Keep From Falling (Markson Grove Series Book 1) (18 page)

I nod. I do know that. We had a connection with each other from the start. I felt it as much as he did, and I had tried to deny it for months.

“I made a mistake by not telling you who I really was before we got involved. It wasn’t fair to you and I know that now. You should have known the real me so you could have made the choice to stay away before what happened that night. Not a day goes by that I don’t feel sick about what happened and it’s all on me. All of it.”

I bite down on my lower lip, pushing away the memory of that night. I’m not ready to go there. Not yet.

He notices my uneasiness, begins toward me, hesitates, and then stops altogether. He continues talking instead. “I know why you’re scared of me. But I need you to know that I did what I did because I care about you. What happened to you was my fault and I deserved to lose you because of it, I know that. But you need to know that what we had, it was real. I still—”

“Don’t,” I say, needing to stop him before he says what it is I know he wants to say.

He cuts me off, “let me finish, please. I have it all in my head and I need to get it out.” He’s frustrated. He’s finally getting a chance to say what he’s always wanted to say and he’ll be damned if I don’t let him finish.

I nod, “all right.”

“I deal drugs,” he says and pauses, waiting for my reaction. But it isn’t much of a surprise. I had managed to figure that much out by everything that happened that night.

“Yeah, I figured that,” I reply bitterly.

“I work for a very powerful man. And when I joined
The Misfit Mansion
and met you, that was me trying to get away from him. But it was stupid, I thought if I stayed away long enough he’d just forget about me. You got stuck in the middle of all of it…and I’m so sorry. My life is scary and dangerous. I was wrong to pretend that it wasn’t.”

“I could have died that night,” I say, attempting to hold back an angry gush of tears.

He nods. He’s not trying to make any excuses for what happened. He’s taking full responsibility. “You were lucky you didn’t. We both were.”

“Why are you telling me all of this now? It’s done. So long gone.”

He shakes his head. “You know that it’s not. It took me over a year to get you to even talk to me. I scare you. Bree thinks I hurt you… She won’t let me anywhere near you.”

“She thinks you raped me,” I tell him quietly.

His eyes blink a few times before narrowing. “Did you tell her that?” he asks, pain radiating from his voice.

I shake my head. “She assumed it and I didn’t say any differently. I couldn’t tell her about the guys with guns, watching you get beat up, and then getting beat up myself… almost being raped…and you…” my voice trails off.

Parker flinches, making me aware that the memory of that night still haunts him as well.

“I told her nothing. I just let her think what she wanted.”

“Well, no wonder she’s so pissed at me. She thinks I’m a fucking monster,” he murmurs, completely dejected.

“She hates you,” I say, but immediately feel bad about it. The words are too harsh, even for him.

“What about Spencer? Does he know?

“Spencer knows the truth, well some of it, but I don’t think he trusts you,” I say, and I can tell that this bothers him as well, but he brushes it off quickly.

“Can I sit?” he asks, pointing beside me on the bed.

I look to the empty spot beside me uncertainly.

“Skylar,” he whispers, sadness etched all over his face. “I’m still me.”

I take in a deep, unsteady breath. “Ok,” I say finally.

He sits beside me and cautiously angles his body in my direction, waiting for my reaction. When I don’t move away, he continues on with what he wants to say. “I know that telling you all of this doesn’t change anything. You don’t trust me, you’re with Bree now, and I fucked up everything that you and I had. I get that. But I can’t stand you being petrified of me the way that you have been. I saved you that night. That has to count for something.”

“This life of yours scares the shit out of me,” I confess, and he gazes at me sympathetically. His electric blue eyes burn into mine and I’m momentarily reminded of just how much I was addicted to him while we were together.

“It scares the shit out of me too,” he tells me honestly.

“Do you still work for this man?”

He nods, not taking his eyes off of mine. I can see the pain and fear he’s feeling; the fear that I know he never lets anyone else see. I lower my eyes trying to avoid the intensity of his stare, which has always had a profound effect on my emotions in the past.

