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Narratives could always be rewritten. My story thus far was nothing more than a messy first draft. I was the main character in my own life, and I refused—refused—to fall secondary to the villain.
Tears exploded behind my eyes but I refused to let them fall. Too many tears. Too much salt had streaked down my cheeks for one lifetime. I wouldn’t succumb.
He leaped up from the couch, discarding his coffee mug. “Halley, what the fuck.” I ignored him as I aggressively toed out of my sneakers, then made a beeline for the bathroom. “Halley,” he called after me. “I’m fine.” I wasn’t fine, but I would be. I just needed to slap on a few Band-Aids and scrub the gravel from my skin. I’d be all right. He was hot on my heels as I swerved into the hall bath and tried to shut the door in his face. He barreled through. “What the hell happened?”
fell,” I said. “Did you fall into a meat grinder? Jesus Christ.” Reed joined me in the small bathroom, quietly closing the door behind him. “I was running.” I turned the faucet on warm and dipped my frozen, shredded hands underneath the stream of water. Glancing at my reflection, I scrubbed wet fingers over my face, erasing the drying blood caked all over my jaw. “I slipped on a patch of ice.” “Let me help.” “I got it.” He reached for my hands, but I yanked them away. His shoulders sagged. “I’m just trying to help,” he said softly. My bottom lip trembled when I finally caught his wounded gaze.
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He reached out and gently cupped my chin in his large hand, tilting my head to the side. His brows furrowed deeper, jaw ticking as he inspected the damage. Then he reached over my head to open the medicine cabinet and snatched a box of bandages and a tube of ointment off the shelf. “Is it just your hands and face?”
*moans* no I’m literally moaning ohmygod
“I-I’m okay. I’m fine,” I stammered, chanting the words to myself more than to Reed. With a squeak of anguish, I yanked the top over my head and tossed it to the floor, assessing the wounds that traveled up to the edge of my sports bra. “It stings,” I breathed out. I was standing half-naked in front of him, but the terror trumped the embarrassment. Frazzled, I tugged a hand towel off the bar and shoved it under the running water, dampening it, squeezing out the excess liquid, then pressing it to my wound. I wheezed as my eyelids slammed shut, holding back a wave of biting tears. Reed was
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He stepped forward and took over holding the rag, setting the bandage beside him on the sink. The warmth of the water had cooled, but the warmth from his proximity only heightened. Lightly patting the towel to my skin, he let the fabric soak up the remnants of blood as his gaze lifted to mine. “It’s okay to break sometimes,” he said. “You’re allowed to be vulnerable, scared. You don’t have to fight it.” I covered his hand with my trembling fingers. “I’ve spent my whole life being weak.” “It’s not weakness. It’s a strength of its own. Facing your fears, embracing your emotions—it doesn't make
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held the towel to my abdomen and watched as he carefully outstretched my fingers and studied the bloodied, torn skin on the heel of my palm. His touch had me lightly swaying, undulating, almost as if the sound of his voice was the most hypnotizing melody in the world. His eyes found mine, skimming across my face. Reading me.
😭😭😭😭😭
“Turns out, he owed someone a lot of money,” he said, teeth clenched and grinding. “Some drug dealer. He was older, massively built, covered in scars.” “What happened?” I leaned into his touch. Reed stared at me for a heavy beat, pain creasing his brows and flickering across his face. Then he let go of my dressed hand and reached down to lift his T-shirt. My eyes dropped. I gasped. The gnarly, jagged scar shot ice through my veins, and my eyes misted at the sight. I’d seen the scar once before, at his apartment three months ago. I’d figured it was some kind of accident. But it wasn’t an
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A message. And the message was a knife to my gut that left me bleeding out and near death in a back alley in the middle of the night.” “Oh, my God.” I saw his pain. I felt his pain in the same way I felt mine. Bloody, exposed, and soul-deep.
I’ve been left for dead, spilled out across cold pavement, wondering how many breaths I had left. How many more moments…how many blips.” He crooked the smallest smile. “And then when I’d survived, I had to figure out how to live through that fear and pain going forward. And that’s the key—living through it, not in it. You recognize it, you channel it, you don’t try to smother it. There is no weakness in fear. You just can’t let it dictate your next move.”
“I’ve seen the moves you’ve been making, Comet.” His voiced dipped to a husky whisper. “I’ve been right in the center of them. You get back up every time you’re thrown down. You’re fighting for your life, in every sense of the word…and that’s fucking powerful.”
Reed had gotten back up, too. He’d turned his scars into weapons. Into art. Into a story worth telling. And now he was helping me do the same.
my fingertips grazing the puckered scar that looked like a small valley torn across the side of his abdomen. He inhaled a saw-like breath at the contact. Neither of us moved as my fingers trailed the uneven edges. Our eyes met through the fluorescent bathroom light, his dark and intense, mine glittering with tears.
I pulled back, lowered the towel from my wound, and twisted around until my back was facing him. Until my disfigured spine was in full view. I waited, chewing on my battered tongue, my eyes closed and heart split open. He was behind me, shifting closer. And when he slid his hand across my bare back, I trembled from head to toe. I felt his palm splay...
