Without Scars (25 page)

“Can’t sleep on your couch when you have a bed.” I held my hand out.

“I’m fine here.”

“Well, then I’m fine here, too.” I lay next to her. We were face to face, and I hugged her close to me. With our fingers intertwined between us, I clasped her hand tight against mine.

“Don’t do that,” she whispered.

“What?”

“Touch me. Don’t do that thumb thing on my thumb. Don’t…just don’t.”

“You really expect me to lie here and not touch you?”

“Actually, I expected you not to lie. I expected you not to be
so
dumb. God, I should be compassionate—me of all people and because you are so good to me—but I’m so fucking angry with you, Charlie. You should know better.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I never should’ve gotten involved with you when you took those pills out of your pocket by accident. But I couldn’t stay away from you. I couldn’t not want to be with you. It was easy to agree to you abusing yourself because I wanted us so much. I’m so stupid. I enabled you.”

“You’re not, Nik. And you didn’t. I need them to work.”

“No, you fucking don’t.”

My head was spinning. Too fast. I kissed her and her face was wet. “I love you…” I said.

“I love you, too.” Warm palms landed on my neck and her tongue moved between my lips. My hand went haltingly up her thigh, and she adjusted so that my fingers could slip into her underwear. I slid them into her; she was breathing so hard into my mouth. “Oh…fuck…Charlie…” Her nails pressed into my back and her teeth grazed my ear.

I dropped my lips to the curve of her neck and put myself between her thighs. Nikki unbuttoned my jeans and pushed me into her. “We’ve got a good thing.
You
are the best thing,” I whispered. Gripping the arm of the couch above her head, I fucked her until she bit my shoulder as she orgasmed. I came as soon as she said my name.

“I love you. I won’t ever stop saying it.”

“I know,” she said. Nikki climbed out from under me, and I heard her shift her dress back down. The thick darkness of her living room didn’t stop me from knowing exactly what her face looked like right now. Things weren’t going to be the same.

She went to the kitchen and poured water into the Keurig, cursing quietly the entire way. “Are you coming to bed soon?” I asked.

Nikki spun and leaned against the counter. “Charlie, we need a break.”

Fuck.

“Why?”

“I can’t trust
me to do the right thing.”

“Which is?”

“Clear my head.” She went into the bedroom. “Not
fuck you
when I’m fuming. Not enable this shit.”

“Bullshit.” I followed her. She was already grabbing my things and piling them on the bed. I picked everything up and pushed it back into her arms. “No fucking way. No. This is fucking bullshit, Nicole. I’ve been here through it all with you. Did I want to take a break when you told me what really happened at the accident scene? When you took my car? When your brother flipped out?”

She narrowed her eyes, which were dark with a look of betrayal, and flung my belongings to the floor. “Oh, we’re going to play who’s better at accepting whose problems and mistakes. Awesome. Gold star for you then!”

“What the hell is a break, baby?” I asked anxiously. I held her by the waist, tensing up, expecting her to tear my hands off.  “A few days? A week?”

“That’s up to you.”

“Let me do this on my own time.”

Nikki’s eyebrows shot up, irritation pumping into her face. “Okay. Go do it on your own time then. But I can’t be around you while you’re shoving handfuls of pills down your throat, and pretending it’s okay. It’s not good for you. Or me. It stresses me out. It worries me. And that makes me susceptible to going back down a road that I don’t want to go down! My goddamn family
hates
me. I’ve been going to meetings—
adjusting—
you know, so I don’t fall into a handle of vodka or something. And now this. I just…I can’t, Charlie.”

“You can’t what, Nik? You can’t fucking do
us
? This is
one
thing! How many times have I given up on you? How many? Did I ever walk away?”

“Oh, right. I’m the fuckup in the relationship. Tally all my shit up. Compare them to the fucking golden boy.”

“
Golden boy
? Really? Wow. I have never looked down on you in our relationship, Nik. Don’t do that,” I spat. “Don’t even fucking do that.”

