Page 63 of Save You

Contrary to what he told himself, he didn’t bring me anywhere near to climaxing with him; I was numb to it all. However, he was right about one thing, all memories of Xander have been ripped away as I am left feeling nothing but the guilt of this night all over me. I mentally let Xander go, inwardly telling him to move on from me. I wish for him to forget about me, and find someone he can love without apology.

Oliver Lawrence now owns me!

Chapter 26

Xander

“Dude, it’s half three in the morning,” Bodhi’s dulcet tone of voice floats across the space between us. “Do you wanna a blanket or something?”

I’m currently collapsed on the sand with my head leaning up against the chair I was sat on. I’m lost in the sparks and crackles of the flames before me. It’s pretty uncomfortable, but right now, I’m numb through grief and booze. It won’t really register until tomorrow, when it will feel like I physically and mentally want to die.

“Nah, just leave me here,” I slur as I wave at him to go. I hear him chuckle sadly before giving up on trying to move me altogether. Eventually, he gets up and meanders back to his makeshift house.

Now I am alone, left to sing our last song together.

“Juliet…” I sing quietly toward the water, too inebriated to be angry, and too sad to be anything but lost in the darkness. That shit will hit me full pelt tomorrow morning, but for now, I can live in a drunk, buzzed-up bubble, where I can pretend that none of my self-destructive thoughts exist.

“Xander, what are you doing, baby?” Beth asks as she lies next to me, her head resting on my chest and her long, blonde locks falling over my abdomen. I place my hand over her head and smile while I take an inhale of her scent of coconut shampoo and vanilla hand cream.

“I’m singing to you, baby; don’t I sound good?” I grin when she giggles, and I feel myself getting hard over the delicious sound of it.

“You always sound good to me,” she lies, “but I wouldn’t give up your day job!”

“Why’d you leave me, Beth; why’d you go?”

I turn serious, now feeling irrationally annoyed at her for making me say goodbye. She lifts her head to look at me, showing me her beautiful face for the first time in over a month, when I had left her to go and see Casey. Her eyes are wide and lost in a glazy state of sorrow and regret.

“Stay with me, baby, stay with me and be mine and Rosie’s!”

“I can’t, Xander,” she whispers as she runs her hand through my stubble, which I lean into as I wipe away her tears with my thumb. “But you have to be here for her. You have to be what I can’t be. Will you promise me?” I start to cry with her, and she takes me in her arms, where she cradles my head against her softness. “Shh, I’ll always be with you, Xander!”

“No, you won’t. I can’t do this without you!” I cry, my body shuddering with uncontrollable grief as it pours out of me. “Stay!”

“I love you,” she whispers, before I look down to see that she’s no longer there.

“I love you, Beth! Stay!”

Epilogue

“Pru?” Jonah Fox says in greeting from his desk as he continues to type an email to his father. He hasn’t looked away from his computer to see that it’s her, but he knows. He knew she’d come eventually, especially today. He knew ever since he had had his final showdown with Oliver last week, when his former best friend had destroyed whatever was left of their relationship in less than ten short minutes.

“You’ve wandered a little far from the party. I believe the reception for the new Mr and Mrs Lawrence is on the other side of the city.”

“Very droll, Mr Fox,” Pru sighs before stepping toward the mahogany desk with a less than impressed look on her face. “I remember telling you off as a child, and I’m not afraid to give you a piece of my mind now!”

“Careful, Prudence,” he smirks, still with his eyes on the screen before him, “your senses about Oliver were way off. What makes you so sure your perception of me is any different?”

“In all honesty, I don’t, but seeing as Oliver has cut you out of his life so brutally, I can only surmise it’s because you don’t agree with him. Anyone who doesn’t agree with Oliver Lawrence has to be good, because, and it pains me deeply to admit this…” she says but then has to stop to take in an audible breath. Her emotions are clearly beginning to get the better of her, so much so, Jonah finally stops what he’s doing to look up. “Oliver Lawrence is a monster!”

Jonah sits back in his office chair, swinging it from side to side for a moment or two while he contemplates his next words. His pointer finger runs back and forth over his lips as he stares at the now weeping woman he remembers from childhood. So much has changed since those days when he and Oliver were closer than brothers. There was a time when both of them would have laid down their life for the other, which they proved by making each other their ‘Second’. As far as Jonah knows, they still are.

“Why have you come here, Pru?” he asks her softly. His voice is soothing, it always is, though it doesn’t mean the man behind it is anywhere near as soft as he sounds. “On today of all days?”

“Because of her, Jonah,” she says before whimpering into her hanky. “Because I saw what he did to her, and that is not the boy I remember! He lied to me, he told me they were in love and that he wanted to take Carl Steele down, and I stupidly believed him.”

Jonah looks to the side and chuckles mirthlessly over the ease in which Oliver had been able to fool the woman who had once been like a mother to him. It only cements what his former best friend has become - a bully, a villain, and a liar.

“And this has something to do with me because…?” he mutters as he looks back at her without expression.

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