Brutally Beautiful

Chapter 14

I knew I was far-gone when I woke to an empty bed, after a night of continuously shifting towards the warmth of her body in my sleep, a sleep without the sweat of nightmares, only to wake and find a cold empty spot where I hid my heart. She had it too, and I was intrigued with what she’d do with it. Crush it beneath her little white converse sneakers, or with her bare fucking hands? I didn’t care too much how it was she crushed it, just as long as she did. Pain was just as good as pleasure, because it was something. In a blind frenzy, I dove head first through the tangle of sheets to find her.

She was beyond my ability to put what I felt into words.

Something other than the emptiness.

The hate.

And rage.

But my fucking bed was empty. Empty and cold.

Slipping on a pair of shorts, I stormed past the balcony ready to search the ends of the earth for that woman, but I noticed a small movement just outside. Pressing my hands against the cold glass, I could see her silhouette in the darkness, huddled up on one of the lounge chairs, as soft flakes of snow fluttered down around her.

The door creaked as I pulled it open and her head turned in my direction.

“Jesus—Lain…Sam…it’s freezing out here. What the hell? You’re so cold that you’re shaking.” I hovered over her and gather her small shivering body in my arms, “Bloody hell, Sam, you’re fucking soaking wet.”

Her body shook against me. Then trembling lips touched mine with such a hunger that I was instantly kissing her back, carrying her inside the warmth of the house and thrusting into her so violently, so dominantly that I was afraid I might have broken her. But her hands fisted my hair, clawed at my back and matched my thrusts, her body pressed against mine, encouraging me, begging me for more.

Being inside her wasn’t like any of the empty fucks I’d had before, it was filled with some sort of overwhelming emotion that made me feel like I could breathe. Her pussy was flooded with thick pleasure; her moans were all the music I would ever need to hear. It was pure insanity, crazed hunger that drove me into her over and over again.

It felt…it felt like I had never had sex before. Yeah, yeah, I know how damn crazy that sounds, but…it was the first time the flesh beneath me came with heat, and scent. It was the first time I noticed the taste of someone, the touch that only she gave; the tingle that only her breath could cause on the surface of my skin. It was as if I’d been abstinent for years, alone in a dry uninhabited land, completely unaware of what sex really was.

It was the first time I cared about someone. It was the first time it was real for me. She was just as damaged and out of bounds as me. All I wanted was to seep into her skin, curl myself around her heart, disappear completely and escape into her body. To have her taste on my tongue forever, have her smell and touch drown me, and her face always in my sight.

I wanted to erase everything fucked up that had ever hurt her. I wanted to spill myself inside her and fill her with me, no one else. She clung to me, clawed into me, ravaged me just as I did her, and finally, as sleep crept over her body, I watched her. The repetitive thought of her walking out of my door looped over and over again in my mind. I knew she would leave. I also knew that whatever darkness that held her prisoner was not something she was going to go back to.

I watched her. For hours, I just lay and watched her.

I watched as the first rays of glistening sunlight fell against her skin, soaking it with a golden morning glow. Her inky black hair splayed chaotically across my pillows, her breathing light and even. She lay on her stomach, as the sun and shadows danced their way across the curves of her flesh, unknowing. She laid bare, save for the thick comforter she’d tucked her toes under in her slumber.

She shifted onto her back and a small sound, almost a sigh, passed her lips. Watching the light spill into the room, crawling up her skin, my cocked twitched to life. Hardened rose tipped nipples lay perfect atop her ivory breasts. Her raw beauty paralyzed me.

I watched her.

My tongue found its way to the perfect peaks, and she moaned quietly against me; so close to her smooth skin. Then, with the sunlight slowly brightening up the room, I noticed things I hadn’t seen the night before.

Torrid heat flushed through my body, stinging my cheeks and burning my scalp as adrenaline slammed through my bloodstream. Violent images flipped through my mind, a flash slide show of horror and blood, and Sam.

“What the fuck is that?” I growled before I could stop myself.

