Page 54 of Avenged

“You kissed me.”

“Yes.” My voice reflected my longing to continue kissing her, and it finally caused her eyes to open. It wasn’t anger I saw there; it was hopelessness. Guilt.

“You broke our contract.”

“I’d do it again if I had to. I needed you to stop talking. I needed you to stop justifying the guilt you feel. You can’t justify it to me, Jersey. You weren’t the one who got behind the wheel drunk. End of story.”

Finally, a spark of anger showed, but I’d take it over the other emotions.

“You say that as if you don’t blame yourself for Dawson’s mistakes.”

Her words hit me hard in the chest. I didn’t think she knew anything about Dawson’s reasons for being with me. I hadn’t told anyone in New London what he was running from. I’d left that up to him. But she was right. I did partially blame myself for his problems. I hadn’t been there to watch his back, to enforce our self-imposed rules, to stop him from making bad choices. I’d been focused on me and not him for a few years. I’d been clouded by disappointment and hatred and anger at a man who didn’t deserve any emotions to be shed on him, and then I’d just been relieved to have a life and a job I loved.

My hands slid off the truck, and she took the opportunity to open the door and slide inside, and I let her. Because I’d just realized something about Jersey and me. We were more alike than I’d ever seen. We were more alike than was healthy or good for either of us. We both had burdens we carried. We both had wrongs we could never right, and guilt would go with us always.

Jersey

I CAN SEE CLEARLY NOW

“I think I can make it now the pain is gone,

All the bad feelings have disappeared,

Here is the rainbow I’ve been prayin’ for.”

Performed by Johnny Nash

Written by Johnny Nash

Travis was kissing me, and every nerve ending in my body exploded into existence. As if they’d never been awake before. As if they were being called by an ancient supernatural power. I knew I’d never be the same again. Like Spiderman once he’d been bitten. Like the Hulk after he’d been exposed to gamma radiation. But I couldn’t help myself from responding, from tucking my body up against his warmth and his comfort.

The car door slamming brought me to my senses. To the fact that we were standing in the middle of a parking lot where Ana Perez’s sister-in-law had just reminded me I didn’t deserve a happily ever after when Ana herself couldn’t have one.

I got inside the pickup with a whole host of emotions following me. I was exhausted from the emotional waves which had rolled through me over the course of a few hours. I just wanted to go home, turn on an audiobook of my latest graphic novel, and draw until oblivion hit me. I wanted to escape the world, my body, and my thoughts.

Travis started the engine, backed out, and drove down the street without saying a word.

When I risked looking at him, I couldn’t read him because his face was a blank slate. I’d bit back at him with my ugly words, reminding him of how he felt about Dawson. I didn’t know what had really happened with Dawson, but I knew enough to see in Travis what I saw in myself. It was cruel of me to throw it at him, especially after everything he’d done for me that day.

“I’m sorry,” I told him.

His eyes flicked to me and then back to the road. “I’m the one who should apologize. You’re right, I broke one of our rules.”

He had, and I’d been the one to push him away, to make him stop, so why did it hurt so bad to hear him say it? Because it had felt so right when he’d kissed me. It hadn’t felt wrong at all. It had been the best kiss I’d ever had. Not that I had a ton of experience kissing. The first and last boyfriend I’d had was Skip.

We didn’t say anything again until he pulled into a spot by the pier. We didn’t have the tacos, but he’d, for some reason, still brought us here instead of home. He turned off the pickup and then looked at me.

I stared at him for longer than I could handle, my eyes journeying down to his lips that had been soft and hard at the same time. Demanding and giving. Brutal and kind. I slid out, unable to take my own examination any longer, and headed toward the steps to the beach. I heard him shut the door and felt him following me, like the kiss had somehow attuned my body to his even closer than it had been before.

I sat in the sand, removed my shoes, and dug my toes into the warmth. I swirled my hands into it, grounding me, finding the heat of the earth and listening to the crash of the waves. I was here. I was alive. I had five beautiful things in my life. I had Violet, Leena and Mandy, shelter, and a job. I was alive. Ana Perez had none of those things.

I was slowly coming back to myself after a day of feeling like I was watching someone else’s life. Someone who wasn’t Jersey, because I didn’t cry and kiss men. I just wanted to go through each day with my five beautiful things and be grateful I was here at all.

Travis was sitting next to me, but it felt like he wasn’t really there, like his mind and soul had traveled somewhere else while his body remained behind. He was staring out at the sea with a small frown between his eyes. I leaned over and bumped his arm with my shoulder.

“It’s a good thing you didn’t live here back then; you would have been marked with a scarlet letter just for being seen with me, let alone kissing me,” I tried to tease.

The eyes he turned to me were full of anger, but I didn’t think it was directed at me, and his words proved it. “I don’t understand how they can treat you that way.”

---