He Loves Me...He Loves You Not Page 7

  Chapter 12

  “Love that we cannot have is the one that lasts the longest, hurts the deepest and feels the strongest...”~ Author Unknown ~

  I’m broken. Hopefully I won’t be this way forever, but for now every part of me is broken. I’m also sick and obsessed, clawing at my own body trying to recreate the way it feels to have his hands on me. It’s not the same.

  When I arrived home I’d consumed an entire quart of Ben & Jerry’s Strawberry Cheesequake ice cream. I was hoping that maybe the frosty delight would dull the pain just a little bit. It doesn’t.

  Henry calls. Once. Twice. Three times, and every time I hit the ignore button.

  Then he texts me.

  Plz talk 2 me.

  R u home?

  Can I come ovr?

  I don’t answer his texts either.

  Sleep. That’s all I really want to do. Sleep away my sorrows. Dream of blissful experiences. Dream of hope and laughter. Infectious laughter. Maybe today was a dream. Maybe I’ll wake up tomorrow and everything that happened will be a nightmare. Somehow I doubt it.

  ****

  I’ve convinced myself that I’m delusional because half-way through my slumber I hear, feel, and smell Henry. His clothes smell like a combination of tide detergent and his cologne. He breathes soft and raspy into my ear and I feel the warmth of his body next to mine. I sigh. This seems too familiar. Too real.

  Rolling over, my hand smacks into something hard and a cough echoes throughout my room. My eyes fly open and I scramble from my bed and crouch down in the corner of my room. Henry rises and walks around the bed closer to me.

  “Get out!” My voice is cold and brash and I’m pissed that he thinks my bed is a welcome mat. Thank you for stoping by! Come back soon! Perhaps that’s my own fault because I made it that way, but still. Every time he came over in the past I’d invited him. I didn’t invite him over today.

  “Chill Ry,” he says. “It’s me. It’s Henry.”

  “I know it’s you. I want you to leave.”

  “You don’t mean that.”

  “I do. Leave. Now.” I stand. “How did you get in here?” I follow his gaze to the open window. Wind blows in and circulates through my curtains. I mentally huff a string of curse words for not remembering to lock it.

  Henry rocks back and forth on his feet and nervously shoves his hands into his pockets. This is the first time I’ve ever seen him this way. Uncertain. Lost. He’s usually so sure of himself. He locks eyes with me. A solemn expression takes over his face. “Can we talk?”

  His gaze is magnetic. He’s trying to pull me in, like a black widow on a web, lurking, waiting for her prey to get caught.

  I’m fighting it—the power he has over me. The spell he’s cast. Because every part of me wants to be enveloped in his arms. I want his fingers in my hair. I want him kissing me. As long as I stay where I am. As long as I don’t look at him or move, I’ll be fine. He won’t over-power me. His charm won’t manipulate my judgment.

  He doesn’t deserve my time. I’ve sacrificed plenty of precious minutes for him. I threw away a whole summer for him. But I’m tired. I’m in pieces, and I’m furious. The sooner I let him speak, the sooner he’ll leave and I get back to sleeping my life away. “You’ve got five minutes.”

  Relief washes over his features and he sits down on the edge of my bed. “Will you come sit by me?” His lips curl into a half-smile. A seductive, come-hither smile.

  I pick up a foot lurching forward and stop myself. No. I can’t. I have to be strong. Instead, I tap my bare foot against the wooden floor and twitch my hips. “No.”

  Soft laughter escapes his throat. “So stubborn.”

  So what if I was being stubborn or difficult or whatever, it’s my own prerogative. My eyes roll to my right and I check the time on my alarm clock. “Your five minutes are ticking by. Now you have four. I’d hurry if I were you.”

  “I don’t understand why you’re acting like this?”

  “Were you listening to anything I said earlier?”

  “Yes. But you knew what you were getting into with this from the very beginning and you were okay with it. Now all of a sudden you’ve had this miraculous epiphany and you’re willing to throw everything we have away because you’re jealous.”

  My mouth drops open and I gasp. “Are you kidding me? Is this conversation some kind of joke?”

  A serious expression crosses over his face. He’s not joking. “Why don’t you tell me what you want from me, Riley?”

  “I want you to stop what you’re doing?”

  “And what exactly am I doing?”

  “I want this whole you, me, and her threesome to stop.” What I really want to tell him or what I really want him to say is what he said to me in the hall. It’s over between me and Callie. She’s yesterday’s news. I love you. I want you. I choose you. You are my one and only.

  All I get out of him is, “Uh huh.”

  “Do you say the same things to both of us? Is that it? Do you enjoy the thrill of a double life? One for keeps. One on the sly sort of thing?”