Nikki put her hands on my chest. “Okay, no. If we keep going back and forth we’ll both end up saying things we’ll regret. So, we need a break. You don’t have to take your stuff tonight but please leave.” After taking her dress off, she yanked on a pair of sweats and a tank top, and ran into the bathroom. The door slammed.

I walked over and pounded on it once with my fist. “Hey, Nik.
Fuck
your break,” I said. “
Fuck your break.
”

****

Fuck her break.

I slammed my laptop shut. I nearly threw it across the room. I was supposed to be writing the end of a familiar story. Boy meets girl. Boy falls for girl. Boy spends the rest of his life regretting it because he didn’t know the cruel truth then. Love? It only told of the possibilities of happiness; it never promised actual happiness. If he could go back to the beginning? He would warn himself about how often he’d love from afar, unrequited, and how his heart would suffer irreparably. Now if he was going to survive this, he had to learn to live without her.

His greatest joy. His greatest pain.
La douleur exquise.

Someone knocked on my bedroom door. The television in the living room boomed to life and then got turned down. Two squeaky cartoon voices argued. People laughed out loud. There was so much noise in my fucking apartment. I turned around and told whomever it was they could come in.

“Got the perfect girl for you to get over the other one,” Ghost joked, holding up a Ziploc bag of weed when he stepped inside. “For Medical Use” was stamped on the front, like that somehow made it less illegal in Florida. “White Widow. I told a friend of a friend that you were in need. It’s just for you, man…” He laughed. He was already in the clouds. I caught the bag when he threw it and swung back around.

“Just having a little disagreement with Nikki right now. I don’t want to get over her.” It was
just
a break. It had to be. She’d cool off and we’d be okay. I loved that girl too much for this to be the end. For her to not be
my
end.

“I know, man. I figure if I get you high, you’ll get hungry and then leave your room, because you’ve been in here for
the
four days
you’ve been back.”

“Well it is
my
room, Ghost.”

“True. Anyway, we’re all gonna play Hold ‘Em…just come out.”

If I played, it would give him a reason to leave me alone for a while. I sighed and stood up to stretch. After dropping a few pills on my tongue, I grabbed my phone—in case Nikki called—and trailed him out. Shaw and Brody were already sitting at the dining room table, and Shaw was shuffling the deck of cards. “Fifty-dollar buy-in,” he informed me.

On my way back from grabbing my wallet and the pot I promised to sell for Fallon (I figured it was as good of a time as any to get rid of it), Deacon and I collided in the hallway. “Whoa…forgot you still lived here. Got cured of Pussy-Whipped finally?” he asked.

“Not in the mood, Deacon.” We took the empty chairs at the table, and Shaw tossed chips at us once he collected our money. “Just so you all know, Nikki and I broke up. Kinda. I don’t want to hear about it, and I definitely don’t want to talk about it,” I announced. Two heads nodded in my periphery. “In fact, I’d rather you guys just buy some of this pot right now.” I set down three pill bottles stuffed with a few grams of weed each. Ghost smoked so much he could eyeball a measurement, so I’d trust him to help me divvy it up.

“Now he’s got something else trivial to bitch about,” Deacon said, nudging Ghost. Spite burned my gut.
He’s goading you. Don’t fall for it.
Grabbing one of the beers, I uncapped it on the edge of the table, nearly breaking the neck.

“Don’t do it, D. Don’t mess with him right now,” Ghost pleaded.

After glaring at Deacon, Brody said, “Sorry, man, but I gotta say this. I liked Nikki a lot. Cool chick. I’m sorry it didn’t work out.”

I glowered at my cards. “Fuck her.” I didn’t mean it.

“Someone will, don’t worry,” Deacon muttered. He smiled but soon covered it up with a Solo cup. Part of me wondered if Deacon was born with his brain-to-mouth filter broken or if he just had Tourette’s that was specific to me.

“D, don’t fuck with him.”

“And they won’t wait as long as you did, either.”