“Kade?” she asked in a sleepy voice. She lifted her head off the pillows, wild dark hair spilling past her shoulders, and sat up, tucking her feet underneath her. “Kade? Is something wrong? Is it…is it Dylan?”

Fuck yeah there was something wrong. She had scars across her body; raised fucking ridges of flesh, a pale pink shade that matched the natural color of her lips. Yeah, there was something real fucking wrong, because some of those scars spelled out fucking words. It was a fucking name.

David.

I could feel the anger coiling tight, threatening to explode.

“Kade?” She was looking at me with those beautiful doe eyes, and then realized what I saw and clawed like an animal for the blankets to cover herself.

“No. Don’t,” I whispered, but she continued to scramble for the covers, pulling them out from under my body, tugging and yanking. “No! Don’t fucking COVER YOURSELF!” I screamed. I tore the comforter off the bed and hurled it across the room, and there she sat, naked, alone on my bed with her arms wrapped around her body as if she could hide behind them.

“Who the fuck is David? Was that your husband?”

“Yes.”

“Why would you do that to yourself? Why the fuck did you let him brand his fucking name on you?”

She laid her palms flat on the bed and shifted herself over to the edge, and turned her face away from me, “I wasn’t conscious when he did it.” Moving off the bed, her beautiful lithe form glided across the room and started dressing.

No. No. No, no-no-no-no-no.

All the air just sucked out of my lungs and I had no idea what I could have said. I probably should have said so many things, but didn’t, nothing filled my mind but emptiness. I watched her cover my sanctuary with remorse.

“He had his own branding tool and a butane torch.”

“I’m sorry, Sam. I shouldn’t have yelled. I…I don’t know what to say…I don’t know anything and I want to know everything…”

“Coffee,” she whimpered, standing there in just an oversized tee-shirt.

“Excuse me?”

“I need coffee. I go through serious withdrawals without it,” she smiled then, but I knew she was humiliated, and it drained away part of my impulsive anger, part of it. I knew she was just buying time until she could get out of there and never have to explain anything to me.

So I made her coffee. Because, well, if Samantha Matthews, whoever she was asked me to build her a boat, I would have worked on that too. Placing my hand over my own scars, I tried to think of anything but someone branding her smooth skin. Smooth ivory skin that smelled like apples and cinnamon. Smooth ivory skin that tasted like sweet sugar and felt like soft cream melting under my hands.

That pussy whipped me real good last night. Now I’m hard again.

The coffee mugs clanked as I slid them over the uneven wood of the butcher-block table, and midway across she just reached out, grabbed the steamy hot cup, and brought it to her lips. After the first few sips the relief in her expression was priceless and her shoulders loosened as she leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table.

“Sam?”

“Yeah?”

“Please fill in some holes for me.”

“Which ones?”

“All of them. Start with your childhood, I don’t care. But I want to know everything about the woman that will destroy me when she fucking walks out of my life,” I clipped. Damn, I was being a dick. But, it hurt like hell and I wanted to fight with her, sick twisted me, wanted her to ball up her fists and hit me.

She only offered me a tight smile.

That just made me angrier.

“Think those words are going to get me to fight with you? Think I’m going to fuel your rage, stoke the fire, Kade?” Then she leaned over and kissed me on my fucking lips; warm wet lips that tasted like the richest delicious coffee.

“I, ah…I didn’t have much of a childhood,” she began, sitting back down on her chair. “My father was the best neurosurgeon in Manhattan, my mother a socialite. They had no time for my brother and me, so we played in the hospital while my father worked and my mother did charity work. I grew up in a very sterile environment.”

I leaned back in my chair, my anger bubbling just under my skin, yet surprisingly restrained. “Go on,” I whispered, taking a sip of my coffee. It tasted better from her lips.