  He glares at me incredulously. “When I say it to you, I mean it.”

  “And her?”

  “I don’t.”

  “Then why are you with her?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  He’s being vague and the uncertainty tone in his voice annoys me.

  I pace across the length of my bedroom. “This conversation is over, Henry. Get out.” My voice is hard and brutal.

  He doesn’t move.

  “I said get out!”

  He glances at his hand and examines his fingers. “I think I’ll stay right here.”

  I’m unsure of what to do. All I know is that I don’t want to stay in here with him.

  “My mom will be home soon,” I say. “She’ll be pretty pissed if she sees you here.” The threat of my mom coming home doesn’t work.

  “I’ll take my chances.”

  Finally, I’m so frustrated I try rationalizing with him. “Henry, you knew that this was going to end sooner or later.” I wish he would let me get over him. I wish he would forget about me. I wish that he would get out of here and find somebody else to play with. “I think its best that it’s happening now, at the beginning of the year.”

  If this happened any later, I don’t know where I’d end up. Maybe in a psych ward.

  And how would you like your meds today, Riley? Liquid or pill form?

  “But, I love you,” he tells me. His voice is soft and there’s angst in it.

  “You think you love me.”

  “No. I love you.”

  Hearing those words leave his lips breaks me apart all over again. I keep telling myself to ignore them—the words. But I can’t. I’m crippled on the borderline of love, lust, and grief. “Just shut up. Quit screwing with my head. I’m a person, not a game. And you keep screwing with me and screwing with me. I swear you get some sick pleasure out of this.”

  He’s wearing a devilish grin and I already know what he’s thinking. “Don’t even think about it. You know that’s not what I meant.”

  “But it’s all I think about. You’re all I think about. It’s like you’re the cocaine and I’m the junkie. I want more of you. I need more of you. If I can’t have you it drives me crazy.”

  Lies. Lies. And more Lies.

  “If you want more of that, then go get it from Callie.”

  He stands and inches closer. “You don’t believe me, do you?”

  I sigh. “I used to. Now I’m not sure what to believe anymore.”

  “Callie doesn’t mean anything to me. It’s you—you’re the one I’m addicted to. Callie is just arm candy. Easily replaceable.”

  “If you’re so addicted to me and Callie is so easily replaceable, why haven’t you replaced her yet? And why are you always with her and not me?”

  A vivid picture of an alcoholic pops into my head. She’s passed out in her front yard clutching an empty bottle of vodka. Addicts are
with what they’re addicted to at all times. And when they are without the fits begin. Shaking. Hysteria. Henry looks fine to me.

  “Maybe you said it best, I’m selfish.” He takes another step. “Also, I have a lot of complications going on in my life right now. I wish you could understand that.”

  He’s so close to me I can practically taste his cool, minty breath. If I move an inch my lips will brush against his. “Henry, stop.” His arms are over my head and he’s peering down into my eyes.

  My hands are trembling and I clasp them together. I want him so bad that my nerve endings are sparking. I’m a live wire.

  In a last ditch effort to save myself from seduction I duck down and crawl under his left arm. Henry spins around and laughs as I back into my door. “You’re quick Ry.”

  I’m glad I’m so quick. Staring a second longer into his eyes and I would have wound up on my bed—with him.

  I open the door and he grabs his shirt off the floor and tosses it over his shoulder. I usher him through the door and he faces me from the hall. His expression is vacant. “Is this really over? If it is I’m not sure if I can handle it.”

  “Oh it’s really over.” I start closing the door and Henry wedges his hand in between the frame. “Henry just go.”

  “What can I do to change your mind?”

  “Nothing.” The word vibrates in my throat as the tears swell in my eyes. The image of him touching Callie’s face resurfaces and it’s painful. Replaying that moment in my mind is like pouring nail polish remover into an infected cut. Heat rises to my skin. My blood simmers and I feel like my veins have been tapped while my blood flows freely into some hungry vampire’s mouth. “Unless you have some miraculous epiphany and decide to dump, Callie.” I hope he senses the sarcasm as I mock his previous comment.

  “I see,” he says.

  “Goodbye, Henry.”

  Then I slam the door in his face.

  Chapter 12

  “At some time in our lives a devil dwells within us, causes heartbreaks, confusion and troubles, then dies.”~ Theodore Roosevelt ~

  I’m an addict, a Henry Garner addict. Except instead of a tourniquet wrapped around my forearm, the thin tight piece of latex is wrapped around my heart. Constricting. Squeezing. It’s squeezing the love out of me. Squeezing the life out of me.

  Rosa lies on my floor flipping through a magazine. “So there’s a party, tonight. You wanna go?”

