Before We Fall

  have anything healthy or real, so they come here to get debased. Look at Kira! She’s in love with you, yet she’s having sex with your brother right now. What the fuck?”

  Dominic grips my arm, hard. “There’s nothing wrong with these people,” he tells me in a low voice. “This is just what they like. Most of them are like me. They’re jaded and they’ve seen everything, so the normal doesn’t do it for them anymore. And Kira… she’s not in love with me. She likes this. It’s who she is. She’s fucked up too, like me.”

  I look at her again, just in time to see a tear slip down her cheek before she closes her eyes, and I startle.

  “She’s crying,” I snap at Dominic. “It doesn’t look like she likes it anymore.”

  The words are no sooner out of my mouth than Kira jumps up and runs from the room, toward what looks to be a bathroom. Before I can even think about it, I pull away from Dominic and follow her.

  I find her in a heap on a bench in an ornate bathroom. Tears are streaming down her face and her arms are wrapped around her sides. I approach her carefully.

  “Are you okay?”

  She doesn’t answer. She just continues to cry, staring at the wall.

  “I’m sorry,” I offer quietly.

  She looks up at me. “Are you?” Her words aren’t sharp or ugly, just a blunt question. I nod.

  “I can see that you’re upset. And if I’m at fault, I am sorry.”

  Kira looks away, wiping at her eyes. “It’s actually not your fault. I’m pissed because I shouldn’t have been with Duncan.” She looks away, her eyes watery. “I’ve always wanted him, you know… Dominic. Always. Even before Emma died. And after she died, I stuck by him. I was everything that he needed, all of these years, but it’s never mattered. I’ve never been enough. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that you are, because you won’t be. What he needs is dead. And she’s never coming back.”

  “Kira, stop,” Dominic says coldly, and I spin around to find him at the door. He takes two steps toward us and stops again. His face is deadly calm, his voice like ice. “You need to stop.”

  I stare at him. “Are you still in love with Emma? Is that what’s wrong with you?”

  Because I can’t compete with a dead woman.

  “It’s not that simple,” he says, turning to me; but Kira laughs, a cold and empty sound.

  “It is that simple. He’s in love with her. He must be. I don’t know what’s wrong with him or what he needs. I don’t know if he knows. Don’t waste your time with him. Trust me. I’ve wasted years. He’ll suck you down and you’ll drown with him.”

  I stare at her, then him, and my eyes well up with tears at the thought that she might be right. I hadn’t even realized that I wanted to save him, but I do. I want to save him from this… from all of this.

  But maybe Dominic is unsaveable simply because he doesn’t want to be saved. Or maybe he just doesn’t know what actually would save him. Either way, it seems hopeless.

  Dominic looks at Kira and something softens in his gaze. “Kira, I’m sorry. I never knew that you wanted more from me. You never said and I never saw it. You’ve been such a good friend to me for so long. And you were a good friend to… her too. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  “No?” Kira looks up at him, another tear slipping down her cheek.

  “No,” Dominic answers firmly. “I promise you. I would never hurt you on purpose.”

  “But you did, anyway,” Kira says softly. “Just like you hurt Emma.” She turns to me. “And just like he’ll hurt you, too.”

  A tear escapes from my eye… and I’m crying for everything. For the pain in her voice, for the hopelessness of the situation, for the hurt that I see in Dom’s eyes. And for my heart.

  Because it’s broken.

  “Now do you see?” Kira asks quietly. She hands me a tissue, and I wipe my eyes. I do see. I see with my own eyes what could happen to me, what Dominic has been trying to tell me all along.

  I fell in love with him and all he can do is obliterate me.

  But only if I let him.

  I shouldn’t be here. In this moment, I realize something.

  The difference between normal people and me is that I don’t make smart decisions for myself. I never know when to say when. I never know when to stop fighting for something, when to call it quits in order to protect my own heart.

  That ends today.

  For the first time in my life, I’m going to make a smart decision, no matter how hard it might be.

  I pat Kira on the back, then walk out the door.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Dominic

  Jacey slips out of the bathroom before I can stop her.

  Quickly, I follow her, winding my way through the crowded room, only to find no sign of her in the long hallway. I almost run through the house, through the people, until I’m standing in the middle of a mass of parked cars. I’m just in time to see Jacey drive away.

  I know I should let her go.

  But I’m too selfish for that.

  I head for my car, and within a minute I’m on the road behind her. My Porsche catches up to her. I motion for her to pull over, but she doesn’t. I can see her crying; I can see the black streaks of mascara running down her cheeks. I motion again, but she refuses. She won’t even look at me.

  Gunning my engine, I pull in front of her, forcing her off the road. We’re in a secluded section of Sin’s neighborhood. She kills her engine and gets out of her car, glaring at me angrily.

