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To the women who dust themselves off and try over and over again.. You are stronger than you think you are. You’re the bad ass!
“Can you focus on the road, please?” Autumn says from the back; she’s literally saying what we are all thinking. “Can you focus on the road?” Waylon mimics her as he picks up speed even faster. “Pain in my ass,” he says and then turns his head around to talk to Autumn. “You’re a pain in my ass. You focus on the fucking road!” he yells at the same time Everleigh shouts something, but I’m looking at Waylon—who is looking in the back—and by the time I look forward again, the bright headlights are shining straight into the truck.
I knew I should have said something to someone, but I also knew he would kill me if I did. I was so dumb.
“We found her.” He comes in and stands in front of me. The relief that they found her is so overwhelming I feel like my chest is going to explode. “Oh my God,” I say, smiling. “Where is she?” I’m ready to go to her. “Charlie,” he says again, and his tone is flat. “I’m so sorry.” It’s then I know my life will never be the same. It’s then I know the pain I feel will stay with me forever. It’s then I know all of my dreams are being shattered. He says two words, and then the blackness gets me. “She’s gone.”
“You need to come home.” “Of course,” I agree without a second thought. Forget the fact I haven’t been home in the past six years. Forget the fact I said I would never step foot in that town again. Forget the fact my life ended the day my best friend and boyfriend died because of me.
I didn’t know where I fit in, but I knew here in the middle of nowhere, no one knew me. No one knew my story. No one looked at me with hatred or anger or pity. I was just Autumn, the new girl in town.
“I have to go home.” The thought alone makes me want to throw up. In the past six years, I have never had the pull to go home. Do I think of home every single night right before I go to bed? Yes. Is it a good memory? No. It’s what nightmares are made of. It’s the reason I’m breathing through life and not actually living. In reality, I died eight years ago. My heart is the only thing that didn’t stop that night. Everything else did.
To her, I was just Autumn, the lost girl who wandered into this small town and stayed. She loved me for who I was, the Autumn who smiles because she has to. The Autumn who laughs and then feels the immense guilt that I’m laughing. The Autumn who wakes every single morning with a burning hole in her stomach and wondering when her heart is going to put her out of her misery.
She gets up and kisses the side of my head that eight years ago was laced with twenty-seven stitches. It was the least of my injuries.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” The venom in his voice cuts my breath off again. I take a second to look at him. Eight years changed us all, but Charlie looks almost the same, except for his haunted eyes. His frame is bigger, as if he’s been working out, and the scruff on his face makes him look more rugged. There is no mistake; Charlie Barnes holds me accountable for what happened that night. Little does he know, he’s not the only one. “Hello, Charlie.”
I stand here in the darkness, my body tense and burning like it’s on fire with rage as I look at the woman who could have stopped all of this. The woman who with one word could have changed the lives of five other people. Selfish, that is what she is, and I hate every single bone in her body.
The hatred I have for this woman feeds my soul. I hate the world. I hate the whole fucking world for the pain I walk with every single day. But I don’t hate anyone as much as I hate Autumn.
“You could have stopped him.” “I tried,” I finally said, “I tried to get him to give me the keys.” “You didn’t try hard enough.” His words sliced through me like little shards of glass getting under your skin. “It should be you in that grave, rotting in hell with him.” That was the last thing he said to me before he turned and stumbled into the forest like a thief in the night. My legs gave out from under me, and I sat there rocking side to side until daylight.
my heart belonged to one woman and one woman only. I would never give my heart away to someone else, it wasn’t even mine to give anymore.
“I’m sorry.” The words barely a whisper before she turns her head to the side and starts to walk away from me. “I need to know that you understand what I’m saying”—she stops at my words—“I don’t even want to fucking breathe the same air you breathe.” I see her chest inhale as she turns her head to the side, her eyes looking past me towards the tombstone. "You aren’t the only one who loves her,” she says before she runs off and away from me, leaving me to watch her as she runs through the trees and disappears into the night.
I had all these plans, excited to put them on paper, and then the accident happened. Nothing else mattered after that. I was frozen in time, sometimes I think I’m still frozen there.
“What the fuck are you still doing here?” I swallow down the lump in my throat. “Fuck you, Charlie.” Everything is building up inside me. “No, fuck you!” he roars, and I can smell the alcohol rolling off him. “You ruined my life.” I shake my head. “Your life is ruined?” I ask him and laugh bitterly. “Your life is fucking ruined? I lost everything that night. Everything,” I hiss at him.
