospital. Samantha went straight there.” She softened. “I thought you’d want to know.”

Fear curled through my senses, and I pressed the heel of my hand into my eye, trying to tamp down the emotion that spread like a flash fire. “God,” I wheezed on a pained breath.

Not Stewart. Please.
 

I heard my sister swallow, could feel her hesitation and questions bleeding from across the distance. “She told me everything, Christopher. She was heartbroken when she got here. You know how much I love you, how much I want you to be happy, but I need you to be honest and tell me if you’re just playing with her.”

I pushed out a breath. “I fucked up, Aly. Really bad. But I love her. I always have.”

A reassured sigh slipped from her, and she inhaled before she continued. “I won’t try to make you feel better by saying what you did was okay, because it’s not. But I get why you did it.”

Did she?

“I knew the second I ran into her that there was a reason for it. She loves you. So much. And I’m worried about her. I’ve never seen anyone as distraught as she was when she left my house twenty minutes ago.”

Frustrated, I paced in front of my front door, gripping a handful of hair. “God, I need to be there for her.”

“I know, but I’m not sure she’s in any condition to deal with what you put her through right now.”

I exhaled in frustration. “You think I don’t know that, Aly?” I was pretty sure her parents still didn’t have the first clue about what’d been going on between us. Showing them now? All that would do was bring her more trouble… hurt her family more, and God knew they had enough to deal with right now. Plus, I didn’t even know if Samantha would want me there. If my presence would cause her comfort or bring her pain… But shit, I couldn’t just sit here, either.

“Do you know what hospital he’s at? I just need to be nearby.”

If she called? Needed me? Then I’d be right there.

Aly told me the name of the hospital, and I grabbed my keys from the counter and hit the garage. “Let me know if you hear from her, would you?”

“Yeah, of course. I love you, Christopher.”

“Love you, too.”

As if my life depended on it, I flew through the night, across the deserted streets, desperate to be there. Fifteen minutes later, I pulled into the visitor parking lot, which was only sporadically dotted with cars. Immediately, I spotted Samantha’s parked right at the front, and my spirit churned with the need to go to her.

Instead I forced myself to hide at the far end of the lot, my truck backed in so I could keep an eye on the door but stay far enough away that I wouldn’t draw attention to myself.

That desperation I’d felt to get here turned torturous as I sat for hours and waited. Agony for Stewart wrapped around me like an ill-fitting coat, squeezing me, burying me in the worry I felt for Samantha. All of it damned near had me making more bad choices, agitation bouncing my knee as I had to force myself to stay in the cover of my truck when all I wanted was to go to her.

Tall streetlamps illuminated the quiet parking lot. Off to the east, the intermittent drone of cars flying down the freeway just added to the overbearing stillness.

Exhaustion pinned my head to the headrest, my eyes heavy and burning as the first hint of light pressed at the horizon. But my heart and mind remained frantic, churning with regret and fear.

Rays climbed higher in the sky, blazing brighter, chasing away the night. Darkness slowly gave way to day. I scrubbed my palms over my face, trying to break up the tension contending with the emptiness doing its best to suck me under.

Goddamn it.

I blew out a breath.

My phone buzzed with a text and I rushed to grab it.

Aly.

Samantha texted me. Stewart’s organs are shutting down. They are doing what they can to make him comfortable. I’m so sorry, Christopher.
 

Grief constricted my throat, and I slumped back in my seat, completely gutted.

Why did life have to be so fucking unfair?

Hours passed while I sat vigil, my sight glued on the hospital’s front doors. At just after five p.m., they slid open for what had to be the millionth time that day. But this time… this time it was Samantha and her family.

I shot forward, gripping the steering wheel. Samantha’s father held her mother around the shoulders as he led her out, Sally Schultz’s face buried in her husband’s chest. I felt jarred by the fact that her brother and sister, Sean and Stephanie, were there, too, the past years also having stripped them of all their youth. Their faces were pale, lost in a foggy stupor as they emerged from the hospital in a daze.

But it was really only Samantha who I saw. She came out last, in the distance appearing so fragile and broken. She hugged herself around her middle, her shoulders drawn up to her ears and her head bowed. The rest of her family shuffled out into the parking lot. Just at the edge of it, Samantha paused, holding herself while she lifted her face toward the sky, her face that was soaked with tears and a sorrow I’d give anything to rid her of. Blond hair whipped around her, like her movements commanded a raging storm.

