Forever Burn Page 5

  “Whatever. I let you win,” he said.

  “You let me?” I stifled a laugh. “Yeah, right.” Axe smirked, amused by my reaction. “You want a rematch?” I offered.

  “I’m good.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

  I bent down to pick up my cup of tokens, my heart pausing as Axe began to speak again.

  “There’s something about you that I like,” he said.

  I paused for a quick second before reminding myself not to let him or anything he said faze me.

  “Thanks,” I responded, trying to avoid eye-contact with him.

  He shook his head, a perfect smirk still resting upon his face. “So damn stubborn.”

  “I prefer to be stubborn.”

  “I can tell.”

  I shrugged, trying to end the conversation there. I didn’t know what to make of his comment. Was it a compliment? I couldn’t even tell.

  “You know you don’t have to pretend be a bitch around me, right?” he asked.

  “Maybe I’m not pretending.”

  Axe tilted his head, refusing to believe my words. “Oh, c’mon. I see right through it.”

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “I just know,” he softly said.

  “You don’t know anything,” I shook my head, unable to hide the tiny grin upon my lips.

  After spending the entire day with Axel, I was just as confused as ever. We went everywhere from the arcade to the mall to a pizza joint.

  I laid in my bed, staring at the ceiling, deep in thought. The image of Axel’s beautiful and lively smile kept finding its way into my mind, and every time I pushed it away, it only came back. This was the exact thing that I was afraid of. Vulnerability to feelings. Not knowing what was going on in his head. And the worst, the lack of control of the situation itself.

  I couldn’t stop thinking about my flashback from the previous night. Axel had been there to stop it, and that was exactly what I didn’t need. I was thankful that he had snapped me out of it, but I didn’t want to have to rely on someone to take away or control my flashbacks for me. I wanted to be able to do that on my own.

  He floated around in my thoughts. The memory of his departure fresh in my mind, even though it happened over a year ago. All the moments I had with him and all the distraught tears that had fallen because of him, were engrained in my memory. Every move he had made had wrecked my independence, my trust, and my confidence, and he never cared that he was doing so. What he did to me wasn’t fair and I often wondered why nobody else I knew ever had to go through anything remotely close to that situation. And even after all this time of him being gone, his presence stayed to haunt me.

  I tossed and turned, trying to shake away the thoughts, until I finally fell asleep.

  Four years ago, I sat on the edge of my bed, crying at the realization that my first real relationship was ending. After an entire year of being with Connor, he sat across the bed from me, unfazed by the situation.

  “I just feel like you don’t love me anymore,” I managed to get out, holding my teddy bear tightly.

  Connor looked me dead in the eyes for a second, before looking away. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

  My heart shook, devastated by his response. How could he say that to me? Did I really mean nothing to him after an entire year of being together?

  He checked the time on his phone. “I, um, I have to go now. I have plans,” he stated, giving me a gentle hug, and then walking out. After a minute, I slugged out of my room and stood at the top of the stairs. I watched from the banister as he slipped his shoes on by the front door. Please turn around, I thought. Please look at me. Please don’t go.

  Connor opened the front door, letting himself out, but not looking back.

  Within the next week, rumors sparked of his new relationship with Nicole, his coworker. But unfortunately for me, the rumors turned out to be true. He had been cheating on me for months. I was so blinded by the way I felt for him, that I hadn’t even noticed the signs. He would ignore me for hours on end, refused to make plans with me, and picked up extra shifts at work. How could I be so incredibly blind?

  Throughout the summer and next school year, I watched from afar as Connor and Nicole fell in love. He showered her with attention and affection, giving her the perfect relationship that he never gave me. She gave me dirty looks every chance she could, and he did his absolute best to make his hatred for me known. I compared myself to her, wondering why I wasn’t good enough. She was beautiful, but everyone who knew her personally said she was a bitch.

  I often found myself crying in the bathrooms at school, distraught by not only the sight of them together, but also by the way they were carelessly treating me.

  When Connor and I were put in the same Chemistry class, he made dick comments to me from across the room, embarrassing me every chance he got. And each time I ignored him, the comments only became more persistent. Eventually he dropped the class, but it didn’t take away the bad taste that chemistry left in my mouth.

  When the next summer rolled around, marking the one-year anniversary of our breakup, my phone buzzed with a text. And so, it began. The apologies poured out of Connor’s mouth as he tried his best to win me back. But the truth was that I didn’t want him back. I didn’t feel like dealing with his nonsense, but the more relentless he became, the more I started to give in.

  Connor promised up and down that if I ever forgave him, he would never leave again. He told me that he wished he had chosen me instead of Nicole and even when he recited over and over again how much he regretted leaving me, he still found a way to turn the tables on me. He put the blame on me.

  “I might have been the one that left, but you’re the one who let me leave! You let me walk out the door that day and she never let me do that, even when I tried to! So, this is your fault too!” he threw in my face. “She cares about me more than you do. She fights for me.”

  “I fight for you too,” I’d quietly argue back.

  “No, you don’t. All you do is walk away. That’s all you know how to do. You never know how to solve or fix anything!”