We sit in an uncomfortable silence as I allow myself to think about that night for a moment, and everything he did to protect me. All this time I’ve been petrified of the world he lives in and I’ve pushed him away because of it. He did everything he could so that the darkness in his life didn’t consume me, but I stupidly punished him for it. I did to him what I’m scared that Bree will do to me.

“I’m sorry,” I say, breaking the silence. I lift my gaze to his. “You did save me that night. I’ve always known that. I was just too scared to let myself believe it.”

He reaches to touch my face, his eyes glimmering with hope, but I move away gently and shake my head. “I can’t,” I say, taking his hand into mine. “I’m with Bree now. I love her.”

He pulls his hand away quickly and clenches it closed as if he’s trying to resist physical pain. “Yeah, sorry,” he mumbles.

“It can’t be like it was with us before. I forgive you, but I can’t be yours anymore. I’m not telling Bree the truth about us or that night.”

He stares at me in disbelief. “I’m not a monster.”

“I can’t tell her. It’s too late now. I let it go too long.”

“You have to tell her,” he insists. I think I hear panic in his voice when he says it, but I can’t be sure.

I take in an unsteady breath, trying to keep my composure. “I…” the sound of someone walking through the apartment door, cuts me off. I jump up from the bed in a panic.

“Cecelia?” I call out, hoping it’s only my aunt and not Bree. This couldn’t be explained to Bree. She would never understand.

“What?” Cecelia grumbles, irritation oozing from her voice.

I let out a sigh of relief before hastily turning to Parker. “Go out the window,” I hiss.

He looks at me like I’m crazy. “I’m not going out an eight story window! Besides, my boots are in the kitchen, she already knows I’m here.”

Fuck. He’s right.

“Who do you have in your room, Skylar?” Cecelia asks suspiciously, knocking the door loudly with Parker’s boots and then dropping them to the floor. I see the boots hit the floor under the crack of the door with a loud thud just before she pushes it open.

Parker nudges himself away from the bed as she enters the room.

Cecelia’s eyes narrow. “Well, what’s this?” she asks with a smirk. She’s surprised to see a guy standing before her. I stare at her sheepishly, trying to think of something to say. I have nothing. This has never happened to me. I’ve never brought a guy to her place before.

“He was just leaving,” I say, pushing him toward the door. My bed is a mess and I am very much aware of what this must look like to Cecelia who didn’t sleep at home last night. She has no way of knowing what time Parker came over.

He grabs his boots and bolts for the door without even taking the time to put them on.

Once the door slams behind him, Cecelia turns to me. “And to think all this time I thought you were a dyke.”

Evan

“And that’s game!” Derrick bellows as he slams the basketball through the hoop, winning our third one-on-one game today.

I walk over to the bench on the side of the court for my t-shirt and pull it on over my head. “You really know how to keep a guy’s spirit up,” I tell him sarcastically, taking a big gulp of water from my bottle.

He tosses the ball to me once I put my bottle down and I catch it with both hands. “Just keeping it legit, man,” he says with a goofy grin. I shake my head. Sometimes I don’t even know why I spend time with him.

Taking a seat on the bench next to me, he looks at the time on his phone. “It’s almost three, got to take off. Promised Kels I’d meet her when she gets off work.”

“Catch you later,” I mumble with no amount of enthusiasm in my voice.

He nudges me in the shoulder. “Don’t let that shit from last night get you down, man. She’ll be back.”

I shrug. “Maybe I don’t want her to come back,” I mutter unconvincingly. I hate that I want her this bad. I can’t stop thinking about Bree Porter, no matter what it is I do to keep her off my mind, she’s always there in my head.

“She’s here,” Derrick says nudging his chin in the direction over my shoulder. I turn around and see her walking onto the court toward us.

