Find Me (8 page)
Liam starts thrusting up into me and I ride every move out. He takes one hand off of my hip and starts pinching and twisting my left nipple. The pain is like a lightning bolt to my core. Liam angles his head up and takes my right nipple into
his mouth, while still playing with the other.
He sucks
, then licks and sucks again. My climax still on the cliff of that damn mountain. As soon as Liam’s teeth clamp down on my nipple, I moan out loud and my pussy contracts all around him.
I can feel Liam tense beneath me
, with his climax coming on as well. I hop off him, rip the condom off and wrap my lips around his lengthy member, swallowing every last drop.
-Carl Bard
Liam
I awake with my body taking up only half of my bed, something that rarely happens. Also I’m nude, again another rare feat.
I slowly lift my head up, waiting to see if the alcohol has any lasting effects and thankfully it doesn’t. Fuck.
It all comes back to me. The entire night. The dinner, the cab ride to Layla’s place of employment
, the drinking, and the dancing. The going home with Layla alone. The text messages from some deluded douche and then Layla and I having sex. Flashes of last night replay through my mind. It was intense, unbelievably so.
But I did Layla a major disservice by sleeping with her. I’ve been on this path of no sex for a reason. I didn’t want to delude anyone into thinking there could possibly be some nature of a relationship
. There would be no future. I know of Layla’s past with her commitment issues and I’m not about to rush into a decision, thinking that last night would have changed anything for her expectations. But I can’t just not say anything about what happened. We live together for fucks sake.
The last thing I remember from last night was spooning Layla up into my arms and passing out
. She did me a favor by leaving the bed before I woke. She did it on purpose, allowing me time to regain my composure and figure out how I’m going to deal with this.
I stand up and throw on a pair of boxer briefs
, followed by a pair of jersey material shorts, knowing full well that after this conversation I’m going to need to get a long run in. I head out of my bedroom, listening for noise to give me a clue as to where she could be. Sure enough, I hear dishes clattering around in the kitchen.
I walk up to behind the island bar
, purposely distancing myself from her. I’ve had way too much experience with this type of thing in the past, but none involving someone who’s been a part of my personal life. Someone I can’t and I’m not about to kick out of my life. I have to find a way to do this delicately.
“Layla?”
Apparently she didn’t hear me enter the kitchen, because she jumps. The cup she was washing over the sink went crashing down into the tub of soapy water and her shoulders tense. She’s nervous.
“Yeah?” She says
, still facing the sink.
“I just wanted
...I want to talk about what happened last night,” I say, slowly thinking about every single word I’m going to say before it leaves my lips.
“Mhmm
...” She mumbles, clearly uncomfortable about discussing this.
“I don’t want to make you uncomfortable
, Lals. That’s not, nor was it ever my intention. I just want to make sure that you and I are on the same page.”
“What page would that be
, Liam?” She says, holding her spine rigid.
I’ve pissed her off
already somehow. “Layla, I’m not trying to piss you off or hurt you at all. Just think about it. Last night, it was,” I rub my eyes. “It wasn’t a mistake, but it’s something that cannot happen again.”
“Very convincing
, Liam, on the mistake part. Don’t worry, I agree with you.”
“Lals, I knew what I was doing when I did it
. The same goes for you. I don’t believe it was a mistake, just not a good choice for either of us. Considering who we are, what we each on our own we have each gone through. I’m just not cut out for relationship shit.” I explain.
“Don’t I know
it? Two lost souls are impossible to find.” She then proceeds to continue washing dishes, as if our conversation didn’t happen, as if last night didn’t happen.
For some reason what she says resonates within me. One lost soul has a slim chance of being found, by a
soul that is pure and whole. The idea that two lost ones could unite and then become whole-complete each other- impossible.
Even knowing that possibility
, I wish that even a bit of it were true. That I could hope that one day my soul would find its match. Find the one and only that could fill the hole of emptiness I have inside of me.
I never saw the
hole coming. It was something of an incubus that attached itself to my heart and slowly faded everything away.
It started when I was a teen, after I ran away from home. Cordova is a very isolated town
. When I was young, I thought I would take on my father’s trade. A fisherman of the seas. When the weather was safe for a young child, my father would let me go out with him. Over time, he taught me how to do his job. How to use every single tool and how to read the water.
I knew of nothing else, it became my passion as it was his. My mother supported it wholeheartedly
. It wasn’t until my sixteenth birthday, when my mother gifted me a
Les Gibson
guitar, something she had spent a lot of money on to get it shipped to our home. I taught myself how to play, albeit it took a while to learn.
