27. The Hardest Goodbye
CELESTE
At some pointI must have fallen asleep because when I jerked awake sometime later, the sun was brightly pouring in through the windows. Wesley forgot to darken the glass before we went to bed, which was unheard of, but I only rolled over so that I was facing him and tugged the duvet higher over my head.
In the muted light filtering through the covers, Wesley looked more angelic than I could ever recall. His shaggy hair swept down across his forehead, curling every which way, and it was all I could do not to brush it aside so that I could drink him in. Lips slightly parted, he let out a contented sigh and gripped me tighter. Even in sleep he couldn’t bear to let me go.
The limited space between us made me very aware of the rigid morning wood he sported. As delicately as I could, I allowed one finger to trace along the side of his shaft, once again in awe of how thick and hard he became.
Suddenly, all I wanted was to forget everything. Let the world fade away until the only things that existed were our two bodies and how they joined together perfectly. Every time he brought me to release before, I had lost myself and I craved that oblivion like a crackhead craves his next fix. The numbness still filled my chest, making me brazen and desperate, and I let my hand firmly grasp Wesley’s shaft and move. Pressing my boobs further into his body, I began sucking on his neck in the way I remembered got the biggest reaction before.
“Whoa, hey!” Wesley’s hands cupped my shoulders and forced me back to look at him. He was trying to fight his arousal, judging by how far dilated his blue eyes had become, and while the rational part of my brain knew I should stop, I just couldn’t. I needed to feel something. It didn’t matter what it was as long as I remembered that I was alive and gave me a brief reprieve from the darkness.
“Please, Wes,” I whimpered. “Please, I need this. I need you.” My hand resumed its ministrations on his dick.
He tipped his head back and groaned. “Celeste, that feels so good. I don’t wanna stop you, but I don’t want you to hate me later.”
I scoffed. There wasn’t anything he could do that would make me hate him. Hate was too strong of an emotion for me to handle right now.
“Please,” I begged, my voice pleading and frantic. It must have worked because he let out a frustrated growl and shoved me on my back, kissing me harder than he ever had before. I reveled in the pain, thrusting my hips up to meet his, mewling like a cat in heat. Within seconds Wesley kissed his way down my chest, across my collar bone, and then onto my harden nipple. Our hands were clasped, pushed above my head, and I squeezed to the point of pain when he used his teeth to nip at the sensitive flesh around my nipples. My entire body felt tingly, ready to combust with the fire burning through my core.
Wesley laved his tongue further down. He swirled playfully around my belly button and I felt his smile against my abdomen when I cried out in protest. I parted my legs even more, my hips rising to meet his tongue. My hands were finally free as he wrapped his arms around my thighs to draw my pussy closer to his mouth. Quick flicks of his tongue drove me to madness, although it could have been the triumph at being right. Now that Wesley’s mouth tasted every inch of my flesh, I was more alive and aware than I had ever been before.
The orgasm was right on the cusp and I was anxious to fall over the edge. Leaning forward, I tugged on his hair to bring his mouth back to mine, my tongue warring with his in a desperation taking permanent root inside me. As Wesley adjusted his legs to prevent all his weight from resting on me, the head of his cock slipped inside my slick folds.
Both of our eyes shot open at the intrusion; it was the first time his cock touched me there. Alarm bells were going off in the back of my mind, but I was too determined to chase any feeling at this point to consider what they meant.
“Do it,” I breathed. “I want you to.”
Wesley’s eyes were so far blown there was no blue left. A tick in his jaw indicated how much effort he was using to try and restrain himself. “Celeste, I don’t have a condom. I didn’t plan this.”
I shook my head. I didn’t care. Excuses had no effect on me at the moment. The high I chased was dissipating like smoke with every second he stalled.
“Just do it. I want you so much, Wes. We love each other, right?”
After a long moment Wesley offered me a soft smile. “Yeah, we do. I’ll pull out, okay? As long as you’re sure you want this.”
It wasn’t really a matter of wanting to have sex as much as it was the knowledge that it was going to happen, and I knew deep down I was always meant to lose my virginity to Wesley Madden. I had loved him for so long. Life had forever changed when he came into the picture. Our souls recognized their other halves.
“Yes, Wesley,” I breathed. “I want this.”