“I was better known for my brains, freaky bookish ways or just being the nerd sitting quietly in the corner. I was obsessed with taking things apart and putting them back together. Breaking and fixing. I was different, so different from everyone else that surrounded me, and I knew it too, deep inside that, I wasn’t like everybody else. Instead of playing with dolls, I read my father’s medical books and my brother and I snuck peeks at the cadavers. It’s crazy to say really. And being that my father wanted my brother and me to follow in his footsteps, he let us view surgeries standing alongside the med students. Everything was always hidden from my mother though. My mother,” she chuckled, darkly. “My mother and I didn’t get along.”

“Why not?” I asked, intrigued that someone couldn’t get along with her.

“I was a reminder to my mother of her regrets and the heavy amount of wrinkles that her life delivered to her so unexpectedly. I was never going to be the gorgeous New York City socialite she always strived for me to be. There was not one ounce of sex-tape-diva in me at all. She tried to raise me to be a prim and proper wannabe-heiress. Frilly skirts, patent leather shoes, nails perfectly manicured and skinned tanned to a bronze. But my father raised me to use my brain. I was so against everything my mother wanted me to do, because it wasn’t me. I was the Goth girl in the corner, listening to heavy metal music, smoking cigarettes and cutting class to read in the hospital’s student library. I didn’t want to be anything but a doctor. I wanted to be in the middle of it all.” She sipped again at her coffee, placed the mug down, and absently stroked the rim.

“Sneaking into the morgue, or watching the doctors and nurses care for patients was thrilling to me, powerful. It became my obsession, and best of all, completely forbidden by my mother. Later, I would understand her reasoning for wanting me to abstain from the clinical detachment of medicine, but by then, it was too late to learn more from her, since injecting herself with the world’s largest dose of morphine was of more importance to her. When my mother died, I was a girl interrupted. I no longer had to hide my addiction to saving people; I no longer had to hide my mother-disapproved freak-side bookish ways. I dove into my freakish nature, along with my brother and father to bury the truth about my life-taking, family stealing, morally corrupt, vain mother, and for the first time in my life, I got to be me.”

“Wait, whoa. Your mother’s deceased?” I asked.

“Yep. Her suicide letter was written on a neon pink post-it note…she blamed her death on my father’s lack of attention, and the hate she had for her life as a mother and wife, and nothing more.”

Silence overtook the room as she quietly stared into her coffee. Her brows pulled elegantly together and she leaned back and sighed heavily, “Anyway, I realized I had something special to give to the world and I fucking did it. I took pre-med college classes when I was still in high school. They put me in the accelerated program in a medical charter school and I started medical school when I was just nineteen. After med-school, I ah…I wanted to start helping people…I was exceptional at what I did; it was all I knew. So I did my doctoral program and my residency where I thought I’d see the most trauma, where I was needed the most, you know.”

“In the city?” I guessed.

“No,” she said swallowing nervously, one hand cupped around her coffee and the other twisting the bottom of her shirt. “I was a Medical Corps Officer in the 82 division of the US army. I spent six years there. What should have been my residency years doing rounds in a sterilized hospital with holier than thou doctors making me guess what was wrong with patients, I spent in the bowels of Afghanistan, where real life hell was being played out. Where I learned to be a real trauma surgeon. Where it mattered.”

Holy fucking hell.

Anger bubbled over, and I jumped to my feet, fisting my hair in my hands. “Fuck, Sam. Fuck, Sam. FUCK!” God, seriously? What the fuck? Can there be more shit to make me want her more? Can there be more shit to make me fall in love with her faster?

“What about you, Kade?” She asked, ignoring my outburst. “What was your childhood like?”

“Normal,” I barked, kicking over the garbage bin and sailing it across the room. “I was a jackass, my best friend was a dick and all we ever did was to try to get laid, and then he turned into a mass murderer. I never did anything remotely worthy of mentioning in the presence of someone who fought in wars or saved lives. You…you’re like some sort of…of…I don’t know, saint or something.” I was yelling. Bitter words, twisted heart and devastation hooked its talons into my brain. Why was I becoming more and more enraged with how precious and moral she was? Oh, the fucking answer was simple really, because when she leaves, she’s going to take it all away from me.

Her phone beeped and vibrated against the table like the ring at the end of a boxing match. She reached for it hesitantly and read the message.

