Falling for Autumn (11 page)

“What about you? What did she say or do to you?”

She had a faraway look in her eyes and he assumed she was thinking back to her childhood. “She definitely tried to hurt me, too. We lived in New Jersey most my life and, honestly, we couldn't wait to leave. The best times we had as kids was visiting my aunt and uncle in Arkansas whenever we could. They had six boys of their own, but they always welcomed us with open arms. I think my aunt Cynthia never understood how her sister turned out to be such a terrible mother.

“When I was a little girl, I was the ultimate nerd. Glasses too big for my face. I loved school and I loved homework even more. Several times, they told my dad I should skip a grade, but he thought it would be beneficial for me to stay with my own age group. He also didn't want Winter and me in the same grade since we're only eleven months apart. Just like she hated that Winter was so beautiful and had gotten a lot of her features, Sonya was not the type of mother who liked her kids to be smarter than her, either. For years, I tried to hide how smart I was.”

“I can imagine that was hard to do. Especially for a little girl.”

“It was extremely hard. I got all As without trying. I always tested at least three grades above my class. I was able to do taxes by the time I was eleven. I've always been great with numbers and Sonya never let me forget it. She'd call me four eyes. Trip me up the stairs when I had my nose in a book. Tell me that smart people would never make it in the world. My hair has always been thick and curly, and although I knew deep down she was jealous of my hair, I still believed her when one day—right before high school—she said she wanted to give me a cute style. Winter had been somewhere with my dad and Summer was young at the time. All I remember is sitting in a chair in the kitchen talking about school and twenty minutes later, she had cut off all my hair.”

“You've got to be kidding. Who would do that to their daughter?”

“Sonya Dupree would. When I saw how I looked, I started crying hysterically, and the entire time I cried, she laughed so hard that when Winter and my dad got home, they couldn't hear my cries over her laugh.”

“That's so cruel to do to your child. Or do to anyone for that matter.”

“
Cruel
is Sonya's middle name. The name-calling and teasing I experienced from her was worse than when I was in school. A psychological bully in the rawest form. That day, I refused to let her make me cry ever again and decided that feelings and emotions were a waste of energy. The week after I made myself that promise, I ended up meeting my first boyfriend. Since I had no choice but to go to school with my hair chopped off in an ugly boy cut, I was already on edge. The kids thought I was strange. Too different for them to understand. Winter would hang out with me, but I had wanted to find my own friends.”

She adjusted herself on the stairs. “I was in the school library one day and he sat down right next to me. We started talking and hit it off right away. At the time, he was the smartest person I'd ever met. Rumor around school was that the guy had some deep-rooted issues and people stayed clear of him, but to me, he had been the nicest person I'd met there. We understood each other.
Kindred spirits
is what he called it.”

She grew silent and Ajay was afraid to ask her to continue. The faraway look in her eyes was gone and replaced by a look he couldn't quite define. Sad. Detached.

“Looking back, do you still think you were kindred spirits who understood each other?”

“No. Not at all. Not even a little.” She glanced at him before looking back at the stairwell. He wasn't sure if he was misreading the signs or not, but in his heart, he felt as if she needed him to be prepared. Wanted him to be prepared for whatever she had to say.

Her eyes were full of angst before she voiced her next words. “Looking back, I'm angry that as smart as I am, I disregarded the signs. I hadn't fallen for my kindred spirit. Instead, I'd fallen for a boy who was later diagnosed by the state of New Jersey as a psychopath, and on that day in the library, I'd become his latest obsession.”

He tried to keep his face neutral, but he hadn't been prepared for that. He hadn't been prepared at all.

Chapter 12

S
he knew that Ajay was trying to listen to her story without overreacting to anything she was telling him, but she could see the surprise in his eyes even as he tried to keep his face neutral.

“Not what you thought I'd say, is it?”

“I won't demean your intelligence by lying, so no, it wasn't what I thought you'd say. But I do want you to continue...if you want.”

She really didn't want to continue, but she felt as if she should. She never talked about her ex. It was too humiliating. Too upsetting. How many times had she wished she could turn back time to the day she had met him and look the other way? She still couldn't even say his name.

“I thought I loved him, when in reality, he'd given me attention that I'd never gotten before. The conversations we had where I thought he understood me were just him psychoanalyzing me. Winter couldn't stand him. My dad couldn't, either. But we had too much going on at home for them to focus too much on it. He was my mistake to make.”

“We all make mistakes. I told you that I did things I'm not proud of.”

“I agree—we all make mistakes. I just wished I could have seen him coming. Looking back, I see all the signs now. I think about the time we ran into one of his cousins when we'd taken a drive to New York and his cousin seemed hesitant to approach us. I think about how nervous his parents always seemed around me. As if they knew something was wrong and were wondering if I'd noticed it, too. I remember a couple kids at school told me that he'd killed his family dog when he was nine, but when I asked him about it, he said it was an accident. I'd heard other strange things and had ignored them. As a matter of fact, when I told him that I heard he was cruel to animals, he'd laugh about it. I think about how any small little thing would make him fly off the handle and how I'd found dozens of pictures of me on the wall and the floor of his room one day, but he'd told me he was in the process of putting them in a collage that he wanted to give me as a gift.”