My favorite megawatt smile burst across his face. It was more dazzling than the sun and had the power to burn me deeper than the light ever could. He kissed me deeply, his fingers seeking my clit and circling the swollen bud. My pussy was so wet that I could feel it dripping down my thigh.
Bracing himself on one arm, Wesley guided his cock to my entrance. Physics didn’t seem to be on my side because there was no way something that size could fit inside me. All of the girls in the school bathrooms made it sound like losing your virginity hurt, so I inhaled sharply, preparing for the sting.
The crown of Wesley’s shaft pushed inside and we both gasped at the sensation. It wasn’t entirely unpleasant, but it didn’t bring all kinds of pleasure like Maggie’s stupid magazines made us believe. My muscles clenched around him, trying to dispel the intrusion.
“I’m gonna try to go a little further in, lovebug,” Wes whispered. “You’re doing so well.”
“I love you,” I replied softly, which made him smile.
A few more inches made their way inside. “I love you, too.”
Okay, now it hurt. I turned my head away rather than let him see me grimace, knowing he would insist on stopping rather than hurting me. Pain meant I was alive. Pain was good.
Gently, Wes’ hips began to rock forward, easing out before pressing forward. Each thrust went a little farther, stretching me more and more, the pain sharp, but growing more tolerable. It took several tries before he was finally fully sheathed inside me. We both laid together, awestruck at what we were experiencing together. And as I looked up at him, the boy who had been my saving grace time and time again, I knew I would never forget this moment. All the feelings I longed for came rushing back and I couldn’t stop the tears from falling.
“Oh my god, am I hurting you?” Wesley asked in a panic.
“No!” I could have swallowed sandpaper with how gritty my voice sounded. “I just can’t believe this is happening!”
In typical Wes fashion, he pulled me closer and lightly peppered my face with kisses as he continued to thrust in and out of me. With each kiss he murmured some term of endearment, telling me how beautiful I was, how special I made him feel, how lucky he was to love me. It was the sweetest, most poignant experience of my life. His fingers returned to my clit as his thrusts grew bolder and he grew more confident in his movements. Out of nowhere, an orgasm ripped through me, curling my toes and rolling my eyes back into my head.
“Fuck, Celeste, you’re so goddamn gorgeous when you cum!” Wesley panted. His hips were plunging so hard into mine that I knew they would bruise. I welcomed the reminder that I was alive enough to feel something as powerful as love, so I gripped his backside and pulled it tighter against me.
Wesley gasped. “No, Celeste, don’t!” But it was too late. I could already feel Wesley’s cock jerking inside me as he came to release without a condom.
We were both frozen in place for a long time. Neither of us knew what to do or how to proceed now that we had unprotected sex. I winced when Wesley withdrew from me, his cock coated in a mix of cum and blood. The hollow feeling that returned the instant his body left mine hurt far worse than the loss of my virginity. Now that it was over and reality crashed back around us, I was too ashamed of my poor actions to even look at him. My daddy was on an operating table, on the verge of death, and my recourse had been to sleep with my boyfriend? What kind of fool followed that logic?
I didn’t say a word as I rolled out of bed and powerwalked down to the bathroom, locking the door behind me so Wesley couldn’t enter. Sex ed taught me enough to know that there was no way to wash the deed out of me, but I sure as hell was willing to try.
Water so hot it scalded me seemed like the appropriate baptism for my sins. I didn’t make a peep as I harshly scrubbed my skin, spending extra time washing my private areas as though it would change what happened. By the time I was done, my skin was a lush pink, blistering and raw.
With a towel wrapped around my torso, I brushed past Wes waiting at the door, refusing to look at him or address the elephant in the room. The walk in closet was set up with most of my clothes, so I made a beeline in there to dress.
Wesley followed hot on my heels. “Hey, we need to talk about this!”
I held up a hand to stop him, still refusing to meet his gaze. “I need to get back to the hospital. That’s the only thing I need right now.”
“Damn it, Celeste, don’t do this! Don’t shut me out because you’re scared!”
There was no answer I could give that would satisfy him so I remained silent. Now wasn’t the right time anyway. We both needed to process the enormity of what we had done before we could safely talk about it.
Besides, it wasn’t like unprotected sex automatically meant a baby. There were couples who tried for years and couldn’t get pregnant. It was way too soon to start worrying over things that could happen when there was enough actually happening to suffocate me. Daddy might even be out of surgery by now.