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I let him touch me. I’d let him touch me forever if he wanted to, realizing he’d never erase the evidence of my abuse but knowing he’d lessen the burden of it all.
“We both have scars.” I tilted my chin over my shoulder, trying to catch his eyes. He was closer than I thought as his breath caressed the top of my head. “A knife. A belt. Different weapons, same wounds.”
His hand continued to move and explore, languidly, up and down, journeying all the way up until his fingertips tickled the nape of my neck and caught with my hair. My head tipped back. I arched into his touch, my chest seizing with comfort, want, and warmth. The ebbing adrenaline left me boneless and sagging against his chest as his hand fisted my hair. A shot of desire funneled downward, settling between my legs. We were too close. Whitney and Tara were sleeping one floor above us, and I was wearing nothing but a bra and leggings as I pressed against him, letting his heat swallow me up. His
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The back of my head rolled against the ridges of his chest as his fingers tangled in my hair, fingertips massaging my scalp. His left hand continued its ascent up my body, skimming the side of my breast as he released a long, hoarse breath. And then he cupped me.
I AM ACTUALLY HYPERVENTILATING
He palmed my breast with one hand as my nipple hardened to a tight peak. I moaned.
me too girl 😭😭😭😭😭
I wanted his hands all over me, awakening my deadened pieces. He told me there was a fire inside me and that all I needed was a spark. Reed was my spark. Keep touching me, Reed. Bring me back to life.
THIS IS PEAK
Then I raced from the bathroom and hauled myself up the staircase to the bedroom I shared with Tara, ignoring Reed’s hunched-over stance on the couch with his head in his hands.
I AM CRYING
But, in the back of my mind, I knew… Not all collisions left you rising from the ashes. Some just left you shattered, buried in the wreckage of your own mistakes.
“Damn. Who pissed you off?” Scotty materialized in the doorway, his shoulder propped against the frame, arms folded. I sent him a sidelong glance, hardly faltering as the bag pendulated in front of me. “Today?” I answered through a hard exhale. “Bob Ross.” “Impossible.” “It is possible. His trees are way too happy. It’s unrealistic and offensive to the sad trees.”
But my heart still recklessly ached for the thirty-five-year-old father of my best friend, who had wormed his way into our conversation and was now hovering in the doorway with a scowl. “Thought you had dinner plans with Tara,” Reed clipped. Scotty whirled around on the bench. “Sorry, Coach. Wasn’t trying to interfere.” Reed stared at me with dark eyes, his hair damp with sweat and his sleeveless dove-gray tank soaked through. I stared back at him for a beat then swallowed, averting my gaze. “Dinner sounds great, Scotty. How about that retro diner off Seventh Street?” Scotty blinked back to
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DONT EVEN 😭😭😭😭😭😭
I supposed my tastes were more in line with older, wiser, emotionally distant men who smelled like earth and ivy, warm amber, and a plethora of compelling sexual fantasies, but that didn’t matter. I was adaptable.
same
“You and Scotty?” he probed, standing over me and folding his huge arms like a forbidding shadow. Breathing in and out, I concentrated on the way my abdomen flexed and burned through the movements. “Maybe.” “That’s interesting.” “It could be. Guess we’ll find out.” He rubbed a hand over his jaw. “Why?” Why? Some better questions would be: Why do you care? Why does it matter? Why won’t you evaporate into thin air, float into somebody else’s atmosphere, and let me finally breathe without choking on the idea of you? But no part of me truly wanted that, so all I said was, “He’s one of the few
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I let my gaze trail from Reed’s dark bangs glued to his sweat-laden forehead, to his broad chest, rippled abs, and inky, corded arms. The veins in the backs of his hands dilated along with his pupils as we continued to slowly circle each other like two hungry predators vying for domination.
ohmygod PLEASE PLEASE GIVE ME THIS MAN I CANT
I mounted him. Straddling his chest, I locked our eyes together, a triumphant smirk playing on my lips. “Predictable, huh?” I taunted, my breaths measured. My thighs clenched around him as our gazes held firm. His chest heaved underneath me, his shirt sliding up his torso as I inched forward. My own guard collapsed, the bricks slipping out of place, one by one. I wondered how it’d feel to be in this position sans clothing, me on top of him, grinding, sliding up and down on his— “Oof!” I gasped a surprised breath when he snatched me by the wrists and twisted our clasped hands, leveraging his
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I am having very very disturbing thoughts
My breath hitched as he leaned in, our lips hovering dangerously close together. “Control is a delicate dance, Comet,” he murmured, his voice a low timbre that pulsated through me. “And I intend to lead.”
😩😩😩😩
Reed pulled up to his knees, shoving back waves of his own disheveled hair. “You’re getting really fucking good.” The compliment warmed me from head to toe, nectar sliding through my veins. He was proud of me. I was proud, too.
