Devil's Despair Box Set: Books 1-3 (77 page)

And it was a lie.

“Last night shouldn’t have happened. I shouldn’t have asked you to do it. I don’t love you that way.”

“You don’t love me that way.” He repeated my words in a venomous tone while continuing to walk toward me, but stopped near the dining room table. “You woke up this morning and decided last night shouldn’t have happened.”

His voice was changing from hurt to angry, and I silently thanked God for giving that to him. Anger was going to be easier to accept.

“Yes. It was a mistake.”

As I waited for Travis to say something, to offer some kind of way out of the night before, I contemplated the severity of my lie.

I’d taken something that could never be mine. I couldn’t be with Travis. I couldn’t accept whatever he was offering. Being with him would be putting everything he was to me at risk.

Travis was my best friend, my anchor, and if not for any other reason, Ace wouldn’t allow it. I couldn’t jeopardize Travis’s nearest and dearest relationship. He and Ace had been close for so long, I’d be putting Travis in a precarious position if we
were
together.

I’d be putting myself in the same position if we
weren’t.
I could suffer through wanting something I’d never have. I couldn’t lose the one person whom I’d turned to and leaned on for steady support all these years. Losing his friendship would ruin me, especially now that Bean had died.

He couldn’t be
in love
with me, though.

“I have fuckin’ waited,” he started, leaning his broad body down on the table with his hands braced in front of him.

I saw his stance in the corner of my eye; it remained rigid. His bare chest was taut, every muscle angry. His shoulders clenched, waiting for me to tell him the truth.

Finally, inhaling, I lifted my eyes to meet his. All signs of love, care, and passion were gone. In their place were anger, resentment, and regret.

He was already regretting our time together.

“Stay,” he snapped.

“I can’t. Ace is already on his way.”

“Fuck Ace. Ace can go back home. Stay with me today, Sarah. We’ll talk about this. Then stay tonight because it’s what you want.”

“I can’t,” I returned, holding my breath.

“Did I hurt you?” he asked. “Is that it?”

Physically he hadn’t hurt me. He’d been aggressive when he touched me, but not in a way that caused me pain. He was passionate before, during, and after we. . . . So the problem wasn’t him. It was me. I woke up before he did and realized, I had somehow manipulated his emotions and ultimately used his own brokenness against him.

But, I’d take a piece of him, and a memory of that night that no one, not even Ace, could ever take away.

“You didn’t hurt me,” I whispered.

“The night of Hayden and Lacey’s wedding,” he started, ignoring my words. He straightened, but didn’t make a move to step closer. “I wanted you.”

Surprised by his admission, I inhaled a strangled breath.

“I did,” he reiterated. “I felt your reaction when I put my hands on you. When I kissed you that night, you kissed me back.”

“That wasn’t this, Trav,” I coldly reminded him. “That was a kiss. This wasn’t.”

The night Hayden and Lacey got married, Travis and I had kissed. It was passionate, and we’d both known it was wrong. We were drunk, but that wasn’t why we did it. Even then we had been testing the boundaries of our relationship.

“I didn’t just want to kiss you that night.”
He spoke over my denial. “I wanted all of you, even then. I told myself to walk away and forget it happened. I wanted to believe it was the alcohol, and to a point I did.”

“It was the alcohol. We both drank a lot,” I try to excuse him, but he’s not listening.

“I told myself you didn’t feel that way about me. Since that night, every time I saw you, Sarah, I’ve had to fight to keep from shaking you so you’d notice me. I wanted you to see me.”

“I do,” I whispered.

“You fuckin’ don’t!” Travis’s voice echoed off the walls; his anger was no longer contained. “Years, Sarah! I’ve been by your side. I’ve accepted being whoever the fuck you need. A playmate, a chauffeur, a target for your fucked-up attitude, and now. . . .”

“Now. . . .”

The unfinished sentence hung between us. His hands balled into fists at his sides. His jaw continued to tick and his eyes looked void of any emotion at all.

“Now,” he said. “Now we’re exactly what you wanted us to be.”
He paused, studied my face as though memorizing it. “We’re a fuckin’ mistake.”