“Fuck!” Wesley roared. Out of my periphery, I saw an object fly through the air before it smashed into the full length mirror hanging on the wall. “Don’t you dare ignore me over this, Celeste! You owe me more than that!”
“Owe you?!” I screamed. “Is that how we’re gonna play it now? You do something for me and it means I owe you?! Guess you really are your father’s son!”
That was shame turning my insides to stone. It was the lowest blow I could possibly give him and I was appalled I had even said it, but I was also way too freaked out to take it back.
Wesley blinked like he was seeing me for the first time. “I’m gonna shower,” he finally said, “and hopefully when I get out, the real Celeste will be here. Because my Celeste would never intentionally hurt me like that.”
Mama was right, I realized. Hurt people really did hurt people. I would have gladly stepped into a black hole if it meant I could escape the shame and guilt swirling through me.
Well, genius, you wanted to feel something, huh?
What should have been an intimate, romantic memory with the boy I had loved for most of my adolescence was now tainted. Neither of us would ever look back on this moment without remorse and anger, and Wesley had every right to hold a grudge. And the worst part of it was that nothing could be further from the truth. The similarities between Wesley and Mr. Madden began and ended with their last name.
Thank God the mirror had shattered because I was too despicable to look at right now.
Pounding so hard the walls rattled came from the other room. Wesley, freshly showered and angrier than a thundercloud, beat me to the door and opened it to Marla and Nana’s frantic faces.
“C’mon, the hospital called! He’s outta surgery and we need to get there pronto!” Nana yelled.
My heart leapt into my throat. Hope was the most dangerous drug there was and I was riddled with it. Wesley didn’t even look at me as he swept from the room, whipping out his cell to call for his driver to meet us downstairs.
I wanted to say something to him, but a car ride with my nana and my mama’s best friend was not the appropriate setting to discuss my nonexistent virginity. It was almost a blessing that they were both so preoccupied with Daddy’s surgery that neither of them noticed Wes and I sitting on opposite sides of the car, our bodies both angled away from one another.
There was a bevy of activity on Daddy’s floor when we arrived, with a nurse shouting and a bell-like alarm going on. As we rounded the corner from the elevators, I realized everyone was running into Daddy’s room.
For once, the movies got it exactly right. Everything shifted into slow motion as I went into autopilot. Although I could see the nurses and doctors’ mouths moving, only white static echoed around me. Dr. Hassan was there, his face blurry, as he pointed towards a monitor on the wall with a long, straight line. My daddy, white as a ghost, lied flat on his back on the hospital bed, an oxygen mask over his nose and throat, while a nurse performed CPR. I already knew it was futile in the way that everyone knows the day will pass into night. Merely fact. While my daddy’s body might occupy that bed, there was no longer a living soul dwelling in it.
This wasn’t the peaceful exit most people dreamt of. This was chaos and pandemonium, with nurses and doctors hectically trying to draw life back into a corpse that refused to accept it. It was like my mind was playing tricks on me as I drew parallels between my daddy’s death and my mama’s, and suddenly it was my mama on the hospital bed with a different doctor trying to revive her. My vision went back and forth between the two extremes, recalling in minute detail every aspect of both. Their passings were both so distinct and vivid, yet utterly and inconceivably the same.
A hurried body knocked into me, damn near bowling me over, and time snapped back into the present. I could hear Nana’s gasping sobs behind me as Dr. Hassan barked orders for someone else to take over compressions and to inject something in Daddy’s IV. They hadn’t accepted what I already knew—Daddy was gone.
Numbness washed over me again, settling in next to my old pal, Grief. They were gonna be like another layer of skin for the foreseeable future.
“It’s no use, sir!” the nurse performing compressions cried.
Dr. Hassan sighed heavily. “Time of death, 1904.”
And that was it. The end of my daddy’s life was reduced to a number. Just another question on the hospital’s tedious forms. It had no consideration for the life we led, or the father he had been, the husband I could remember admiring as a little girl, the savvy businessman, or the man who was so warm and caring that he built his mother-in-law a cottage on his land just to take care of her. What did any of the doctors or nurses care that Daddy had been a real person? To them, he would never be anything more than the patient in the VIP room. Forgotten by the end of the night.
