New Forever (2 page)

When I met her close to two years ago, Dee didn’t even realize how badly she needed me, but I saw it because I’d been wearing the same expression on my face for years. Her eyes basically begged me to take her under my wing and befriend her – at the psych ward. Yep, I met my bestie at the local nut farm. Just before she’d given birth to said baby, I’d finally realized I needed help.

I didn’t just find the help I needed to battle my depression, but also a best friend and the man I thought was the love of my life. Having just lost him, I was pulling the best friend card and taking Dee away for the weekend, and putting a temporary stop on her screwing all of Adam’s brain cells away in the process. He could thank me after his brain cells grew back and he was able to form coherent thoughts again. Or not. Probably not.

Pack your bags, hoebag and shave your twat. I’m not Adam and I’m not cuddling with any ewoks this weekend.

Eleven seconds after I hit the send button, my phone rings. Dee’s predictability would be eye roll inducing if I didn’t find comfort in it. At least I always know what to expect from her. Unlike my other best friend, who hasn’t spoken to me since I lost my twin sister five years ago. Unless, of course, you count the random “I miss you” comments on Facebook. In that case, she and I are practically soul mates. Completely unlike Dee and me, who value what we have because we know what it’s like to lose everything and go without. Dee and I are so entwined in each other’s lives, we practically hold the pen to each other’s story. Since becoming friends with her, she has helped me pave out and write my new life story – it’s one that’s actually worth telling.

Like every story, there’s still sorrow and despair. Like when your stupid boyfriend of two years breaks up with you without a reason and leaves you in a debilitating state. Idiotic bastard.

“Yo,” I answer with my lips already latched onto my bottle of wine.

“What’s up your ass this time, Hayley?” she asks and I laugh.

What’s up my ass? Men suck. Men who suck huge donkey balls.

“We’re going to Tampa. I already booked our hotel room so you can’t back out.”

“I can’t back out of something I never knew about,” she huffs.

“Exactly! Be ready in ten minutes.”

I pull the phone away from my ear to hang up when I hear her screaming obscenities at me and smile widely at her reaction. Dee isn’t much for surprises.

“Wha-wait!” she stutters. “What’s in Tampa?”

“Right now, nothing important.”

I hear her sigh and my smile grows bigger.

“What will be in Tampa once we get there?” she asks through gritted teeth.

“Us,” I deadpan.

“Hayley.”

“The Tampa signing, jack ass.”

“The one with the authors?” she asks, her voice growing in excitement.

“Authors? Really, Dee? Do you not know me at all? The one with the crew from the Walking Dead.”

“Oh.”

Why do I find so much joy in tormenting her? A good friend wouldn’t be grinning from ear to ear because her best friend’s voice has grown somber.

“Are you sulking?”

“No,” she replies quickly. “The Walking Dead sounds cool.”

“As cool as an author signing?”

“Yeah. I mean, is Daryl gonna be there?”

“I’m not sure…” I pause, pretending to mull it over. “But L.A. Casey will be.”

“What?” she asks, her voice high pitched. “What?” Her voice has reached a decibel only dogs can hear as I laugh hard into the phone. “We’re going to the author signing?”

“We’re going to the author signing.”

“We’re going to the author signing!”

“I’ll be at your house in an hour.”

“An hour?” she protests. “I can’t be ready in an hour.”

“See you soon,” I say quickly and hang up.

I look around my apartment, which somehow feels emptier without Max. He’s only been gone for four hours, but I feel his absence, and can’t bring myself to stay in our apartment by myself all weekend.

Maybe I’ll get a dog Monday morning. An ugly, mangy looking one that no one else wants from the shelter. If that doesn’t cheer me up, nothing will. And if said dog chews up Max’s cowardly face if he shows up here, I’m keeping him forever and then cloning him when he dies.

So, that settles it. I’m getting a dog. A relationship with a dog has to be easier than one with a man. At least if the dog comes with his own set of issues, I can pat his head and give him a cookie and all will be right in his world.

I used to think the same with men only switch out cookies with blowjobs. I’d say that sort of treat works for more than half of the male population, but Max, of course, is in the minority. Damn him for breaking my heart. And damn myself for giving him the opportunity to do so.

I’m really gonna meet L.A. Casey?

Seeing Dee’s text reminds me that I have zero desire to dwell on Max or his sudden break up with me.

YES! Are you packed?

OMG! I’m gonna finger her so hard!

What? I read the text again then eye the almost empty bottle of wine, wondering if the alcohol has gone to my head and somehow made me illiterate.

So you’re not into vaginas unless it’s L.A. Casey’s?

I stare at my phone for almost a full minute before Dee responds.

BAHAHAHAHA! OMG I’m dying! Autocorrect sucks! I meant I’m gonna fangirl her so hard.

Well at least that makes sense. I throw myself on my bed and laugh until my sides hurt and happy tears roll over my cheeks. Laughter has always been my go-to reaction during any situation and it feels good to release the happy energy so that it can properly smother the sadness Max has left in his wake.

You can’t tell her. Swear to me you won’t, Hayley!

Tears are rolling down my face and I’m laughing so hard, it hurts to breathe. Dee will never live this one down. I’ll make sure of it.

