Bittersweet Symphony (4 page)

“You call me Blondie one more God damn time, and I will cut you.” My eyes are serious, but from his expression I can tell he isn’t taking me seriously. Who am I kidding? I wouldn’t even take me seriously. However, I will hurt him if he says it again.

“Calm down, God you’re so damn feisty. I kind of like it” His words freeze me into place. I don’t want to hear the words like and me in the same sentence coming out of his mouth.

I angle my body away from his, my eyes watching the scenery outside.

“You want to know why I call you Blondie?” He asks, I can feel his hot breath on my ear. It causes small pieces of my hair to fall onto my face. I want to push them out of the way but am afraid to move.

“Not particularly,” I say, trying to sound completely unenthused when really I would love to know why he calls me Blondie, why he even takes the time to hang out with me or talk to me. No one notices the girl with nothing. No one but him.  Strange how the most tortured souls can find others in a crowd of people. Hurting people seek out other hurting people. There’s a reason why people say misery likes company.

“Well, I’m going to tell you anyway.”

He pulls us into a parking spot at one of the local fish taco stands.

“I call you Blondie…” His fingers glide over my arm, the sensations he draws out in me scare me. The goose bumps he causes scare me. He scares me, in a good way.

“Because of your hair… It’s a sunshine color.” His fingers delve into my hair, and it takes every fiber of me not to lean into his touch, to relish in the touch of being wanted.

“It’s called blonde, Ryder.” My craving for him can be heard in my voice; so instead of sticking around to hear his comment, I open the car door and exit, refraining from slamming the door. His car is too beautiful to be abused.

“Hence the nickname Blondie,” he says laughing. His laughter is a fuel booster to me. I walk a little bit faster hoping to get to the stand before him.

His arm reaches out so his fingers can dig into my shoulder as he stops me, turning my body in toward his. “Slow down, sunshine, I never meant to make you angry.” His eyes look everywhere but where they should.

“Knock it off with the nicknames then.” I hit him softly on the chest. I really meant to push myself out of his arms, but it didn’t work. It came out softer than needed.

“What, would you rather have me call you Kennedy?” His voice is laced with a coldness that settles into my chest.

“Yes,” I hiss. My eyes meet his. There’s a heat between us, and it sizzles with the potential to burn everything in its wake if we allow it to.

“Why are you so closed off? Why don’t you get close to people?” he asks in a hushed voice. His questions cause an earthquake of anger to develop within me.

“I could ask you the same questions, Ryder. Why don’t you get close to people? Why are you so closed off? Huh?” I’m mocking him without thinking. We know hardly anything about one another, but we know enough to know that the other is struggling. We are two people using different forms of vices to deal with what life has handed us.

“It’s easier to push people away; you expect failure from others. In the end, the only person you can trust is yourself. In the end, no one else will be able to pick up the pieces like you do. Allowing someone in is just asking for heartache.”

As his words rattle around in my head, I realize we’re the same kind of people fighting the inevitable.

“People have the potential to hurt you. You have the potential to hurt me, Kennedy. If I handed you the knife, would you stab it into my heart?”

“No… Because I, too, know what it’s like,” I calmly say. My mind is reeling for an answer as to who hurt him, who caused such a beautiful man horrible pain.

All he does is release me, a smile marring his face. From that moment on, I know we will always have a silent understanding of one another.

“Fish taco or shrimp taco?” he asks, not even getting me a menu.

“Definitely fish.” It scares me how he can take control of a situation so quickly. I don’t want him taking control, even if it was just to order my food.

When our food is ready, he carries the tray over to a nearby table and gestures for me to take the seat next to him. I nervously chew on the straw to my drink. This is only the second time we’ve had a meal together. I know it’s not weird to typically share a meal with others, but it’s different with Ryder. I always have a swarm of butterflies in my stomach wanting to break free and adding any type of food to that makes feel like I might puke all over him.

“What are you so nervous for?” he asks, peering up at me from his taco. A small amount of juice leaks out of the taco and onto to his fingers. The second he sucks his finger into his mouth, I lose all rational thought. I can’t remember what we’re doing and… Did he really need to keep his finger in his mouth that long? Jesus, Mary, and Joseph… I bring my eyes back up to his as he releases his finger from his mouth; a one dimpled smile reflects back at me.

