Chapter Sixteen Forgotten Ghost
Chapter Sixteen:
Forgotten Ghost
Alaina
It shouldn’t hurt this bad seeing him here. It shouldn’t. But that was a tough signing and I’m already feeling just about as raw and vulnerable as a person can, and now he’s here? For what? To rub it in some more than I’m a filthy liar whose only thought is getting dick?
I can’t deal with this right now, but I don’t have an escape, either. Best to face it head on and get it over with.
“Here for an autograph?” I quip, stacking the remaining books back in the box. “Pen’s freshly broken, sorry.”
To hammer it home, I grab the pen I was using and snap it in half.
He drops his gaze to the ink that’s now dripping onto the table and nods his head. “That’s fair. I actually already read it anyway,” he admits as he meets my gaze. “Can we talk somewhere privately?”
There’s a small crowd of younger women hovering near the door who seem to know who he is, and when one of them snaps a photo of us, I realize I don’t really have a choice.
“Come with me.” I don’t know this bookstore well, but they do have a back room that’s only used for storage. I lead him there with my heart somewhere in my boots. “Leave the door open, no one will hear us back here. He closed the store for the signing.”
He starts to push the door closed anyway before thinking better of it, and when he scratches along his jaw nervously, I know he’s going to drag whatever this is out. “So, uh... Hi. How are you?”
Exhausted. Wrung out, stressed out, and basically left for dead.
“How am I?” I repeat. “What exactly are you doing here, Bash?”
He exhales so deeply his shoulders slump. “I came to apologize. I was an ass about the whole thing, and you didn’t deserve that. Even if you were lying you didn’t deserve that.”
“Jesus Christ, you still think I’m lying?
Is this a sadism thing for you? Can’t get your rocks off unless you’re making someone else feel like shit?
Cool, Bash. Fine. I lied. Want me to tattoo it on my fucking forehead?
Go on national television and tell the whole world I lied about being a Dr. Pepper drinking ghost girl so I could get bred and fucking publically humiliated twice? ”
His eyes widen as he hastily holds up his hands in surrender.
“Whoa, what the fuck? That’s not — fuck.
I didn’t mean for it to come out as though I didn’t believe you still.
I was saying even if you were lying I still shouldn’t have acted the way I did.
But I know you weren’t lying now. I believe you. ”
My traitorous hands are shaking so badly, I ball them into fists tight enough to leave bloody crescent moons all over my palms. I’m not letting him do this.
“Congratulations on being the last to know, then. Anything else I can help you with today?”
The shock on his face almost makes me feel bad for him, but that sympathy is quickly absorbed by my rage when I realize he actually thought that’s all it would take. “I... guess... no? Wait, yes. Alaina, I’m sorry.”
All I wanted was to thank him and he wouldn’t hear it. Now he expects me to just accept his apology?
You’re better than this, I remind myself. You’re better than he is.
Deflating, I purse my lips together in the closest thing to a smile I can muster. “Apology accepted. Now maybe you can accept the gratitude I was trying to give you all along and we can both move along with our lives. Separately.”
His face falls even further before he steps in so close I can smell his cologne. “Separately?”
“I’m trying to do some good here, Bash. My entire life has been drowned in blood and tears, and I would’ve thought you of all people would understand how hard this is for me.
You read the books and clearly you heard about the tour, which means you know exactly what I’m doing here.
It’s not so different from you writing your emotions and screaming them to thousands of people — the only difference is that I get to listen to them scream their emotions back at me, you just hear noise.
I don’t have it in me to help them and deal with —” I vaguely gesture toward him as I take a step back — “This.”
Frowning, he stops his hand midway like he was about to touch me. “Would you have had the time for it if I never fucked it up?”
That’s an excellent question. If he wants honesty, that’s what I’ll give him.
“Yes, I would have. I was all in with my little delusion that you were going to believe me, and then you didn’t.
And you didn’t just think I was lying, you used me because you assumed I was using you.
If it weren’t for that, I wouldn’t have even made this change.
I’d have stuck to the signings themselves and let other people’s grief be their own, but you put me in a position where I had to really look at myself and what I was doing with my life.
So yeah, I guess I’d have made the time if things had gone differently, but they didn’t, and now these people need me. ”
“And what about you?” he asks, lowering himself when I try to drop my gaze to catch it again. “What do you need, Alaina?”
I need him to be the man I thought he was, but that’s not fair to him. No one grows up to be the same as they were when they were twelve, and humans rarely live up to the expectations we have for them.
Every part of me wants to curl against him, breathe in the scent of his cologne, and cry until I don’t have any tears left.
I want him to kiss them all away, hold my hand, and make me forget every terrible thing that’s ever happened to me, but he can’t.
Or won’t, one of the two. He can’t rebuild my walls for me, not this time.
“I need the world to stop trying to smother everything good inside it,” I say flatly.
