I’d just taken my first step back towards the stairwell when Jude’s shoulders stiffened, right before his head snapped my way.
“Luce,” he breathed, saying it like it was a prayer.
I shook my head, my eyes filling with more damn tears as I kept backing away. I couldn’t do this anymore. I couldn’t do Jude Ryder anymore because it was going to wind up being the reason for my death or institutionalization.
“Luce. Please,” he begged, working his way into a stand. He wobbled, like he had run out of strength or was shit-face drunk.
I kept backing away. It was the only way I knew to keep me protected from him. I’d just keep retreating to the end of the earth if I had to.
“Luce,” he repeated, his entire face twisting. Balancing against the wall, Jude took a couple steps my direction. But he didn’t make it any farther than one before his legs gave out, his whole frame collapsing onto his knees.
It was instinctual, not rational, how I responded. Rushing towards him, I had this flash of panic that he was dying. I’d never seen Jude weak; I didn’t think it was in him. Vulnerable, sure, but never weak. And here he was, not able to support his own weight more than a step at a time.
Sliding to the ground next to him, I could tell right away his lack of balance and coordination wasn’t alcohol induced. His strained breath only smelt of Jude, and his eyes were clear.
Except when they lifted to meet mine, they clouded with some emotion that ran so deep I was sure I could never decipher it.
“God, Luce,” he breathed, his breath coming in haggard spurts, “don’t do that to me again.”
His arms folded around me, pulling me against him with all the strength he had left. It wasn’t his normal embrace, the one that felt like those arms could shield me from the whole world; this one was hollow and even a bit awkward.
Pushing away from him, assured he wasn’t going to die any time soon, my sorrow morphed into anger. Partly to do with him being here when he didn’t have a right to be here anymore, and partly because I had to look on what I’d lost again. His face lined with pain when I pushed him away.
“Don’t ever do that to you again?” I spit the words back at him. I didn’t care how weak he was; he didn’t deserve even the thinnest filter of mercy. “Don’t ever do that to you again?” I couldn’t seem to get anything else out.
“Yeah,” he said, staring at the ground, “don’t do that to me again. Do you know how god damned worried I’ve been about you?” His chest was heaving with his words, like oxygen wouldn’t take up residence in his lungs. “Do you know how many times I’ve searched this city over making sure you weren’t dead in some back alley? Do you know how many hospitals, police stations, and news stations I called every hour to make sure they hadn’t found you at the bottom of some ditch?” His eyes lifted back to mine, and they flashed onyx. “So, yeah, don’t you ever do that to me again.”
“Fine,” I said, giving his chest another shove. For the first time, I could actually move him. “I’ll stop doing that to you when you stop screwing skanks behind my back. Oh wait, I’m done with you and your cheating ass ways, so you can screw whoever the hell you want.” Shoving him again, I bolted up, lunging towards my door. I needed a buffer between us right now, preferably a state or two, but I’d have to settle for a dorm room door.
“You are not done with me,” he said, his teeth gritted as he walked on his knees towards me.
“Oh, yes, I am. I’m so done with you, Jude Ryder!” I shouted, spinning on him once I’d thrown open the door. “I’M DONE IN!” Slamming the door shut, it bounced right back. Jude had wedged himself inside the doorway and I’d managed to slam that door hard into the side of his face.
He grimaced, but it looked like it was more due to the kind of pain that wasn’t physical.
“Hell and Hades, you two!” India shouted, springing up from her chair in the corner and lunging across the room at us. “Stop making a scene. You’re not the first couple to have a lover’s quarrel, so stop acting like it.”
Pushing me to the side, she leaned over Jude, glancing down the hall. “Sorry,” she called out, “we’re working out some issues down here. We won’t keep y’all up all night.”
Waving down the hall, she glanced down at Jude, who was leaning into the doorway, breathing like he still couldn’t catch his breath and staring into the floor like he was waiting for it to swallow him up. Winding her arms beneath Jude’s, she pulled him inside the room. “Get in here, you crazy son of a bitch.”