It was such a hollow, bitter pill to swallow that I could actually taste the bile rising in my throat. All of these people were gonna go home to their houses after this without any change in their lives. Yeah, they’d probably say it was a bad day at work, but for them, it was a job. A way to earn a paycheck. For me, they represented the worst day of my life. I hated every single one of them with more intensity than I would have thought possible.
Desiree burst into the room, shrieking like a hyena. “You killed my husband!”
Using that magical verb had a ripple effect around the room. Two nurses flocked to her side and Willow materialized out of nowhere with a cup of chamomile tea meant to calm Desiree’s nerves. Dr. Hassan was apologizing profusely and explaining that he believed Daddy suffered a large stroke after returning to his room, how it was an unfortunate side effect with high risk surgeries, but they did everything they could. It was all the same pandering I heard after Mama died.
Wesley’s body barreled through the room like a bullet, colliding with Dr. Hassan and pinning him against the wall. Both of Wes’ hands wrapped around the doctor’s neck as he bellowed, “YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO SAVE HIM!”
His hands were too tight for the doctor to reply. One of the nurses ran to the hallway and called for security while the other people in the room tried to pull Wesley off. Throwing one arm back when a male nurse tried to yank him off Dr. Hassan, Wes sent the man crashing into a medical cart while blood spurted from his nose from the impact.
With a bellowing roar reminiscent of a wildebeest, Wesley knocked over the room’s computer, breaking the top of the laptop away from the bottom, then grabbed Willow’s tablet and chucked it across the room at one of the windows. The screen shattered on impact, though thankfully the window remained intact.
I was too stunned to move, let alone cry. While I had seen every shade of Wesley’s temper, this was a rage so deep it was nearly black. He looked like an entirely different person, his hackles raised and his fists clenched to the point that the veins popped out on his hands. Never once looking at me, Wes tore from the room, the echoes of more items crashing ricocheting off the walls.
“How could he do this to me after I lost my dear husband!” Desiree wailed, draping an arm across her forehead and regaining the attention of most of the hospital staff. One of the nurses ran to an intercom on the wall and directed security to call the police.
“No!” I shouted. The threat of Wesley’s arrest broke through my detachment enough to run into the hallway. I was likely the only person who could calm him down.
Metal, plastic, and papers were everywhere. Several nurses were huddled together on the back wall behind the desk. Wesley acted like a cornered lion, screaming himself hoarse and swinging at anyone who dared get close enough. Three security guards were trying to trap him, their arms outstretched and ready. One sported a bloody nose, which may have been why none of them charged him.
Four police officers in tactical gear raced down the hallway, hands already on their holsters. They pressed forward, making the hospital security guards step back, and screamed at Wesley to put his hands up. Rather than complying or settling down, Wes turned around and tore a framed painting off the wall, then smashed it onto the floor. Glass shards shot out everywhere, causing all the officers to shield their eyes.
Wesley used this to his advantage and broke through their line to run for the elevators. All four cops and three security guards were immediately hot on his heels. The burliest one managed to gain on him enough to tackle him to the ground. Wesley reared his head back to head butt the officer. Blood spurted from the guy’s mouth as he swore every cuss word in the book.
After that, none of them were gentle with him. Two officers pinned Wesley’s head down while another sat on his legs. The cop who straddled him pulled Wes’ hands behind his back and cuffed them.
I found my voice and shot forward. “Please don’t arrest him, sir!” I cried. If my tears moved them at all, not a single officer showed it. “He’s just upset!”
One of the cops hauled Wesley up to a standing position. “He’s also a menace with a one way ticket to downtown.”
As I started to protest, Wes let out an exasperated sigh. “Don’t worry, babe, I’m just doing exactly what good, ol’ Benny Madden would do.” There was only darkness in his eyes as he glared at me, and the tiny fraction of my heart that remained from my daddy’s death was pulverized.
“Come on, you!” One of the cops shoved him forward while a nurse quietly asked the security guard and the police officer with blood on their faces to sit down so she could help get them cleaned up.
Helpless. I was totally helpless. This was normally a situation where I would immediately go to Daddy to sort out. Quite frankly, I didn’t need Wesley’s jarring reminder that he was no longer with us—it was already a pain embedded in my DNA. As I watched the officers surround him to get onto the elevator, I saw fat tears roll down Wesley’s cheeks. Grief had finally introduced himself to Wesley Madden.