“It’s not polite to stare, Kennedy.” Gosh, if he keeps talking to me like that - his voice all soft and squishy – I’m going to find a way to bottle up his voice and sell it to women worldwide.

“I wasn’t staring,” I lie. I was staring. I was more than staring; I was burning holes into his face. I look down at my taco as my appetite diminishes.

“You were staring, but that’s fine. You can lie to yourself all you want, doll face, but you can’t lie to me.” I can’t help but roll my eyes. He’s arrogant and cocky. I hate it, but at the same time I love it. He knows he is “all that and a bag of chips,” and for the first time ever, he’s starting to grow on me, kind of like those weeds you get in the backyard. Dandelions are hideous but also kind of beautiful, and you can’t get them to go away to save your life. That was Ryder: he is my dandelion and I want to keep him.

“Fine. You’re right. I was staring, but only because I was repulsed by the fact that you licked your fingers. They make napkins for a reason,” I respond, grabbing a wad of napkins and tossing them at him.

He doesn’t grab or even move them. He looks down at the napkins and up at me, his smile growing wider with every flick of his gaze on mine. Then the air filled with laughter, his laughter. It’s contagious and I can’t help the smile that forms on my face. We are two damaged people floating through time, finding happiness in the small things. The question is, will we be the answer to each other’s prayers or the downward spiral into a deeper darkness… I guess only time will tell.

Ryder has the potential to be something great in my life. The problem is me allowing him to take root, but the way things are looking, he has already started.

When Blondie smiles, which isn’t all that often, it is marvelous. Her deep, blue eyes hold so many secrets that I want to unravel. Her creamy skin is begging to be touched by me, and every time I’m around her, I have to clench my fists together to keep myself from reaching out and tracing a path over her skin. She is beautiful in the simplest ways.

After I drop her off at the school, it takes everything in me not to follow her to her dorms. I feel this deep need to protect her; it’s different than the feelings I used to have for Jenna. I thought things with her were simple, but they were far from it. Once again, my brother had won the gold, and I had come in last. A surge of hatred pushes through me, but I don’t hate my brother. If anything, I love him more than life itself. He is my rock¸ and we know each other inside and out; well, except for the secrets that I constantly kept from him. It’s stupid to even think he’s to blame for my problems. It would be stupid for anyone in my situation to be angry when they didn’t speak out and tell anyone. No one can help you if you don’t ask for it.

Speaking of my brother, he will be here at any minute. I get up, done moping for the day. I need to find some clean shorts; hell, I need to do some damn laundry.

Just as I’m pulling on a pair of basketball shorts, I hear a knock at the door. I smile, knowing I will finally get some time to spend with my brother. After you spend nine months in the womb and twenty years of life together with someone who looks exactly like you, going from seeing each other every day to hardly at all is difficult.

I open the door, fully ready to grab my bro in a tight hug. What my eyes land on instead causes my breaths to come in hard. It also causes another region of my body to grow hard.

Kennedy is standing in what is supposed to be Rex’s place. She’s biting on her pink, plump bottom lip as if she was hesitant to knock on the door to begin with. Her dark, blue eyes brim with tears that look as if they will fall at any second.

I can’t help what I do next. It’s imbedded in me to protect her, to be her warrior, her defender. I reach out, wrapping my arms around her, bringing her warm body into mine. She doesn’t hesitate or turn away, just buries her face in my chest and lets out a ragged sob. I don’t have the words at the moment to ask her what the problem is, all I want to do is hold her and soothe away her pain.

“I couldn’t think of anywhere else to go, and I don’t really have any other friends, well, except you, if we’re even friends…” She is rambling, and had she not been crying, it would be adorable.

“I… I shouldn’t have come here. This was a huge mistake…” she says, trying to pull out of my arms. What she doesn’t know is that I won’t be letting her go until she tells me what happened. Even after that, though, I’m not sure if I can let her go. She’s digging a part of herself into my heart, even if she doesn’t know it.

“What happened, Blondie?” I ask, my voice soft. I don’t want to scare her or make her think she can’t talk to me. I want her to be comfortable, more than comfortable.

