Keep From Falling (Markson Grove Series Book 1) (27 page)

“You took advantage of these girls,” she says, shaking an accusing finger at me. “Dating them both at the same time. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

I lower my head. “I am.”

Yep, this was a mistake.

“Why would you do that to your best friend, Bree? She’s like a sister to you.”

“Mom please,” Bree says. “I feel bad enough already.”

“Ok,” her mom relents, giving me one more disapproving look before forcing a smile back on her lips. “Let’s eat then.”

Bree slides her plate toward her and begins to eat. I know she’s forcing herself for her mother’s sake, because I can tell that she’s too upset to really want to eat, but I follow her lead anyway and begin eating my food as well. The faster I can finish this meal, the faster I can get the hell out of here.

“So Evan,” her mother says after about ten minutes of complete silence, a silence I was beginning to appreciate immensely. “Tell me about your family, do you have any siblings? What do your parents do?”

I take a big gulp of water, not only to help my food go down, but also to buy some time for myself before having to answer her questions. She doesn’t care about me, It’s distinctly clear that she’s already made up her mind about who I am. “I have a younger sister,” I tell her politely but I don’t elaborate further. I refuse to pretend at pleasantries with this woman.

“I didn’t know you had a sister,” Bree says.

I nod. “Yeah, her name’s Ellie,” I say. “Actually, it’s Elizabeth, but we call her Ellie.”

“And your parents?” her mom asks again.

I hide a snarl behind a plastered on smile. “My mom’s a nurse. My dad’s… not around,” I tell her.

Her mom nods with no ounce of friendliness in her facial features. She’s probably summing up my terrible, womanizing behavior to the fact that I don’t have a father figure in my life.

“How old is your sister?” Bree chimes in, noticing the tension between us.

“She’s fifteen,” I say, taking the last bite of food on my plate and then following it with another gulp of water.

“Seconds?” her mom asks.

“No thanks.”

“Dessert?”

“No, thank you, I really should be going, Mrs. Porter,” I say, trying my absolute hardest to stay polite even though my patience is lacking at this point.

“Nonsense. You can’t leave before dessert. It’s strawberry shortcake.”

I look to Bree for help, but all she does is shrug. I force another smile. “I suppose I could stay a few more minutes,” I say.

“I’ll go get it. Be right back.”

Once she’s out of the room, Bree turns to me. “What made you think that saying you were seeing me and Skylar both was a good idea?”

“I have no idea,” I say with a tiny grin. “I was just winging it. Might have been a mistake though, huh?”

She smiles and it’s such a wonderful thing to see after the night we’ve had. Her smile is so beautiful. “Apparently.” She leans in and gives me a quick kiss on the lips. “Evan?” She asks wearily.

“Hmm?” I return, still staring at her face, not wanting to take my eyes off of them. I wish we were by ourselves right now so I can just keep kissing her.

“Who could have told Sky that we were in Queensland together last week? I mean, did you see anyone we might know while we were there?” She gazes at me expectantly, and I’m caught off guard because I assume she means other than Parker, who I know very well she remembers seeing that day.

I know that Parker’s the one who told Skylar. After everything Derrick’s told me about their past, I have no doubt in my mind that Parker told her what he saw that day between the two of us. But I can’t very well tell Bree that. I promised Derrick, and I don’t know what could happen if I break that promise.

I suppose it wouldn’t hurt trying to nudge her in the right direction, though. Derrick can’t be pissed at me if she figures it out on her own. “No,” I say shaking my head. “Other than Parker, I didn’t see anyone else that we knew.”

There. Maybe that will get her thinking.

“There must have been someone else,” she says, not even considering my hint.

I decide to let it go. I can’t push this. She thinks he raped her, and nothing I say can change that.

Skylar

I chose Bree.

Though Parker made it perfectly clear of his love for me, and his desire for us to be together again like the way we used to be, I chose her. And as much as I ached to be able to choose him and never look back, I didn’t. I chose her. I thought that the history I had with her mattered more than what I had with him. I was sure that it mattered more to her too; that whatever it was that pulled her toward Evan wasn’t strong enough to pull her away from me forever. I thought she would choose me too.

I was wrong.

After I storm out of Bree’s home, I stumble down the street, and then through the walking trail toward Cecelia’s apartment. It usually only takes me a few minutes to get myself home from Bree’s, but tonight it feels more like an eternity. All I want to do right now is crawl into my bed, curl up into a tiny ball, and die.

My heart literally aches. I feel like something is physically inside my chest wringing my insides dry. I can’t breathe. I gasp for breath, but I can’t seem to get any air into my lungs. I drop to my knees, clinging to my chest, and gasping for breath. Mud from the trail cakes all over my jeans and hands. I dig into my now mud-covered bag, looking for my plastic case of razors and when I find it, I open it so quickly that a bunch of them fall out all over the ground. I leave them because all I need is one.

I grip the razor, and with a trembling hand, run it down the inside of my left forearm from my wrist to my elbow. I don’t feel anything as the blade glides smoothly through my layers of skin, cutting them away from each other. I feel nothing except for the throbbing ache in my chest that I need to make disappear.

And then I see the blood.

I catch my breath instantly, and the tightness in my chest subsides. I can breathe. Relief takes over my entire body, even though, my mind is still racing.

My phone beeps just then, letting me know I have a text. I shove the bloody razor back into its case and then throw the case back into my bag.

The cut is deep and the blood from it begins to dribble down my arm onto the ground. I unwrap the hoodie I have tied around my waist and pull it over my head. I can use the sleeve of the sweater to clot the bleeding.

The phone beeps again, reminding me that I still have a text waiting. I reach into my pocket for it.

Spencer:
Are you ok?

Me:
No

Spencer:
I’m two minutes away. I’m coming.

