Forever & Always by Jasinda Wilder
"What'd he do?" Eden didn't sound surprised. She'd met him a few times and didn't like him. She'd said he reminded her of Adam Levine: a quintessential hot douche.
"I've known he was lying to me about something for a long time. All the signs, you know?"
"Jealous? Possessive? Hides his phone?" Eden had dated a guy her senior year, the first-chair violinist. Rob. She'd found out after a year and a half of dating that he'd cheated on her with the second-chair violinist, a bitchy, acne-scarred, insanely eccentric girl named Nina.
"Yeah. So I'm not surprised, really. Just...pissed off."
"Who is it?" Eden did her usual thing, strolling around the room flipping through my various drying canvases.
"Some girl named Kelly. That's all I know. And I think he lives with her."
Eden stared at me in shock. "He what?"
"I went through his phone. Found a text message conversation with 'sweetheart,'" I emphasized the word with as much sarcasm as I possessed, "and she said if he, quote, 'comes home now,' she'd blow him until he can't see straight. 'Comes home' being the operative phrase here."
"Shit. What a douche-nozzle."
I snorted. "Douche-nozzle isn't strong enough."
"Douche commander?" Eden suggested.
"That might work. Commander of all the douches." I tossed the paintbrush into a sink and rinsed it, scrubbed the paint off my hand and face.
"What are you gonna do?"
I shrugged. "I don't know. Shove his trumpet up his ass?" I rested my forehead against the wall, suddenly exhausted. "What should I do?"
Eden turned me around and pulled me into a hug. "Come stay with me for a while. We'll watch Notting Hill and eat a gallon of pistachio ice cream."
"Hugh Grant usually cheers me up." I pulled away and gathered my clothes. "Love you, Edie."
"Love you too, Ev." She watched me dress. "I honestly expected you to be crying when this happened."
"You knew it would?"
"Not knew. Just suspected. Like you would have listened if I'd told you?"
I huffed a laugh. "True. I'm not going to cry. I'm not sad. I don't know what I am. Angry, more than anything. Confused as to why."
"'Cause guys are all assholes."
"True."
I told Eden I'd meet her at her place. I had to get a few things. Namely, my dignity back. And some clean panties.
Billy was still sleeping when I returned. It was seven in the morning, Sunday. He normally slept until eight on Sundays. I wasn't quiet as I packed clothes into a bag, my phone charger, some toiletries--but no makeup--and then, finally, he woke up. Rubbed his eyes with a fist. Naked, sexy as hell with his hair mussed and falling in his bright blue eyes, morning erection bulging against the sheet. And a douche commander.
"Whassup, babe? Going somewhere?" He stretched, letting the sheet fall away, pushed at his erection, stretching it, too. I couldn't look away, because hot was hot.
In an effort to exert control over the conversation, I tossed his jeans at him, covering him. "Over to Eden's."
"Why?" He went still, hearing the ice in my voice.
"How long have we been together?"
He didn't even have to think. "Two years in July."
"And how long have you been fucking Kelly behind my back?"
He hung his head, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Shit."
"I read the texts between you and your sweetheart." I put so much vitriol into the term that it dripped poison. "I hope you have fun in Arlington."
"Ever, listen--" He stood up and shoved his legs into the jeans. He winced as he did so; he hated going commando. He found his shirt on the floor and put it on, too.
"Don't. Just tell me why." I set my bag on the floor in the doorway, and went back to my closet, unearthing the paintings of Cade, one by one, ranging them around the room.
"What is that? What are those? Is that--? That's him, isn't it? That asshole you write those fucking letters to."
"You don't get to talk to me about Cade. Just tell me why. I would have understood if you'd said you'd met someone else. I would have made it easy."
"It's hard to explain, Ev."
"Try."
"Honestly? I don't really know. I like you. You're funny. Weird. Hot. Amazing in bed. But...you're--you're cold. Closed off. Like there's this barrier just beneath your skin that I can't get past. You don't let me in. You don't tell me anything about yourself. You just hang out with me, fuck me, and that's it. There's no emotion to you. You're just...ice."