Once Jude was inside, she shut the door and slammed her back against it. Exhaling, she looked over at me where I stood at the foot of my bed, arms crossed and looking everywhere but at Jude.
“Hear the man out,” she said like it was an order. “He’s earned it and you deserve it.”
“Wait,” my eyes flashed to India’s, “you’ve already talked with him? You actually believe the pile of lies he gave you?”
India wasn’t gullible and believed, as a species, humans weren’t to be trusted, so whatever Jude had said to her had to have been impressive.
One big, fat, impressive lie.
“That’s right,” she said, looking at me like I was behaving like a child. “You got a problem with that?”
“Only a few million,” I smarted back. “Friend,” I tacked on to drill the guilt in deeper.
It didn’t work. India was a pillar that wouldn’t be penetrated by any devices of guilt.
“Listen, friend,” she added, arching a brow. “He’s here. You’re here. Talk this shit out and then you can go back to hating his sorry ass when it’s all out there on the table.”
Walking towards me, she wrapped her arms around me and gave me one long, tight squeeze. Her long, gold earrings chimed against my shoulder. “Talk. Listen. I know it seems hard, but it really isn’t,” she said, moving towards the door. “I’ll be in the commons if you need me.”
Leaning over Jude, she patted his cheek. He didn’t respond. “Here’s your chance. Don’t waste it.”
Opening the door, India glanced back down at Jude’s crumpled form, frowning. “See if you can get this man to eat or drink something, Lucy. He’s going to be knocking on death’s door if he doesn’t get some fluids in him. And you better drink, you crazy bastard,” she said, toeing at Jude’s leg. “Because a person can only go seven days without fluids before their system shuts down. I’m guessing you’re on day four.”
Before closing the door behind her, India gave me a small smile of encouragement, and then it was just Jude and me.
As pissed as I was at him, a nagging twist poked at me when I really took him in. Weak, weary, barely able to catch his breath, staring at the floor without seeing it.
“Have you really not had anything to eat or drink in four days?” I asked, moving over to the mini fridge.
“I can’t remember,” he answered, his voice as weak as the rest of him.
“Damn fool,” I muttered, collecting a couple bottles of water into my arms and a bar of chocolate India and I kept stashed in the back for emergency purposes. A man about to pass out from not eating in days qualified as emergency purposes.
Falling to my knees in front of him, I unscrewed the lid from one of the bottles. “Here,” I said, lifting it to his lips, “drink.”
It wasn’t a request.
He didn’t move; his head just hung there, his fists clenching and unclenching over his thighs.
“Jude,” I said, lifting his chin until we were at eye level. “Drink this. Please.”
His eyes were almost as hollow as his embrace had felt in the hall. Something twisted in my gut, something that ran deeper than anything else had.
He parted his lips and I lifted the bottle to his mouth and tilted it so a steady stream would fall in.
He swallowed, keeping his eyes locked on mine, gulping down everything I was giving him until the bottle was empty.
I had to look away, because I couldn’t look into those eyes any longer. The gray had drai
ned out of them, leaving nothing but black behind.
“Better?” I asked, tossing the bottle to the side and handing him the next.
He nodded, looking like he was about to pull me to him.
“Good,” I said, lifting my hand and slapping him across the cheek. I hadn’t realized I was going to do it, but it felt damn good.
At least it felt good until his eyes flinched closed as a red hand blossomed over his cheek.
“I’m sorry,” I said, leaning towards him and inspecting his face.
I’d just hit Jude. Hard. And I hadn’t even known I was about to do it.
Hang on because this roller coaster had reached the summit and was about to race straight down.
“Jude, god,” I said, fussing over his face. I’d been reduced to an emotional, instinctual monster. “I’m sorry.”
“Do it again,” he whispered, his eyes still closed.
“What?” I said, hoping I’d heard him wrong or was mistaking what he meant. “No.”
“Do it”—opening his eyes, they locked onto mine—”again.”