Swallowing hard, I started to step in his direction, but he moved his hand up to keep me still.

Unable to touch him, I felt as if he were building a wall between us. All my worries of anchors, friendship, and love were being replaced with his sudden distaste for my presence.

“It’s best you and I don’t talk for a while,”
he voiced with a piercing glare. But his words were hollow, each echoing off the walls of my chest.

It was everything I’d feared when I woke up, and it was coming full circle. I was already losing him.

“Wait, Travis, please,”
I begged.

“It will take everything I have to forgive you, and even then I’m not so sure if I can.”

I released a sob and dropped the dress I was holding; visions of him removing it flashed through my head. I covered my mouth with my hands, trying to remain quiet.

“I can’t look at you anymore,”
he said, before turning around and walking away.

* * *

Marlee and Toby, as well as Lacey and Rae, tried to help me through the initial loss. Travis was insistent that I never be left alone. He and I didn’t talk for a few days after what we had done. Finally, unable to continue avoiding each other, we started exchanging words in front of the others. It was a false sense of friendship, but it was a start.

Several times, Trav tried to get me to talk about our night together. I refused, never trying to make him understand my reasoning for letting him go. I wasn’t sure he’d believe I could be so selfless and selfish at the same time. Travis was so sure of us; it was me who wasn’t.

My concerns were simple to feel, but hard to put into words. Travis was my best friend. It would have been selfish of me to risk his friendship; what if things didn’t work out? If Ace found out and didn’t approve, I’d lose him.

Ace.
He was another concern. Ace saw me as a child, nothing more. Travis, being Ace’s best friend, stood to lose the most if Ace felt betrayed by what we had done. Letting Travis go was the most selfless thing I could do.

Eventually, as the days turned into weeks, we set invisible, unspoken boundaries between us. It was an unsaid truce, an understanding that we’d never discuss what we had done with anyone—not even each other.

The others continued to stop by Ace’s house daily to check in. They each, in turn, told me eventually I would get through this and soon everything would be okay again. A new normal, they called it. It was as though each of them was reading from the same heartrending script and the sentiment soon lost its meaning.

Ace never did try to console me. Instead, he kept his distance; each of us looked for solace, but found it impossible to find it in each other. Looking at one another was a constant reminder that our lives were no longer filled with the same purity and happiness they once were. It was up to us to make a new start, but neither of us cared to acknowledge what the future without Bean looked like.

As days passed, Ace and I fell into our old routine of pushing and pulling each other until we had nothing else to give. He continually tried to tell me what to do and when to do it. My presence in his home was cause enough for him to resent me.

He had built a life with Rae and Deck and I no longer had a permanent place with him there.

CHAPTER FOUR

Travis

THE DOOR TO
the trailer is closed, but I can still feel the winter air seeping through the cracks at the top and bottom. The wood is old, splitting down the middle. Dad hasn’t replaced it as he promised Mom he would.

It’s not so cold in here that I shake with chill, but cold enough to know I want my blanket, which sits alone on the couch.

My mom’s been lying on the floor for a while now and the man above her is getting angrier and angrier. The television is on and I can see my cartoons from where I’m hiding, but can’t hear them.

“Cheryl, wake the fuck up,” the man with the long white hair and grey beard shouts. After he cusses again, he uses his foot to prod at her stomach. Her body moves only enough to rock in response, before falling back in place.

I watch as he walks to the phone that sits near the television and his face scrunches while he dials numbers. He puts it to his ear and waits for the caller to answer. When they do, his voice is raised, rough, and fueled with fury.

“She’s out of it. Bitch won’t wake up. What do you want me to do with her?” He pauses, waiting for instruction, but then his eyes search the room.

He’s looking for something.

He’s looking for me.

* * *

Opening my eyes against the rays of the sun, the first thing I feel is my own heart beating in my chest.

The nightmares are back.

