Page 54 of Losing a Piece of Me

He pumps a few more times before he’s falling apart right along with me.

* * *

We lay in each other’s arms, not ready to separate for the night. With my head on his chest, we lay quietly and listen to the breeze play through the leaves of the trees around us. His heart beats a slow, steady rhythm.

“Thank you,” I say, lifting my head up to look in his eyes.

“For what?” His brows pull up as he pushes hair behind my ear.

I shrug. “Just for being you. For always being here for me, even when I haven’t been there for you. For getting me away from my mother tonight and every other night. I’m sorry for all the pain I caused you.”

He picks me up and sits me down on his lap, straddling him. “You don’t have to thank me, Lex. And you have nothing to be sorry about. I don’t know what chased you off all those years ago, but I know now that you only did that because you felt like you had to.”

I’m not sure what to say. I want to tell him. I finally want to release my secret, but is now the time? I know what I have to tell him will piss him off and it will get back to his father within minutes. Maybe the weekend of my sister’s wedding isn’t the best idea. I will wait until we go back to the city, put some distance between us and this town.

“I’m ready to tell you, but not now. When we go back to the city. I just need a little more time.”

“Tell me when you’re ready, Lex. I’ll be here waiting. Always.”

Chapter 14

Letting Lex get into that car with that douchebag pissed me off. Why couldn’t I be good enough for her? Would I always be looked at as the troublemaker I used to be?

I mean, fuck, I’ve grown up, why don’t her parents see it? I have my own house. I started my own company. I don’t drink or do drugs. I don’t beat women or mistreat them in anyway. Why can’t they see that?

I get it, Jeff is her parents’ dream guy. He has money, he has the fancy car and clothes. They look at him and see a future for Lex. They look at me and only see our troubled past.

Do they ever stop and think that maybe they made us the way we were? If they wouldn’t have fucked up our childhood, we never would’ve rebelled the way we did. We never would have caused so much trouble.

Something feels off as I walk into my quiet house alone, after spending the whole week with her. Everything in the house is exactly where it was a week ago – I never spend much time in the house so nothing has moved. Even the letter that she left me, all those months ago, after she snuck out of my bed is still in the same place, untouched.

As soon as I drop my bag by the front door, I walk right back out and to the garage where I can blare the radio and lose myself while working on the car. The carburetor sits unfinished from the last time I was out here, so I start by spraying it with cleaner and thoroughly scrubbing all the grime from it.

My mind is blank the whole time – until I start reassembling it and thoughts of Lex come flooding into my mind.

What kind of future do we have together? Are we always going to be hiding?

If I could just figure out what it is that’s holding her back, I could fix it, I know I can.

She says she’s finally ready to tell me. I’ve gotten her to open up. She trusts me enough to tell me what it is. But she won’t do it here, in this town. That only confirms my suspicions about the threat being here.

I slowly and methodically sift through my memories, analyzing every second of the final days before she ran off. Who did she see? Who did she talk to? Did she say anything to hint at her leaving?

They’re the same questions I’ve asked myself a hundred times before, always coming up empty-handed.

Think about the day before she left, I tell myself, wiping my hands on my jeans as I sit on the couch by the workbench.

We’re sitting in my truck, across the street from her house. She’s terrified to go inside, and I don’t blame her. Her parents are throwing her graduation party - an elaborate event to which the entire town received an invitation. Everyone, that is, except for me.

I know that if I show up, I’ll be escorted off the property. Her parents like to believe they can keep us from each other. They know we’re always together, but as long as they don’t see it, they pretend it doesn’t exist.

“We’ve been sitting here for twenty minutes now. Are you going to go in or are you ditching your own party?”

“God, I wish I could skip it.” She rolls her eyes.

I pull her to my side and press a kiss to her lips. “Go inside, endure your party, and come by when you’re done. I’ll be there waiting.”

“Okay,” she says before giving me another kiss and getting out.

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