“I just don’t know who to talk to… and I’m scared and I don’t know what to do. I’m not weak, Ryder. EVER. I’m just me. Kennedy. And I thought all these things went away. I thought the bullying and hate, the hurtful words and anger, had diminished, but here I am bawling my eyes out again.” A deep sadness is etched into her facial features. Whatever is going on is on the verge of breaking her. I have been there; I have seen the pain that comes with that kind of sadness.

I hold her tighter to me, slamming the door shut as I pull her over to the couch. I want to comfort her and whisper sweet nothings in her ear, but that isn’t me. Even if I want her, it’s obvious that I am the last person she ever needs to get involved with. When one’s life is spiraling out of control, you don’t add something else to the mix that could cause it all to spiral even more erratically. I am uncontrollable, and Kennedy needs stability.

Her fingers dig into my chest as small whimpers escape her. What happened to the strong, undefeated girl I had just seen?

I reach down, gripping her chin gently to bring her eyes up to mine. She scowls, but allows me to continue touching her.

“What happened? Who did this to you?” I am concerned and scared for her. I have never been scared for anyone but myself; so to have fear for someone else, to be unable to control someone else’s fate, is… well, it’s terrifying.

“I… I don’t know if I want to talk about it. This is stupid. Why did I even come here? I shouldn’t be bothering you.” Her question is more directed at herself as she pulls out of my grip then settles herself into a seat.

“You’re not leaving until you tell me what happened.” My voice is cool and calm even though I’m burning under the surface for answers.

“You can’t keep me here,” she states, a determined look on her face. Oh look, the strong willed girl is back. That sends just enough cold water onto my short fuse to settle me.

“Wanna bet?” I question, raising my eyebrow up at her. Does she think she can win with me? There is no winner, other than myself.

“Not really. It’s not worth betting in a losing game,” she mutters under her breath. A smile forms on my face. Damn, this girl has me smiling so much, my God damn cheeks are going to start hurting soon.

“Smart thinking. Now, tell me what happened,” I stare at her, watching the emotions I know all too well flicker across her face. She lets out a deep sigh, rolling her eyes. Her defiance is so strong. Such a broken, beautiful individual.

“Sam. Remember him?” she asks, not really speaking to me but more so the wall. The second his name leaves her mouth, I feel the deep anger I try to hide from everyone coming to the surface.

“What about him?” I try to sound as if I don’t care about him, but when it comes to K, well, I care about anything that she cares about.

“He…” Tears well up in her eyes again, and her body shakes as the sob releases from her. Watching her cry is the hardest thing ever.

“Shhh… tell me, K… What happened?” I know when she tells me it’s going to take everything in me to stay in place, to not go wherever this dickhead lives and rip him a new one, to not pound his face so far into the pavement that I can send him back to hell.

She wipes at the tears furiously, as if she’s disappointed to even have them on her face. 

“I… I have to start at the beginning,” she whispers, biting at her lip. Her hair is a wild, blonde, tangled mess. Her mascara is running and she looks like a bad mess.

“Who am I kidding? Why am I even here? We hardly know each other, Ryder. You shouldn’t have to console me.” She throws her hands in the air, frustrated at the world I’m sure.

“I know enough about you to know that you need someone. You don’t have to know someone to be able to get to know them, to be someone’s friend.” Friend is not the word I was fucking looking for but whatever.

“Since when are you friends with girls?” she demands. I look at her, challenging her question.

“Since when do you evade questions?” We stare at one another, her fist clenching in anger. It’s almost turning me on. Almost.

“Since when did you start caring about anything other than pussy?” Her voice is growing louder with every question that escapes her lips, and right now, the word “pussy” coming out of them is hot as fuck. Then it hits me that she insulted me, and that pisses me off.

“Since you, Kennedy. Call me crazy to care for more than just “pussy”, and please prove me wrong if I am wrong, but I think we both need a friend.” I try to hide my cocky ass attitude, but can’t help it. It’s part of the asshole side of me.

“I don’t need a friend,” she says shyly. I won’t call her bluff; she’s going through enough, and it would be unfriend-like of me to do such a thing.

“We can agree to disagree, sweetheart, but you’re not leaving until you open that pretty mouth and tell me what the fuck happened.” 

“Do you always swear?” she asks.