Slowly
, it replaced fishing, and music became my passion. My father became withdrawn and disappointed and my mother was caught in the middle. Until one day my dad broke. He stormed in my room as I was playing, yanked the guitar from me and smashed it into smithereens, all because he overheard me telling my mom that I wanted to be a musician. He didn’t approve.
I was a teenager, him ruining my most prized possession and trying to stomp on my dream
. I was upset. He gave me an ultimatum, leave the music alone for good and become a fisherman, or leave. Furious. I packed my shit and never looked back.
It wasn’t easy leaving home
, though, because of how isolated it was. You can only get out of there by water or air. I was a minor and had to have a guardian buy me a ticket, so air was a no-go. I snuck out on a boat to head farther inland in Alaska, where I could hitch rides throughout my journeys. I somehow made my way to the Washington coast. I slept on streets and ran from anyone who showed a keen interest in me.
It wasn’t until I was seventeen that I met Alex. I can remember the day we met like yesterday. I had a tent made of cardboard in a back alley in downtown Seattle. It was kiddy cornered with a dumpster
. It provided basic shelter from weathering. It had to be early morning, sometime around two, when I had heard sniffling. I had thought it was a rat or maybe a stray cat pawing around for food. But it continued and only got louder.
I remember crawling out of my makeshift tent only to find a girl close in age sitting against the brick wall
, with her knees up to her chest and her head laying down upon them. She was crying.
Normally
, I would have ignored something like that and kept on my way, but there was something about her that drew me in. It could have been her innocence, or maybe her curly red hair. I’m still not sure why I did it, or what made me do it.
“You Okay
?” I remember asking her.
She bunched her knees up tighter and cried louder.
“I’m not going to hurt you. I just want to make sure that you’re okay.”
It took a while of pestering before
, she would even respond to me and when she did, I fell. I fell head over heels in love, like only an adolescent could. A homeless adolescent.
One would ha
ve argued that I had a layer, an invisible shield of armor guarding me after living on the streets for so long. That my innocence had been stripped away by the daily wear and tear of the streets. That I would never amount to anything, other than being a gutter rat, always begging for handouts.
I smile about that part of my past, the part where they were wrong. All wrong about who I would become. Who I would end up being.
Unfortunately, unbeknownst to me that day-the day I met Alex-was the day that a leech attached itself to my heart and started sucking.
“Every addiction arises from an unconscious refusal to face and move through your own pain. Every addiction starts with pain and ends with pain. Whatever the substance you are addicted to - alcohol, food, legal or illegal drugs, or a person - you are using something or somebody to cover up your pain.”
Layla
I take my anger
at Liam out on the dishes. Last night was just, just unbelievable. Even that sounds like an understatement. I went in without expectations of anything, something I would do with any other guy. Even though I guarded myself and kept my steely resolve about me, somehow I let my foolish mind think that maybe, just possibly this could be something. Something more.
And of course, the one time I w
ish there to be a ‘more’, the guy I choose the ‘more’ with, wants nothing. No ‘more’. Maybe this is karma fucking with me. The hand I’ve dealt around is now being used against me. The lies, only lies, because I chose to protect Natalie. Or maybe the relationships I’ve refused to commit any length of time to. Again, something I did to protect others from myself. From the lies that have been woven around me. The lies that have bound me for years.
My father was in love with Natalie’s mother.
There, I thought it.
My father was in love with Natalie’s mother, and Natalie’s mother was in love with my father. They had been having an affair. From what my father had told me, it was an affair that lasted a few years.
Natalie’s mom wouldn’t leave her husband
, though, which in turn killed my dad. The night of the crash, they had all been drinking, excluding my father.
He hadn’t had a drop of alcohol. He was the only person sober in that car. He didn’t veer off the road and smash into a guard rail
, because of being intoxicated. His senses were not in any way incapacitated. He was fine. So, why did they crash?
The truth had come out. My mother revealed it. She had hired someone to follow my father
, because for months he was acting suspicious, staying away from home for extended periods of time. Always staying late at work. Not sharing a bed with her. All of the classic signs of a cheating spouse were there. She wasn’t blind. My father had gotten comfortable in what he was doing. He stopped covering his tracks and stopped paying attention to my mom, so she became suspicious and found out.
She revealed it during the car ride home. I’m not privy to the entire conversation. I only know that words were said and that fists went flying. My dad was hitting back and in turn lost control of the car.
That’s why I don’t deserve the honor of standing beside Natalie, while she pledges to live her life with Ryan. I’ve allowed her to remain oblivious to the initial lie that she was told. Her emotional state has always been of question, if she was ever going to be strong enough to know the truth.
I haven’t kept this secret for so long to protect my parents, that’s not the case at all. I kept this hidden from Natalie
, because I didn’t want to ruin the memory that she has of her mother.