“I lost my whole life that night.” “Really?” I ask, baiting him. In the past eight years, I’ve never, ever challenged Charlie, but tonight after a whole fucking week of feeling like a pariah, I’m done with it. “You look to be doing just fine.” I raise my eyebrows. “You have a thriving business. You have no one trying to run you out of town, and if talk is still right, you have your choice of girls lining up to pick up those pieces.” I shake my head, knowing I’m probably hitting him below the belt. “You lost Jennifer that night. You weren’t the only one who lost her. But I lost more than just
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“Go away.” I push at his chest, and he moves back, but he’s a lot bigger than me. “Why can’t you just go away?” I shout at him, going to push him again when he grabs both my wrists in his hands, pushing them into the door beside my head. My chest rises and falls as we stare at each other with hatred. “I hate you,” I whisper. “I hate you.” His head comes even closer to me. “Not as much as I hate you,” he retorts, the both of us pant, and I don’t know who does it first. I don’t think either of us is ready for what is to come. I know I’m not.
I don’t know who moves first; I don’t know what the fuck is happening before my lips are on hers. My tongue tastes the whiskey on her lips as I kiss her with the hatred I have for her, and she kisses me with the hatred she has for me.
My heart tells me this is the most fucked up thing I’ve ever done in my life, while my head tells me this is what I need.
I pull open the door as I try to kiss the ever loving shit out of her. It’s hard, it’s wet, it’s heated. It’s everything you think two people who hate each other would feel.
I should stop this. I should move out of her touch. I should do a whole bunch of things. But I don’t do any of them. I’m stuck, my feet stuck to the floor as if it is quicksand.
My eyes close, and all I can see is Autumn. All I can see is her staring at me. I tighten my eyes even more, and still, all I can see is her. I wait to see if it changes, if Autumn is the only one I see or if it’ll be Jennifer.
My plan was to come here and find out when she was leaving. It was not to kiss her, it was not to fuck her, and it was not to feel what I was feeling.
This is my home and where I want to be, but it doesn’t mean it is easy for me. It also doesn’t mean that I belong here. Maybe I don’t, and perhaps I’m just dragging out the inevitable, but I’m not going anywhere for the moment. Doesn’t mean I wouldn’t like to crawl in a hole and just bury my head. Doesn’t mean it isn’t killing me a little staying here. Little do they know how I’m breaking inside more and more. I thought there was nothing left to break. I must have been wrong.
“What do you want from me, Charlie?” I ask him softly. “I literally can’t give you anything else, because I don’t have anything left to give.” I wipe away a tear. “You can turn back around and go back where you came from.”
The kiss I tried to erase from my memory is now alive and better than I thought it was. His mouth moves from one side to the other to get the kiss to go deeper, his hand now cupping my ass as I arch my back into him. I should stop this. I should push him away. I should do a lot of things, but what I don’t do is that. Instead, my hands go to the hem of his shirt as I push it up so I can feel the heat of his skin.
he pulls me away from the door and toward the bed. The bed I made as soon as I got out of the bath, a bed I was sure was never going to have Charlie Barnes in it again. A bed that has only had Charlie Barnes in it.
I’m about to tell him to get out when I feel him curl into me. His legs tangle with mine, his face almost in my neck, and I hear him softly snoring. I close my eyes, taking in his warmth. The only thing going through my mind is that he'll be gone by the time I wake up.
Seeing her standing there with tears running down her face, begging me to just leave her be, but because of the asshole that I am, I just pushed her even more. I didn’t even know why I was doing it; I just knew it was happening.
Never has there been someone who I want to go again with as soon as I finish. Never again have I struggled the way I’m struggling with Autumn. I’m usually in and out, with the promise of maybe calling them the next day but not actually doing it. That is what I’m used to. That is what I’ve become, but with her I’m not that person.
Opening my legs for her to stand between them, I look up at her, and she looks down at me. “It’s a shame,” she says softly, “how you can be so beautiful on the outside but then so ugly inside.” The words get lodged in my throat, and I pull her down on me. She puts one knee beside my hip and then, with the other, straddles me. She plays with my hair. “Such a shame,” she repeats, as if I’m not here, as if she’s talking to herself.
“Autumn,” I say her name, watching her face the whole time, seeing her close her eyes and never once open them. No matter how much I ask her to open them, she doesn’t.
