The Missing Frame

Chapter 2

“Why don’t you take your shirt off?” I tease him as we go outside into the pool.

“Because I burn like a bitch,” he grins.

“Aww. Poor baby,” I lower myself into the water, squealing the lower I sink.

“Cold?” he watches me.

God, those blue eyes…

“Just a little,” I shiver.

He gets in and goes right under.

“Holy shit, it is kinda cold,” he resurfaces an inch from me.

I smile and hold my arms open.

He picks me up and wraps his arms around my waist.

“You know what, baby?”

“What?”

“This brings back a lot of memories,” he tells me.

Finally….

He is opening up to me about some of his past.

“Oh yeah? Like what?….If that’s okay to ask,” I add quickly.

“Well…It reminds me of Devon. We went swimming together once,” he says.

“Oh,” I let him touch my face with those fingers, the lengthy fingers hardened from guitar practice.

“But no worries…This is way different from then, baby,” he kisses my shoulder, and travels up the side of my neck.
I am pinned against the side of the pool with my legs wrapped around his waist.

“I love you,” he says.

“I love you too,” I whisper.

And he kisses me.

It’s everything I think a kiss should be.

There’s no fireworks, no wedding bells going off, but it’s perfect.

I hold him to me like it is the last time I will ever see him.

“When you want to?” Brendon asks me the next day.

I ponder in my head of a good time.

It would have to be after my mother is gone, and before school starts.

“When’s the next time you can come down here?”

Brendon lives in Hot Springs but visits Mitch and his family constantly.

“Probably Thursday…You know my girl’s gotta work and if I‘m not up her ass, she‘ll get freaked out,” he reminds me.

Oh yes…His beautiful girlfriend.

The girl that is so beautiful that he has to cheat on her for the “benefit of their relationship”.

Why do I want to when I know he has a girl?

Revenge is sweet and it is not so bad to know that at least I am not the first he cheated on her with.

“What time do I need to get here?” he asks, a smug smirk on his mouth.

Somehow, this kind of using is not bothering me.

I suppose it is because I know I am going to be used.
“My mom leaves for work at three…So, maybe five-ish?” I look to him.

“That’s good. Annie leaves for work at one, but she’ll work til about ten a.m…”

He stops and looks at me.

“This could be fun…We could be friends with benefits,” Brendon grins.

Honestly, I wonder what his reasons are for cheating on his girl.

She is gorgeous; he should feel privileged to have someone that divine.

“But what about Annie? Don’t you feel just a little bad?” I question him.

“Well, yeah…But c’mon. We’re not married. I gotta live a little til then,” he says.

And again, I wonder why I am doing this.

“So you’ll sneak out around five right? Where we meeting up?” he says after a few minutes of silence.

“Yeah…Umm…There’s this little place we can just pull in at,” I envision the place and think of how concealing it is.

“Nobody will see us, right?”

“Yeah…It’s pretty covered.”

“Where is it?”

“Right down the road from here. It’s like a trucking road or something,” I tell him.

“Show me where it is.”

“Why did you lie to me, Laken?”

I hate that he is hurt.

What I hate even more is that it’s my fault.

“I just wanted you to love me more….” I whisper.

“What makes you think I didn’t love you anyway?” he says brokenly.

What did make it seem like he didn’t love me?

Was it the fact that I had to put so much of myself out to keep him happy?

Was it the fact that he is still in love with her?

I cannot compare to her.

“You still love her…”

He is still and I know I hit the answer.

Bulls eye.

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean anything. Why’d you tell me all those lies?”

He dodges it.

Completely blows it off like it was merely a fly on his shoulder.

Why did I?

How could I tell him when I didn’t even know myself?

Maybe I am just a messed up person who is warped in the head and needs psychological help.

“It doesn’t even matter anymore….Just let me think, okay?” he looks at me, and I see the torment of my mistake in his face.

Not even a year and we are having problems.

He leaves the house and drives away, the dust blocking the rear of the car from sight.

I go to my room and cry.

What if he doesn’t forgive me?

I can change….

I just don’t want him to go.
Not when I didn’t have him barely long enough to break myself.

Later on that day, I got on my yahoo messenger and found him there.

He popped up and it said, “I forgive you, baby.”

A great dam bursts and I begin to cry in relief.

I haven’t lost him.

“You can thank Brendon. I wasn’t gonna give you another chance,” he says.

I feel my heart falter a little at this.

How is it I can sense, almost taste, that this is where it all spirals down?

“I wanna see you tomorrow, baby. Can me and Brendon come get you?”

I stare at the screen.

All over, I am numb.

I still have the love of my life.

But he doesn’t know how torn up I am inside.

I feel like a shredded piece of paper.

“Yes. I wanna see you too,” is all I say back.

“Laken, what’s that?” Ily points at a cut on my arm.

I cover it with my sleeve and shrug.

“Nothing,” I say.

Ily doesn’t say a word and I go to talk to another one of my friends.

I am conversing with someone when my arm is pulled out and my jacket sleeve is shoved up.

“What is this, Laken?” Mel’s eyes are hard and disappointed.

I find no words to say but my eyes give me away and she drops my arm before storming away from me.

“Mel,” I whisper and I know she cannot hear me.

I am sorry she had to find out about my cuts.

I know it makes her feel like a shitty friend.

I look to Ily to see her sad face.

They just don’t understand.

They just don’t understand that talking is not enough.

They just don’t feel the pain that I am forced to feel everyday.

Ever since Mitch and I have split, pain is all I have found.

“That looks new,” Mitch points to a cut in the crook of my arm.

“Oh. I dunno,” I say, careful not to meet his eyes.

“Baby…When are you gonna stop doing that?” his voice is stressed.

When am I gonna stop?

How could I explain to him and make him believe that it’s me, not him, that causes me my aches?

“I’ve already stopped,” I said.

“That’s good…So what are you doing tomorrow?” he rubs my knee gently as we sit on his mother’s front porch steps.

“School…Then prolly just home. Why?” I kiss him.

“You should stop by and see me. I’ve been missing you a lot here lately,” he says.

“I miss you too, baby,” I scoot closer and he wraps an arm around my waist.

He takes my arms and runs his fingers over my scars.

“You know, when I first saw these, I wanted to know automatically why you had done it. If it was someone who hurt you, I would have hurt them,” he smiles.

Yes, I have been cutting before I even met him.

It is just something that helps relieve stress.

Nobody expects a kid to have a hard life anymore; everyone believes the younger generation have it so easy.

“It was stupid really,” I tell him.

He gazes at me with those smoky orbs and I reach out to touch his face.

I love the feel of his stubbles, and I love the feel of his lips.

I am lucky to have him.

I will not trade him for anything else in the whole galaxy.