  “Uh, I dunno, you?”

  I’m lying on my bed and I roll over. The faint smell of Henry’s cologne lingers on my pillow. I inhale and I’m bathing in his scent. I miss him. It’s been days since I’ve spoken to him and I miss him so bad that I ache.

  I can’t sleep. Even though I’m the one that kicked him out and told him to leave me alone, I leave my window open, hoping that he might sneak through it. He hasn’t.

  At night I swear the empty side of my bed is warm. I know I’m dreaming up his presence. I know he’s at home in his own bed, but I feel better if I pretend. I even go as far as imagining his arms around me. His soft breathing against my ear

  .

  He’s been calling—and texting. I haven’t been answering. My mind has been in a blunder over him. Every time my phone rings or buzzes I have to talk myself out of responding.

  “You know I’m always down to party,” Rosa announces.

  “Where is this party at?” I already know the answer to my question. Henry sent me a text earlier. He’s hosting the party.

  “Henry Garner’s.”

  “I don’t know,” I tell her.

  What I don’t tell her is seeing him and her together in an intimate setting will be more than I can handle. Since our argument I fight the better half of myself every day in school. I see them and want to shout… Let out a tortured cry. Rip at Callie’s hair. I want to tell her what I’ve been doing with her boyfriend of four years.

  At the same time, I think about ripping my own hair. I tell myself that the self-inflicted pain will numb the pain in my heart. Then after thinking about it for a minute, I know that’s not true. Nothing can numb the pain in my heart. Not even an anesthetic.

  “I think it will be fun,” Rosa adds.

  I think it will be a disaster. An earthquake. Rumbling. Shattered buildings. Scattered people.

  She closes the magazine and puffs out her bottom lip. “Come on, please.”

  “Argh.” I inhale deep, then exhale. “Okay. But just for a little bit.”

  She beams. “We won’t wear out our welcome.”

  Well she won’t. I wore out my welcome months ago.

  ****

  As we walk up the driveway illuminated by odd shaped landscape lights, I feel like I’m walking to the chopping block. I’m Anne Boleyn. My death is imminent and all the people on the porch turn toward us—staring.

  Henry sits on the swing, his arm draped over Callie’s shoulders. His eyes flash over to me. We exchange a tortured glance. Then I blanch and turn away. Pain sears through me and clutches my heart, like death’s icy grasp. I choke on the breath caught in my throat and try to control my breathing as Callie makes a rude noise.

  Rosa and I hop up the three steps leading to Henry’s front porch. “Ugh.” Rosa rolls her eyes and glares at Callie. “Ignore her.”

  “I’m trying,” I say, even though every part of me wants to stab her in the face. I exhale. I’m delicate China. I’m being thrown into a wall, breaking apart. “I don’t think coming here was such a good idea.”

  Rosa strolls ahead and opens the front door. She holds it open for me and I walk inside. She follows and closes the door behind her. We walk down the narrow hall leading to the kitchen. “Sure it was,” Rosa tells me. “You just need a beverage.”

  “I’m glad you know what I need.” My hope is that she hears the sarcasm in my voice.

  “Are you getting sassy with me?” she asks when we’re in the middle of the newly remodeled kitchen.

  I stare off and the dark cherry stained cabinets and black countertops blur in my vision. “No.” I’m exhausted. I don’t feel like getting into with her right now.

  After Rosa pours herself a drink and one for me, she starts chatting up some Emo guy named Chad from her history class. I take that as my cue to exit.

  Climbing the stairs, I decide to head to a familiar spot. Henry’s bedroom. I can’t be around people right now. I feel like an open wound. An open cesspool oozing from flesh and there aren’t any doctor’s around to stitch me up.

  I’m standing in his doorway and I’m hit with a swarm of emotion. My bottom lip quivers and I bite it and I suck back my on-coming tears. The tidy, bedroom with the grey walls and hardwood floors brings back a vivid stain of flashbacks. The first time he kissed me, I was sitting on the edge of the bed.

  My eyes wander over to the french doors that lead to a balcony. We watched the stars together and he told me he loved me. Reminiscing about our good times is making me a mess. I’m spoiled milk knocked off the counter—spreading—a huge puddle on the floor. Somebody help me. Somebody please clean me up.

  Inside the room, I set my cup down on his nightstand and center on the photo of him and Callie. A rush of anger circulates through me. What’s so special about her? If he loves me like he says he does, why is her face the last thing he wants to see before he lets sleep take over him? I’m trembling. So overwhelmed with hurt and anger that I do the only thing I can think of to eliminate the way I’m feeling. I flip the picture over, and then flop down on his bed.