“Em…God.”

My heart broke a little bit then, in the best possible way. I’d never quit loving her, wanting her. Not ever. From that night until the last time I touched her, I’d never stop. If she was with me, near me, I’d touch her, hold her, let the love that I had felt for her from the day I met her grow stronger, fiercer inside my chest. She held on tight as I drove inside her body, that safe, warm, wet part of her wrapping around me, clenching, holding me until I thought I couldn’t stand the grip, until I felt my heart swelling up.

At that moment, I could have pried open my chest, shown her what she’d given me, made her promise to never stop feeding it, begged her to make it stronger with just a flash of her smile, or the subtle, sweet look in her eyes that answered “yes” to a question I never had to ask.

I moved past her resistance, breaking the hymen until I was deep, so deep inside Emily that I could not have told you where our bodies met. And then, just there, with my beautiful girl wrapped so securely around me, with her clutching my arms, gasping against my chest I found my one, perfect moment.

“I love you, Em,” I’d told her and repeated it twice before we fell onto the mattress, still wrapped together in that thick quilt and each other.

No, I hadn’t forgotten a thing.

Liar.

That voice was vicious again, coming from the space that still held the husk of my heart. Now it was cold, cobwebbed by shame, by time, a chrysalis that would never be shed. There would be no wings, no stretch of rebirth or potential to grow stronger.

You have forgotten. You forgot today.

Maybe I had. Rolling to my back, I rested my wrist on my forehead and looked up at the ceiling. There was a thin layer of dust on my fan and in the corner near the window, an old watermark carried the shape of a lightning bolt. The laughter outside my room had gone quiet, replaced by the unmistakable slap of skin against skin and the creak of Trent’s bed.

They have what you can’t. Not ever.

She was right. I didn’t deserve what Emily had given me that night. I didn’t deserve to be the one who’d taken her innocence from her and never given anything back but heartache. I didn’t deserve for Aly, who never smiled at anyone, to smile only for me, to kiss me with everything she had.

She doesn’t know you. She never will.

She might. One day, if I ever stopped listening to that damn voice. I scrubbed my hands over my face, trying to ignore the sound, that distant phantom voice that hated me, that wanted me to hate myself. It was the same one that cursed, raged when I thought about Aly’s skin and the texture of her hair on my fingers. One of her eyes was a fraction smaller than the other and her nose was almost too long. She was imperfect, flawed, and I’d been fascinated by the sight of her, all those sensations she worked inside me that day on the piano bench and nearly every day since.

I closed my eyes, numbing myself to the shrieks inside my head, feeling stupid and weak for the guilt, for the shame of my memories. For the first time, I felt bad recalling that night with Emily. Why? I had no idea. I felt worse for the dance I’d get. I felt all these things because I’d kissed Aly twice. And that, more than anything, had the voice growing, the words harsher, crueler, more punishing.

And then came the final memory, the images of that last day: Emily screaming at me as I laughed, her clutching that charm around her white fingers as I gunned the boat’s engine, pushing it faster and faster. Me being too caught up in her reaction, in the humor I found in her worry to realize she was truly terrified. Then, the water, the lake and the sobering fear of what I’d done. To her, to my girl, to my love. To Emily, who I promised I would never hurt.

LIAR!

I shot up in bed, slamming my feet to the floor when those images replayed in my shackled mind over and over, the screaming, the shouts and I closed my eyes, feeling weak, impotent, pathetic.

“Ransom?” I heard, looking between my fingers at Krystal Myers, one of Trent’s regulars, as she peeked in from the door.

Do it. It’s what you deserve. Do it!

I stood, let the sheet fall from my waist, naked except for my boxers, and didn’t care that Krystal’s eyes that had likely seen many stripped men, rushed over my skin like liquid. I didn’t care who she was or what was thinking.

I just didn’t care anymore.

She didn’t try to leave when I pulled her into my room. “We heard you, um, moaning. You okay, sugar?”

She didn’t get an answer, yet made no attempt to stop me or even talk to me again until I had her on my bed. “What are you doing?” she muttered, but it was all for show. She knew. That much was obvious from that poorly disguised grin and the dent of her bottom lip as she bit it.

“I…” Nausea came to me then, clotting my throat until I cleared it away. “I can make you feel good.”

Krystal wore a smile that was stupid and giddy, like a kid being told they could have another scoop of ice cream. She lay back, slipped her thong off, then lifted her arms above her head. I didn’t touch her, didn’t pay much attention to her at all.

My hands would not stop shaking and that voice, though lower, still came at me fierce and badgering, telling me to touch her, demanding that I service this girl.

“Touch me,” Krystal said and I got the feeling it was a line she used, something she said that some guys would find hot. She sounded too practiced, too used to getting the reaction she wanted.

She tilted her head when I got to my knees in front of her, but kept my hands at my side.

I like you, I heard.

That didn’t come from Krystal.

It didn’t come from the phantom voice, either, and as Krystal reached for my wrist, pulling me towards her, it wasn’t her that I imagined lay beneath me.

Krystal’s skin wasn’t warm and when she moved her hips off the bed, thrust herself at me, for the first time ever, I wasn’t remotely eager to service her or anyone.

I didn’t want to make her feel good, no matter how badly I needed to atone for my sins.

I love your family.

“Dammit.” My curse burned in the air.

“What’s wrong, baby?” Krystal tried to pull me back to her when I rose, her sharp, long fingernails scraping down my back, making me jerk at the sensation. But I broke away and stepped back, running my fingers through my hair. “You never let anyone make you feel good, Ransom.” She slid forward on her knees and tried slipping her hand down the front of my boxers, but I stopped her with my fingers on her wrist. She looked up at me with her best come-hither eyes. “I can do that for you.”

I like you and Do it battled in my brain. One voice was soft, sweet. The other grating and mean.

“No,” I told Krystal, turning around with my hand still on her. “I’m good.”

“But, baby, you’re so tense.”

“I’m sorry. You need to leave.” She stepped off the bed, but instead of gathering her clothes, she tried to sidle up to me. My temper surged and I pointed at the door, raising my voice with a boom I’d only heard my father manage. “Now. Get the fuck out of here.”

She walked backward, watching me like she thought I’d finally lost it completely and she didn’t want to be patient zero when my Hale temper exploded. When I fell to my bed, even though the voices were still ticking off conflicting memories, the mix of confusion gave way to relief, lulling me, finally, to sleep.

14 July, 2015