You Got Me (11 page)

“
Then let me get to know the real you.”

I didn't hesitate before responding. I knew if I did, I would lose my nerve. “My name hasn't always been Roxy Gibson. I used to go by the name Emma Bradford,” I confessed. “People kept recognizing my name. They would Google me, and see what happened, but they wouldn't feel sorry for me. They were
scared
of me.” I wiped the tears away with the back of my hand. “What happens if I'm like
her
?”

He looked over at me, stunned. “You are nothing like your mom. And you are
not
Emma Bradford anymore. You are Roxy Gibson. You're strong. After everything you've been through, you still wake up in the morning with a smile on your face. That's better than most people could do, even me. When my dad died, I had to stay drunk in order to function, but not you. You push through your pain. If anything, you should run away from me. I'm the weak one.”

Was he right? Was the strength inside me all this time?

You're weak,
I heard my mom's voice. As always, she would never leave me alone.

“
SHUT UP!” I yelled at her, and began sobbing. “I'm not weak!”

I lifted the center console and grabbed my pen. I began writing
I'm strong
over and over again. After writing it about 20 times, I began to feel my heart drop to a steady pace, and I felt better. When I looked up, I realized that Aiden had pulled over the car.

“
Do you hear her? Is that why you write on your arms?”

I was afraid to look in his eyes. I nodded my head. “It's the only way I can get
her
voice out of my head.” I paused before adding, “I'm sorry.”

“
You have nothing to be sorry for.” Aiden pulled my head over onto his shoulder. I rested it there, and I felt him kiss the top of my head before falling to sleep there.

AIDEN

Roxy slept on my shoulder while I drove the rest of the way to her parent's house. My heart felt so heavy, seeing her break down like that was breaking my heart. I wondered how anybody could ever hurt her like her mom did. I couldn't imagine going through such a traumatic experience and still being able to function.

When she said her name used to be Emma Bradford, it sounded so familiar, and I wondered why. I knew that I had never met her before. I wondered if what happened to her was on the news. Maybe I had seen the story, and just forgot about it.

I only drove another 30 minutes before we got to her house. As we drove through town, the houses kept getting bigger, and bigger. Finally, I pulled into their driveway, and I felt myself swallow hard. Their house wasn't a house... It was a mansion, especially compared to my mom's single-wide trailer. I suddenly felt very insignificant.

The house reminded me of the Barbie Dream House my sister had when we were kids, except, of course, it wasn't pink. It was something you would see on 90210 or The Hills, not Alabama.

Roxy stirred in the seat beside me. Her eyes fluttered open, and she smiled when she saw we were at her house. “We're here!”

She jumped excitedly out of the car, and I followed her to the front door.

The first thing you saw when you walked inside was a massive chandelier hanging from the ceiling, and a staircase on both sides. “Wow,” I heard myself say inadvertently.

Roxy grabbed my hand and pulled me to the right. The first room was, I guess, the living room, but I'm not sure. It was a room with expensive looking furniture, but there was no TV. We went through there into the next room, the dining room. There was another, smaller chandelier hanging over the table. I wondered if they dressed up to eat in there.

Wow, I am not going to fit in here.

Finally, she pulled me into the kitchen. I decided that it was the most elegant kitchen I had ever laid eyes upon. Stainless steel appliances, granite counter tops, and beautiful cabinets that probably cost more than the whole trailer park. It was incredible.

“
Want something to drink?” she asked. She opened part of the wall, and I realized that it was the fridge.

“
Whoa,” I said, grabbing a soda from her. “Your house is like... incredible.”

She giggled. “You should have seen me when I first came here. I couldn't believe it, and sometimes I still can't. It took me 10 minutes to find the fridge.”

I followed her once again through another door. We were in a huge, open room. The wall was made up of glass, and I could see the pool through the glass. There was a bar, and stools lined up around it. There was also a stage. I silently wondered if Roxy ever sung there.

We went out the next door, to the pool. Her parents were swimming, and they had a few other people over.

“Roxy!” I heard her mom and dad. They both got out of the pool, wrapped towels around themselves and came over to us.

“
We weren't expecting you so soon,” her mom said, giving her a wet hug.

“
He drove,” she explained.

“
Hey Roxy,” an older couple yelled at Roxy.

“
Dr. and Mrs. Robins,” she smiled at them. “Good to see you.” Roxy then turned to her parents. “We are going to get our stuff out of the car, and get settled.”

“
Ok,” her mom smiled. “Aiden, just make yourself at home.”

I liked Roxy's parents. For people who have so much, there are so down to earth and kind. They obviously cared a lot. They adopted Roxy, even after everything she had been through, and they had taken exceptional care of her.

I followed Roxy back outside. We grabbed our luggage, and went up the stairs. There were a ton of doors. I followed her to the end of the hallway, where she opened a set of double doors.

“
This is my room,” she said, smiling.

Her room was very... Roxy. Each wall had something different on it. One wall was black and words wrote in white letters. I was guessing they were song lyrics. One wall was white with hot pink polka dots, each one was a different size. One wall just had paint splashed on it: hot pink, lime green, purple. It was kind of awesome actually. And there was one wall that was a painted with chalkboard paint. Roxy had different random things wrote on there.

She had her own balcony, which looked out on a flower garden. How fitting.

“
What do you think?” she asked.

“
It's very you. I like it.”