Derrick grabs his things off of the bench, “I’ll leave you two alone,” he says as she reaches us. “Hey,” he mumbles to her, giving her an unimpressed nod before jogging off toward his dad’s car. I smile to myself, secretly pleased with his behavior. She shouldn’t feel comfortable after what happened yesterday, and I’m glad he agrees with me.

Bree sits next to me but doesn’t take her eyes off of the ground or try to start a conversation. She just sits there till the silence and tension between us begins to drive me crazy.

“How did you know I was here?” I ask finally.

“I spoke to Kelsie,” she replies.

I let out an irritated sigh, “Kelsie should learn to stay out of my business. I told her last night to let this go, and she stuck her nose where it doesn’t belong yet again and messaged you anyway—”

“She didn’t message me,” Bree interrupts. “I’m the one who sent her a message first. I wanted to know where I could find you so we could talk. I knew you weren’t working today and I …I feel horrible about last night.”

“What’s there to talk about Bree, your girlfriend is crazy and I’m done.”

“I’m sorry, ok?”

I don’t want to look her in the eye because I know the minute I do, I will give in to her apology and turn into a fool who agrees to, yet again, do another thing that’s going to rip my heart even further out of my chest.

“Please just look at me.”

“I can’t.”

She sighs. “I told Skylar I’d stop seeing you.”

The words dig into my gut like a knife, and it takes me a moment to recover from it. My first instinct is to yell at her. I can’t believe she’s actually here to kick me while I’m already down. “So why are you here then, Bree?” I snap. This time I go out of my way to look right at her so she can see in my eyes what it is she is doing to me.

“I don’t know, Evan. This is such a big mess and I hate it. I don’t want to have to choose.”

“I think you’ve already made your choice pretty clear,” I say, with no amount of sympathy in my voice.

“Skylar
needs
me. It’s not so easy to just walk away from her. She doesn’t have anyone else.”

She has Spencer
, I think to myself but decide not to voice the thought. It’s not a fight I’m ready to have with her just yet.

“So what you feel toward her isn’t sexual then?” I decide to ask instead. That’s an argument I
am
ready to get into.

“What I feel toward
you
is sexual too,” she returns. She doesn’t deny that what she has with Skylar is deeper than what she’s trying to let on, but the fact that she’s putting me up there on the same level makes me feel good for a moment.

“So what are you saying, Bree? You want us both?”

She hesitates, fumbling with the buttons of her phone in her hand. “Yes,” she says finally in a hushed voice.

I shake my head in disgust. Knowing exactly where this conversation is headed. “You tell Skylar that you’ll stop seeing me. Then you tell me that you want us both. What are you trying to do? You want me in secret, is that it?”

“She needs me,” Bree says instead of answering my question directly, but I hear the answer loud and clear anyway.

“I can’t do that to someone. I know how it feels to be on the other end of that. There’s nothing worse.”

“Staying away from someone who makes me feel the way that I feel with you seems like it could be worse,” she says quietly.

I tilt my head to the side and my face softens in spite of how angry I am. “Bree,”

“I know,” she says. “I’m sorry. I was with her first and I don’t want to leave her, so that’s where I should be.”

I nod.

“So, I guess this is goodbye then.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” I reply, trying to hide my sadness behind a careless shrug.

I watch her get up from the bench and, without looking back at me, make her way across the basketball court to the fence door. Only when she gets on the other side of the chain-linked fence, does she turn around for one last look in my direction. And at that moment, as our eyes meet and I see the sadness in her gaze, I realize that I can’t let her go.

Not yet, not like this.

“Wait!” I call out abruptly, jumping to my feet. I’m an idiot, but I can’t let her walk away.

In my mind I’m kicking myself over and over again because I know that I shouldn’t be calling out to her. I should be letting her go. But I can’t.

Bree stands where she is, unable to know for sure why I’m telling her to wait but I can see the hope in her eyes, and that hope makes me that much more sure that I want to do what I am about to do.