My throat got all gravelly and my eyes burned.

I could feel it – the severity of her pain, the agony that vibrated from her bones, surging out on endless waves. They slammed into me, one by one.

Not going to her had to be about the most excruciating thing I’d ever endured. Sitting here, my fingers curled into the leather, I drew on all the restraint I had to force myself to stay still.

The selfish part of me was begging her to look up. To
feel
me the same way I was feeling her. Begging her to call out to me to come to her so I could hold her, so I could make her promises that she couldn’t help but believe.

Because every single one of them would be the truth.

Instead I jerked when I noticed the movement off to her right. That bastard Ben strode up to her, his head craned to the side as if he was trying to get her to see him the same way I was. He took her by the shoulders. I watched as her mouth dropped open in shock, and I got as antsy as all hell when he tried to wrap her up in his filthy arms.

A fierce swell of possessiveness started in my gut and spread like wildfire, a savage blaze scorching my limbs, flexing my hands into fists on the dash. I kept squeezing them, trying to keep myself in check.

He’d
lied
to her, and because of it Samantha had spent years harboring hurt over some shit that had never gone down. No doubt, the douche bag had taken it into his own hands to slant the catastrophe that had become our lives in his favor.

All of his protective big-brother bullshit.

He’d just been lying in wait, ready to strike when the opportunity hit, and the second I’d fallen he’d been right there to bury me.

I wondered how long it’d taken him to coerce her into bed.

She finally shoved him off, and it sucked that I felt some sort of corrupted atonement in her rejection of him. Even though I knew I deserved it, the idea of her running back to him after what I’d done just about killed me.

Then I watched anger seem to seize him, the way his body tensed as the good-guy act was peeled away to reveal the asshole underneath. He curled his fingers at the outsides of her arms and shook her.

Fuck no.
 

That piece of shit was not going to get away with that.

My tongue darted out to wet my dry lips, and I shifted in agitation, knowing there wasn’t much more I could take before I snapped.

Samantha’s dad slowed, looking back, and then finally turned fully to walk their way. I could sense his own surprise at the heated exchange, and I couldn’t help but wonder how little her parents really knew about what had been happening in Samantha’s life and what she really wanted from it.

Ben flung his arm out in Stephen Schultz’s direction, and Stephen shouted something back.

What the hell?
 

Narcissistic douche bag. Did he not get what Samantha and her family were going through right now?

I raked a flustered hand over my face in an attempt to battle the voice screaming in my head, demanding that I get involved. But I was pretty damned sure that would only make matters worse.

The rest of Samantha’s family stood there in shock, her mother appalled at whatever was being said. Stephanie went to her mother’s side and wrapped her arm around her waist while Sean edged forward, encroaching on Ben.

Ben turned back to Samantha, who had tears flooding down her face, but there was no mistaking the anger there, too. Her mouth curled up in hatred when she spat words in his direction.

Then it was as if the world stood still as I watched that piece of shit lift his hand and slap her across the face.

For two seconds, no one moved, time stopping as everyone seemed to process what was happening in front of us. Then Samantha reared back, her face distorted in horror. Her shaking hand went up to her flaming cheek.

And then time sped.

Her father lunged for Ben, and there was no longer anything in this world that could hold me back. I threw open my door and hurled myself out of the truck. I couldn’t even feel my feet slapping against the pavement as I flew across the lot.

The only thing I felt was myself coming apart at the seams. All the hatred I’d harbored for so many years rose to the surface. A suffusion of rage stormed through every last one of my senses. My love for her was bright. Blinding. The knowledge of the huge hand Ben had played in stealing her away from me vivid.

Still, every single one of those intense feelings was eclipsed by that fact that he’d hurt her.

In that moment, it was the only damned thing I could see.

I launched across the space and my body collided with Ben’s in a force I felt all the way to my bones.

Samantha’s father stumbled out of the way as I took Ben down. We crashed to the ground. I scrambled to pin him down and I cocked my elbow back. Trying to break free, Ben lifted his upper body, and I rammed my fist so hard into his face that his head rammed into the pavement. A sick sort of satisfaction fell over me when I felt his nose crunch beneath the force.