“Yes. Do you always not answer questions?” I’m kind of getting irritated that she gets under my skin the way she does.

“Do you always ask so many questions?” Her face is filled with less anger and more happiness.

“Basically. Now talk or you’re not getting any ice cream.” Her eyes light up at the mention of ice cream. Just when I think she’s finally going to open up, a knock sounds on the door. She looks at the door and then back at me. Oh, this is going to be good.

I make my way over to the door, opening it just in time since Rex is about ready to barrel through it.

“Dude, what the fuck took so long to answer the door? Beating your meat are ya?” he jokes. I open the door wide, making room for him to walk in. A light giggle is heard behind me. Rex gazes over my shoulder to find a giggling Kennedy.

“Uhh…who is she?” he asks, clearly confused by the fact that there is a chick in my living room and her legs aren’t spread wide. I only bring girls home for one reason, and Kennedy being dressed is a sign that there is a problem.

“Kennedy, meet Rex. Rex, Kennedy.” They look at each other, Rex more so astonished. I know somewhere along the line, Kennedy has heard about Rex and Jenna. Kennedy doesn’t know the extent of my feelings for Jenna back then, but I am over it now. Those feelings and memories were swallowed up by countless women and copious amounts of liquor. So what? Don’t judge. Everyone goes through a mid-life crisis at some point; mine was just really early.

“Nice to meet you, Rex,” Kennedy says, trying to hide the fact that she was crying. I don’t know why she tried; he can tell. Hell, anyone can tell. Guess she is just too strong to show weakness.

“Well, this is a shock,” Rex says, his eyes looking at mine. I shrug my shoulders. So what? It’s not that big of a deal that a girl is here to actually just be here. I can turn over a new leaf.

“He doesn’t typically bring girls here for more than one purpose, I’m assuming,” Kennedy butts in. I look at her, shooting daggers. Just because it’s known that I fuck everything with tits and ass, doesn’t mean I want Kennedy to know. It doesn’t mean I want to boast about it in front of her, either.

Rex doesn’t respond to her comment, thank God; instead, he sends her a smile and averts his attention back to me.

“Are we still hanging out? Or… I can go, bro. I can come back a little later.”

I contemplate my decision wisely. I want to hang out with Rex, but I desperately need to protect and watch out for Kennedy.

“Oh! No worries, Rex, I was just getting ready to leave…” Kennedy exclaims, readying herself to run for the door. She’s a smart girl, but I’m smarter.

“Actually, Kennedy has a few things going on with her, and I plan on helping her out. Maybe you can swing by a little later,” I say, trying to form some type of non-creeper smile. I wrap my arm around Kennedy before she can make it to the door. She keeps quiet, and I know I’ve won this.

“Oh, okay. I’ll go hangout with Mimi and Jenna,” he responds, giving me a concerned look as he leaves. I can’t help but wonder why he is concerned; I’m not going to hurt Kennedy. Maybe it’s the fact that a girl is here to begin with or maybe because I want to spend time with Kennedy, and for the first time ever, Rex knows what it’s like to be blown off by his brother.

“That is totally un-fucking-needed,” she snarls, pulling out of my arms.

“What? When I said you weren’t leaving until I got answers, I meant it. Now start speaking.” I hold my arrogant asshole tone in place. I refuse to be weak around her. When I told her that allowing someone in is just asking for headache, I wasn’t lying. Give someone your heart and nine times out of ten, it will get broken. Promises are made in the moment and never truthfully lived up to. You can’t promise to love someone your whole life - people change, life changes, and people die. It’s easier and better this way.

“I don’t want to talk about it, Ryder.” Her eyes glaze with fresh tears as she peers at the floor from her seated position. My steps eat up the short distance between us.

“How about if you tell me something, I will tell you something? A secret for a secret.” I want to warm up to her, so she knows she can talk to me about anything and everything. I am willing to spill a couple secrets to find out some of hers.

She watches me, hesitating as her lips purse at me. I can see her thinking; her nose crinkles and forehead wrinkles as she tries to determine if I’m playing her or not. Her emotions are scattered, and I know trust isn’t something she gives out often. Trust is to allow someone in, to give someone something that’s capable of being broken. She and I are more alike than we thought.