  “What the fuck are you doing, Dominic? I would have thought you’d figure out that if I left, then it means I’m done. But just in case, this is me saying no. No to you, no to your fucked-up life, no to doing anything else with you tonight. Got it?”

  Her words instill panic in me, and I don’t know why. All I know is that the thought of her driving away from me, leaving me… I can’t take it. Suddenly, the thought of it is crushing.

  I grab her arm. “No. I don’t accept that answer.”

  “Why?” Jacey demands. It’s raining now. The rain hits her face and gleams under the streetlight. “You’ve always said that no means no. You don’t have many rules, but at least you have that one. You never wanted me, Dominic. You want a dead woman, and since you can’t have her, you wanted a game. I played it. And now I’m done with it.”

  She pulls away and stomps toward her car, but I grab her again, whirling her around and pulling her to me.

  “It’s not a game. I meant it when I said I’m fucked up. But I mean it when I say that I don’t want it to be over, too. Whatever it is… you and I… whatever we’re doing. I don’t want it to be over, Jacey. I’m not ready.”

  She stares at me in astonishment, her gorgeous face shocked.

  “So you want me to hang around until you’re finally ready for it to be over? Until you’re done with me? You want me to end up like Kira… a sniveling wreck on the floor of a bathroom? No thanks, Dom. That’s not me. Not anymore. I’ve been a work in progress for quite a while, and I guess I can finally see that I deserve more than that. I’m worth more than that.”

  I swallow hard, a thick lump in my throat, and I’m not sure why it’s there.

  “Kira isn’t my fault,” I tell her wildly. “I’ve told her from the beginning what I can offer her. And she wanted to be with me, anyway. She’s always known. She knows me, Jacey. She’s always known me.”

  “Just like I know you, Dom,” Jacey says in resignation. “This isn’t about Kira. This is about me and how I know that you’ll hurt me. I know that even though I don’t want to fall for you, I already have. I can’t make it worse now. I just can’t. I have to be strong enough to walk away. You’ve told me all along that you aren’t good for me. And guess what? You’re not.”

  Her words cause my stomach to tie into a knot. I know I’m not good for her. I’m not good for anyone, but for her, for Jacey, I want to be.

  If I lose her, I don’t know what I’ll do.

  “Jacey,” I continue,
trying to make my voice steady, “I don’t know what I can offer you. But I’ll try to offer you something more than… this. I know you deserve more. Trust me, I know that. You’re different from everyone I know. You’re a breath of fresh air, and I just want to keep breathing you in. That’s a big thing for me, you have no idea.”

  “You don’t know what you can offer me?” she asks slowly, her brown eyes pained as she stares at me. “How about… yourself? Offer me yourself and I’ll stay. But I want all of you. I want a real relationship. I want you and your problems and the truth and the ugliness. I need to know all of it. Can you do that?”

  Can I?

  The idea of telling Jacey everything causes my heart to pound, and I see horrific images in my head. They blur together… Emma’s cold hands, her pale face, the blood. The lights from the ambulance. The blood. Her headstone. My guilt. The blood.

  I close my eyes for a minute, and behind my lids it’s red from the blood that I can’t stop seeing. I open them helplessly and I can’t say anything. I can’t get my tongue to work.

  All I can do is grab Jacey and pull her to me, forcing her lips to my own. Hers are soft and yielding, kissing me back for just a second until she pulls away. When she does, there are tears streaking down her face again, falling in black rivulets down her cheeks, mixing with the rain.

  “I didn’t think so,” she says softly when I don’t say anything. “Answer me one question, Dominic. And be honest. For once, please, just be completely, brutally honest.” She swallows hard, her hands clenched, and looks me in the eye.

  “Are you still in love with Emma? Yes or no?”

  She might as well have hit me with a Mack Truck. I stare at her, silent, trying to figure out how to explain.

  “It’s not that simple,” I say helplessly. But she shakes her head.

  “It’s a yes or no answer, Dom. You taught me this game. Are you still in love with Emma? Yes or no?”

  She stares at me, waiting. From the look in her eyes I can tell she’s wavering between wanting to know and being afraid to know.

  “Yes or no?” she whispers.

  I draw in a shaky breath. “Yes.”

  Her breath exhales in a feathery hiss and she shoves her hair out of her eyes with shaking fingers.

  “The word yes has never hurt so much.” Her voice is a whisper, so soft I can barely hear it. I reach for her, but she shrugs away, out of my reach.

  She walks away, her shoulders slumped as she gets into her car and drives off.

  I stand in the rain for what seems like forever, watching as her taillights disappear into the rain, and the night swallows up her car.

  I stand there and let the rain run into my eyes until I can no longer see.

  Until I can no longer see that she left me.

  When I get into my car, I’m empty inside, more empty and numb than I’ve been in years. Emptier than I’ve ever felt before.