TO HAVE THIS MAN PRAISE ME OHMYLORD 😭😩🧎♀️
“I’m wondering if dinner could become problematic,” Scotty noted, his shaggy hair pulled back into a small bun at the nape of his neck. I frowned. “Why?” “That looked more like foreplay than fighting.”
yes back off loser
glanced into the workout room where Reed was throwing punches at the swinging bag with the fuel of a dozen men. Lingering for a beat, I watched him move. Watched his arms fly left and right, pummeling the synthetic leather with fury, power, weakness, and all the same things I felt brewing inside of me. He pressed his forehead to the bag, stifling its movement with both hands as he went still. Then his eyes lifted in my direction. Eyebrows pinched together, face flushed and lined with beads of sweat, he sent me a tortured look as I hovered near the main door with my fingers curled around the
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An anguished whimper broke free. “Halley…” Reed sat beside me with his fingers tightly coiled around the wheel, his eyes shared between me and the windshield. “Comet, hey. It’ll be all right.”
“Where’s your hat? Your gloves?” “Where are yours?” “You’re being irresponsible.” “You’re being a jerk. Stop talking to me like I’m a little kid.”
I watched as he sunk to his knees in front of me and reached for my ankles, his fingers still cold as he carefully tugged the damp socks off my feet. I gazed at him, unmoving. “What are you doing?” “Warming you up.”
me next I beg
He tugged the wet fabric down my legs, continued to dry me off, then slipped a pair of dry pajama pants over my feet. Two fuzzy socks followed, swallowing my toes painted in raspberry polish.
I slid them up all the way and Reed inched his body closer between my legs, hands extending toward the hem of my blouse. His eyes lifted to mine. They glowed with a heated mix of affection and something else. I stared at him, my own eyes hooded as my air released in puffs of nervous energy. I slowly raised my arms over my head. Reed swallowed, his movements even slower as he elevated on his knees between my parted legs and the blouse followed the upward glide of his hands. My tangle of hair fell back down, a chilly waterfall over my bare shoulders and bra straps. His chest heaved in and out,
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and glanced down at the T-shirt. “This isn’t Tara’s.” It was his Soundgarden shirt. Gaze aimed at the front of my chest, he blinked at the logo. “Yeah,” was all he said.
can you hear me breathing? No you can’t I am literally and physically not breathing rn
His eyes closed through a long sigh, and we just sat there. Still and silent. I didn’t speak; I just savored the moment while the moment savored us.
There was a difference between staying quiet and having nothing left to say. I had words. Plenty of them. But I wanted to be where the peace was, and sometimes that was in purging the words, and sometimes it was in withholding them. Right now, I chose the intentional quiet. The peace resided in the things unsaid.
Then I glanced at him, perched only inches away from me, and tucked my knees inward until they brushed his outer thighs. “Are you scared?” I didn’t know if I was referring to Ladybug or something else. Maybe both. His hands slowly untethered from mine as he dropped his chin and caged me in with both arms, pressing forward on the couch cushions on either side of me. When he glanced back up with just his eyes, his gaze was churning with new waves, new turmoil. “Halley, I’m—” The phone rang.
Peeling out of my snow-dusted jacket, I placed it on a wall hook then stared at them, lost to the moment, just like I was. It was sweet, innocent. So goddamn pure.
Eighty pounds of matted love sprawled across the nineteen-year-old girl seated in my living room, who was wearing my favorite T-shirt and my daughter’s plaid pajama bottoms. A dark feeling sawed through me. Dark, clawing, and painfully euphoric. I’d imagined a similar scene on a night in late June, a year and a half ago—only, minus the dog and the bevy of external bullshit. Halley. In my apartment. Wearing that same smile and one of my T-shirts after a night of hot and heavy bliss. Fantasies.
😭😭😭😭😭😭😭
That was all it was now; a fantasy that never came to pass and would never hold any merit in the long run. It was make-believe, intangible, and the sooner I came to terms with that, the sooner I could break free of this fairy-tale narrative that continued to poison my mind.
“Can I look through your ingredients?” I shrugged. “Make yourself at home.” Fuck. No, please don’t do that.
“There’s green stuff in it.” “Green beans. Eat them,” she ordered playfully, lighting one of my cedar-scented candles with a matchstick. “You should know that green stuff is good for you, given your fatherly duties and all.” I scowled. I hated green beans. But since they were one of the few vegetables Tara loved, I kept my freezer stocked with those frozen vegetable medleys mixed with carrots and corn.
It smelled delicious, and I was going to eat the hell out of it, green beans and all.
As we settled in by candlelight and cedarwood, with Ladybug lying underneath the table waiting for scraps, I tried not to focus on how much this felt like a date. Halley looked so casual in her informal clothing, her hair a beautiful mess, face scrubbed clean and make-less, and a smile that refused to leave her perfect mouth. It was like she belonged here, in my apartment, at my kitchen table, her hair glimmering against the brassy light fixture overhead.
I shoveled forkfuls of food into my mouth and had to hold back the moan. “Damn,” I muttered through a bite. “Good?” Her eyes were wide and waiting, the fork loosely dangling from her hand as she anticipated my reaction. “You like it?” “I love it.”
PLEASE MOAN