  The more he said it, the more I started to believe it and the more I compared myself to Nicole. I began to blame myself.

  I would cry to myself silently, disappointed that I had let him back into my life in the first place. I was too embarrassed to talk to other people about it. And not only that, but I never wanted to bother people with my own problems, so I kept it all in.

  The pain was drilled so deep within me that I started a war with myself. Every day was a different battle between forgiving him and walking away. And every time I communicated my feelings to Connor, his reaction would be different. If he wasn’t yelling at my indecisiveness, then he was soft, comforting me and affirming me that everything would be okay. The manipulation was hidden behind kind eyes, narcissism hidden behind a beautiful smile. Each day I changed my mind, going back and forth between what I wanted. Exhaustion began to take its form under my eyes.

  But Nicole wasn’t gone. She begged for Connor and as much as he told me he didn’t want to be with her, I absolutely had my doubts. The second Connor would leave my house, he was at hers. And the worst part was that I knew it. He was playing us both, telling us the same things as he kissed our skin within hours apart of each other. But even though I knew it, part of me still hoped I was wrong.

  “It’s over between me and her,” he said, reaching for my hand as we sat on the couch. “I only want you.”

  “Then please just block her and delete her number and stop hanging out with her,” I requested.

  He dropped my hand. “I can’t do that,” he shook his head.

  “Why not?”

  “Because…” he glanced around, “I still need to make sure that she’s okay.”

  “You didn’t make sure I was okay when you left me,” I said.

  He zipped around to face me. “Well that’s in the past. I can’t fix that. What do you want me
to do about it?”

  I already hardly trusted Connor after what he had put me through the year prior, and I wasn’t about to be cheated on again. “Well, if she’s going to be around still, then I don’t know if I could be with you.”

  He shook his head. “You’re overthinking.”

  “I’m not overthinking,” I said.

  “Yes, you are. You’re making everything about her. How do you expect us to move on if you’re making everything about her?” he snapped.

  I looked down for a second, wondering if it truly was my fault. Was I overthinking? Was I the reason why we kept arguing every damn day? I couldn’t be. Right?

  “You’re not really giving me any choice…” I said in my small, frail voice.

  Connor angrily stood up. He stomped over to the front door and opened it, stepping to the side of it. He turned back to me. “Fine. Then leave. Like you always do. That’s the only thing you’re good at.”

  I studied my lap as a single tear started to fall down my cheek, but I caught it and wiped it away before Connor could notice. I took a deep breath as I stood up and walked past Connor out the door.

  I hopped in my car and started to drive home, trying to keep myself as calm as possible. I loved him, but I needed to do what was best for me. Right? Or was he what was best for me? I couldn’t even tell at this point.

  My phone started pinging over and over again in my lap and after a few minutes, curiosity got the best of me. I pulled over to read the text messages that had been flooding my phone, stress overwhelming me as more rolled in.

  Connor could see that I was reading them and not responding. My silence only caused more of a reaction from him. But what I didn’t understand was why he was texting me so much when he just told me to get out of his house? In my mind, it was because he loved me. At least, that’s what I wanted to believe.

  Can we talk?

  Tate?

  I’m sorry, okay?

  Come back

  Tate, answer me

  I said I was sorry

  So, that’s it? You’re really just gonna walk away again?

  Like you always do?

  I don’t feel bad for saying what I did

  You’ve changed

  Why don’t you love me?

  Can you say something?

  This is why it’s your fault. You don’t even try

  Tate? C’mon, let’s talk. Come back

  You’re going to regret this.

  I didn’t want to be the reason why things didn’t work out between us. I wished I could go back and stop Connor from walking out the door that day. Stop him from ever being with Nicole. But I kept trying to remind myself that it was his choice to go. I wasn’t going to hold him against his will back then if he didn’t want to be with me. But that’s the part that sucked the most. He wanted to be with me now. And deep in my heart, I wanted to be with him, because I had hopes of things going back to how they were before any of this bullshit ever happened.

  My phone pinged again with one more text.

  I’m sorry. Please come back. I love you. Let’s fix this.

  I threw my head back, my heart aching. I knew I should walk away and not look back, but for some reason, I didn’t. I felt like staying and waiting it out would be better than running. I wanted to fight. I wanted a happy ending.

  I turned the car around and went back.

  At that point, the battle within me was less important and the war against Nicole, ignited. I fought tooth and nail for Connor’s love. I wanted to be the only one, but so did she. Once he noticed my weaknesses and my fears of the situation, he started to use them against me. Connor would threaten to go back to her, knowing that it would get me to stop doing anything he didn’t approve of. It was his own way of controlling me. He put himself first and put me last. He was the true definition of a narcissist. In his mind, nobody in the world was perfect besides him and everyone should feel blessed to be in his presence. He required constant, excessive admiration, believing that he was superior to everyone else. He made me feel like I didn’t deserve him, made me feel like I was never going to be good enough for him.

  As time went on, the pressure began to rise. Because ironically, the one thing we didn’t have was time. It had been an exhausting six months since Connor initially came back for me, and time was running out until he would be leaving to join the Marine Corps.