Clearing her throat, she whispered softly, “Bree just messaged me that she’s going to leave the hospital in about an hour. She wants to know if she could come here to wash and change. Says she smells like rotten meat. Deputy George will drive her…”

“Yeah, of course. She can’t go back to that trailer and don’t you mean Jennifer?” I snapped, trying hard not to lose it completely.

“Um…yeah.” Her fingers deftly moved over the screen of her phone, then a moment after they stilled, it beeped and vibrated in her hands.

“Deputy George said the gunman had a rap sheet on him a mile long. They are linking the incident up with a bunch of highway robberies and suspicious missing person’s reports from the city, but they don’t believe we have anything to do with why it happened. Your brother was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.” She typed something else quickly and placed the phone down in front of her, exchanging it with her cup of coffee.

“Stop talking about other shit! Tell me about the fucking scars. Tell me about David,” I fumed.

“You’re way too angry to talk about this,” she said, rising off her seat.

She moved in front of me, her knees touching mine. I slid my chair back automatically, giving her room. Then…then once again, she did something in-fucking-credible to me. She straddled her legs over my lap, wrapped them around the chair, threw her arms around my neck and fucking hugged me.

She. HUGGED. Me. I hadn’t had someone hug me since I was sixteen.

For a minute, my arms awkwardly flailed at my sides, hugs were foreign territory for me. “You’re just trying to get out of talking to me, and this is making me even angrier.”

Her lips pressed against my forehead, long silky hair fell around our faces like a dark thick curtain, closing us in. The slow circular swirl of her hips over mine, the liquid motions from the muscles of her thighs and the delicious heat between them had me fighting to hold onto my anger.

Then one of the hands that had been holding my enraged expression, trying to calm it into a smile, slid slowly down into the warmth between those thighs. Fuuuck me, I forgot she was only wearing that tee shirt. The most delicious sounds of fingers slipping through wet flesh made my world spin and saliva flooded my mouth.

“No. I’m not trying to avoid telling you about him. I just want whatever time we have left to be worth something, and not spend it on him. He’s taken too much from me already,” she whispered, tracing her tongue against my lips. The sensation sent all the blood in my body surging lower, pumping my heart faster and made my cock throb with anticipation.

“You’re right, but I can’t let it go. I want everything from you, everything, Sam. Give me something, Sam.”

“David was the kind of man that could bewitch the rarest of butterflies to land in the palm of his hand, then tear their wings right from their bodies and laugh when they tried to fly away. No more talking, Kade. Not now, the anger rolling off you is so thick I can see it. Please. Please, just take me.”

Her lips brushed against my neck, her hand still moved between her legs and the violent thoughts in my head were building. “You’re not going to be able to handle me when I’m this angry, Sam. I’m not a nice lover like this. I’m harsh. Rough. Demanding. I’ll fucking break you.”

Her movements stilled, her eyes locked on mine, “I’ve been broken by lesser men than you, Kade Grayson. Being broken by a good man is something I haven’t done. Break me, Kade. Trust in me enough to know you can.”

The spark of craving in her green irises and the seal of her lips over mine was all it took. Grabbing her by her wrists, I yanked her off my lap and pulled her into the bedroom, flinging her on the bed. “Take off the shirt,” I demanded.

With my hands blindly rummaging through my top drawer for something to tie her with, my eyes were fixed on the sheer velocity of her yanking the shirt over her head and flinging it across the room. Stalking to the bed, I pulled up her wrists and bound them to my bedframe with my tuxedo ties with half hitch knots. Pushing open her legs, I kneeled between them, feeling the heat of her pussy against my skin. “Am I scaring you?”

“No,” she said demurely. Perfectly.

Threading my fingers through her hair, I pulled her face up to mine. “Fuck Ms. Matthews, you like being tied up don’t you?”

“Probably as much as you do, Mr. Grayson.”

“You liked being spanked, Ms. Matthews? Because I’ve wanted to see that perfect ivory backside of yours turn pink under my hand.”

