Falling

38

“You okay?” I ask while I drive us to the tattoo parlor. She’s fidgety and a bit vacant. Placing my hand over hers, I question, “Were you this nervous when you did this the last time?”

“No . . . well, kinda. I dunno. It was different then.”

“You don’t have to do this today. We can always call Jared and reschedule.”

She shakes her head and then looks over at me. “No, it’s fine. I’m sure I’d be just as nervous if it were any other day. Let’s just get it done.”

I hold her clammy hand for the rest of the short drive. When we arrive and walk in, Jared is the only one here. He came in early so that it would only be the three of us.

“You look like you’re about to puke,” he teases her and laughs. “You’ve been through this before. No big deal, right?”

“Right,” she responds with a nervous smile as we follow him back through the shop and into his booth.

Candace takes a seat on top of the black table, and I stand next to her, still holding her hand.

“So, what are you thinking about doing?” he asks her.

“Umm . . .”

Jared squeezes her knee, and soothes, “Relax.”

She looks over at me, and then looks back, telling him, “Can we just fill it in?”

“That’s it? Damn, girl, by the way you’re acting I thought you were gonna tell me to wrap a skull around it or some shit,” he jokes, and it’s just what she needs as she laughs with him.

Jared gets everything set up, and when he slips on his black latex gloves, he instructs her to lie back and shift her pants down.

“So, no more empty heart,” he mumbles as he slips the paper cloth under the edge of her pants, and she laces her fingers with mine as I stand over her.

“No more empty heart,” she repeats as she looks up at me.

We talked about what she was going to do with the tattoo the other day when she told me that she wanted to keep it small. She said that she wanted to simply fill it in, and I was worried that it wouldn’t be enough of a change for her. But she assured me that it would be, and I know it holds a new significance for her. I’m glad she sees her heart in this way now—full—no longer empty.

Once the gun starts buzzing, Candace squeezes her eyes shut, and it takes less than a minute for him to be done. Jared and I both laugh when she opens them back up.

“You guys are evil,” she tells us as she sits up after Jared applies a small bandage over the area.

“Let me know when you’re ready for that skull,” he says with smirk.

Candace hops off the table and says with joking aside, “Thank you.”

He smiles at her, saying, “Anytime,” followed by a wink. “This one’s on the house, so I expect a few hook-ups with those scones.”

Returning his smile, she tells him, “Of course. See you later.”

“Later, guys.”

Walking outside, the mist still fills the air. When I open the door and help her up into her seat, I ask, “Happy?”

“Happy,” she confirms with a kiss to my lips.

I hope now every time she sees that tattoo, she is no longer taken back to that night.

Three weeks have passed and Candace has been tied up at the studio almost daily, preparing for the production in May. She has the lead in all of the ensembles she’s dancing in, plus a duet and her solo.

She’s yet to mention what might happen after she graduates. It’s nearing the end of April, so we only have a couple months until she’s finished with school here. I know she doesn’t know where she’ll be, but offers should start coming in after her performance next month.

I don’t want to stress her out with everything she has on her plate right now, so I haven’t broached the topic, but I know it’s on her mind. It has to be. I know she loves me, but I wonder what she’s thinking and what she wants, because I’m so clear with what I want.

Max has really stepped up and gotten the bar under control since I brought him on as manager. I’m confident with leaving him in charge if I have to move. It’s the best situation for the time being, but she has no idea that’s the reason why I promoted him.

Tonight, Max has arranged for one of the bands Gavin represents to put on a concert at the bar, and Candace agreed to come along. We met up this morning for a quick run, but then I had to spend the day up at work. I left a little while ago to go pick her up since she left her car at my place last night.

When I get to her house and walk into her room, my stomach drops. There are a few cardboard boxes packed up with her belongings. I wanna ask her. I wanna know where we stand in the mix of everything that is about to happen, but that’s gonna be a long conversation that we don’t have time for right now.

“Babe, you ready?” I ask, no longer wanting to think about any of this shit.

“Yeah, I just need to grab my jacket.”

As she walks into her closet, I feel like I should prepare her for what the bar will be like tonight, so I tell her, “So, it’s going to be busy. A lot busier than the past few times you’ve been. You sure you’re okay with that?”

Walking out of the closet, she looks at me and says, “I mean, if it’s too much then I can always go upstairs until you’re ready to leave.”

Grabbing her hand and yanking her flush against me, I suggest, “Or we could just stay here and break in your bed a bit more,” remembering our sweaty sex session this morning after our run.

“I think we should go now and break in the bed later,” she says with a blushing smile.

Leaning down, I playfully nip on her lips before we head up to the bar.

