Facade

Chapter Nineteen

~Adrian~

I can hardly breathe as I push my way through the people. My breath doesn’t matter, though. I don’t know what happened or who’s hurt, but it’s not important. All I see is Ashton. I feel him. Red clouds my vision as I try to work my way through the crowd. I see the ambulance that came to our house. The people who tried to take him from me.

Please don’t be dead, please don’t be dead, please don’t be dead.

I remember Colt and walking up to the house to find him on the ground. Knowing I was too late. That he would die like Ash. Ashton. Oh fuck, pain pierces my chest again. I’m shaking and people are crowding me and I can’t get through.

“Watch where you’re going!” someone says, but it doesn’t stop me. I have to save them. Don’t die, don’t die, don’t die.

Please Ashton don’t die.

My vision blurs. My chest aches and my legs beg me to fucking stop. What can I do? Who the fuck am I? If I couldn’t save a helpless little boy who only wanted to be like me, who wanted me to protect him, what the hell do I think I’m going to do here?

I push through the front of the crowd and I see him. I see that little boy with the big eyes as they look up at me. He’s bloody and hurting, the light gone from those eyes that looked at me like I was something. Like I was somebody.

“Ash!”

The image morphs and it’s not Ashton anymore. It’s someone I don’t know, lying on a stretcher.

“Adrian?”

The sound of Delaney’s voice brings me back to the past. Ashton and blood and a broken little boy. Why couldn’t you save me? I rub my eyes. I’m fucking cracking up and I know it. Ashton hadn’t said anything, but I know it was there. I thought it as I held his bloody little body, memorizing the injuries as though that could make them mine instead of his. “I’m sorry.”

I’m so fucking sorry. When will it ever end? Do I deserve it to end? Why did I have to screw up so bad? He was perfect and i

“It’s okay. You don’t have anything to be sorry about.”

She touches me and I shake it off. “He’s dead. He’s dead. He’s dead.”

Even to my own ears I sound insane. Maybe I am. Maybe I’ve always been. But he’s fucking dead because I should have been protecting him.

“He’s okay. Look. He’s talking to EMTs.”

Ash is gone again. The guy is probably my age. He’s on the stretcher just like I thought, but he is sitting up and he is talking. There’s a car and a bike and I know he must have been hit, but there’s no blood. No empty brown eyes, locked on me.

I’m fucking losing it. I hate that she sees me like this. Hate that I’m like this.

“Come on, Adrian. Let’s go. Come inside with me.”

“Adrian! Where’s Ashton? What happened to Ash?” Angel’s voice slams into my head now.

“Adrian?” Delaney.

“Adrian?” Angel.

I push my way through the crowd. I need to get the fuck out of here. Delaney’s on my heels, but I can’t make myself stop. Up the stairs, down the hall, unlock the room. It’s all on autopilot. She storms in right behind me as I’m grabbing my bag and shoving stuff inside.

“What are you doing?” she asks, out of breath. Christ, I’m being an asshole to her. She doesn’t deserve this.

“Leaving.”

“Why? Stay. Talk to me.”

Honesty finds its way out of my mouth. “Leaving is what I do. My feet itch to run and my hands itch to write and my mind is going and going and I can’t fucking shut it down.” Stopping, I turn to look at her, which is a huge mistake. It makes me want to stay. “Sometimes I feel like I’m taking so much in and I can’t stop it. It overloads my fucking head and I can’t forget. I just want to fucking forget.”

“If you go, let me go with you.” She steps closer. “If you need to write, I’ll be your paper. I have no idea what I’m doing here. I don’t know if this is the right thing, but whatever you need, if you need to try to forget, let me help you.”

What I want is to take a really big bong hit and get the hell out of here.

She takes off her jacket. Her scarf. And somehow the voices in my head are quieting. I don’t want the weed. Don’t want anything but her. “I have no idea what I’m doing,” she says again before pulling her shirt over her head. My little ghost drops her arms, and it slowly falls from her hand.

Her breasts heave up and down with her breathing. She’s biting her lip and I know she’s nervous and I know I’m a bastard for wanting to take her up on this.

“You’re too good for that, for me to use you.”

“Then don’t…” Her voice is so low, so soft, but it’s all I hear. “Don’t use me. Just make me feel good, Adrian. Let me try to make you feel good too.”

“You do.” And it’s probably the realest truth I’ve given her. She does. She makes me feel good. There is suddenly nothing that could make me leave this room. My jacket comes off, tossed to the chair.

“Come here,” but I don’t wait for her. I pull her to me. Her breasts press against my chest and her breath smells like apple cider and I let the scent comfort me the way she said it does her.

“I want you bare to me, my little ghost. I don’t know all your secrets and you know none of mine, but I don’t want to wear masks with you right now. I want to see all of you. Show me those ghosts in your eyes and I’ll try to kiss them away. Let me bare my scars to you and feel your lips on them.” Because fuck if I don’t need to tear down this façade. I know she sees how broken I am, but to admit it is different. To acknowledge the masks are there—regardless if she knows what they are or not—and to feel her try to comfort me. To give her that in return is a burning need inside me. An ache that can only be cured with her because no matter what, she doesn’t push me and that means something.

“I want that, Adrian. I would do anything to take your pain away.”

And I believe her. My hands travel over the landscape of her back. I let them slide down until they’re under her ass, and then I lift her. Easily she comes to me, trusts me, wrapping her legs around my waist. Her shoes dig into my thighs and I welcome it. Feel her jeans as they stretch across her ass and wish it was her naked skin under my hands.

My mouth trails down to her neck and she arches for me, giving me free rein to explore her. “Such a gift,” I tell her as I lick the soft skin there. Taste her, learn her, until she invades all of my senses. She’s what I hear, see, taste, and smell. I want all of it.

As if she’s just as hungry for me, her mouth finds mine. Her arms are so tight around my neck as though she’s afraid I’m going to let her go.

“I won’t let you go,” I say, though we both know eventually I will.

She shows me her eyes and I see the knowledge there. See her pain and excitement and everything I could want her to show me.

I turn and lay her on the bed. Push my stupid fucking bag to the floor because it’s not like I’m going anywhere tonight.

I slide the straps of her bra down. My fingers drift behind her back to the hooks. When it’s gone, I drink my fill with my eyes. Kiss each peak with my mouth. When I pull gently with my teeth, she cries out.

“Adrian… oh God…”

I can’t stop there, so I kiss my way down her torso. Unbutton her jeans, take off her shoes, her pants, before I start at her ankles and work my way back up with my mouth. Each place I kiss her, touch her, I pretend it wipes away one of her ghosts. Cures one of her aches and relieves some of her pain.

Her legs hang over the side of the bed as I kneel on the floor between them. She’s so beautiful. So fucking beautiful that when I look at her, it’s hard to remember there’s any bad in the world. “Tell me what you want. Tell me what you need.”