Riptide Affair, page 16
Closer to the end.
What do I say? How do I fix this? It has to be fixed. It has to be. This is Jared. Me and Jared. We were in it. Happy. Committed. Loyal...
A fissure runs directly up my heart, cracking it in two.
Were.
We were loyal.
Finally, the countdown ceases, and Jared explodes.
“God dammit!” A cloud of sheetrock dust flies out around his fist, out from the crater he's created in the wall.
I curl in on myself, unable to move. All I can do is feel, and everything I feel hurts. It fucking hurts.
I'm dying inside.
Or, maybe, I'm already dead.
I can't feel my heart, even with a hand pressed to my chest. All I feel is the burn. The stabbing pain. The emptiness pressing in on me from all sides.
“Fuck this,” Jared finally whispers, stepping over the threshold. “Fuck both of you.”
Then he leaves.
He just...leaves.
Slowly, I force my eyes to Rhett. He's cradling his head in his hands, grief prominent in the hunch of his shoulders.
What do I say to him?
Do I apologize? Do I ask for an explanation?
No.
No, I was drunk. I'm not apologizing. Not to him.
Gripping the sheet to my chest, I manage to get my legs under me, and once I'm upright, I run.
I run after the man I love.
I run after the only man I want.
The only man I'll ever want.
The man I thought I was sharing my body with last night.
“Jared!”
I reach the hallway between the bedrooms the same time he does, and for a split second, I'm hopeful. He's back. He's right here, in arm's reach. But that split-second of hope is squashed when he doesn't look at me. I have to reach out and press a hand to the wall to keep from falling on my ass when he shoulders me aside and heads back to Rhett's room.
Rhett and I both watch, silent, as Jared crouches down with a trash bag and begins picking clothes off the floor.
My clothes.
This needs to stop. He needs to stop. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to say. All I know is I just need everything—Jared, Rhett, my breaking heart, my pounding head, and the whole goddamn world that has continued to spin—to stop!
“Jared.”
The second I speak Jared's name, I wish I hadn't. He stands up straight, turns, advances, and shoves the bag of my discarded clothes against my chest. I struggle to keep them in my grip. I struggle to find words. I struggle to breathe.
Because the earth is crumbling beneath my feet.
Yet, I needn't worry about falling, since he has me by the arm, pulling me roughly toward the stairs. The pinch of his fingers pales in comparison to what's happening inside of me, but it still hurts because I know there's about to come a time—any second now—when he will release me. And that will be that.
Once his touch vanishes, it will never reappear. This isn't a magic act. Not a boomerang. I broke something last night, and now that the cracked and splintered pieces are all falling into the abyss, there's no retrieving them.
They're gone.
We...are gone.
Together, we descend the stairs as fast as my fumbling feet will allow, and I spare a second to glance up at his face. The clenched jaw I've kissed a hundred times. The eyes filled with tears that crinkle at the edges when he smiles. The nostrils flaring with anger that so often nuzzled the place where my neck meets my shoulder.
“Please. Talk to me,” I beg, barely above a whisper. “Let me—”
“Explain?” he finishes for me. It's not a whisper. It's an explosion.
We stop at the foot of the stairs and he pushes me away. Like I'm something vile and dirty.
Because I am.
“Fine. Explain,” he says, crossing his arms. “What was it? A sick twin fetish you had to get out of your system? Or did you finally realize you're with the wrong twin? Had to take a crack at the rich one? The smart one? The favorite? Is that it? Well, congratulations. How was it?”
“What? No!” He's insane. How could he possibly think that? “It was a mistake! A stupid, drunken mistake. I would never—”
“Did you like it?”
His question cuts me off, and cuts me deep, so I'm bleeding out right here in the foyer, unable to answer because I'm too busy trying to keep everything inside of me right where it belongs.
Inside.
And that is the worst thing I could possibly do.
In my second-long stretch of silence, Jared huffs out a humorless laugh and takes a step away from me.