The place is packed when we arrive. We park out front, and Candace eyes the crowd of people waiting to get in. Walking to the door, Max sees us and comes to Candace’s side, holding on to her as he walks us in. I keep her hand in mine, and she grips it tightly as Max leads us through the throngs of people. The band is already playing, and the music blasts through the building as we round the back of the bar and spot Jase, Mark, Gavin, and a few of our other friends.

“Hey, guys,” Jase hollers and then takes Candace in his arms. I watch as he orders them some shots, and I call out to Mel for a beer.

We have this area cornered off, so Candace is relaxed with it only being our friends around her. I hang out and bullshit with Gavin and Mark while Jase and Candace take their shots and start goofing around with each other.

After a while, I turn to see Candace chatting with Mel who is working behind the bar. They’ve started talking on the phone, and the two of them have gotten together to hang out a couple of times. I know Mel is going through some shit, but Candace says that she isn’t letting it take too much out of her. It’s great that the two of them are starting to become friends and to see Candace coming out of her shell a little bit more.

A couple hours pass, and Max leaves us when the band takes a break. I catch Candace standing a few feet away from me, leaning over the bar, whispering something to Mel and making her laugh. She looks incredible in her dark jeans, fitted grey v-neck sweater, and her hair pulled up on top of her head from the heat of all the people in here tonight. She’s simple and stunning. She doesn’t even have to try, she just is. When she turns and catches me ogling her, she shoots me a smile before walking over to me and into my arms.

“What are you doing?” she asks.

“Staring,” I give her blatantly as I lower my lips to hers.

She smiles up at me, and the band returns to the stage, playing their next set. It’s loud when I tell her, “Hey, I need to run up to my office to grab some papers for Mel before I forget. Do you want to stay down here?”

“I’ll go with you,” she shouts over the music.

Max hasn’t come back, so I grip her hand and pull her in close as I start pushing us through the crowd. She clings tightly to me as we bump shoulders with nearly everyone we pass, and I know she must be freaking out with the contact. I pull her a little when I feel her stumble, but then her body goes rigid and she starts shuffling back against my hold.

“What are you doing?” I holler over the crowd.

Her eyes are focused on something, but I can’t figure out what it is in this chaos. She tugs against my arm, and when I turn, she falls out of my hold and onto the floor. Terror streaks across her face, and she panics, stumbling back on her hands. I grab her, and when she makes it to her feet, she turns and starts to bolt. Quickly, I link my arm around her waist from behind, leaning over her shoulder, shouting, “Babe, what’s wrong?”

“It’s Jack!” she yells in a panic, trying to pry my hands off of her to get away.

“Who?”

“Get me out of here!” she shrieks, thrashing to get out of my hold. “I can’t breathe! Get me out of here!”

I don’t even question her; I tuck her under my arm and rush her, as fast as I can, to the door. Spotting Jase through the mass of people, I call out to him, “Jase!” but I don’t wait to see if he heard me or not because all I’m focused on is getting Candace out. She has her hands clutched to my arms that are holding on to her.

Making it past the door and outside, she’s shaken and barely breathing when she breaks away from me and runs to my jeep.

“Babe, what the fuck happened in there?” I ask, when we get to my car, her whole body shaking. “Who the fuck did you see?”

She falls with her back against the side of the car and grabs on to my shirt as she’s crying, gasping for a decent intake of air.

“Jack is in there. We have to leave.”

“Who’s Jack?”

“Him! Jack is . . .” Her cries are strained when I see Jase approach, asking in shock, “Candace, what happened?”

“Jack’s inside.”

“Oh, shit!”

“Who the fuck is Jack?!” I scream, confused as fuck with what’s playing out in front of me.

“The guy that attacked her,” Jase tells me.

Everything stops.

Grabbing on to Candace’s shoulders, I demand, “Get in the car. Now.” I pull my keys out of my pocket and hand them to Jase, yelling at him, “Get her in the fucking car!”

Everything tunnels as I turn from everything good in my life and walk away.

One second. That’s all it took.

Suspended in a false reality where actions and consequences no longer exist. Where rage boils so deep inside your veins that you’d do almost anything to drain them. I’d bleed it all out for her.

Chaos. I’m in it when I slam through the doors and bark out, demanding only the way a feral animal would, “Where’s Jack?!”

When the guy to my left points him out, I come unleashed.

Without a conscious thought, I grab ahold of the hair on the side of his head and drive him with unrelenting force as I smash his face into the brick wall, blood splattering everywhere. The screams around me are nothing but hollow echoes as I keep my hand fisted in his hair and with one fluid movement, jerk him back and throw him to the floor, hearing the crack of wood as his head clips the edge of the table on his way down.