Her answer was to flip herself around and raise her ass in the air at me, arms stretched and crossed from the bound bowties. It was the sexiest thing I had ever seen.

My hands glided up her thighs, slid over the plump cheeks of her ass and my tongue followed behind. “Give me a word for you to escape from this,” I whispered against her flesh.

“I don’t need one, Kade. I trust you.”

“Baby, give me a word so you can have the control.”

“Tuxedo,” she whispered.

The slap made her gasp. And there, on the right side of her ass was the beautiful pink hue of my handprint. Just one slap. One slap and I was breathless, in a frenzy to thrust inside her so deeply. Two more slaps and I caressed the soft pink spots as she panted for more.

Slowly, I dipped my fingers into her. “You’re soaked, Samantha. Tell me what you need,” I murmured. My fingers stroked in and out, faster and faster, “So fucking wet.” I wanted to consume her.

“I need you,” she whispered, pushing her hips to the rhythm of my fingers.

Thrusting my cock into her, she cried out in a loud moan, thighs quivering. With my fingers still wet from her, I eased two fingers into her ass.

Groaning, her hips began grinding into mine. Holy shit, she liked it dirty. Her muscles squeezed around my cock, they trembled and wept as I thrust into her again and again. “You feel so good, Sam.” Harder and harder. Faster and faster. She took it all. She’s played submissive before, and she’s played it well. The thought broke me.

“Oh fuck,” she gasped. “Don’t stop, I’m going to…” She was constricting around me so hard I couldn’t hold back, I didn’t want to.

Clutching at her waist, I slammed my hips against her flesh and spilled myself inside her, both of us collapsing and panting onto the bed.

Easing my fingers and my cock out of her, I freed her from the bowties and gathered her in my arms. She giggled and tucked her body into mine, “We are both in desperate need of a shower. We smell like sex. Lots of sex.”

Chuckling into her hair, I smiled, “Smells pretty delicious to me.”

She slapped my ass hard, “Come on, Kade. Let’s get one together.”

Fuck if I was going to say no to that.

In the middle of us trying to get dressed, and more discussions of her childhood and avoidance of any David conversations, my damn doorbell rang and Bree, or rather Jennifer, stood outside my door with a coat covering a blood streaked shirt. It sobered up my extreme horniness immediately. Samantha pulled her through the front door and into my kitchen, shoving a cup of coffee into her hands. “I was just telling Kade about my childhood,” she said seriously to Jennifer.

Jennifer stood there awkwardly. “Kade, this is Jen and I’m tonic,” she laughed. I didn’t and neither did Jen. She always tried to make the most awkward jokes to ease other people’s discomfort. Even though it never worked, she never gave up trying to make people feel better. That said a lot about her character to me.

“Uh…so…How’s Dylan this morning?” Sam asked.

“He’s doing really well, no infections so far. In fact, he’s even up and walking.”

Relief swept over Samantha’s face as she pulled her friend into my bathroom, bringing her duffel bag full of clothes.

Sitting in my leather recliner, I listened as the women spoke, sometimes in whispers and I tried desperately to keep my rage under control.

“Before I leave, I just want to change my look again, maybe go blonde this time, cut it short,” Sam’s voice explained.

“Where are you going to go, Sam? I just don’t understand it? How did he find you? I don’t get it. He looked dead,” Jen whispered.

“I’ve been trying to wrap my brain around this all night and I can’t figure out how he knew where I was, or how he is even still breathing,” Sam whispered.

Hushed words whispered back, “Have you stopped to wonder if it might be your father?”

A few heart pounding beats of silence filled the room. Her father? Her father wanted her dead too?

“I…I don’t want to believe that, Jen. My father,” I heard her clear her throat and struggle for the right words. “It could be him, but, I’m not staying here to find out. It’s only going to be a matter of time before someone else comes here to finish the job. I just want to leave so everyone here is safe.”