“Get out.”
I don't. If I leave now, there's no going back. There's no fixing this.
I have to fight for this. For him.
“Jared, please.” I grab his arm, holding on for dear life even as he ushers me closer to the door. “Please, please don't do this. I didn't know. I swear to God I didn't. I'd never do that to you. Never in a million fucking years.”
“STOP!” he roars, bringing us both to a standstill. “Just...just fucking stop, Merrin! I have shared...everything with that man! Everything! From a blood supply, to a parent's love, to a car, to the goddamn roof over our heads right now!”
A hand slams against the door I'm backed up against, his palm striking only inches away from my head. Then he leans in close.
“You are the one thing I refused to share.” Two tears fall from angry eyes. “But I guess you had other plans.”
I cling to his shirt, the only place he'll allow me to touch. “I don't want you to share,” I whisper, my throat tightening with every passing second. “I'm yours. I swear. All of me.”
The click of the deadbolt is the only warning I get before the door swings open behind me. I reach out and grip the door frame to catch myself, but inside, I continue to fall.
“Please, Jared...”
Even though I'm in pieces, I continue to stand firm in the threshold. I'm not above begging. Jared is it for me. And if he wants me to get down on my hands and knees and beg for forgiveness, I will. Right here on the porch for all the world to see.
I don't want to leave. If I go now, it's over.
It can't be over.
Jared leans in close, until I see how dark his blue eyes have become, how turbulent, how conflicted, how pained. And in those storm-tossed eyes, I see a sharpness I never thought I'd see. An edge I never fathomed he was capable of.
I know what he's going to say. Even before he lowers his voice and growls in my face.
“Get. The fuck. Out.”
My heart protests. With every beat, it puts up a fight. My feet, however, know what's best for me.
As soon as I clear the threshold, the door slams shut in my face. Me on one side. Jared on the other.
His footfalls are angry as he walks away, and I wait a full five seconds before I collapse into a heap of sheet, skin, and regret. Sobs choke and strangle me as the cold reality of what's happening finally sinks in.
It's over.
I ruined us.
I ruined everything.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Jared
The lamp breaks first.
Jagged shards of ceramic litter the floor, but the shade remains untouched. I'm quick to remedy that. Ripping the linen or canvas or whatever the fuck it is isn't as easy as it looks, but eventually it yields to my anger. Just like everything else. My phone. A framed photo of Merrin. A mug I kept pens in. A stack of books. A basket of clothes.
There has to be a way to relieve the anger bubbling in my chest. If I don't, it'll burn through everything. It will ruin me.
I don't know what to do so...everything I touch gets destroyed.
I head for the stereo...
“Whoa! Whoa! Easy there, Hulk.”
A hand grips my shoulder and I whirl around, ready to lay waste to my twin, but it's not Rhett.
“C'mon, man.” Brian pulls me toward the door. He keeps his eyes on me, searching for a reason for my outburst, but he doesn't have to search long. The angry tears are a pretty obvious tell. Plus, I'm certain he heard me raging at Merrin. “Let's get out of here. I know what you need.”
I don't question him. I have beef with a lot of people right now, but not him. Never him. He's the good one. The one who never screws up.
Downstairs, Brian opens the door to the basement and as we make our way down, the cool, stagnant air is a welcome reprieve. I feel like I'm being buried. It's an odd comfort.
In Brian's home gym—a place neither Rhett nor I ever disturb—the brother I don't hate sets me down on a stool and begins taping my hands.
He tapes.
I cry.
He switches hands.
I continue to cry.
Silent. Steady. Just tears and anger. Nothing more.
“There you go, bud,” Brian whispers, squeezing my hand in his. “Go nuts.” He gives me a sad smile, then leaves.
