Ripped (Real, #5)(35)

I found out that the girl I wanted to love me like I wanted to breathe . . . could never be for me.

I had to go. I left, hating every step I took.

No booze, no prostitute, no girl, nothing could numb me enough for me to stop, just f*cking stop, needing her.

Not even a song.

Drunk, I poured it out months later, needing to blame someone for my shitty life. So I blamed the source of my pain. And my new friends, the Vikings? Hell, they embraced the anger in it, the irony of mixing it with Mozart. I sing it now, every day it seems, and I could sing it a million times more, but I still won’t believe that I wouldn’t kill for her to love me.

For a f*cking minute.

A second even.

To just give me a f*cking kiss and tell me that at least back in those days, she loved me.





NINE


DANCING TO THEIR TUNE


Pandora


I wake up early, and the choreographer waits for me in the hotel ballroom, along with eleven other dancers. Letitta is also there, watching with a smirk as I come in. I’m coffee-less, humorless, and sleepless. I don’t even smirk back.

I got no sleep last night. I kept expecting you-know-who to come to my bed. No, not expecting. Almost . . . anticipating. Sad, but true. I kept remembering when we were seventeen, and he used to slip up the trellis into my room, and I’d be waiting—pretending I wasn’t waiting—my heart leaping when he tapped lightly on the window. I’d let him in in a hurry, and he’d take off his shirt, his shoes, slipping into bed with me with just his jeans on, and I’d smell him and press close, wanting to say that since my dad died he’d been the only one able to make me forget the pain. Wanting to tell him that it hurt to know my mom was, day and night, preparing her case to take his dad away from him too . . .

“It’s all right, he did it to himself,” he whispered when I told him I was sorry, again. But he sounded sad. How could he not be sad?

And then I’d fall asleep, even as I fought not to, too comfortable with his smell, and warmth, and the way he stroked his hand long and lazy down my back. Then I’d wake alone, seeing the dent in his pillow and the slightly open window where he’d slipped out, just in time before my mother came to wake me for school.

“Close the window, it’s chilly!” she’d scold.

“You’re like a grandma already,” I’d grumble.

“That is so disrespectful, Pandora.”

“I’m sorry,” I’d mumble and disappear into the shower, letting the water run over my body, already loathing the day ahead. I knew what would happen, because the same had happened yesterday, and the day before that too.

I’d see Mackenna from afar. He’d look at me too. We’d pretend we hadn’t just held hands, or slept with my body twined like a pretzel around his long, ever-growing one. I’d hang out with my tiny circle of friends, feeling him guarding me like a wolf from the table crowded with wannabes, but after the hearing, only the real rebels with troubled families hung out with him. They all waited for his dad’s trial and sentence—but Kenna?

Kenna had already been “tried” by everyone in school. Everyone but me. We’d pass each other in the hall, both of us straining to bump shoulders.

We’d go late to class, our methods different every time. Sometimes he’d tie his shoelaces at a tortoise’s pace as the halls emptied. Other times, I’d drop my books at the exact moment he passed so he could drop to his haunches close to me and slip my books into my backpack. It was stupid, really, but the day was torture if I didn’t exchange at least one word. One word, with him. “Hey,” he’d say softly, only one side of his mouth smiling.

“Hey. Thanks,” I’d say, when really I meant, I want to be with you.

And his silver eyes would say in quiet frustration, “Why can’t I f*cking be with you?”

Every couple walking down the halls holding hands killed me. I’d never miss the clench of his jaw, the coiled energy as I knew he wondered why we couldn’t have that. “My mother,” I’d explain. She wouldn’t understand. She’d been watching me like a hawk since she’d seen him walk me home. My mother would ruin it all.

“Yeah, I know, I’m just frustrated,” he’d whisper in my ear, his breath like a soft wind as he hung my backpack over my shoulder and rubbed his thumb on the skin where my T-shirt pulled, stealing that touch . . . and my heart with it. “Come to me tonight,” I blurted out.

“Always,” he said.

Always . . .

Six years—a little more, actually—and I still remember that Always. How, when he became aroused, his eyes—sometimes without warning: over a look, a smile, a brush, a pair of shorts I wore—looked like dirty silver, and I could never again look at dirty silver without a pang in my chest. Mackenna isn’t that boy anymore. And I’m not that girl, waiting in my bed, eagerly watching my window. But last night, I felt very much like her.

I felt exactly like her. Eager, hopeful, scared to be hopeful. Vulnerable.

He’s been the most powerful source of pain in my life, and my survival instinct rears up stronger than ever when he’s near. Every part of him is a threat—his voice, his kiss, our past, my own heart. I was so sure I’d gotten rid of my heart, but he makes me so aware that it’s still here, inside me somewhere. It’s alive when he’s near, and it screams, “Danger . . .”