Page 106 of South Beach Bodyguards

“Fuck you!” I was going to cry. Oh, my god, I was going to cry and humiliate myself and that was the last thing I wanted. I had really been falling for him. It had been such a fun night. I’d thought when he’d said he liked me, he’d meant it. My lip started to tremble. I was on my knees, naked, still wet from him. And it was all just a joke to him. Another bitch to fuck, a notch on his bedpost. Only this time he got laid and paid. What a bonus. “Get out of my apartment before I call the cops.”

“Olivia, calm down. I’m not getting paid tonight.”

He tried to climb onto the bed but I nailed him with a pillow. “Get out, get out, get out!” I was losing it completely.

Wester knocked the pillow out of my hand. “Fucking get a grip.”

“I swear to God if you don’t leave I will scratch your eyes out. After I twist my thumb inside your bullet wound.” I would, too. I was that pissed off. What a complete and total motherfucking asshole. He was disgusting.

“Okay. Jesus.” He put his hands up. “I’m leaving.” Then he grabbed his clothes and stepped into his jeans. “I’ll call you tomorrow after you talk to Ricardo. You’ll see this is a misunderstanding.”

“I’m blocking your number, so don’t bother.” Yanking my bed sheet off the corner of the mattress I wound it around me. I wanted to protect myself from him. I didn’t want him to even look at me naked. I tumbled off the bed and rushed past him.

He tried to grab my arm but I evaded his touch. “Where are you going?”

“See yourself out!” I picked up the sheet and ran to the bathroom. I locked the door behind me, and leaned against it, letting the tears stream down my face. Trembling, I went for the shower and turned it on so he wouldn’t hear me sob.

I wanted to scrub his scent off me. I wanted to take the shower gel and override his touch with soothing lavender. The water was hotter than I would normally go for, but even though I winced, I welcomed it. I wanted to be scalded and scrubbed free of Wester Lewiston. After dropping the sheet, I did just that.

At one point in the midst of my punishing tearing at my skin with a washcloth, I heard the front door to my apartment slam shut. I paused and then without meaning to, I sunk down onto the tile floor. Everything inside me hurt. I didn’t deserve this. I hadn’t done anything to Ricardo or Benito or Wester. I didn’t belong in this world of fucked up people and it wasn’t fair that I had been sucked into whatever the hell was going on.

The ultimate betrayal? Knowing that my twin sister was somehow involved. It was that thought that did actually have me heaving into the drain, my stomach finally rebelling and tossing up wave after wave of amber beer and bile. The water was hitting me everywhere, my hair slopping into my face, steam making it difficult to breathe. Once I stopped throwing up, I lay down on the floor, letting the tile soothe my burning cheek.

I wanted to drown. I wanted the water to melt me. Pummel me down into nothing but skin and tiny nuggets of flesh, that would disappear down the drain. I watched the water swirl around and around before it fell down the drain and I envied it. I wanted to slip away, down into that hole. I wanted to stop feeling anything ever again.

I wanted my life back. When I was just Olivia the college student and my sister worked in a coffee shop. Before I had been stupid enough to let a total stranger have sex with me.

Before I had been stupid enough to fall in love with him.

As I left Olivia’s, I realized that I hated myself. I hated what I had become. All this time I had been telling her I wasn’t a pussy and that was a total lie. I was. Because while I was not and never had been paid by Ricardo to spend time with Olivia, when she asked me if I had, I saw an out and I took it.

I was just that fucked up. I would rather have her think I was such a scumbag that I would have sex with her on Ricardo’s payroll than have her falling for me. Because I was falling for her and it scared me to death. I had wanted to spend the night. Wake up with her. Cuddle. Love her. I had lay there thinking that maybe in a few months I could wake up with her every morning. That we could be together, for real, and I would introduce her to my mother.

But then I had thought about Rachel and Benito and now I was still trapped in that world. It scared me to think Olivia would figure out I was an emotional faker and she would leave me. I couldn’t deal with the hurt of losing her. I just couldn’t have her leave me. So I did the most cowardly thing possible and took the out before I got in any further. Before she could dump me.

Standing outside her building for a second, I considered going back and apologizing, explaining, but I knew she wouldn’t want to hear it. She thought the worst of me, and really was she all that wrong? I was a guy with a spotty past. My girlfriend had been shot and killed in a drug drop gone wrong that I had asked her to go on with Benito. You look innocent, I had told her.

She had been innocent. And she was dead because of my stupidity and Benito’s betrayal.

I never should let down my guard with Olivia. She was just as innocent as Rachel and now I had hurt her.

Getting in my car, I drove somewhere I hadn’t been since the funeral. The cemetery. The gates were locked.

But the next morning, I went down in a squat in front of Rachel’s grave and I told her that I was sorry.

An old woman was walking past me in the early morning light. She clutched her rosary in her gnarled hands, and paused when she heard my whispered apology. I wanted her to go away and leave me alone in my damned misery and self-loathing, but she gave me the look of someone who has seen everything.

“Oh, sweetheart, she knows. Trust me, she knows. And she’s already forgiven you.” Her gnarled hand passed over my shoulder. “Now you just need to forgive yourself.”

For the first time in eight years, I felt the hot shameful sting of tears in my eyes.

fourteen

“Livvy,” Eva pleaded with me as I packed. “This is a mistake. You don’t have to leave Miami.”

“It’s just temporary,” I said, focused on rolling one final pair of jeans to fit into my suitcase. I needed to leave in less than ten minutes. “I’ll be back for the fall semester.”

I had barely made it through the spring semester, my head filled with thoughts of Wester and my sister, my heart filled with hurt. I had hung on and white knuckled through five weeks and exams, but now I had to get out before I completely lost it. I had forgiven Eva, but I wasn’t happy with her. A summer internship in Atlanta was exactly what I needed. Luckily, a candidate had dropped out, allowing me the spot. I didn’t need to be there for another week, I just couldn’t stay in Miami.

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