  There’s only one place I can think of to go, one place that will absorb my pain. As I pass through the gates of Mount Olivet Catholic Cemetery, the darkness surrounds me, and I feel a sense of comfort… of familiarity.

  I haven’t been here in years, but I find Emma’s headstone easily. I go straight to it. It’s easy to see. Her parents bought an enormous white marble stone encircled by the wings of an angel.

  I kneel in front of it and trace her name under my fingers.

  Emma Brandt.

  She was no angel, but I loved her anyway. Her stone is cold to the touch… as cold as ice, as cold as my heart. I think of Sin’s song.

  Your heart is cold, cold as ice, but it’s mine to take.

  My heart is cold as ice. It will stay that way… because of Emma. I curl up in front of her name and lie with my cheek against the stone, staring into the night.

  She wrecked me. She might as well have me.

  I’m not fit for anyone else.

  In a while, it starts to rain again, a light, cold rain that soaks into my clothes and lingers on my skin. I don’t even care, and honestly, I barely notice. It can’t wash away who I am, what I’ve done, or who I’ve been. I fall asleep listening to the rain falling on Emma’s stone.

  When I open my eyes again, it’s morning.

  My clothes are wet and my throat is raspy since I breathed damp night air all night long. I sit up and look around, ignoring the odd looks from a cemetery worker. He goes back to weeding a flower bed, but still glances at me every now and then, probably wondering if I’m crazy. I should save him the trouble and just tell him that I am.

  I check my phone and find ten messages from Tally. Because, fuck, I missed my flight home. I should be on-set right now. I sigh and climb back into my car.

  Everything seems like it’s falling apart and I don’t know how to stop it. This is the reason I’m carefully detached, always. I’m cool and calm and collected and I do the things I need to do. Always. I do it so that I don’t fall apart.

  But now there’s Jacey.

  And nothing is the same as it was before.

  Jacey

  I can’t see through the tears streaming down my cheeks. They’re hot and salty and drip onto my clothes.

  I pick up the phone and dial Maddy’s number, wanting to cry on her shoulder, to get her sage advice, but her voicemail picks up.

  I wait, then try again a few minutes later, but still no answer.

  I drive aimlessly until I realize where I’m headed.

  Brand.

  I shake my head. Of course I’m headed for Brand. It’s what I always do when I need help or when I need comforting.

  I know I shouldn’t run to him anymore because he wants to comfort me in ways that I don’t want. He wants to be with me. For real.

  But I can’t think of anything but Dominic. My heart hurts in such a way that it’s almost blinding. It’s all I can feel.

  I pull up out front of his condo building and almost sprint for his door. When I reach it, I’m out of breath, my makeup is smeared, and I’m a sniveling wreck. He answers the door, shirtless and in workout shorts, and stares at me.

  “What the hell, Jacey?” he asks quickly, pulling me inside. “What happened? Are you all right?”

  I nod, then shake my head, then drop onto his sofa and cry. He sits next to me awkwardly, patting my back with his giant hands.

  “Tell me what to do and I’ll do it,” he tells me helplessly. “Did he hurt you? I’ll fucking kick his teeth in if he did.”

  I shake my head, then nod.

  “But not how you think,” I add quickly when Brand immediately starts to get up. With his military background, whenever he hears the word hurt, he automatically assumes it’s in a physical way. “He didn’t lay a finger on me.”

  Brand pauses, then stares down at me with confusion in his blue eyes.

  “Then what did he do?” he asks hesitantly.

  I drop my face into my hands, taking a moment to catch my breath.

  “He obliterated me,” I say limply.

  I curl onto my side, burying my face into the sofa cushions, and sob. I cry for all the things I can’t say, the things I can’t put into words. How Dominic is so haunted and damaged, and how I thought I could help him by showing him that people are good. That not everyone will hurt him. How I can’t make him see that. How he makes me feel so alive and so sexy, yet at the same time, he must be so toxic for me… because right now I’m empty and it’s because of him.

  I cry for all of this.

  For all of these things that Brand doesn’t know.

  Regardless, he stays next to me, patting me, soothing me. And he stays that way, just letting me cry until I can’t cry anymore. He does what Brand always does… makes me feel better just by being here for me.

  When I finally sit up, my eyes are hot and tired.

  “What did he do?” Brand asks calmly, his gaze level and strong. “Tell me.”

  “He told me from the beginning not to get attached to him,” I admit. “But I did anyway. He told me, Brand. It wasn’t his f
ault. I guess, deep down, I thought I could fix him somehow. He’s got issues. His girlfriend died and he still loves her and it’s just a messed up ball of shit.”

  Brand stares at me sympathetically.

  “Jace, you should know by now that you can’t fix anyone. And if his girlfriend died… well, it’s hard to say how that will affect him. Grief does strange things to people.”

  “But it was six years ago,” I tell him. “Dominic blames himself for some fucked-up reason. I don’t know why, because he won’t say.”