Falling (Fading Series)

  “She’s more than amazing. Sergej has always considered her a prodigy,” she says as she flips to the next photo. “Has she gotten many job offers?”

  “Umm, I don’t really know,” I answer honestly, and when she looks up, she says, “Well, I have no doubt that she’s gonna have quite a few companies to choose from.”

  “I’m sure she will.”

  “And these,” she continues as she takes her sleek glasses off and sets them on her desk, “these are really beautiful.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Are you being displayed anywhere else at the moment?” she questions.

  “No. Didn’t really think all too seriously about pursuing anything with these photos until this past week, to be honest.”

  “Well, I’d be interested in these two, if you’d like to discuss further,” she tells me as she sets two of the samples aside and stacks the rest. “Are you optioning a sale?”

  “No. I won’t sell these,” I respond. All these photos are of Candace, and I don’t want any of them hanging in some random person’s home. They’re mine.

  “Well, then. Let me look at something really quick,” she says as she starts clicking away on her laptop. “I can do a six-week spot showing. It’s a good slot because they will be on display during one of our invite-only showings next month. You’ll have a lot of eyes on these that could help jumpstart some work if that’s a direction you’d like to go.”

  “That sounds great.”

  “Perfect, then. Let me go grab all the necessary paperwork, and we can get everything secured for you right now.”

  Feeling like I’ve been needing to do something different, have a little more focus, this couldn’t have come at a better time. Although I would never sell these particular photos, I’d love to have an opportunity to expand this and possibly take on some work. So we spend the next half hour getting everything set up before I head out, feeling good about this new door that could be opening for me.

  After Stacy selected the two pieces for display a few days ago, I went to have them canvassed and just got back home from dropping them off at the gallery. The wall had already been prepped, and they should be up by tomorrow. It’s a good feeling to be doing something that will hopefully bring me some opportunities.

  When I start heading back to my office, there’s a knock on the door.

  “Are you Ryan Campbell?” a guy questions when I answer it.

  “Yeah.”

  He hands over several papers and says, “I’ve got some legal documents here for you. Are you active military?”

  “No.”

  “Okay. Well, there’s no signature required. Have a good day,” he tells me before walking down the stairs.

  Closing the door, I unfold the papers to find that I’ve just been served a subpoena, and when I see who the plaintiff is, anger that I haven’t felt in a while kicks up. This fucker has a lot of nerve, and I’m about to put an end to this shit, pulling out my phone and calling Jase, who’s out of town with Mark right now.

  “Hey, Ryan. What’s up?

  “I need to know where I can find Jack,” I demand.

  “What?” he asks as I take him off guard.

  “I just got served a subpoena, man. Tell me, or I’ll just get on the computer and find him myself.”

  “What are you gonna do?”

  “What should have been done months ago,” I tell him as my annoyance builds inside of me. “Don’t make me ask again,” I nearly threaten.

  Jase huffs out a hard breath before responding. “He lives at the frat.”

  “Which one?”

  “The Lambda house on nineteenth.”

  I hang up without saying anything else and grab my keys.

  My heart is racing when I pull up in front of the large brick house. There aren’t many cars around, and with classes over for the summer, everything is in my favor when I knock and he’s the one that answers. The preppy son of a bitch stands there in his white polo as my fist clenches around the court documents in my hand. Looking at his face, you can still see the slight greyish-yellow bruising around his nose and muted pink rings under his eyes where I beat the shit out of him nearly two months ago. There is no doubt that I seriously fucked this guy up.

  His eyes are wide as he looks at me in shock, and I don’t say a word when I push my way inside, kicking the door shut before I fist his shirt and slam him up against the wall, pinning him with my forearm square across his neck.

  I’m seething, and the fear in his eyes is prominent.

  “Candace Parker, you know her?” I grit out in pure hate. My muscles tense as I keep him locked against the wall.

  He doesn’t speak as all the blood drains from his face at the mere mention of her name.

  “Yeah, you know her.” Backing my weight off, I slam my arm into him again, causing his head to pound against the wall. “You’re lucky I didn’t fuckin’ kill you at the bar.”

  “Dude,” he faintly gasps out in distress, and his voice just adds to my rage.

  “Don’t think that I’m not still considering it because I’ll kill you with my bare hands, and there’s not a goddamn thing you can do to stop me because I know you don’t want your dirty secret being exposed.”

  “I don’t know what that bitch told you, but I didn’t do shit,” he spits at me.