Left to my own devices, I hang my head and approach the punching bag. At first, I try to picture her face when I strike, but that feels wrong. I'd never hit her. Not ever. Not even now. Then I try Rhett's face. That's a little easier, but still wrong. So I add a little stubble, darker eyes, and a broken heart. The face I conjure is the same one I see when I look in the mirror, and it's perfect.
I strike.
My knuckles burn, but I pound out a few more hits, convinced they'll eventually grow numb.
Right, right, left.
Right, left.
Kick.
Left.
Right, left.
Left, right, left, right, left, right, left, right, left, right, left, right, left, right, left, right.
“That's not helping.”
I whirl around, fist reared back, my entire body begging to punch the owner of that voice.
Rhett is sitting on a stool at the edge of the room, no longer naked. The dickhead at least has a white undershirt and sweatpants on now.
“That's not what you want to hit,” he says, eyebrows lowered, his face severe.
I laugh, and fuck it hurts. “You're right. It's not.”
Stuffing hands in his pockets, Rhett stands and pads barefoot across the mat, coming to a stop a foot away. Then, he pulls his shoulders back and stares me down. Eye to eye, he clenches his jaw and waits.
I don't need him to spell out what he wants from me. That ever-annoying network connection we've shared since birth is there, wide open, letting his thoughts, fears, and concerns upload, beam in, and mingle with my own.
“Seriously?”
Rhett nods.
I shake my head and sigh. “I'm not hitting you.”
“But you want to.”
“Of course I fucking want to!” My words echo off the concrete walls, and as angry as they sound, I feel half that. “Why? Why her, Rhett? Out of all the girls...why her?”
He looks away.
No answer.
I lift my hands and turn back to the bag.
“Can you just hit me so we can get this over with? Please?”
Gritting my teeth to the point my head aches more than it already did, I let my hands fall to my sides and turn to face the one person on earth I've known since we were blinked into existence. “No. I'm not gonna hit you just so you can feel better. You deserve to feel guilty. In fact, I want you to drown in it. I want you to fucking marinate in it until you feel as shitty as you try to make everyone around you feel.”
He flinches. “You think that's what I do? You think I try? Like it's intentional?”
“Of course it's intentional!” I explode, raking fingers through my hair. “It's what you do. It's who you are. Rhett Fuckin' Sullivan is the king of backhanded compliments and snide insults! He's goddamn perfect! King of the world! Bow to the almighty tyrant!”
Rhett looks like he's about to argue; like there's a counterpoint poised on the tip of his forked tongue. But he lets it go. “Hit me.”
“No.”
“It'll make you feel better.”
“Yeah,” I laugh, “it probably will, but if I start hitting you...”
I let that sentence die, because there's no use voicing the ending aloud. If I start hitting him...I won't want to stop, and he knows it.
Defeated and emotionally bereft, I let out a sigh that burns my throat and turn my back on my twin.
“Just go, Rhett. Please.”
I'm almost back to the bag when he speaks again.
“I remember.”
Everything inside of me goes cold, immediately, like I've just swallowed a bucket of dry ice. Stopping in my tracks, I turn back around, sure I heard him wrong. Sure he's not insinuating what I think he is.
“You remember what, exactly?”
“What she said. What she did.” He tips his chin to the side, giving me a perfect opening. “How she felt.”
Those words—those simple, straight-forward words—plant images in my brain that I know I'll never be able to scrub away, and whatever started cracking this morning when I found the two of them in bed together finally breaks off completely.
I break.
Then my fist cracks against his jaw.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Merrin
911! 911! 911! 911! 911!
I send the text as soon as I pull into my driveway, just because I don't know what else to do. What does a person do when they've taken the most meaningful, pure, transformative connection they've ever built with another person and shit all over it?
“Fuck!”
Another sob jars my chest as I bash a fist against the steering wheel. Metal digs into my wrist when I miss, and my bracelet slips off. Hands fly out to catch it, but I'm too slow, and it coils into a puddle on the floorboard.