This roller coaster was going down. All the way down. “No,” I said again, wondering if my slap had knocked something loose.
“Damn it it, Luce,” he hollered, grabbing my wrist as I tried to scoot away, “hit me again!”
“No!” I was shouting now too. “Let me go, Jude!”
“Hit me!” he yelled, raising my hand above him and pounding it down against his face. “Again!” Grabbing my other hand, he flattened it and drove it into his other cheek.
“Stop!” I cried, trying to pull my wrists free of his grasp. His hands formed liked vices over mine, not letting me go. He drove the other palm into his face, and then the other. “Stop,” I whimpered, my throat contracting around my sobs.
He didn’t. Hit after hit, Jude slapped my hands against his face until they were tingling.
“Jude, stop,” I cried, my sobs rocking me. His cheeks were red, capillaries broken on the surface. “Please.”
Then, as suddenly as he’d started, he freed my hands, letting them fall back into my lap. They stung, like hundreds of needles were poking at the surface, but what I felt inside hurt the worst.
I loved the broken man kneeling in front of me—loved him like I never would another. But I couldn’t be with him. For plenty of reasons, this latest episode the most recent.
“You feel better?” he said, falling back, using my bed as a backrest.
“No,” I said, wiping my face with the back of my coat, looking down into my open hands like I couldn’t believe what they were capable of.
“Me neither,” he said, rubbing his hands over his face.
His breathing had grown shorter, and the parts of his face that weren’t red were white and clammy. I’d never seen Jude so frail—never imagined he could ever be so.
“Here,” I said, tossing the chocolate bar at him. “Eat that.”
“I thought you didn’t care,” he said, turning the bar over in his hand, inspecting it.
“I don’t,” I lied, settling into a more comfortable position on the floor. “Just eat it. I don’t want you passing out because it would take a half dozen guys to move you.”
One corner of his mouth lifted as he unwrapped the bar. Breaking a chunk off, he tossed it at me. “You look like you need sustenance as much as I do,” he said, breaking off another piece. “I’ll eat if you eat.”
I sighed, knowing he was right, as much as I didn’t want him to be.
“Fine.” Taking a bite, I let the chocolate melt in my mouth.
Lifting his piece at me, he stuffed the whole thing in his mouth. He chewed it, staring at me as if he was contemplating his next move. “I didn’t screw Adriana, Luce.”
I almost choked on the bit of chocolate still melting in my mouth. He wasn’t going to ease our way into this conversation. He was charging the red flag like a bull.
“Sure you didn’t,” I said, sliding my shoes off and tossing them across the room. “She just needed to borrow your shower. While you snoozed naked on the bed. With an empty bottle of tequila in hand.”
The muscles of his neck tightened, his jaw following. “I didn’t screw her, Luce,” he repeated.
I laughed one clipped note. “You were drunk, Jude. Shit faced drunk,” I said, trying not to visualize the whole scene in my mind again. “How the hell would you know?”
I was insulted that he’d led with the whole denial act. Jude knew I wasn’t a gullible girl and the fact that he was treating me like one now was just downright insulting.
“How the hell would I know?” he repeated, his face screwed into disbelief. “How the hell would I know, Luce?” Okay, now he was looking insulted. “I know because even if I drank every last drop of alcohol in every seedy bar in this town, there’s only one girl I’d want to crawl into bed with. There’d only be one girl I could even fantasize about going to bed with.”
“Let me guess,” I mused, tapping my temple. “Adriana Vix?”
Jude pounded the floor with his fist. “Would you stop being so damn difficult?”
“Would you stop screwing manipulative bitches behind my back?” Low blow, but that’s where I felt like hitting right now.
“I can’t stop what I never started,” he said, popping his neck, attempting to diffuse the ticking time bomb from going off again.
“So you’re telling me a naked, freshly showered Adriana Vix just magically appeared in your bedroom?” I hoped it sounded as preposterous as it was.
“Would you believed me if I told you what happened?” he asked, keeping his words slow, his muscles relaxed.
