Say the Word(3)

It’s kind of funny how a decision you make when you’re eighteen can change your life forever. And by funny I mostly mean absolutely f*cking terrible. When I broke off our relationship, I knew I was hurting him worse than he’d ever been hurt. Harder, though, was the knowledge that I was putting myself through unimaginable pain from which I would never recover.

I still remember that evening so clearly; I don’t think I’ll ever forget it. Two eighteen-year-old kids, standing at our spot by the old oak behind his house. The hot summer sun was setting and a slight breeze chilled the air as we stood a few paces apart staring at one another. Bash could read me better than anyone – even before I’d spoken, I think he knew what was coming. His eyes had changed, an unfamiliar wariness filling them as soon as my lips parted.

I’d taken a deep breath and forced myself to say the words that would tear us apart forever. And when I’d turned my back and walked away, haunted by the look of betrayal and incomprehension in his eyes, I’d known we’d never speak again. The damage I’d inflicted with my words had cut too deep to ever really heal. I didn’t let myself cry then – that would come later, when I was alone in my bedroom and could finally allow the dull ache of my shattered heart to spread through my system like a lethal paralytic.

I’d known then, at eighteen, that my case of heartbreak was terminal, incurable. It wasn’t “puppy love” or “first love” or any of the loves that supposedly fade with time and large quantities of ice cream. Because when you walk away from your soul mate – when you take real, true love and throw it in the fire and watch as it burns down to ashes – you know you’ll never be the same again. The heart isn’t like the liver; it doesn’t regenerate, no matter how much time passes. Once it’s gone, it’s gone for good.

I’d left mine with Sebastian when I walked away that day, and I hadn’t seen it in the seven years since.

I should’ve been thrilled; I’d played my part flawlessly. And the Oscar for Coldhearted Bitch of the Century goes to… me, Lux Kincaid. I hadn’t had a choice about the plot. Sure, the script could vary here or there, interspersed with improvised lines of my own – but the endgame would always be the same. Our story ended with me walking away, leaving him to a star-studded future.

Roll credits.

Maybe I should back up a bit – start at the beginning, before everything became so complicated and convoluted I didn’t even know which way was up anymore.

You know those stories about the good girl, from the perfect family, with the perfect freaking Rapunzel-like hair, who falls for the boy from the wrong side of the tracks? You know the one – that guy with the gruff exterior who, beneath all those tattoos and piercings and slutty man-whorish tendencies, actually possesses a heart of gold and a capacity for love and commitment rivaling that of a Golden Retriever?

That wasn’t my story. In fact, you could probably say that was the exact opposite of my story.

I wasn’t the good girl, with the perfect hair, and a Stepford Wife for a mother. And Bash? Well, he hated needles and he’d never been too girl-crazy – even though, with looks like his, he could’ve had anyone he wanted. As the son of a U.S. Senator, he’d been raised with a constant awareness of the press. His father had drilled the importance of looking the part into Bash’s head from the time he could walk. We used to joke that in lieu of bedtime stories, his father had lectured on the merits of platinum cufflinks over gold in painstaking detail when he’d tucked his young son into bed at night.

Sebastian always looked like he’d just stepped off the glossy pages of a Ralph Lauren advertisement. With his longish dark blond hair pushed back from his face and each strand perfectly in place – not in a purposeful way that told you he’d spent hours in front of his bathroom mirror, but in that effortless way that only naturally beautiful people possess – his clean-cut looks instantly captured the attention of every girl in the room. And, as if to put him even further out of reach of us mere mortals, his warm nature and outgoing personality matched his appearance in every way. His heart was bigger than the county we lived in, which just so happened to be the largest in Georgia.

And me? Well, I wasn’t just from the wrong side of the tracks. I was about fifteen blocks and three bus transfers away from even approaching the railway, let alone crossing over those damn tracks to Bash’s side. Put in the plainest terms possible, I was white trash.

Dirt poor. Gutter scum. Lower class. It didn’t matter how you said it – euphemisms wouldn’t lift my family up above the poverty line or put more food on the table.

My childhood house, with its sagging roof, chipped shingles, and termite-eaten porch stoop, had been a laughable excuse for a residence. The blown-out tires on the front lawn and the rusted, ancient red pickup truck that had sat in the driveway unmoving for as long as I could remember didn’t do much to improve our shabby-chic aesthetic, either. My home was such a cliché of American impoverishment that it was almost funny – although, the fact that I had to live in such a dump was sobering enough to leech any humor from the situation.

Moving on.

You know those stories where the family is incredibly poor, but the strength of their love for one another overcomes even the toughest economic obstacles? Those people who, despite having nothing, also have everything because they have each other?

Yeah, that’s not my story either.