“Do you want me to…”

“No!” Sam yelled. “You shouldn’t have come with me in the first place. You need to stay here with Dylan and have a life.” The shower turned on and I heard things being moved around. “And, I also need you to make sure Kade is okay. Make sure Dylan and Kade stay close, okay?”

I didn’t listen to the rest of the conversation, because I didn’t want to hear anymore. She just needed to stay here. I could keep her safe. She was going to fight me when walking out my door. Waiting inside the kitchen, drinking the rest of the coffee, I battled with my demons and with reasons to tell her to stay.

After thirty minutes, they walked out and we drove to the hospital in silence. Sam and I glanced at each other often, but no words were exchanged and it started to weigh heavily on my shoulders. She wanted to leave that night and I wanted to be inside her a million more times before she left.

The three of us made our way to the front desk and grabbed visitor’s passes, and then waited for the elevator to take us to the sixth floor. When we stepped into the elevator, I couldn’t help but stand close to her, touch her neck and skim my fingers through her soft silky hair. I fucking wished that Jen wasn’t there, because I needed Samantha, right then. I needed her more than anything.

Jen eyeballed us weirdly. “Oh, my GOD! You two had sex didn’t you? Holy shit, you had sex last night?”

Samantha’s face instantly turned bright red. “Why would you think that?”

“Because you’ve got that up all night fucking look and the way you’re eye fucking each other right now…you’re both itching to have elevator love, right here.” Then she broke out into a chorus of Love in an Elevator by Aerosmith. “Gah, just don’t get hot and heavy in front of me. Sex in an elevator is just wrong on so many levels. Get it? So many levels?”

“Yes. Very…punny,” I chuckled, stepping closer to Samantha. Screw it, Jen was right and I wanted my hands on her, now.

“Well, I usually take steps to avoid elevators, especially if someone like Kade Grayson is on the elevator. You might end up getting the shaft,” Sam whispered giggling.

Oh, it’s on. No one could play word games as well as I could. “Yes. Elevators aren’t very fun. It’s like being trapped in a box. Although I’d like to be trapped in your box, and I didn’t hear you complaining about my shaft last night.”

“Even though you think you’re pushing my buttons…you will not get a rise out of me, Mr. Grayson. Now, stop all the elevator puns, they’re driving me up a wall.”

I was dead-ass laughing. I had to think of more puns quick. “You didn’t mind when my shaft was driving you up the wall last night.”

“Yes, I recall being in between a cock and a hard place,” Sam quipped.

“Yep, the best damn cock climber I ever saw,” I smiled.

“This is like pure punishment,” she laughed.

“Well, I am the punisher,” I said, locking my eyes on hers.

“Yes, my ass still stings nicely,” she smiled. How the hell did that woman think I was going to let her walk out of my life?

The elevator doors opened to Dylan’s floor and both women exited, laughing. I had three thoughts as I watched her walk out. One, I needed a sandwich. Two, I wondered where the best hiding spot was in this hospital to fuck Samantha. And three, how the hell was I going to get her to stay in this town? I wanted her to be with me, no one else was going to have her. Period.

Creepy? Yes. Possessive? Absolutely. We all know I have issues. I. Don’t. Care. What. You. Think. I wanted her. She was the only person in this world that I had ever met that made me think differently about things.

My brother was sitting in one of those reclining hospital chairs next to a window when we walked in. The luckiest man I knew. Who else gets shot twice in a bar fight, and the bullets hit nothing important? He looked great, too. The color was back in his face, his smile was bright and they were already feeding him solid food.

“I’m so sorry that I brought trouble with me,” I heard Sam say to him as she sat softly on his bed.

“It was worth it, just to get to see my brother as much as I did, and to see him smile. I wish you’d stay.” His eyes glanced at Jennifer, “Jen told me about everything, but I still wish you’d stay here.”

“I can’t, Dylan. I can’t have any more people hurt.”

Hearing her say the words so decisively tore at my insides. Pulling up a visitor’s chair, I slumped into it and detached myself from the conversation, from the smiles and the laughter, from the world, wondering if any of this was worth fighting for.

