Page 7 of When I'm Gone

“What the fuck?” The yell tears from my throat as my vision clears. He’s standing over me with a sneer on his face, breathing heavily. He’s so pissed.

“I don’t know, Easton. Why don’t you tell me? Why don’t you explain to me why I came home to see my boyfriend sullying our bed? Passed out, to boot. No dinner cooking. You tell me what the fuck.”

If the room would stop spinning, I might do just that. Something warm is running down my forehead. When Ireach up to touch it, seeing red come back on my fingers makes me flinch. I’ve only made this mistake once before, but I was just cold and feeling sorry for myself. I wanted to lay in bed in my pajamas for once.

“I’m sorry,” I choke out.

What hits me square in the chest is the sudden realization that I’m lying. I’m not sorry, but I know what’s coming and I want to avoid it if I can.

“What are you on?”

I was not prepared for that. “I-I’m not. I swear.”

“I’m so sick of you lying to me!” he yells. As soon as his voice raises, I fold in on myself. Bringing my knees to my chest and locking my arms around them, I try to tune out the screaming. I hate it when he yells. I just want him to run out of things to say already and be done with it.

Because I’m not listening, when he grabs my arm and yanks me to my feet, I’m not expecting it and nearly fall. I don’t get a moment to correct it, he’s already dragging me towards the patio. I dig my heels in as I attempt to peel his fingers from my bicep but he outweighs me, and there’s nothing to stop my socked feet from sliding across the floor. I’m babbling through my broken sobs, begging him to let go, begging him to stop, but it falls on deaf ears.

He tosses me outside like a bag of garbage, causing me to land hard on my shoulder. The concrete digs into my skin, leaving little scrapes, but I ignore it so I can scramble up in a bid to get inside.

“Like hell are you detoxing in my apartment, you little fucking shit,” Aaron snarls as he slams the sliding glass door shut. I use all my strength to pull from my side, but he doesn’t let go and uses his other hand to ensure the lock slides home. I yank and yank, not caring how useless it is.

A scream dies in my throat, and with it, I collapse to the ground. I’m entirely worthless. I’ve never done a damn thingfor myself and this is what I deserve for it. I wrecked my perfectly normal family so I could live my truth, but I couldn’t have predicted that the truth would be that I was willing to sacrifice my soul for conditional love.

It’s all I’ve ever given myself, I shouldn’t be so surprised that that’s how everyone else views me too. Adrenaline courses through my body, making my hands shake and my skin feel like it’s going to vibrate off my bones, begging me to fucking do something. I just want to know what I did wrong. Aaron used to be so kind to me, wonderfully sweet and attentive. Featherlight kisses and careful fingers as he undressed me devolved into this. Somewhere along the way, we’d lost that. Those dreamy-eyed looks he’d give me would make my heart skip a beat. It was real; I felt it. I lived it, for fuck’s sake. Everything is broken, and it’s my fault. All I need is another chance, I can be better.

As the sun dips below the high-rises, and the blood dries on my face, the only hope my damaged heart can hold on to is that I’ll do anything to earn his love back.

CHAPTER 2

CHASE

“Be honest,” I hedge carefully. “Does it resemble anything to you?”

Poor Kaden just blinks at me, big brown doe eyes confused and a little hurt that I’m not giving him the reaction he was hoping for. Unfortunately for me, there is no nice way to say that the logo he’s designing looks like a vagina. I knew I should have hired this project out. Rookie mistake.

Kaden is about as green as a freshly mowed lawn in spring. He just wants to contribute, but letting him handle the redesign of our company logo is comparable to the chaos of baking cookies with my almost three-year-old niece.

In Sage’s defense, my sister is big on her learning proper names of her body parts so I’m pretty sure she’d be able to see why this is an awful fucking idea.

“You know, the tree of life. But like a play on that from a seed and the ripple effect. That’s what I was going for, anyway. Do you hate it?”

Tricky question. “Um, I wouldn’t say hate exactly.” Mymother would have my ass for not being a good feminist if I said that. “It’s just not my taste.”

The kid visibly deflates. Goddamn it, I’m really going to have to spell it out for him. A bark of laughter has me whipping my head around to see Brady with takeout bags hanging from his arm and a couple of drinks in his other hand, cutting up with the CEO, Marianne, like they’re old buddies.

His gaze sweeps over the room quickly before landing on me and striding in this direction. He’s all smiles as he heads this way, but when he crosses the bullpen to Kaden’s desk and catches an eyeful of his screen, he barely manages to cover his amusement with a cough.

“Kaden, my friend, I love the effort for the logo design.”

Brady isn’t wrong. The effort is there; it’s the execution that terrifies me.

He mumbles a thanks, and I shoot my oldest friend the evil eye over the kid’s head. He raises his eyebrow in question. He can break the news to him. I’m officially passing the buck. Kaden doesn’t need my approval, I was just the unlucky son of a bitch that walked by his desk.

The stars must have aligned because Brady passes over our lunch, takes a deep breath, and crouches down next to Kaden. “Buddy, I’m going to just tell you. That logo looks like a vagina, and not even in a vague resemblance kind of way.”

I almost swallow my tongue trying to keep a straight face as Kaden flushes bright red and starts stuttering. “I-I—No. What? No, no way.”

Nodding gravely, Brady stands and tries to offer some encouragement. “Just try again, you didn’t mean for it to come out like that. I really like the color scheme you used.”

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