Consumed (Addicted to You Book 1) (6 page)

But as I lie in my bed that night, my body quaking once again from irrepressible sobs, I wasn’t convinced that I was ever going to be able to fill that hole. I was positive that I couldn’t anesthetize anything. It would sit there, lingering and waiting for a calm moment. Hiding in the deep recesses of my mind, prepared to jump out at me without any forewarning and remind me that my existence no longer had optimism. It would let me know that I no longer had a purpose. That I was never going to be all right again.

Chapter 6

When I first heard the shouting from my room, I thought it was the TV. I had been sleeping when the raised voices woke me up, so it had taken me a few minutes to process that it was real and in my apartment.

It took me a few minutes more to understand that it was Colby and Spencer. I tried for a few minutes to make out what they were saying and why they were even arguing. For that matter, I wanted to know why Spencer was even there.

I hadn’t seen or heard from him in a couple of days. We’d went to his best friend’s house over the previous weekend and they’d spent most of the night playing cards. I’d just sat back and watched, having a few drinks and getting angrier by the second that he was ignoring me.

Sometimes I hated when we hung out with friends. It wasn’t that I didn’t want him to have them or me to have them. I did. But when we were together and they were there; it was different. A lot. He was different. I was different.

I knew it was normal. Guys would be guys. Girls would be girls. But I didn’t like it. I loved the Spencer that I spent time with. The one that rubbed my back and held my hand and asked me about my day at work. I loved the Spencer that smiled at me and talked about his favorite football team and the burrito he’d had for dinner.

I didn’t like the Spencer that pretended I wasn’t significant. He said that wasn’t the case, but it was how I felt. It wasn’t that I minded sharing him. I just didn’t like that typical male attitude that he got from time to time. It wasn’t him. Not my Spencer. And no matter how many times I saw it, I couldn’t seem to adjust to it.

After a couple of hours I’d made him take me home and I’d spent the entire drive to my place arguing with him. At the point I’d gotten out of the car and stumbled inside, I was pissed enough to not care if I saw him again or not. Of course when I’d sobered up, I had instantly regretted it and sent him an apology that he’d quickly accepted.

But his lack of communication or presence had left me wondering if maybe he was still angry. Mostly it’d left me feeling empty and alone. I was used to him being there in some capacity and found I’d come to almost depend on it.

That’s why I was surprised to hear him down the hall, early in the morning, yelling with my best friend. Since I couldn’t make out any of the words they were saying, I decided to get up and make my way towards them.

“Don’t you have your own man to drive crazy?” Spencer shouted, causing me to smile just a tad at the insult.

I felt guilty that I found the statement funny, but I did. Colby was notorious for being so high maintenance that so far no man had been able to tolerate her for very long.

“So you are her man now?” she asked, changing the direction of the conversation away from herself. “Did something change since the weekend?”

I heard Spencer huff and I knew that he was angry. He seldom got angry, but when he did it would get ugly. I wanted to stop it, but I was afraid to interrupt them.

“That’s why you can’t keep one Colby,” He shot at her. “You don’t believe a man can be with you and have anything else in his life.”

“What I don’t believe Spencer,” she drug out his name and made it sound evil, “is that you should insist your girl spend the evening with you instead of doing what she was going to do so that you can sit her on a sofa and ignore her for poker with your buddy.”

“Funny that you are angrier about this than Avery is,” he retorted. “Or maybe that’s not anger and is jealousy instead.”

“Jealous? What the hell would I be jealous of?”

“That she chose to spend the evening with me and not at the movies with you for starters,” he answered. “That she has me is another good reason for your jealousy. That I don’t want you.”

“You honestly think I’d want you?” she laughed. “Why? Because you are attractive?”

I walked towards the living room, but stopped in the doorway. I didn’t want to catch their attention because I was curious. I couldn’t have fathomed what would come next, the way it would make me feel, or the chain of events that it would cause.

His anger soared. I could see it. His normally smiling face showed nothing but contempt. His jawline was rigid and his eyes cold and dark. This was not something I was accustomed to. These are the same eyes that would light up when he looked at me and smiled. This is the same face that would grin in a way that could melt a heart.

I looked at something else. I had to. I couldn’t see the anger on his face anymore. I couldn’t fathom a look that would break me more than this one. I couldn’t be the one to look at him and see it. She didn’t seem to care. So I let it go. And I kept my mouth shut. I wish he had done the same thing.

I couldn’t possibly have envisioned the words that would escape his lips. As I heard them, I felt my heart sink. Everything that I had wrapped my world around came crashing around me. I was broken. I was damaged. I was not sure I would heal.

I can see how it played it from a logical standpoint. In that moment, however, nothing was logical. My brain had shut down the first time he smiled and it had yet to reengage. My eyes darted back and forth as the heated conversation became even more explosive.

“Because it drives you crazy that Avery has something that you don’t. That she was the one I picked at that stupid little party.” He snapped at her. “Because you look at me and see a guy that is supposed to want the high maintenance pretty girl. I’m not supposed to want someone like Avery.”

The words were his concoction of venom aimed at my friend and meant to destroy her argument the way some snakes can destroy a life. Unfortunately, they did not have the desired effect. Instead the last three words he spat out sank deep into my soul and created a divide.

Any thought that I had been broken before was gone. The hurt that swelled up inside my body wouldn’t let go. I was being strangled from the inside. Choked on words that, in my mind, said everything we have and everything we are is fake. None of it was real. And it crushed me. I couldn’t breathe and I struggled to keep the tears from my eyes.

My head began to spin as a variety of thoughts whirled through my mind. He didn’t find me attractive. Not the way Colby was. Not the way he was. This was why he didn’t touch me. It wasn’t that he was taking things slow. He didn’t want me. I wasn’t good enough.