I only registered a bit of information they discussed. Samantha wanted to change her appearance, dye her hair again, and they bickered over colors. Jennifer spoke a little about the shooter, and then there were some mentions about states like Montana and North Dakota. Then at some point, I couldn’t even tell you when or how long after we got there, Sam and Jen went to get coffee in the cafeteria and I was left alone with my brother staring at me.

“Kade, mate. Don’t let her go,” he said.

“What?” I asked, waking up from my self-induced coma.

Dylan leaned forward, clenching his face in pain and repeated, “Don’t let her go.”

“What the fuck am I supposed to do?”

“Make her feel safe here. She can’t go out there on her own,” he whispered.

I laughed bitterly, “Actually, I think she can. She’s probably the only woman I ever met who could take care of herself on the run for the rest of her life.” I stood up, stretched and walked to the window. My rage lay just an inch below my surface.

“Do you care about her?” He asked.

“Bloody hell, yes,” I replied. Bending down to face him, trying desperately to hold back my anger, I sneered, “She doesn’t want to stay. End of story. I’m not a hero. I have no safety to offer her, I can’t even think of anything, except tying her up and locking her in my bloody basement.”

“Fine, Kade,” he mumbled, as the girls walked back into the room. “I guess after she leaves, I won’t be seeing you for another couple of years, huh? It was nice to have you bloody visiting.”

Samantha handed me a warm cup of coffee, but I didn’t even taste it. I just sat back down in the corner and hunkered down in my fictional thoughts, where I had more control over everything. It was easier to breathe that way.

After we left Dylan, I drove her to the store. The day had turned to night and the darkness of it lay heavily on my shoulders. “So how did you meet David?”

“Why?”

“I have the right to know,” I snapped.

“Why?”

“Because I’ve already thrown my heart out for you. Already stripped my soul bare for you, so I want the same in return. I want to know the person who is going to destroy me completely!”

“Does it make you feel better yelling at me, driving faster, gripping the wheel, clenching your teeth?” She asked.

“No.”

“Then fucking stop it. You got something to say to me, say it. Don’t yell at me because of the situation I’m in when my hands are tied.”

“Now, I’m fucking thinking of you tied up. Just tell me the story, no more games. You’re leaving right? Tell me something more!”

She turned her head to look out the window. The disregard for my feelings and her looking away cut me deeply.

“David and I developed a tumultuous relationship over one too many glasses of champagne at one of my father’s hospital parties and our affair was fast and furious. I looked at him through rose-colored glasses, complete with lens flares and animated floaty hearts. I loved him, I really did. The easiest thing in the world was falling in love with him. I fell in love so fast, head first, feet first, heart first, doesn’t matter; it’s so damn easy to fall. The hard part was where I landed in his life and how I needed to hold on to who I was. But I fell in love with a complete lie. I never really knew the person he was. Let’s just say that he and Thomas would have been a great team.”

The parking lot of the store was unusually crowded. I pulled into the only empty spot, stomped out of the truck and slammed the door as if I was throwing a tantrum. “We will finish this fucking conversation!” I snapped.

“Oh, wonderful. I can’t wait to continue. You’re so lovely to talk to about all my secrets. Just a real sensitive being, you are,” she snapped back, storming into the store.

Pushing the cart through the store, she was like a NASCAR driver, and you know it has that one fucking wheel that spins around in madness on its own accord, tripping her up and calling attention to itself with its whines. But she was determined. She was determined to get all the fucking shit she needed to change her appearance and leave me.

Hair dye. Men’s clothing. Baseball caps. Make-up. I wanted to vomit.

The one, yes one, check out line was at least 25 people long, all of them staring menacingly at the elderly woman holding up the line with a thick wad of coupons for her cat food and asking the cashier to read aloud to her about its nutritional value. A crying, wailing, screeching something-month old baby was in the arms of a harried snot-nosed teenager who bounced quickly back and forth on her flip-flops, even though it was not even twenty degrees outside.