My mother's graduation tassel, which has already been through hell and back, stares up at me, and I have to admit it's fitting. Because of my recklessness, it's lying in ruins, just like everything else beautiful in my life.
Fingers shaking, I pick it up, and even though I don't want to, even though it's one of my favorite things in the world, I open my console and toss it in, letting it get lost between gum wrappers and melted tubes of Chapstick.
Yesterday I was happy. Ecstatic. In love.
How the fuck did I get here? How did I mess things up so goddamn badly?
How?!
Just as I'm about to claw shaking hands through my hair and pull, hopefully ripping strands from my scalp, my phone pings with a barrage of incoming texts, and I glance down at an array of responses.
On my way.
Gimme ten.
Road work, but I'll speed!
Wiping snot and tears away with the back of my hands, I force myself out of the car. Weak legs lead me up the sidewalk to my house, then inside, where I pause in the center of my living room, dressed in yesterdays clothes, holding a wrinkled bed sheet in my hand.
The house feels wrong, somehow, and I dart restless eyes around the room, staring at all the things that make up my home. The threadbare sofa. The yard sale picture frames. The off-white carpet without a single stain. A ceramic fruit bowl the girls gave me last Christmas. The propane heater that never gets used because I can't afford to fill the tank.
Everything inside my house is neat. Orderly. Clean and comfy, just not quite homey.
Barely lived in. Just like my life.
When I realize what feels off, I fall to my knees.
It's not the house.
It's me.
I'm the one that feels wrong.
Lost and heartbroken. Out of place.
It's funny, when you think about heartbreak, you assume someone has been wronged. You assume they've been hurt or neglected or damaged in some way. But Jared didn't hurt me. Everything that he said, everything that he did, that was a reaction, and a valid one at that. A reaction to something I did. Something I put us through. Even though I was the antagonist in our tragic love story, my heart breaks just the same. My heart mourns. It weeps and rages within the confines of my chest, and there's not a damn thing I can do to keep it from splintering.
That man brought me to life when I was doing nothing more than going through the motions. He reawakened sincerity and laughter and bliss and passion—things I hadn't felt in abundance in a long time. And despite that, I was careful—so fucking careful—to not voice the words that had been ransacking my heart ever since I wiped a stray hair from his forehead when he was being beaten down by fever. I knew then...but caution told me to wait. Wait and see if he changed. If he left. If he lied. If he turned into someone I couldn't trust.
Hilarious.
I was so scared Jared was going to break my heart that I didn't even entertain the possibility that I could be the one to break his. The monster lying in wait to ruin my one great love wasn't crouched in the body of my lover.
The monster is me.
I am the threat.
I'm the danger.
The person I should have feared was inside me all along, but I was blind to her. God, I was so blind.
Tires squeal outside, and I rip myself from my anguished thoughts, hoping against hope that I'll look through the tattered blinds and see Jared's Jeep coming to a stop in the grass.
But it's not Jared.
Kate's white sedan sits next to mine as she rolls up her back windows, glancing up at the darkening sky. Laura pulls up behind her in her Corolla and hops out, holding a doughnut between her teeth as she does up the top button of her polo, blonde hair flowing in the breeze, wild and free and content with who and what she is. Harper's mustang squeals to a stop as well, boxing the two of them in, and together, the three of them power walk up to my door. A team. A united front. Prepared for whatever emergency I have to lay at their feet today.
God, I so look forward to a day when I receive a 911 from them. I'm so damn tired of always being the one in distress. The one without direction or confidence in spades. They'd never suffer a misstep like this.
Who am I kidding?
A misstep?
This wasn't falling off the wagon while on a diet. It wasn't accidentally over-drafting a checking account. It wasn't spilling ketchup on a favorite blouse. Those are missteps. This? This was a fall. Off a cliff. With rough waters waiting for me at the bottom. Filled with piranhas. And sharks. And jellyfish. And giant boulders lined with poisonous sea urchins.