I couldn't breathe, couldn't speak. Couldn't form words. I tried anyway. "You--in the text. You told her I was delicate."
"You are. Ice cracks easily. Even the thickest ice will crack under enough pressure. If I dumped you, I thought you'd--"
"Crack?"
He shrugged. "Yeah."
"So instead you shack up with some whore, and don't bother to break up with me? Spend the weekends with me, the week with her. Twice the pussy for the price of one." I clenched my fists at my side, refusing to crack. I was close. He knew me all too well. This was too much pressure. If he'd just dumped me, it wouldn't have cracked me. I would have refrozen and been fine. This...this was too much.
"It's not like that--"
"Then what's it like? You just stayed with me for the sex? Why else? If I'm so cold, so closed off, that's the only reason, right?"
He ran his hand through his hair. "No, Ev. Like I said, it's hard to explain. I didn't want to hurt you." He was staring at the floor. Lying.
"God, you're such an asshole. Just get out. Don't come back." I grabbed my bag and whirled around.
He followed me, yelling. "Quit acting so innocent. You and that Caden guy. The letters. And you were painting his face? Like, seriously?"
"Oh, like it's even close to the same thing?" I shoved him, hard, slamming my palms against his chest and shoving him backward so he tumbled over the back of the couch. "I met him one time, almost five years ago. We write fucking letters. And barely that anymore. So don't even try to make out like I was cheating on you with a piece of fucking paper."
Billy righted himself, scrambled around the couch, and rushed me, rage on his face. I felt panic race through me as he raised his fist, closing in like a freight train. I cringed, shrinking back against the wall. He stopped at the last second, his fist still raised, face a rictus of rage, blood trickling down his face where his cheekbone had been cut open by the corner of the coffee table.
He sagged, backing away, turning in place with a shocked and horrified expression on his face. He leaned against the window, fists on the sill, forehead against the glass. "You know what, Ever? The truth is, I stayed at first because I hoped you'd open up. I thought maybe you and I could really be something. Like we could fall in love, if you'd just open up a bit. And then I met Kelly, and she was...everything you're not. She had these...emotions that you just won't show. I'm a guy, I know I'm not supposed to care about emotions, but there it is. She was open. She talked to me. She has friends, Ever. A life. She doesn't have secret pen pals, secret paintings." He shot a glance at me, turning slightly to look at me. "You want truth? Yeah, by now it was...habit. I was afraid of breaking up with you. You only had your sister, and I was...worried. And plus, yeah, it was also the sex."
"But mostly, it was the sex."
"Does it matter?" he demanded, yelling. "Does it really matter?"
I stood up, collected my bag, and stuffed my feet into my UGGs. "No. I guess it doesn't. I'm leaving. Just get out. Get out of my apartment, out of my life."
He grabbed his bag and his shoes. "That'll be easy. I was never really in your life to begin with." He sat down, put on his socks and shoes, spoke as he tied the laces of his Nikes. "You wanna know something? You act like I'm so evil for cheating and lying. And maybe I deserve that. Sure, I'll take that blame. But ask yourself why you stayed with me all this time. If you were never going to really let me in, never really give me any of yourself, your heart, then why were you with me? Why did you keep me
And then he was gone, and I was alone, and his final words were clanging in my head.
The knowledge of his cheating and lying couldn't make me cry. But those words, the truth in them...that made me cry.
When I got into my car, I connected my iPhone via USB cord and turned on Pandora. The first song to play? "Delicate" by Damien Rice. Wonderful.
once more unto the breach, dear friends
Caden
Alex passed me the joint, and I held it low as he made the turn onto Beaubien. Took a hit as we cruised past empty buildings and burned-out warehouses and graffiti-tagged storefronts, clusters of people on street corners. I was waiting for Alex to start talking. He'd been moody lately, going from manic to mopey, frantic and frenetic to dark and depressed.