I would never be good enough for Spencer. He was prime rib and I was a hamburger. He was a rose and I was a daffodil. People looked at him and instantly wanted him. He could have anyone that he wanted, and yes that included my infinitely picky best friend. I wasn’t good enough to match up to that.

I couldn’t seem to find a way to inhale. Tears began to fill my eyes and a solo one escaped and slid down my cheek. Spencer thought I was less attractive and desirable than Colby. Someone like Avery. As if someone like me was a bad thing. I wanted to shout, but no words would come out.

“Avery,” Colby’s voice caused me to lift my head and look at her.

Our eyes met as I fought back tears. I wanted to avoid looking at Spencer. I was afraid to look at him. Everything inside of me was exposed. If he saw my eyes in that moment, he would see everything I was hiding in my soul. The feelings. The shame.

The pain would be evident. The insecurities visible for him to examine. I didn’t want that. Because it wasn’t until that moment when I’d heard those words that I’d realized how deeply I felt for him. It wasn’t until I realized what he thought of me that I knew how much I loved him. How badly I wanted him to feel the same.

It was as if my world had just come crashing around me. I sat there and watched as my two best friends went at it. She was arguing with him and he was extremely defensive. Was I completely surprised? Yes and no.

I was so surprised that I sat there silently, afraid that this would destroy everything that had been happening. Most of all I was a little surprised that my best friend of over a decade appeared to be sabotaging the single best thing that had ever happened in my life. Yet there I sat, listening and being quiet.

“Ave,” I heard Spencer say my name and there was something in his voice.

A crack. The way he was barely audible. The sound of pain. I couldn’t stop myself from looking at him, staring into his eyes.

I was accustomed to looking at him and smiling, but today there would be no smile. I had no happy thoughts. Part of me wanted to yell at him and part of me wanted to cry. The part full of tears and pain is the part that won. And I sat there. Eye to eye with the man I loved and tears streamed down my face. The pain was evident from me and I knew that. I couldn’t help it. He’d never seen me cry or be hurt. He knew he made me happy. He’d never seen a situation where he made me anything but.

Until now.

Another tear rolled down my cheek as I saw a glimmer of wetness in his eyes as well. His face was white. He dark eyes clouded in pain. He just looked at me, neither of us speaking. He seemed afraid to say anything.

I’d never seen that look on him before. I’d seen flashes of hurt at random times, but the look of terror that he currently had was nothing I knew. His face was a reflection of my own heart. Pain. Agony. A desire to step backwards in time and change it all.

He looked as though someone had stabbed him repeatedly and he was gasping for air. His face showed the shattered pieces that I felt deeply inside. Everything that I felt breaking apart inside of me, was sitting there showing in his eyes. I wasn’t sure if he could see the broken pieces of me, or if he felt it too. In that moment my own pain was not important. In that instance I no longer cared about what he had said or done. I no longer wanted to analyze his comment for truth. I wanted to take the look off of his face. I wanted to remove the pain that was so evident. And I did not even know how to do so.

He stumbled for a minute with his words. Our gazes were locked and neither of us could turn away. “What’s wrong?” he said barely above a whisper. I just shook my head. What could I say? You destroyed me? You broke everything that I am. No, I couldn’t say that. I had to make his hurt stop. That was my only goal. He stuttered for a minute before he finally said what was in his mind.

“It….it wasn’t….I didn’t mean….I was just…” he stumbled for what to say and I watched his face change from devastation to panic. “Do…do you want me to leave?” he asked, barely above a whisper.

“Someone like Avery?’ It was the first time I’d been so open with him. It would end up that this situation began a lot of firsts. The first time I’d seen him angry, the first time I’d been hurt by him, the first time he’d seen me cry, the first time I’d seen him devastated, and the first time I’d been that open and honest.

As he stumbled for a reply, it would become the first time he’d ever realized that he had the power to hurt me and that would be monumental between us. Because it would be the last time he did so carelessly. In fact, he would spend a lot of time making up for those rare times he managed to hurt me unintentionally. But most of all it was the first time I got my answer. Yes he returned those feelings.

In that moment we stared into each other’s eyes and we saw more than the color. We saw he feelings. I could see his and I know he could see mine. No words were spoken that day saying so, but we loved each other and for the first time we both knew it without any doubts.

Something changed. The pain I could see and hear from him changed my own. I no longer worried about how I felt. I no longer cared about how much I had been hurt. I just wanted to do or say whatever I had to. I needed to see him smile. To take that pain away.

There was a connection between the two of us. As I told him not to go we both felt it.

His words had hurt me, but the one thing I knew was that those words didn’t matter. My pain had created his own and he wanted to take it away. At the same time I needed to take his away. Our need to relieve the other was stronger than any words or other emotions as we stood there.

“are you sure?” he asked, again barely speaking. “I can…”

“No,” I shook my head again. “Don’t leave.”

He nodded and said nothing else. We just continued to stare at each other. Both of us speaking silently what we had yet to say out loud.

We loved each other. We loved each other with a passion and bond that neither of us, and likely very few in general, had ever known. We loved each other in a way that created a need to protect the other. To stop the hurt. To care for the other one. We had a love that was damn near unheard of.

And until that moment, neither of us had even known it.

Chapter 7

The week following my exchange with Colby was vague at best. Work was work. I’d get there and somehow make it through, avoiding individual dealings whenever possible. Luckily the place stayed fairly hectic during my shifts and it left me without much time for chatter.

Everything that I did became habitual. Pouring drinks. Serving tables. Cleaning up. Even stepping out back for a smoke break was emotionless. More often than not, I found that I’d barely even touched the cigarette beyond holding it and letting it smolder.