They started when I lost my dad a little over five years ago. He was pumping gas after work and was stabbed in the neck, chest, and back as he waited to finish. It was dark and they had no suspects, so the man who did it was never brought to justice. The robbers took only his watch and wallet. They left the car untouched and where it was sitting. The randomness of the crime made no sense and it took me a long time to accept what had happened.

To this day, I find myself missing him and wishing he were here to walk me through things that most dads do. Even as an adult, there’ve been times I’m still so desperate for his guidance. Bean was right when she told me I haven’t let him go.

He was a good man, my best friend, and he didn’t deserve to go out like that.

Fuck, no one does.

The first thing I hear as I start to get out of bed is Sarah’s music blaring through the speakers of her iPhone dock as she showers. It’s not so much the music that agitates my morning mood so early in the day as it is a few
other
things.

After Sarah and Ace had their final knock-down drag-out fight and mutually decided it was best for both of them to engage in a temporary but distant time out, I’ve found that living with Sarah is definitely not how I’d ever have pictured it to be.

It’s a fuck of a lot messier.

Aside from the obvious—that I’m still not over what happened between us after Bean’s funeral—living with Sarah is no different than living with a holy fucking terror.

Her mouth is trash, her personal shit is everywhere, and she has no regard for those around her. When she’s set and determined on something she wants; whether that be doing her laundry, cooking her meals, or watching her television shows, she pays no mind to anyone else.

Her attitude sucks, her bedroom is a pit, and to kill me slowly and get a reaction, I swear she walks around in less than she should.

She showed up on my doorstep after weeks of awkward silence lingering between us, and told me she and Ace had a falling out. That night Sarah had gotten home late from work and Ace was pissed she hadn’t called. Although Sarah is nineteen, and her being late shouldn’t have mattered, it’s what led to the final falling out between them.

When she showed up at my door she had been crying. She told me she didn’t know where else to go. As I assessed her standing alone and broken on my porch, my instinct was to grab her, hold her, and promise her everything would be okay.
That I would make it okay.
I knew if I did that, however, I would be allowing her an opportunity to get under my skin more than she already was. It took everything I had not to coddle her. Instead, I’ve pushed back each time she’s pulled. We’re in a constant back and forth, with neither of us giving an inch.

Ace has called numerous times asking me how she’s doing and if she’s okay. He won’t talk to her directly, so that leaves Rae and me to pass messages between them.

Ace is never happy. Sarah is never calm. Bean was the only person who could handle them swiftly and now that she’s gone it’s been fucking
chaos
between them.

Knocking on the bathroom door, I wait for Sarah to answer. She’s bellowing whatever “classic”—as she calls it—Britney Spears song playing.

I knock again, this time using more force to ensure she hears me.

I’ve got to be at the Ward in less than an hour, so mentally I’m ticking her time in the bathroom away minute by minute.

When the door swings open, I see what I’m used to seeing every other Goddamn morning. Sarah’s tall, athletic, tan body wrapped in a towel and her long, wet, blonde hair dripping water at her feet.

“About done?” I snap, readying for her morning bullshit.

“Yep,” she answers, opening the door further as the rush of hot air hits my face.

The smell of her body wash ignites my senses and up until this morning, I’ve tempered my body’s reaction to it, but I’m growing tired. My patience is waning.

Sarah won’t talk about what happened between us. I’ve tried to bring it up, indirectly and face to face, but she refuses to acknowledge what we did. The morning after Bean’s funeral was the morning I knew Sarah had the ability to live in denial. She denied feeling for me what I felt, and still feel, for her.

Her labeling our time together as a mistake hurt. It crippled me. I had never felt so alone as I did in that moment. I walked out of it with the harsh realization that we’d never be the same again.

“You’re giving me a ride, right?” she asks, bending over and offering me an unobstructed view of her ass as she uses another towel to dry her hair.

Stepping just inside the bathroom, I position myself behind her. My morning mood gets better each second I’m near her. When she stands, her back hits my chest and she jumps.

“Fuck, Travis!” she screams, the sound of her voice echoing off the walls, even over her music.

Reaching around her, I turn the music down as she turns to face me. “What the fuck are you doing?” she asks, further annoyed.