My head goes back as she buries her face in my neck and collapses on my chest. I close my eyes, thinking that again, for another night, nothing has gone according to my plan.
The musk reminds me of a time I didn’t hate him. The first time I met him and thought to myself that he might be the hottest man I’d ever seen. With a megawatt smile and dark-blue eyes, you would be lucky if he smiled your way. I’m reminded of this right before I remember this Charlie isn’t that one. This Charlie is a man who hates me. Is a man who I hate. Is a man who no matter how many times I tell myself I can resist him, I don’t. He is the perfect example of a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
I’m about to disengage myself from him when he gets up, and my legs wrap around his hips instead of getting down. His cock still buried in me, still hard, making me feel a fullness I’ve never felt before. A fullness, even if I don’t want to remember it, I will.
“I have a date tonight, so you can’t come over.” I can hear him stop moving. I hear him stand and make the mistake of looking down the bed at him standing there, his face like stone. “Why would I care?” I don’t let the words hurt me. There is nothing he can say that can hurt me anymore.
two things happen at the same time. One, her body shakes in front of me, shaking so much it’s a wonder she’s even standing. At the same time, she turns her head to the side, closing her eyes as if she’s shielding herself from me, as her hands come up to protect her face. The action makes me take a step back, my heart feeling like it’s going to come out of my stomach. “Did you think I was going to hit you?” My hand shakes that she would think that. I’m a lot of things, I know I am, but I would never, ever hit her. Her hands go down as she opens her eyes, and her head turns back to look at me. I
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I don’t even notice the shaking has not stopped. I don’t realize anything standing here in front of this man who has made it a living hell for me for the past eight years. The man who hurt my soul, he just didn’t pick up his hand to do it. He did it with his words and by turning his back on me.
as I stand in front of him. The man who was kind, who was caring, who if I was having a bad day would go out of his way to make me smile. The man who will never see me as anything other than the woman who ruined his life.
“But just so you know, I died that night also. I’m breathing, but inside I’m dead. There is nothing left for you to destroy.” I thought his face was ravaged before, but I was wrong. “I took your verbal punches over and over again, just like I did with Waylon. Unlike with him, I guess I deserve yours.”
“This is the end of it,” I tell the empty room. “There is nothing else left to do.” I walk to the door and turn the lock. “Whatever it is that we were doing is over.”
tonight, all the secrets have come out. I have nothing left to give, not to the Cartwrights, not to the people who hate me, and not to Charlie Barnes. Especially not to him. Tonight was the end of whatever the fuck was happening between us. It was the end of us hate-fucking each other. It was the end of me paying penance for something I’d already been paying for secretly. It was the end of the road for all of it.
I would get up tomorrow and try to rebuild the company my father was proud of. I would bring it back to how it was before everything happened, and then I would leave, just like I did the last time. But hopefully this time I would do it in one piece and not shattered.
I just sit with my head back, seeing her face, Autumn. How the first time I met her, I was taken aback by how beautiful she was. How her smile lit up her whole face. How she used to make little jokes with me, and we used to laugh with each other. Waylon hated that, so I stopped doing it. He didn’t mind after I started dating Jennifer, but by then, it had shifted.
“I have a friend I’m going to bring to meet you.” I smile as the tears sting my eyes. “To be honest, I don’t think she’s my friend. At least she shouldn’t be my friend, but I’m going to make her be my friend again.” I chuckle. “That is if she doesn’t leave before then.” The thought of her leaving town makes me grip the reins in my hands tighter.
“You’ll like her, she’s pretty, like you. You have the same hair color.” I pet her neck. “She hates me, but you… she’ll love you, and that’s going to be enough for me. If I can get her to smile at you, I’ll take her hating me.” The tear escapes the side of my eye. “I’m going to try,” I vow out loud, “I’m going to try.”
My hand comes up with hers as I tuck it behind her ear, wanting to bend down and kiss her lips but also knowing I haven’t earned this yet. From now on, the only kiss I’m taking from her is when she wants to give it to me. It’s also not going to be a hate-fucking kiss.
“I’m so sorry. I want to think of other words to say, but there isn’t anything I can say that will erase the hell that I brought down on you.” One of my hands goes up to touch her face. “There is not enough time on this earth that can make up for it, but I’m going to try to show you that I am.” “You don’t have to show me anything. We can just avoid each other.” The thought alone makes me angry.