Throughout my first year at CCS, Alex had remained my only friend. I had classmates and teachers. Lab partners and assignment groups and critique partners. But no friends except Alex. He didn't ask questions, just accepted me. Showed me his favorite diners and restaurants. Bought me beer since he was twenty-two, let me smoke his pot and didn't question when I didn't want to. I smoked because he did. I did like the high, but only when the loneliness got too much. Alex could only take so much of a place in my life. He was a buddy, someone to hang with. We'd sketch in silence, me at the kitchen counter, him on the couch, classic punk music playing from his iPod dock. I didn't really love punk, but it was Alex's thing, and it grew on me. Sort of.
So now, with Alex in a depressed phase that was lasting for more than a week, I was worried. And I didn't know how to handle it except to let him talk when he was ready.
He had to pull into an alley to roll another joint before he was ready to talk. I didn't smoke that one. It was all his, clamped in his lips as he circled through Detroit, cruising the midnight streets, going places we had no business going. And then he found a particularly dark street, most of the houses boarded up, drove down it at barely fifteen miles per hour, his headlights off, head craned out the window, counting houses. He found the one he was looking for, I assumed, when he pulled to a stop in front of it.
"Wait here." He got out of the car and closed the door behind him.
I felt anxiety rise in my gut. This was not the place for a white kid from Wyoming. "No, Alex, I'm not--I'm not staying here. It's not--it's not safe."
"Don't be a pussy. If anyone bugs you, tell 'em you're waiting for me. They know me here. Don't get out, just hang. I'll be right back."
"What are you going to do?"
He shot me a disgusted look through the open window. "What the fuck you think I'm doing? Having tea with the queen? Buying drugs, you hick." He smacked the door with his palm. "Just chill, bro. You'll be fine."
And so I sat, in a beat-up old Monte Carlo, pot smoke curling up around me from the smoldering roach in the ashtray, on a side street in Detroit at one-thirty in the morning. The streetlights either didn't work or flickered, lending an eerie stop-motion effect to the night. A red two-door classic Buick, long as a battleship and throbbing with bass, rolled past me. The windows were down, two shadowed faces peering at me with curious eyes. They slowed as they passed me, not even two feet away. My heart thudded in my chest, my pulse pounding and my stomach flopping. My eyes met those of the driver, and I held his gaze steadily. I didn't nod and I didn't look away. After an eternity, he lifted his chin at me and gunned the engine, vanishing around the corner.
I heard a gunshot somewhere in the distance. Sirens. Laughter from the house where Alex was buying drugs. Hard drugs, I realized. This was not the kind of house one went to with the intent of buying a bag of weed.
Another car passed, and this one didn't stop or slow down, and they didn't look at me. Fifteen minutes passed, and they felt like an hour. Eventually Alex came out, sidling slowly, a lazy grin on his face. He slid into the driver's seat, fumbling at the keys, and then leaned his head back.
"You drive," he said. "I'm blazed."
"All right. Not sure where I'm going, though." I got out and circled around while Alex slid over.
"No problem. I know where we are. I'm just too strung out to drive."
"What kind of drugs?" The question slipped out. I couldn't help it, and I was glad it had emerged.
"Does it matter? I ain't offerin' you any, that's for fucking sure. You're too nice for this shit."
"It matters. What are you on?"
He snorted. "Dude, what planet you live on? What kind of drugs do you think I would buy from a house like that, in that neighborhood? Don't you ever watch Cops?"
"Crack?"
"Yes...sir." He blew out a long breath. "You mad, bro?" He flopped his head to one side, grinning at me.
"Not mad. Worried, though."
"Don't be. It's just a little, to take off the edge."
"Edge of what?" I knew very little about Alex. Just that he had deep, dark waters inside him, and he did drugs to ease some pain I would never know, quiet voices I would never hear. For all that he was given to rambling and sharing awkward personal details, usually of his exploits with Amy, there were certain things he never discussed.
"Life, man. Just life." He stared out of his window, watching the dark, dilapidated houses pass. Every once in a while he'd direct me to turn one way or another. "I grew up in this city, man. Never left, never will. Mom was born here, Dad was born here."
"Yeah?" I sensed a confession coming.