“No,” I snapped, “but I’m sure it will be highly entertaining and quite imaginative, so please, tell away.”
He took in another breath, really trying not to react to me baiting him.
“After I left the restaurant, I drove back to my house. I was pissed and angry at myself for ruining the day, so I grabbed myself a bottle of tequila and went upstairs and sulked in my bedroom until I was drunk.”
“Shit faced drunk,” I clarified.
“Luce,” he dropped his gaze at me, “you and I both know it would take a hell of a lot more than a bottle to get me shit faced.”
So what if the man could hold his liquor? Not on that day. Not on an empty stomach. Not after he’d left his girlfriend in the middle of a snowy street.
“I was buzzing for sure, but when I crawled into bed that night, I was alone. And I at least had a pair of boxers on.”
“So Adriana slipped into your room, stripped you, positioned you, and hopped into the shower?”
“Maybe.”
“And I have ‘dumb’ tattooed to my face where?” I asked, glaring over at him.
“I’ve never once treated like you were some dumb broad, Luce, so don’t go there now,” he said, almost shouting. “I’m telling you what I know happened, I’m admitting what I don’t know, but I swear to you, on your brother’s grave, that I did not take Adriana Vix to bed with me that night.”
I recoiled from the words, scooting farther from him. “Don’t you bring my brother into this,” I warned, lifting my finger at him. “Don’t you swear on his grave, you lying bastard!”
“All right,” Jude said, exhaling through his nose. “I won’t swear on anyone’s grave. I’ll just give you my word. I didn’t do it, Luce. I love you. I’ll only ever love you.” The pain flashed through his eyes again. “I need you to believe me.”
I laughed. “Too damn bad.”
Dropping the half eaten chocolate bar to the side, he exhaled. He was tired and drained, maybe even more than I was.
“Then I need you to trust me, Luce.” Looking up, he met my eyes and I didn’t need words to read his meaning.
Trust. What I hadn’t given him months ago. What I’d paid for for not giving it to him. What I’d promised him he’d always have.
And this was Jude’s low blow. Asking me to trust him, knowing I couldn’t deny him thi
s when I had before. I knew what I’d seen, so I couldn’t believe him. But I knew him, and because of that—no matter how preposterous this whole denial thing was—I made up my mind to trust him.
“Fine,” I breathed, realizing trust was as painful as love.
The breath he’d been holding fell out of his mouth, the lines ironing from his face. His whole body relaxed. “So we’re good?” he asked so softly it was like he was afraid of the answer. “We’re going to be able to make it past this?”
My hands were shaking because this was it. The end.
“I trust you, Jude,” I began, focusing on my trembling hands because I couldn’t watch his face break again, “but I can’t do this right now. I need a break.”
I had to pause to collect myself before I could go on. “I can’t keep doing this up and down, never knowing what’s going to be around the corner thing. I need some time to get myself right. To figure out what I want and how and if we fit into that picture. I need to focus on school and dance and what I want out of my future. I need… time.”
He’d stayed silent, unmoving, the entire time, letting me get out what I needed to.
“Luce,” he said after a minute of silence, “are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
His voice almost made me break down into sobs again. “Yeah,” I said, turning my hands over. “I think so.”
He sucked in a breath, his head falling back against my mattress.
“I just need some time right now, Jude,” I rushed, wanting to give him a scrap of hope I knew wasn’t there to give. “I need a break from the tornado you and I create everywhere we go.”
“How much time?” His voice was a whisper, his own gaze focused on where my hands shook in my lap.
“I don’t know,” I answered. “A month. Maybe more.”
“A month?” he gasped, punching the floor again.
“I don’t know, Jude. I just don’t damn well know right now,” I said, hanging from the verge of losing it again. “I’m sorry.”
And I was. Despite whatever had or hadn’t happened in Jude’s bedroom Thursday night into Friday morning, I didn’t want to hurt him. I didn’t want to be the one responsible for the pain in his voice or the agony on his face.