“Why the fuck do you need this shit for?” I picked through the clothing and boots, and other crap in the cart. “This line is impossible. This is insane. Look at these people. They’re all pathetic trash. I can’t stay here anymore.”

“Shut up, Kade!” She hissed poking her finger hard into my chest. “Maybe, maybe this is more about something other than you! Those walls you built up for yourself. You should have installed windows in them, just to get a chance to see there are other people in this world besides you! Maybe that woman needs the nutritional value for herself and not her damn cats because her fucking social security checks don’t cover what she needs it to…that baby and that teenager? Well, you think she wants to be strapped with that crying kid, when babydaddy is out with his friends after he promised to make it all up to her? That kid is sick, Kade. Look in that baby’s eyes, she has a very high fever…look how limp her body is, look at her nose flaring and listen to her wheezing breaths. She shows signs of pneumonia, Kade, and look how tired the mother is. God, she’s just a baby herself.” Again, she poked me with her finger, harder this time. “You think they’re all here just to get in your way? Look at me…Kade…I’m here because I need to change the fucking way I look because there is someone who wants to see nothing more than me die, and I won’t let him…you don’t know these people’s stories. They are not less important than you are. They have there own issues, Kade, everybody does and you can’t know what these people’s stories are, even though in your head you think you can automatically tell who and what people are. Are you absolutely 100% sure that your reality is the fucking real one? In your gloriously disordered mind, I was nothing but a stripper.”

“I automatically hate. That’s all I know…” I mumbled.

She leaned closer to me, smooth skin against my neck, “Last night, you told me you were falling in love with me…love doesn’t grow well when it’s surrounded by such hate. Stop hating everyone because of the fucked up choices Thomas made. Thomas was Thomas, nobody else is Thomas.”

“But they could be. They could turn into a Thomas!” I barked.

She spun me around, tore the sleeve of my coat down, and lifted my shirt harshly up my back. “No, Kade! No! They could be a Leslie, a Gemma, a Henry, a Cory…” she listed the names of my friends who were killed, while gently touching their names with cool fingertips. “You’re forgetting the innocent people and always remembering the wicked one.”

I yanked my arm away from her, and shrugged my coat back on my shoulder. By now, the whole of the store was watching our fight. “My freedom was taken from me that day!”

“No, Kade, it wasn’t. Your security was taken from you that day. Your freedom is the choice to let it happen every day since then. This is your life. You don’t even watch it fly by. You closed your fucking eyes to it, until you saw some waitress with a nice rack. You want to love, Kade, so give up the shit that weighs you down and makes you hate. Let it go. I will fucking meet you half way. I let go of my baggage, if you let go of yours or we’re going to hit each other with the heavy packages for the rest of our lives.”

My fucking head started buzzing like a cloud of killer bees was circling me. The voices of the people around me sounded too loud, they moved around too strangely, and they watched me too cautiously. “That’s a bloody joke, right? For the rest of our lives? You’re leaving here; you’re leaving me. So there’s no meeting anyone half way, is there?” I shifted angrily away from her as the line moved and I started slamming down the items on the conveyer belt at the register.

She scrunched her eyebrows together and lay her hand on my chest, “You’re angry because I’m leaving?” The question was asked with pure innocent astonishment. Fuck, she really didn’t get it, did she?

“I told you. You’re going to destroy me,” I hissed behind clenched teeth, as the items beeped past the electronic register in the hands of the cashier.

Instantly, she closed the distance between our angry, coiled bodies, curled her hands tightly around the back of my neck and pulled me down to her lips. Like a lamb to its slaughter, I went.

“Kade…” she whispered against my lips.

“I know I’m being so fucking selfish right now, but Sam, I fucking need you in my life. Stay here with me. I swear I will never let him hurt you again. I’ll help you get a job at the hospital here, we’ll…”

“I‘m not a surgeon anymore, I can’t be; he made sure to take that away from me. You don’t know.” Her eyes filled will tears, but they didn’t spill. She held them in, I knew not to waste any more on him.

“That will be $286.31,” the cashier yelled between us.