I let out a sigh of relief, immediately pushing myself away from the ground. I hope Cecelia isn’t home, the last thing I need to hear is her saying ‘
I told you so’
about all of this.

When I walk into an empty apartment I’m relieved. She isn’t home. I throw my phone on the coffee table and collapse onto the couch. I have no more energy. I’m completely drained, destroyed, and broken.

Spencer arrives only moments later. He walks in and sees me sprawled out on the couch. Without hesitation, he lifts me to him and holds my body to his chest.

And that’s when I break. The tears begin to flow and I’m afraid they’ll never stop.

He sits down on the couch and sits me sideways on his lap. I press my head to his chest. He rocks me back and forth, and shushes me over and over again as I wail out my sorrow.

Once I’m finally done, twenty minutes or so later, he picks me up, carries me to the bathroom, and sits me down on top of the toilet seat.

As he begins to run me a steaming hot bath, he slides my muddy jeans from my legs and then reaches for the base of my sweatshirt. I lift my hands over my head as he pulls the sweatshirt off, the sleeve turning inside out and sticking to the fresh cut on my forearm.

He takes in a sharp breath as he looks over the cut from top to bottom. He carefully tries to separate the shirt from the cut without causing it to gush blood once again, but is unsuccessful.

“Babygirl,” is all he says once he finally gets the sleeve away from the cut and it begins to bleed again. He looks me in the eyes and his face is so pained that if I wasn’t so completely destroyed right now, I would take him in an embrace and try to sooth his worry away.

“I’m sorry I didn’t get to you in time,” he says regretfully, finding a towel and holding it to the cut. I don’t know exactly what he means by that, but I’m not in the right frame of mind right now to figure it out.

Spencer finishes undressing me and carefully helps me into the tub. Once I’m in the soapy water, I bring my knees to my chest and he takes the face cloth and runs the water all over my body. He pours water onto my hair, removing the clips and braids as he does so. Afterward, he takes my cut arm and cleans it gently. He washes my face, my neck, and my muddy hands. He cleans away my sadness, or at least he tries to.

“You know I love you, right?” he whispers.

I’ve never doubted that, not for a second. “I love you too,” I say.

He takes in an unsteady breath, “Come on,” he says, opening up a large beach towel and motions for me to stand up and get out of the tub so he can wrap me in it.

Once he has me wrapped up, he carefully carries me across the hall to my bedroom. He sits me on my bed and then walks over to the closet, pulling clothes out for me to wear. He’s not pulling out PJs or sweats, though, and that makes me confused.

“What are you doing?” I ask in a daze, looking over the sheer black V-neck top and above-knee length tattered skirt that matches. My punk version of the traditional ‘little black dress’ that I generally only use for social outings, along with my black knee-high, lace-up boots.

“I’m getting you dressed,” he replies matter-of-factly. “We’re going out.”

“I don’t want to go out,” I say, still deflated and just too tired to be arguing about this.

“Well, I’m not leaving you alone, and I have to go out, so you’re going to have to come with me.”

“Not tonight,” I protest, but I know even as I’m saying it that it’s no use. There is no way that he will leave me alone right now. Not after what he’s seen I’ve done to myself. I look at the outfit he has laid out for me and run my hand over the sheer fabric of the shirt. This really would look smoking hot with just my lace bra underneath it.

I sigh. “Where are we going?” I ask finally, forcing a nearly inexistent smile.

“I need you to keep an opened mind, ok?”

“Spencer,” I whine, not liking the way he’s trying to gently ease the location on me. I don’t have the energy for any more surprises right now, and he should know that. “Just tell me.”

“I’m taking you to the mansion,” he says, squinting his eyes closed in anticipation of my response. When I don’t react, he opens them up again. “Will you come with me?”

The Misfit Mansion
? After all this time? I’m not
The Goddess
anymore, I can’t go back there, especially with the way that I’m feeling right now.

I shake my head. “We don’t misfit together. You know that.”

“We could,” he says uneasily, but I can tell even as he’s saying it that he’s not so sure.

Whatever it is that he has to be there for must be important because we don’t misfit together. He’s always been pretty adamant about keeping that agreement intact, and I’ve always been secretly grateful. I’ve never wanted him to know me as
The Goddess
. “What’s going on at the mansion that you need to be there so badly?” I ask suspiciously.

He shrugs. “I have a lot of money riding on a fight tonight, that’s all.”

“You bet on fights?” I ask in surprise.

Spencer scratches his temple and smirks. “There’s this girl…from my past, that I’m sort of helping out now. She’s really into watching the fights, so I kind of got into it.”

“What girl?” I ask, feeling a pang of jealousy in the pit of my stomach. It’s bad enough I already have to share him with Bree, now there’s another one he’s taken under his wing?

“It’s not a big deal, I’m just helping her through some hard stuff,” he tells me reassuringly, sensing my uneasiness.

“So who is she?”

“Mark’s sister.”

“Oh,” I breathe out. I didn’t see that one coming.

“She needs me, and I miss Mark…a lot. It’s kind of nice having her around. She’s a lot like him, you know.”

For a moment, I almost forget about everything that’s happened tonight with Bree and Evan as a much deeper sadness takes over me. Spencer still hurts. He misses Mark more than he ever lets on to Bree and me. Maybe the time he’s been spending with Mark’s sister really does help him to move passed his pain. Who am I to challenge that? He carries so much guilt about Mark’s suicide. I’m sure that having her embracing him as a confidant means the world to him.

“How long have you been helping her?” I ask quietly.

“About a month. But you know you’re still my girl, right? I don’t love any other girls like I love you.”

I force a little smile as he leans in and plants his lips on my forehead. His soft, gentle kiss soothes my pain and I suddenly feel like I can do this, for him. He’s so strong for me all the time, he deserves to get that back.