I watch his eyes roll back with heavy lids as I slam my fist into his face. Over and over. Blow after blow. I’m ravaged with hate, feeding this guy his own blood as I knock another punch into the side of his jaw, giving him only a small piece of what he gave my girl. I’m blinded by the rage that pounds in my chest. I’m gonna fuckin’ kill this piece of shit as I ram my fist into him until I’m suddenly pulled back.

I can’t feel anything besides the strain in my muscles, tense with fire.

“Breathe, man!” I hear Max yelling in my ear from behind me. His large hands are clamped to my arms, pinning them to my sides as I try to jerk out of his grasp. When I peel my eyes off of the sorry fucker lying there, spewing blood, I see Mark in front of me, hands against my chest, holding me back. Everything moves in slow motion around me when suddenly the noises start to filter in clearly. No more static. Everything in full force around me.

“Get the fuck off of me,” I seethe at Max.

“What the hell is going on?”

Yanking myself out of his grip, I turn and lean into his ear, forcing out the words, “He raped Candace.”

His head snaps up as he looks at me, and I see the fury in his eyes grow.

“Get the fuck outta here, man,” he tells me in a low growl.

Looking down, the guy is starting to come to, when I say, “No way, man.” I’m not even close to being finished with him. “This guy’s dead,” I spit out, and before I can propel myself on him again, Max pulls me back, and says, “You left her outside. Go!”

“Dude, she’s outside, hysterical!” Mark shouts.

That’s all he needed to say to grab me. To suck me out of this tunnel.

Looking at Max straight on, I give him my hard words, “Finish him off, and throw this piece of shit out by that dumpster.” I feel my tears well up as he nods at me. “I’m not fuckin’ kidding, man!”

“I hear you, boss,” he says when I turn to Jack, draw my foot back, and kick the living shit out of him, cramming my boot into his balls. The pained shriek that rips through his throat is the last sound I hear as I storm out, fists still clenched when I spot my girl sobbing in the front seat of my car.

“Keys,” I quietly demand as I pass Jase.

Hopping into the car, I keep my eyes to the front. I’m still fuming, and my racing heart is making it hard to take in a solid breath. I need to get the hell out of here before the cops show up, but all I want to do is go back and destroy every little piece of that sack of shit.

I know I’m scaring Candace; I know how sensitive she is, but I also know that if I open my mouth right now, I’ll probably really upset her. So I stay quiet and focus on bringing my heart rate down and calming myself. I don’t even realize how firm my grip is on the steering wheel until I feel the blood from my knuckles running down the back of my hand.

By the time I pull up to the loft, my breathing has slowed, and I’m in a daze with all that just happened. Everything that I never wanted to do in front of her, I just did. And without a single second thought. Completely shut down, letting my anger get the best of me. I wouldn’t have been able to control it even if I wanted to. And the sick thing is, I’m still not satisfied.

Parking the car, I get out and walk around to her door. When I open it, I see her reddened face, soaked with tears. I grab on to her hips and turn her towards me as I drop my head onto her lap and cry. It hurts too much to keep it in, so I let it out. I feel her body as she leans down and drapes it over mine.

I hate every piece of me that I got from him. Pounding my fists into someone else to try and make myself feel better when all I feel is worse. It’s as if I could stand in front of a mirror, and the reflection I’d see would be that of my father.

Candace holds on to me, hands threaded in my hair, but not even her touch can take this misery away. Knowing that I can’t escape what’s in my blood. I hate that I scared her, but I don’t hate what I did to that guy. I’d do it again, and worse. I just hate that this asshole has infected what Candace and I have. That he holds this power over both of us and has the ability to stir up so much pain.

When her grip loosens on me, I lift my head up, and I can see the torment in her eyes as she wipes the tears from my face. There’s blood on her fingers as I reach for her hand to hold, and I know it has to be Jack’s, so I walk her inside and straight to the bathroom. As she cleans her hands in the sink, I hop into the shower and watch the muddled, red water running off of me, taking his blood down the drain.

I can hear Candace crying, and my heart just crumbles to have her so upset. I’m terrified to see what this has done to her. She’s always been nervous of crowds because she’s always feared running into him. Now that it’s happened, I’m worried she’s going to shut down. Worried about what this has stirred up and awakened inside of her.

I quickly finish up, throwing on a pair of boxers, and slide into bed with her where she’s curled up, crying into her pillow. I scoop her in my arms, and it isn’t but seconds before I feel her tears running down my chest. Sliding us down in the bed and under the covers, I hold her close, and her loud cries begin to soften.

She draws her head back and then presses her lips to mine, but my stomach is in knots so it’s hard for me to do much of anything aside from keeping myself still.