  One day, I walked into Connor’s room, immediately pained at the sight. On each wall, three hundred and sixty degrees, were pictures of Connor and Nicole. There was not a single square inch of me, reminding me of just how much I truly meant to him. Tears gushed out of my eyes at the sight, but I couldn’t bid myself to look away.

  “C’mon, let’s go eat.” Connor stood in the doorway with crossed arms. He hadn’t said anything about my crying eyes, completely disregarding them. His eyebrows raised, waiting for me to get up and follow him.

  “You put all of these back up?” I quietly asked.

  He shrugged once. “It’s how I like to decorate my room.”

  “But—”

  “I’m not changing it just because you want me to,” he said. “Let’s go eat,” he repeated.

  I looked up at him with my stinging eyes, dumbfounded by how he still hadn’t said a single thing about them. “How come you only care when she’s sad?”

  He sighed, shaking his head. “Because it’s different. My relationship with her was better.”

  My jaw dropped, shocked at his response. I couldn’t believe that this was what I was fighting for. I gained the courage to walk out of the house without saying anything else to him. I walked home by myself that day, with blurred vision from unstoppable tears.

  The next day, I sat in the car next to Nicole, a day that would go down in history. We had joined forces for the night, for the first and only time ever. Each of us had had enough of Connor’s games and lies, and for once, we were overtaken by anger instead of sadness. Don’t get me wrong, I still wasn’t the biggest fan of Nicole, but it felt good to have the upper-hand on Connor, who still hadn’t tried contacting me since I left his house bawling the day prior.

  When Connor found out Nicole and I were together, he wasn’t happy. Our mutual friend Bianca drove the car, pushing hard on the gas as Connor followed behind us in his white pick-up truck.

  “I need to stop,” Bianca called to us.

  “Don’t stop,” I pleaded, scared of what would happen if she would. Nicole’s phone was ringing nonstop, full of missed calls and texts from Connor. But why wasn’t he trying to call me?

  Bianca pulled into a shopping mall and the three of us got out, trying to run inside as quickly as we could before Connor could catch us. We figured that if we were inside and surrounded by people, then he couldn’t do anything. We were still on the sidewalk when the pick-up truck pulled up to the curb. Connor leaned over and the passenger door flew open.

  “Nicole, get in the car,” he demanded. The three of us stood, afraid. I had never seen so much anger in his eyes. And even as scared as I was, I still wondered why he wanted Nicole to get in the car instead of me.

  He began to shout at both Nicole and Bianca, who didn’t want to let Nicole leave with Connor. The three of them got into it, screaming into the night air. I stood back, silently. Watching the ordeal was my only option. I was too afraid to add into the chaos and before I knew it, I had been standing on the sidewalk, listening to a vicious argument for more than thirty minutes. It was as if I wasn’t there. Connor neglected the fact that I was even there, careless as to how I felt at the moment. Only concerned with his own wants and needs.

  Nicole started to move towards the truck, and I grabbed her by the wrist. “Nicole, please… don’t,” the desperation in my voice echoed off the buildings surrounding us.

  She looked at me for a second, then looked at Connor. I gently released my shaking hand from her wrist as she slowly got into the car. They drove off into the night, leaving Bianca and I to sit in silence for the whole car ride home. />
  Within a month, Connor was back at my door and the cycle had restarted. I would awake each morning, and the first thing I would wonder was which side of Connor I was going to get that day. Would I get the side that was full of kindness and affection? Would I get the side that blamed me for all his issues and made me feel like I didn’t deserve anything? Or would I get the side of him that was silent—the one that pretended I didn’t exist?

  I had finally had enough. I wasn’t going to buy into his games anymore. And I wouldn’t give in this time.

  “Connor…” I started, absolute, utter exhaustion draping every inch of me from the pain and stress of the past few years. “I’m done.”

  “You’re done?”

  I nodded. “I’m done. I can’t keep doing this,” I said. He looked at me as if he didn’t understand what I meant. “I can’t keep being just an option to you.”

  “So, after everything, you’re just gonna throw this all away?”

  “You can’t decide between us. You’ve been back and forth between her and I for all this time now. I told you that you had to choose and you still haven’t. It’d be easier on you anyways if I just removed myself from the situation.”

  “She wouldn’t ever do that.”

  “Okay, then go be with her!” I called out, covering my face with my hands, frustration overbearing me. “If she’s so perfect and so much better than me, then go be with her.”

  Connor rolled his eyes. “I never said that. You’re putting words in my mouth.” He shook his head, jaw twitching. “I’m just saying. But whatever. I’m done putting in extra effort. If you’re leaving, then that’s on you. Don’t try to come back to me after you realize that this was your fault, because I’m not trying again,” he shook his head.

  “Okay,” I shyly replied, unwilling to meet his gaze.

  “And Tate?” he said, all seriousness resting in his tone.

  I finally turned to look at him. “Yeah?”

  “Just remember,” he paused, anger glowing in his eyes as he leaned in, “this one’s on you.”