“I need children to grow up in decent homes, for people to be able to trust their spouses not to hurt them. I need to not live in a society that values billionaires over the most vulnerable amongst us. Can you do that, Bash? Can you change the world?”
He takes two steps back to slump against a wall with a sigh. “No. I wish I could, but I don’t have that kind of power. If anyone is strong enough to change the world, it’s you. Not me.”
“Then I have everything I need. I appreciate you stopping by to clear the air, and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to thank you for what you did for me back then.
I genuinely believe you saved my life in more ways than one, but we were kids.
” Taking a half step toward the door, I add, “You’re off the hook, Bash. I don’t need saving this time.”
It’s the first lie I’ve ever told him, but I see it written all over his face. He believes me. The time I needed him to call out a lie is the time he chooses to take me at my word. Typical.
“Okay. But can you do me a favor before you walk out of here? Can you save my number in your phone?”
If nothing else, it’ll tell me which calls to ignore. I hand it over. “Go ahead.”
He takes his time saving it, eyes flicking between me and the screen a few times before he gives it back. “Use it. We were friends once. That doesn’t have to only be our past, it can be our future too.”
Yeah, I’m sure it can. “Are you capable of just being my friend?”
His body language says absolutely the fuck not, but he sets his jaw and nods his head once.
Yeah, that’s super believable. Every instinct in my body tells me that agreeing to this is a mistake, but I can’t bring myself to say no. It’s stupid and incredibly idiotic, but even now, I just want to take him home and start over.
“Friends, then.”
“Do friends hug?”
Normal ones, yes. I just have a feeling that if I hug him, all the rot inside of me will cover our shoes and rise until it drowns us both. I don’t think I’m stable enough to hug him right now.
So, I do the only logical thing I can do and wrap my stupid, traitorous arms around him anyway.
He squeezes me against him like he’s desperate for the contact, and I hate how good it feels to be in his arms. “Do friends kiss?”
I sure wish they did. The butterflies in my stomach agree, but I can’t get the look on his face out of my head. The one he donned after he came inside me and made me cry, then kicked me out.
This isn’t the man for me.
“No, friends don’t kiss,” I say firmly, stepping back. “You said you could handle it.”
“I’m just trying to figure out the rules, baby girl. I’ll do whatever you want me to do.”
Again, my stomach flips at the pet name. “Then the rules are as follows: my name is Alaina, we do not touch, and from the moment we walk out of here, we’re long distance acquaintances.”
He’s frowning again, but something about the expression that comes across his face tells me he’s far from giving up. “Am I allowed to have a rule too?”
No.
“Of course.”
“Use my number.” He steps closer, but this time he seems to be moving toward the exit. “Long distance acquaintances check in with each other.”
So he’s putting it on me. Good. “I’m fairly busy at the moment, but I will. Thanks for coming, Bash. I hated the way that all went down.”
He’s not leaving happy, but I can tell that is something we both agree on. “Me either. That’s not me, okay? I won’t pretend that type of asshole isn’t inside of me, but that’s not who I want to be. I shouldn’t have bred you without your consent.”
That’s the part that bothers him? It takes all of the energy I have left not to roll my eyes. “Well, at least we got it out of our systems. It wasn’t exactly the ending I’d have preferred, but still.”
“Right,” he agrees sarcastically. “Out of your system. Got it. Use the damn number, Alaina. I may not be allowed to kiss you, but I’m allowed to call you out and tell you not to be hard-headed. What else are friends for, hmm?”
“Hard-headed? Bash, I came to talk to you. You shoved me face-first against a wall, fucked me, bred me, made me cry, then kicked me out with your cum running down my thighs. I had to drive home like that. After care? Never heard of her. So yeah, it’s out of my system. Sorry.”
Pushing past him, I mumble out loud to myself about entitled rockstars until he grabs my hand and tugs me back. “No, I’m sorry. I keep fucking this up.”
He presses his forehead against mine in a way that’s not friendly at all, and I could murder my own nervous system for immediately resorting to shock.
Fuck fight or flight, apparently my trauma response is as it's always been — shaking like a fucking leaf. “I’m sorry. It’s been a really tough day for me, some of the people here had worse stories than I do. I’m a little on edge.”
“And I take it that’s not something friends can help with?”
He brushes his thumpb along my jaw and lifts my gaze to meet his.
God, he’s beautiful. Those orange eyes burn holes right through me and make me forget what it felt like to leave his trailer that night, to leave the dinner in disgrace.
“What are you doing to me, Bash?”
“I could ask you the same thing,” he whispers, leaning in to ghost his lips against mine, and when I don’t immediately pull away, he takes it as consent to kiss me.
He holds my face with both hands as he deepens it, his tongue dancing with mine until every part of me gives into him. I shouldn’t, I know that, but this feels good in a way nothing else has.
I need this, and if he’s willing to give it, who am I to complain?