To know that the last few years her mother had been having an affair. But with Natalie and I going home, this lie isn’t something I can keep on hiding from her. She might want to see my parents
. She might want them as guests at her wedding.
The last time I saw my father it was when he was spouting the truth at my turned back. I couldn’t handle it
. I had no idea what to do with it. Beyond the pain I had felt from his truth, I then realized my mother was a liar to. Living in faked happiness. For what? For me?
I would have rather they divorced than have pretended to be in a loving marriage. So, again I can see why karma would be kicking my ass
, when it came to my own happiness. I’ve been the glue for so many years that’s held every single one of those lies in place. I swipe my hair out of my eyes and glance back at where Liam was standing. He’s long gone. Probably relieved that he and I are on the same page.
It’s better that way, just agreeing with him. Liam has his own baggage of a past and if there is one thing I know about him
, it’s that pressuring him will only make him run all the much faster away from me.
I hear my ringtone
Another is Waiting
by
The Avett Brothers
play out. I dry my hands off before picking it up. Natalie.
“Hey,” I answer.
“Hey yourself. I was thinking that tomorrow, if you were up to it we could fly back home for the day and set up arrangements for the wedding. We could leave around ten in the morning and be back home by three in the afternoon,” she says.
“What about Temperance?” I ask
, surprised that she would even consider leaving her beautiful newborn baby for a day.
“She
’ll stay with Ryan while we are gone. That’s why I only planned for us to be gone a few hours and not a few days. I’ve already called and set up appointments, so we can be in and out.”
“Okay, I’m good with that. So where and what time do you want to meet?”
“We’re going to take a private jet. It wasn’t my choice, by the way. I figured you could spend the night here tonight and you and I could leave in the morning, about an hour before the flight.”
I haven’t spent the night there in a few weeks. It was a weekly thing we all did, had dinner and a few glasses of wine
, enjoying each other’s company. But with Natalie being due so soon, we all decided to give them their space, so they could bond together as a family and prepare for a little one in the house.
“All right, when do you want me tonight? I’ll pack an overnight bag and on the plus side
, I get to see some more of that precious baby.” I agree.
“I’ll send Gage to pick you up in a little bit, so get packing lady. I’ll see you soon. Love ya.”
“Love ya too.”
I hang up the phone and head into my room to begin packing an overnight bag.
I’ve flown quite a few times, but I’m still not a fan of it. It’s not the ascending that kills me so much, although, it gives me a strong vertigo effect, it’s the descending. When your ear starts equalizing with air pressure that hurts like a bitch. Making it so for the next hour or two, I can barely hear anyone’s voice let alone mine.
About an hour later
, Gage comes rushing in to the apartment, without knocking of course, and heads straight to the refrigerator.
“Got anything to eat around here?” he asks.
I stare blankly at him.
“You went shopping yesterday, of course there’s food.”
“Oh yeah, well I didn’t know if it would still be here.”
“Gage, we don’t eat like
we have bottomless pits like you, Jason and Zepp do. A couple hundred dollars will pack our cupboards and last us well over a month. With you guys here, it lasts days.”
He opens the refrigerator and starts thumbing through food, “Do you have anything made already, maybe something I can heat up?”
“No.”
“Will you make me something to eat?”
“Are you being serious right now? Make yourself something. Use the microwave, if you’re afraid of getting burned.”
“Fine, I’ll just starve.” Gage says dramatically.
“I don’t understand how God saw fit to give you the body of a man, when you clearly should have been a female, and no not a musician, but an actress.” I tell him, while interceding him in the refrigerator to grab out the carton of eggs and a few slices of cheese and the tub of butter.
“You’re going to make me food?” He asks smiling.
“Yes, only so you’ll stop with your dramatics.”
He seats himself at the island bar
, while I fry up some eggs and make some toast. I decided to make something that would only cost me a couple of minutes to cook and a few more for him to eat.
As I dish the food out on a plate
, Gage interrupts me. “Where’s Liam at?”
“Do I look like his babysitter?” I say harshly.
“Whoa there, calm down. I was just asking. I wanted to make sure he was still alive after last night.” He replies.
I leave the conversation hanging there
. I stalk to my room and grab the overnight bag that I had packed earlier, hoping he would be ready to leave soon. I haven’t seen Liam since our page clearing conversation only hours before. And I’m not about to make the same mistake as I did last night with entering his room. Lord knows that after this morning, he would just as soon throw me from his room.
When I reenter the kitchen
, Gage is rinsing his plate off. “All ready to go?” He asks.
“Yup,” I say
, holding my bag up for him to see.