She smiled, and reached for my hand. “Come on, I'll show you your room.”

I followed her to the room right beside her. It was a simple room. The walls were a light yellow color, and the bedspread was white. It also had it's own bathroom, and I began to wonder if all of the rooms did.

“
Do you want to go swimming tonight?” she asked. “My parent's friends have probably left by now. They usually don't stay too late.”

“
I don't have any swimming shorts.”

“
I'll get you some of Steve's.”

“
Ok,” I agreed. The hot tub actually sounded great right about now.

Roxy brought me a pair of shorts and she went to her own room to get changed. I was ready way before her, so I got out my phone. Since she told me her old name, I couldn't help but we curious. Why did I know her name.

Emma Bradford
, I typed into Google on my phone. When I did, it pulled up a ton of news articles, but before I could click on any of them, Roxy emerged from her room. I quickly locked my phone and threw it on my bed. I made a quick mental note to read them later.

TWELVE

ROXY

“Want a glass of wine?” I asked Aiden on our way out to the hot tub.

“
Have anything stronger?”

“
Definitely. You go on and I'll meet you out there.”

I went behind the bar and started mixing us a whiskey and Coke. I put just enough in to give me a buzz, I was needing it tonight, and I headed outside. I handed a cup to Aiden and sipped on my own.

“You are good at this,” he said. “I can hardly taste the whiskey.”

I took a big drink of mine, and it burned all the way down. I set my drink beside the hot tub and took off my cover up. I looked down at my red bikini. It's tiny. Emily talked me into buying it last summer. '
You're only young once. Flaunt that body while you got it'
, she had said.

I finally decided to just be brave. I turned around and confidently climbed inside the hot tub. When I looked up at Aiden, he was staring at me. He had a look of desire in his eyes, and I felt my face flush. I took another long drink, hoping that it would give me courage.

“This is nice,” I said, breaking the silence.

Aiden nodded his head in agreement, but still hadn't saying anything. He scooted closer to me, and I jumped when I felt his hand touch my knee.

“You're beautiful,” he finally said.

Once again, I felt my face flush. “Thanks.” I turned up my drink and finished it in one swallow. I still wasn't feeling it.

“Want more?” Aiden asked.

I nodded, not wanting to speak. He got out of the hot tub, and went inside to fix us another drink. I laid my head back and tried to relax. A few minutes later, I heard Aiden climb back in. I took a sip of the drink he handed me, and nearly choked. I sat it down.

“That is
strong
.”

“
Sorry,” he apologized. “I like mine a bit stronger.”

I heard the back door open, and looked up to see Steve and Emily coming out. They were in normal clothes now.

“Hey, we're going to bed now,” Emily told me. “We'll see you in the morning. Have fun.”

“
Good night,” I told them as they walked inside. Once they were inside, I looked at Aiden. He was looking at me with desire again. I couldn't help but smile.

“
I love it when you smile.” He once again slid closer to me. This time I didn't jump when he put his hand on my knee. “Is it alright if I kiss you?”

I was afraid that I couldn't speak, so I just nodded at him. He didn't hesitate before his lips crashed into mine. His kiss was full of want and desire. Even though we were in the hot tub, I could feel myself heating up. I got up on my knees and then straddled him as we kissed. I could feel his erection between my legs, and I slowly began to rock against him.

Aiden pulled away from my lips. I started to protest, but then he started kissing me down my neck. I groaned with pleasure. Once again, he met my lips, this time with fire. I felt his kiss all the way to my toes. My lips parted and his tongue slipped inside my mouth. He began massaging my tongue with his, and I couldn't help but wonder what else he could do with that tongue.

His hands stayed safely on my hips, and I suddenly felt frustrated. Why wouldn't he touch me? I pulled back.

“What's wrong?” he asked, sweetly.

“
Why aren't you touching me?” I asked, breathlessly. “Do you not want me?”

“
I want you so bad that I can hardly stand it.”

My heart sped up at his words. “Then why won't you take me?”

He groaned. “Roxy, don't say things like that.”

“
But I want you.”

He looked me deep in the eyes, and I swear it was like he was seeing directly into my soul. “Roxy, you are more than just a random hook up. You are my forever girl. The girl I want to spend the
rest
of my life with. I don't want to rush it.”

What he was saying was incredibly sweet, and I couldn't argue with him, no matter how bad I wanted him. I got out of the hot tub, and stumbled. I guess I was more tipsy than I thought.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“
I need to cool off,” I answered, and then did a cannonball into the pool. I came up from the water just as Aiden jumped in, and splashed me. He came up from the water and swam over to me.

“
Did I tell you how much I love your bikini?” he asked, running his finger up my side. I shivered at his touch.

“
The pool isn't helping,” I whispered, unable to trust my voice.

“
I think it's your bikini,” he said, chuckling.

“
If you don't like it, I can always change.” I started to pull away, but he quickly pulled me back.

“
No!” he said. “I like it a little too much. I'm going to have problems getting the image out of my head. You're so damn sexy.”

AIDEN

Roxy and her little red bikini was tempting the hell out of me. She looked so hot. I didn't think it was possible for one person to be so gorgeous.

I watched Roxy climb out of the pool. And yeah, I checked out her ass... And what a fine ass it was. She turned around, and her cheeks turned a deep shade of red.

“
Were you checking me out?” she asked, putting her hands on her hips.