“Make love to me,” she whispers before covering my lips with hers again.

I can’t do this. Not now.

“Baby, you’re crying.”

“I don’t care,” she says when she tugs me in and starts kissing my neck, but I don’t want to do this. It feels wrong, and she’s so upset. Pulling back to look at me, tears still spilling out, she says, “Kiss me.”

“Candace, you’re upset.”

“I need to be close to you right now. I want to get him out of my head, and you’re the only one who can do that for me.”

I roll on top of her, hating what I’m about to do because it feels so wrong when she’s hurting so bad. “Are you sure, babe?”

“Yes.”

The thought of making love to her in the shadow of him makes me sick, but if this is what she needs, I won’t deny her. As soon as I slip my hand under her top and take her breast in my hand, she starts pulling my boxers down. Rushing.

“Candace,” I plead, wanting her to slow down.

“Please, Ryan.”

Hearing her desperate voice, I take off my boxers and then sit back as I remove her shorts. She quickly strips her top off and pulls me down to her, urging me, so I go ahead and slide inside of her. Nothing about this feels right. With her eyes closed, she grabs my hips, wanting me to move faster, so I do. As she clings to me, and I give her a part of me that I never wanted to experience with her. She won’t look at me, and I don’t feel like I could even ask that of her. Holding on to my hips, she encourages me to thrust myself inside of her. I never wanted it to be this way with us. So disconnected and too fast.

I watch as she cries. She’s cried while we’ve made love in the past but for completely different reasons. It kills me to know that it isn’t me behind her closed eyes; it’s chaos mixed with me. It’s him, it’s that night, it’s this night, it’s everything I never wanted to bring into our bed.

Moving at the speed we are, it doesn’t take long for both of us to come, and when I roll off of her, I pull her close to me and cling to her, hating what we just did. My chest is heavy, and my throat is achingly tight. I reach down and find her hand, locking my fingers with hers.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispers on a broken voice. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

And even though I never want to do that again, I would if it was really what she needed, so I tell her, “Don’t be. You take whatever you need from me,” because I’d give it all no matter how much it hurt me just to take away an ounce of her pain.

Waking in the middle of the night, I open my eyes to see light filtering from underneath the bathroom door. Candace isn’t in bed with me, and when I walk over to the closed door, I can hear her soft cries on the other side. Slowly, I open the door to find her sitting on the edge of the tub with her head in her hands.

Kneeling down in front of her, I rest my hands on her legs. She doesn’t respond to my presence, she just keeps her face covered as she tries to control the sobs that are breaking through.

“Talk to me, baby. Please.”

“It’s . . . I just, I can’t get it out of my head now.” When she lets her hands fall, her eyes are so swollen and red. “I don’t know what to do anymore.”

Her wrecked voice penetrates me, and I feel my throat begin to restrict again as I fight my own tears back.

“I’m so sorry,” I release on a hard breath. “I’m sorry I lost it like that and scared you.” I pause for a moment, and then admit, “I scared myself.”

She catches her breath and looks at me. She’s worn out, but I continue to talk.

“I wanted to kill him.” Those are the words that break me and cause the tears to escape. “I would have killed him if it weren’t for Max pulling me off of him. I’ve only wanted to kill one other person in my life, and he’s dead. And now I wonder if I’m turning into him.”

When I drop my head onto her lap, she lifts it back up and holds my face in her hands as she says through her tears, “You’re nothing like him. I don’t have any doubt about saying that. And I’m not scared of you. I never have been.”

“I completely lost control. Wasn’t even fully aware of what I was doing.”

She slides off the edge of the tub and onto the floor with me as we wrap each other up in our arms.

“I wasn’t scared of you, Ryan. I was just so scared of losing you,” she cries. “I was afraid you’d kill him and I wouldn’t have you.”

“Baby, I’m so sorry. But I’m here. I swear you’re not gonna lose me,” I assure her. “I promise you that he will never step foot in my bar again.”

We cling to each other, and when we both calm down, she softly says, “I’m sorry about earlier. I just . . . I wasn’t thinking.”

“Don’t be sorry, babe. I love you. I’d give you just about anything if you asked me for it.”

“It was wrong. Selfish.”

Brushing the hair off of her face, I tell her, “Do you know how much I love you?”

“Hmm,” she hums.

“You don’t ever have to worry about me because I’ve never wanted anyone the way I do you.”

She kisses me, and I linger in it before picking her up and taking her back to bed. I can’t help the worry that still consumes me. I wonder how she’s going to feel about everything when she wakes up. I can only hope that tonight doesn’t have a lasting impact on her because I feel like she was just starting to come out of herself. But all I can do tonight is hold on to her, hold on to my hope.