“He was a friend and you were dating him, so why would you think anything of it?”

“It was overkill and I remember being freaked out at the time, but I ignored it.” She took a deep breath before she spoke about the moment she finally realized something was seriously wrong.

“It wasn't until our junior year—the year we started dating—that things really started getting crazy. My bedroom was on the first floor and I was the type of person who liked feeling the breeze while I slept. I figured it was fine to sleep with the window open because my bedroom faced my backyard and we were in a relatively safe neighborhood. There were times I woke up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat and felt as if I was being watched. I'd turn to my window and no one would be there.

“Then on two occasions, we went to a park in a neighboring suburb and he'd be on a mission to only pet the dogs in the neighborhood that were brown. And it wasn't normal petting. He would always pet them slow and whisper words of sentiment to them. Most of the dog owners thought it was sweet, but I slowly began to notice how calculated he was about the strangest things. Something wasn't right.

“I finally knew I had to talk to someone when I'd noticed him writing frantically in one of the classes we had together. I made up an excuse about wanting to study for finals together and shuffled through the pages of his notebook when he'd gone to the bathroom. Nothing stood out in the notebook, except a list of names that I quickly remembered were names of six dogs we'd recently met. Later that day, Winter and I went to the park in the neighborhood and I noticed Missing posters for two of the six dogs we'd encountered.”

She briefly thought about concluding the story by ending it on a high note and tying a pretty red bow around it, but she couldn't. Had she learned a lot from the experience? Yes, she had. But after being with someone like her ex and having him be her first dose of love from the opposite sex, she was also emotionally damaged. She knew that, too. However, she was an honest person and it had been so long since she had been honest with anyone about those years that she had tried to forget. So she continued, and with any luck, at the end of the story Ajay wouldn't go running out the door.

“I didn't know what to do with the information and I figured I didn't have real proof that he had anything to do with the missing dogs. Regardless, I felt inclined to tell someone. So I told our school counselor. The counselor looked into the situation and it was later found that all six dogs that I'd seen written in his notebook were missing, not just the two I'd seen posters for. The counselor followed procedure and notified school officials and his parents. I told my dad during that time, too. The things they found in his bedroom were so eerie it made me sick to my stomach.”

She closed her eyes as a chill ran through her body. “He was eventually sent to a mental institution, but not before we all learned just how sick he was. He'd documented every animal he'd ever hurt, and the worst part is, he kept something from each of them, whether it was their collar or locks of dog hair.”

She finally breathed, realizing that her breathing had most likely been staggered the entire time she told her story. For the first time, she noticed that one of his hands held hers. She couldn't even recall when they had laced fingers.

“Did you ever find out more information about why he had all those photos of you?”

“I found out more than I ever cared to know. He'd removed a piece of the paneling of his closet and had books filled with pictures of me. Notes I'd written him in school. Movie ticket stubs. Any moment we'd ever shared was documented. There had also been even more photos that he'd taken when I hadn't noticed. Times when we weren't even together. Times when I was sleeping in bed...just like I'd suspected. He left me a letter, too...”

“What do you mean? He wrote you before he was institutionalized? How did he even get the chance to do that?”

“That's the funny thing,” she said with a bitter laugh. “He'd placed a letter in one of my notebooks that I didn't find until months later when school had started back. I remember the last time I'd used that notebook, so I think he left it before anything happened. In the letter, he didn't express his love or anything like that. Instead, he discussed how he hoped one day I found out about the real him and accepted him for who he was. And if I didn't, he hoped I was prepared to spend the rest of my life knowing that he was always somewhere watching...looking. The letter proceeded to tell me all the reasons why I'd never be able to forget him and how
that
had been his ultimate goal all along—to make sure I never forgot. It's as if he knew eventually I would find out that he had issues. Either that, or it was a cry for help. I'm not sure and I doubt I'll ever find out.”

She looked down at the goose bumps that covered her arms, but instead of feeling emotionless as she often felt after she thought about that time in her life, she felt unrestricted.

“I'm proud of you,” he said after a few moments of silence. “It took a lot of bravery to go to your counselor with the information and not let that moment break you.”

“I didn't feel brave. I felt scared. Helpless. The Animal Rights Society was at every hearing he had. That was all kids would talk about in school, and with Winter graduating that year, I was left to bear the embarrassment on my own with no support. I ruined so many lives that day I told the counselor my suspicions. His parents' lives. His grandparents'.
His.
”

“No, you didn't. You sensed that his parents ignored the signs, and even though you blame yourself for not noticing it earlier, you can't be mad at yourself. People get sucked into the wrong crowd all the time, and in your case, you thought you'd really found a good friend. You wanted to focus on the good you saw in him, and there is nothing wrong with trying to see the good in people.”