"Yeah, man. I know her. Detroit, I mean. Her dark secrets. Things you can't imagine. You don't belong here. I do." He peered sideways at me. "Just finish your schooling, man, and get out. Don't get sucked into my world. Don't smoke my pot. Don't drink my beer. Don't listen to my secrets. They'll eat you up, man. They'll pull you in."
"Give me more credit than that, bro." I recognized a street and turned onto it, cruising slowly. "What's bugging you, man?"
Alex didn't answer for almost half a mile. "I'm falling for Amy, dude. Remember the agreement I made with her? I can't tell her. I don't know how. I thought it was just fuckin', but it's more. I can't tell her, because she don't want that. She's so goddamn cute, Cade. For real. You ain't met her, but she is. The thing about writing a book? That shit drives me crazy, but I love it. I love teasing her about it. I want her to write it. I want her to be this amazing writer. And she will be. But if I tell her I accidentally fuckin' fell in love with her, she'll call it all off, and I'll lose her. She don't wanna be with no crackhead." His words were slurred, sounding unlike himself, thick with the urban Detroit accent. "She knows exactly what I am, and she won't want no part of it."
"How do you know?"
"'Cause I asked her. If she ever thought there was more for her, for me. She laughed and said no. I was good in bed and fun to smoke down with, but she couldn't be with me for real. It wouldn't work, she said. She just smokes for fun. When she graduates, she'll give it up and get a real job, a real life. It's just a college phase for her, she said. It ain't that for me, and she knows it. It's life for me. This is all I'll ever be."
"It doesn't have to be, Alex." I turned again, bringing us around toward our apartment. "You're a talented artist and damn good bass player. You could get bigger gigs if you tried. Find a better band."
He flopped his head in a sloppy negative. "Nah. I'd lose my shit on the road. I'd be dead of an OD in a fuckin' week. The groupies would be nice, though. I've always wanted to bang two chicks at once. Amy ain't into that, though. I asked."
"Dude, don't scare me." My heart was falling away, out of the bottom of my chest.
"I'm in deep, dude. I want her bad. I'd go clean for her, if I thought that would make a difference. I'd try, at least. But she has ambitions. Teach, write. She wants to
"You're not really a crackhead, right? It's just a little, you said."
Alex laughed, leaning his head out the open window. "Dude. Get a clue. All addicts say shit like that. It's how you know an addict."
"Then why are you at CCS?"
"A desperate attempt to legitimize myself, I guess. Got a scholarship. Loans for being dirt-ass poor." He leaned forward, peering at the ashtray. "Where's that roach? I know I had a roach."
"Haven't you gotten high enough for now?" I couldn't help asking.
He shot me a look, one that spoke of depths of desperation I'd never realized existed within him. "Don't. Do not get in between me and my buzz, bro. You're my roommate. Not my friend. You don't know jack shit about me."
That hurt. I drove in silence. "So tell me," I said finally.
Alex found the roach, shut his window, cupped the butt-end of the joint between his lips, tilted his head to the side, and lit it, inhaling deeply. "Sorry, Cade. That was shitty. You know you're my bro." He blew out, opened the window again. "Not much to tell. Mom was an addict. Raised me and my little sister alone. Teen mom, no education. Same old story you hear all the time. Never knew my dad, had a parade of Mom's boyfriends in and out of my house. Some nice, some...not. A few hit her, one hospitalized her. One raped my sister. That was during my gangbanger years, and he...well, let's just say he regretted it not too long afterward. Pot, booze, crack, it was just life. The streets, gangs. Whatever. I graduated high school, barely, because Mom was unfortunate in her life and her choices, but she wasn't stupid. Neither am I. Just...dumb. 'S a difference, I think. Mom raised us best she could with what she had. But...she was trapped, you know? 'Cause of me and Annie. So I learned to use art to deal. I think you know about that. I got out of gangs when I was sixteen. Turned to art, graduated. Eventually got a scholarship to CCS. Found music, and that helps. But there's a part of me that's just...dug down deep into the roots of what this city means to people like me. It's a prison world, sometimes. Like in fuckin', what was that movie? The Riddick movie. Shit, that's what it was called. Riddick. A prison world. There's beauty here. Life. Love. But for some of us, it's all we'll ever know."