No one moved. “Don’t say shit else about my girl, Deek,” I warned him. Anger cut through me and I pushed away from the table, causing everyone’s stacks of chips to tumble. I went to the freezer and took out ice for my beer, but I had a feeling—with absolute certainty—that
one of us
was going to need it for something else in a minute, if this conversation kept going.

Actually.

Fuck it.

I went for Deacon’s throat. Then his nose. Self-fulfilling prophecy and all that. They were sucker punches, I admit, and he had no time to react. I decked him as hard as I could both times. Chaos erupted for a few seconds, and then it was hard to focus on anything beyond how much my fucking hand was throbbing, but knowing my friends well, it went something like this:

BRODY panics and grabs CHARLIE.

GHOST is conflicted. Fighting means potentially scarring his face.

SHAW moves the fuck out of the way.

DEACON…

Well, Deacon was screaming and clutching his face, his back against the bookshelf. A few objects had fallen to the floor. Nothing broke. Other than a single chair, the furniture was mostly in the same place.

“Don’t say shit else, D,” Brody warned him.

Deacon doubled over. “That motherfucker just hit me over a joke, and you’re explaining shit
to me
!” Upright, he wiped the blood from his face, and I flexed my fingers. This was what it was like to hit someone?
Fuuuuck.
My knuckles were burning. I’d punched him in the mouth, too, apparently, and his teeth had left an impression in my skin. A fight bite.

Plot twist! We’d both need the ice!

“I hate this shit…I fucking hate this shit between you two,” Ghost yelled.

“Well, he has a problem with me.”

“You’re a fucking pussy who can’t take a joke.”

“Honestly, D, you go at him a lot.”

Deacon threw his smeared hands up, and blood ran from his nostrils. “You’re siding with him? He did one thing for you forever ago, but I’m the one who was there during the fucked up stuff. You’ve forgotten that part?”

“We’re done, Deek. I’m holding on to something you don’t want anymore, so we don’t have to be friends. It’s been a long time coming, anyway. We can’t live together anymore, either. One of us has to go. Fuck it. I’ll go. I’ll go to my parents’ place. But that’s the problem, right? That I have my parents? Isn’t it?”

“Fuck off, Dara.”

“No, fuck you, Deacon.” I pointed at him. “I’ll pay my part of the rent the next three months, and you guys should find a new roommate in the meantime.” I stalked to my room and grabbed my clothes from the chest of drawers. I was relishing punching Deacon because it had been my dark and twisted fantasy for a while, but in a way it was an excuse to leave. My goddamn apartment reminded me of Nikki, and I didn’t want to be here, anyway.

The door creaked open behind me. Deacon was still shouting insults about me in the living room—“Motherfucking bitch-cunt, momma’s boy asshole” was my favorite so far—so I knew it wasn’t him standing there. My euphoria and adrenalin were skyrocketing, and I didn’t give a fuck how he felt right now. I looked at Ghost’s reflection in my mirror. “I shouldn’t have brought up the parents thing. I’m sorry, man. That was unfair, even if it wasn’t directed at you.”

Hands in his pockets, he shrugged. “Hey, why the fuck are you breathing so hard? A few punches should not have you all out of breath like that.”

Laptop. Two weeks’ worth of clothes. Shoes. My mom hoarded toiletries so I didn’t need any of those. Quick email to Samira about where I’d be. A text to Nikki?

No, fuck her.

I still didn’t mean it.

“Needed to write for a bit this morning, so…I just got a little boost.” I riffled through the things on my bed. In my haste to leave Nikki’s place, I’d forgotten a lot of my shit. Like my fucking bottle of pills from California. Goddammit. I’d found some in another bottle I’d left on my desk a while back, but I wanted that one. “It just needs to get out of my system.”

“Except you
just
took some more earlier when we were in here.”

I pressed out a text
: Hey, Fallon. Can you hook me up?
Just in case I changed my mind about going to Nikki’s to get mine.