He was saying the same supportive words her dad and sisters had said to her for years, but she still felt...awkward and angry about the entire thing. “Forgiving yourself is a funny thing that I still haven't quite mastered yet.”

“Don't I know it,” Ajay said as he squeezed her hand tighter. “There's more to my story than I told you about my birth mother, but I haven't even come to terms with everything myself.”

“There's more to my story, too,” she said with a sigh. “But I literally hate talking about this stuff.”

“They say it's therapeutic, but I think we both agree we've talked about enough tonight. We should make an agreement that the door is always open if either of us wants to finish our stories.”

She peered into his eyes and nervously bit her bottom lip. “So what I just told you doesn't make you want to run in the other direction?”

“No, why would it?”

“Most men would say I'm emotionally damaged and my inner demons are more than they have time to figure out.”

He lightly touched her cheek. “Baby, I spent my early preteen years counting drug money for a heavy hitter in Detroit. And even though I could bring As, Bs and Cs home from school, my birth mother was more proud of me if I rolled the perfect blunt or won a schoolyard fight. I think it's safe to say that we're both emotionally damaged. And I don't even like the word
damaged
.
Scarred
is more like it.”

She wasn't sure if her breathing had quickened because he'd called her “baby” or if it was because his touch alone always made her lose her breath.

“Since we're being honest...” For the first time, she wanted to be an open book. “Men have said I'm emotionless.”

“Women have said I don't care enough.”

“Men have said I'm detached in the bedroom.”

“Women have said I'm good at giving, but not receiving.”

“Why?”

“I don't like losing control.”

She smirked. “Me, neither. Losing control means there's a possibility I could get hurt.”

He began rubbing his thumb in circles on her cheek. “You lost control in the alley.”

“First time ever. I never experienced a real orgasm from a man before.”

He quirked an eyebrow. “So you've only experienced them by...”

“Myself. That's all. What about you?”

“Do I masturbate?”

“No, why do women feel as though you hold back?”

“I limit myself to one orgasm every time I have sex. Even if we have sex two or three times, I'm only allowing myself to orgasm once. Started doing it subconsciously years ago when women were coming from every corner when I opened my first lounge, and no woman has ever broken it.”

She scrunched her forehead in surprise. “Ever? Have many tried?”

“Tried and failed.”

Her eyes dropped to his lips. He had the type of bottom lip that was made for sucking. She didn't understand how she could get aroused after sharing all the information about her past, but she was. She knew he wasn't going to make a move if she didn't give him the okay.

“Would you mind if I try to break your orgasm limit?”

“Only if you don't mind me convincing you that those men who told you that you're emotionless and detached in the bedroom didn't deserve you anyway.”

“I'd like that.”

“Then, you have yourself a deal.”

They sat on the steps a little while longer before Ajay suggested they watch the comedy he brought. When they got to the end of the steps, he swung her around and planted a sweet kiss on her lips before bringing her in for a hug. She had never been much of a hugger, but standing there, hugging Ajay, she felt as if she didn't have a care in the world.

* * *

“It's so beautiful,” Danni said quietly as she dabbed the corners of her eyes.

“Such an adorable scene,” Summer added.

“This couple had the right idea,” Autumn whispered. “Saving loads on costs.”

Ajay stole a glance at Jaleen, who looked about as enthusiastic as he felt. Although Danni, Summer and Autumn had been on the same flight, and he and Jaleen had been on the same flight, the five of them had arrived in Bora Bora around the same time and agreed to meet up and take the same boat to their luxury resort.

“Ladies, the boat leaves in ten minutes. Maybe we should make our way there,” Ajay suggested.

“Just one more minute,” Danni replied.

Ajay looked at Jaleen and shrugged before resuming to witness the couple who had chosen to get married right outside the French Polynesia International Airport. It was unlike anything he'd ever seen. They were speaking another language so he couldn't understand the words they voiced when they exchanged vows. It didn't seem to matter to the women, because they were completely enthralled by the sight. It was also hard to enjoy the ceremony when the men were the ones holding all the bags.

“Okay, now it's time to go,” Jaleen said as the couple shared a passionate kiss. They made their way to the boat and boarded with a host of other vacationers.

He'd known that Bora Bora would be beautiful, but he'd had no idea just how much. When the plane had initially approached their destination, he'd been immediately taken by the mountains covered in luscious greenery. It was the type of scenery one often dreamed of when thinking of paradise.

Ajay heard Jaleen laugh and turned to see what had caught his friend's interest. As usual, it had to do with women.

“You know what I just found out?” Jaleen asked, linking an arm over Ajay's shoulder.

“What?”

“Those ladies over there told me that Bora Bora is where they filmed
Couples Retreat
. Did you know that?”

“I didn't,” Ajay said with a laugh. “But I have to admit, that actually is interesting.”

“That's what I was telling the ladies,” Jaleen said loud enough for them to hear. “And we need to find that singles island that they showed in that movie.” When Jaleen walked back over to them, they giggled and were clearly enjoying the flirting. Ajay glanced at Danni, Summer and Autumn in time to see each of them roll their eyes.