Fearless

Chapter Fourteen

The thing about memories? They store in your brain. You can go a lifetime thinking you’re totally fine and then boom, something triggers said memory and all of a sudden you’re in the fetal position. My memory had always been really good—something I hated about myself because right now, I really, really wanted to have amnesia. —Lisa

Lisa

“You can’t just tease and not follow through,” Taylor said. “Besides, I’m just taking what everyone else has already had the chance to sample.” His hands moved from my hips to my jeans, slowly undoing the zipper. “If you scream, I’ll just be that much more entertained.”

I woke up screaming.

And then, terrified that it was real and screaming would summon him, I slammed my hand over my mouth in order to muffle the sound of terror coming from my lips.

Reaching for my phone, I looked at the time—three am. I needed sleep if I had any hope of being awake for classes the next day. Today, I corrected myself.

With a grunt, I lay back down, and set my phone on the table. My hand brushed something. Curious, I turned on the light and looked down at the floor. It was an old picture of me.

Scrawled across the front at an angle were words that send a chill along my spine: Taylor and Melanie Forever.

Gagging, I barely made it to the bathroom before I lost all of my dinner from the night before.

With shaking hands, I looked at my reflection in the mirror. He couldn’t’ hurt me. He was gone. The picture was an old picture. It had probably found its way into my room from all the stacks of fan mail Gabe had been bringing in once he went to the media.

It was silly.

It meant nothing.

But the memory of his touch? I meant something, because with his touch he’d destroyed an innocence I would never get back. An innocence I’d fought for four years to forget about.

Because that’s the thing about girls. We may talk a big game, we may say we’re guys’ equals. We may even say it’s fine for us to sleep around. But the truth? I still wanted someone to want me. And I still wanted to be whole for them.

But I wasn’t whole.

Because he’d stolen that piece of me—and I knew, even though he might be gone, I couldn’t get those pieces back. They were lost forever.

My text alert went off.

Gabe: You okay? Got up to get a drink of water and thought of you, you know you can stay with us this semester. No need for you to room alone. Oh and PS Wes and Kiersten made it safely into the Bahamas—two days late.

Me: It’s fine. I think I may live off campus this year. I’ll figure it out. No worries! Gotta sleep. Yay for the happy couple!

I sighed and threw the phone onto my bed, chewing my lower lip in the process. Everyone was moving on with their lives.

And I was stuck.

Rain pelted my window. Funny, because I felt like rain most the time. Like I was meant to be sunshine but got confused and haven’t been able to free myself of the darkness for a really long time.

With a pitiful sigh, I crawled back into bed and closed my eyes. I prayed he wouldn’t visit me in my dreams again. Because whenever he visited—I was reminded of how pathetic it really was.

To want a love like Wes and Kiersten or Gabe and Saylor. To think it actually accessible, when all signs pointed to the obvious.

It would never happen. Not to me.

My heart broke all over again as warm tears slid off my cheeks onto the pillows. It wouldn’t happen for me, but I could still be the best person I could be, right? Right. That had to be enough.