I’ve already taken a screen shot it.

I. HATE. YOU.

After hopping off the bed, I put the cork back in my bottle of wine and store it in my suitcase then grab the food carrier that I use when transporting cupcakes I bake to clients. My food carrier is holding a batch of delicious cupcakes I made early this morning after Max left. Damn it, why does my brain have to keep circling back around to him? This weekend will not be spent griping about him. Nope, I’m putting him on the back burner in my mind where he belongs.

I don’t bother waiting a full hour before shutting off my lights and locking my doors. I need some cuddle time with Josie anyway.

As an afterthought, I check myself in the vanity mirror in my car. My green eyes shine back at me and I loosen my dark black hair so that it rests a little past my shoulders. I search my purse for make up and use the eyeliner to touch up the outline on the top lid of my eyes. Not completely satisfied, I throw on some eye shadow and blush to lighten up my pasty white complexion and am finally ready to go when my high cheekbones look more pronounced.

Now, I’m ready for the world to see me.

What compels one individual to fight and give the world the middle finger, while another person has the exact opposite reaction and winds up hunkering down and hiding like a little bitch in a training bra?

Fear or courage? Protection or self-preservation?

It’s all in how the story is told, how you take it in, digest it, and ultimately perceive it. But if the only important person never hears the story, is it still worth analyzing? Still worth telling?

Not that I have anyone left to tell. I single handedly isolated myself from the only family I have left. All because of fear, self-loathing, disgust – take your pick. But also because I have to protect her – my heart, my soul, my Hayley.

Already the familiar grime that lives on the streets is embedding itself deep in me until I feel like it is a part of who I am. And this is who I truly am. I’d only fooled myself into believing I could be something more for Hayley, because she deserves more and I wanted that
more
to be me.

But the streets have rightfully claimed me as theirs once again. The streets are my home and where I belong. Anything else is an illusion. An elaborate illusion I wanted to believe. But reality grabbed me by the balls until I couldn’t deny its existence any longer.

I let Hayley go, not because I wanted to, but because I had to. I was only put into her life for a fleeting moment – a small memory that I will take with me into the darkness.

And the real kicker in this whole fucked up little story is that it wasn’t even my doing. No, I’m just a product of fucked-up-ness so extreme it makes the acid rise in my stomach until I feel the bile threatening to come out. My parents did this. They wedged a wall so thick between myself and my heart years ago, long before I knew my heart could only beat for her.

My parents stamped my fate five years ago when they killed not just my future, but a young girl of only sixteen. I was seventeen, almost eighteen, when I ran away from home and began my life on the streets. Physically, I thrived out here on the streets. I could take a beating just as easily as I could deliver one. Nothing was beneath my pride. I’d take odd jobs that were given to me and stole when necessary.

Survival was my only option, because I had given up on living. There’s a difference between surviving and living, breathing and experiencing. I’d given up on experiencing life and just focused on the breathing aspect of it.

Until I met her. She was my game changer and my rule breaker, and ultimately, my conqueror. I tried to pave out a life for us befitting of her, but the things that haunt me, the things I had tried so hard to put to rest, came crashing back with one picture.

Hannah.

Hayley’s twin sister.

The girl my parents killed.

How had I missed it? How had I not seen Hannah every time I looked into Hayley’s eyes? They were identical, for Christ’s sake!

I’d never met Hannah, I’d just seen a picture of her that my father kept in his underwear drawer since she’d died. It’d been five years since the last time I had obsessed over her photo, but still… Neither of those are good enough excuses, but I hadn’t seen it then. I hadn’t seen Hannah in Hayley or vice versa. Maybe I didn’t wanted to. There’s no denying how badly I wanted to bury that part of my past. But now that I knew the truth…

After that moment of realization, the only thing that mattered was protecting Hayley from the truth. She’d laid her sister to rest years ago. If she found out the true reason Hannah had committed suicide, it would bring back all the painful memories she’d worked through. It would mentally set her back to the days following her sister’s death.

I had to protect her from the ugliness in my past that had directly altered her life until it had swallowed her whole. Temporarily swallowed her whole, because eventually she came back swinging the best way she knew how, through her laughter and silly sense of humor. It had taken a couple years, but she’d never given up on herself. She was a warrior in its truest form.

I missed her laughter. A full day hadn’t even gone by since I’d last seen her, but I missed her laughter the same way I might miss a limb. Which made sense. Hayley had always been my missing piece.

But now the memory of her laughter was entwined with the memory of my father’s deception and my mother’s indifference to his deception.

Five years have passed and still I don’t understand it, though truth be told, I stopped trying to understand their crazy logic years ago. Clearly, there is no sane logic behind a married man in his forties having an affair with a sixteen year old girl. There is no sane logic behind that same man deceiving that girl into believing he’d leave his wife for her. There is no sane logic behind that poor girl taking her life when she realized the truth. There is no sane logic behind the wife who knew of the affair, but said nothing. There is no logic behind that same wife accepting a young girl’s death as ‘shit happening’.

There is no logic. Just tragedy, and a family left broken by the carelessness of two selfish individuals who I have the great honor of calling my mom and dad. That’s why I left all those years ago and why I left this morning.