  Slamming him down to the ground, head smacking hard against the wooden floor, I grip his neck in my hand, yelling, “I was fuckin’ there, you sack of shit. Who do you think beat your ass that night? I know everything you did to her, and there’s a rape kit with your DNA all over it, so tell me again that you didn’t do shit!”

  Before he can respond, I pull back and hammer my fist into his nose as he screams out, blood running down his face.

  “Don’t worry, I’m not gonna kill you. But I am gonna let you go through your life every day wondering if that’s going to be the day that I show up, because I’ll never let what you did to her go. So you can live your life in fear just like she does every day, you piece of shit.”

  Striking my fist into his jaw, I stand and pick up the papers that I dropped. I step back over to him as he lies there, curled up in agony, and lean over as I smack the papers on the ground next to his face, telling him, “You’re gonna drop these charges today and fuck off.”

  My veins are on fire with vengeance and knowing that I’ve got him by the balls on this, I ram my booted foot into his smug-ass face, listening to him heave in pain as I walk out. All my emotions about Candace that I’ve pushed down these past couple weeks flood back in a matter of seconds. I could kill that fucker, but it still would never feel like enough because even after all this time apart, the hard truth is, I still love her with every part of me. She’s moved on, and I have been trying to do the same, but here I am, back in this.

  Driving home, fueled by rage laced with sadness, I crack. I’ve never hated a single thing more than I hate that sick fuck for what he did to my girl. For what he did to us. I lost it all because he’s the one that gave me the secret that I held from her. He’s the one that inflicted himself on our relationship that no longer is. Without even trying, he continues to cause chaos in our lives.

  After spending a good chunk of the day taking my lingering aggravation out at the gym, I’m finally able to settle my nerves and calm down. I have no doubt that the charges will be dropped, so I’ll give it a few days before calling to make sure there isn’t anything pending against me.

  I’ve been trying to keep my mind occupied with anything other than Candace and what happened this morning, so when I’m completely burnt out from watching TV, I head upstairs to get ready for bed.

  It’s after one in the morning when I hear a knock on my door after brushing my teeth. When I make my way back down, I peek out the windows to see who could be here this late, but there’s no car in the drive as the rain pours down. I unlock the door, and I swear to God, the whole world stops moving when I open it to see Candace. In an instant, she begins crying and falls into m
y arms. She’s soaking wet from the rain, and I know she had to have walked here.

  For this moment, I lose my breath in her as I feel the warmth I thought I would never feel again. A warmth that only she can give me. She clings to me as she cries, and I break for her, not knowing what to say because I’m afraid if I speak, she’ll leave. She’s here, and all I want to do is make sure that she stays.

  God, just stay.

  Reaching down, I slip my arm behind her knees and scoop her into my arms as I carry her inside. She keeps her head tucked into me, and I’ve missed this so much. Even with her hurting, for whatever reason, I miss it. The touch, the feel of her skin, the smell of her hair. I have it all wrapped up in my arms, and it’s where I want to keep it.

  I sit us down on the couch with her still in my lap, and I keep my arms tightly banded around her because I just can’t let her go. I listen to her sobs as they begin to soften into whimpers, feeling the soft quakes of her body as she takes in tiny gasps of air.

  “Baby, what happened?” I finally ask, and when she lifts her head and stares into my eyes, I fall for her all over again. It’s in my heart, the heavy weighted emotion that’s nothing but the love I have for this beautiful girl. Needing to touch her, I reach up and run my fingers down the soft skin of her cheek.

  “Jack died tonight.”

  What did she just say?

  Suddenly my heavy heart takes on a pounding as questions brew inside. What the hell happened after I saw him this morning? Fuck! Did I do it? Did I kick him too hard in the head? I could have easily killed him. Panic shoots through me, cold like ice, but the sudden rush of fear is diminished when she says, “Kimber called and told me he died in a car crash earlier today. Drunk driving accident or something.”

  A hard breath thuds out of my chest. Relief. Maybe I’m sick, but there’s not a single piece of me that feels bad about this. But her? She’s so upset, and I have to wonder where her head is at with this.

  She’s so close in my arms, tears still streaking down her face, and when I rest my forehead against hers, greedy to take every touch I can, she begins to ramble, an emotional mess.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t know where to go. I’m so confused. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

  “Slow down, babe.”

  “Should I be happy? Or relieved?” she asks as she pulls her head back and looks at me, pleading for answers I don’t have.

  “Well, what do you feel right now?”

  “Sad. And hurt,” she admits honestly before dropping her head and adding, “I don’t know why. It’s like all I can think about is Jack when he was good. Or when I thought he was. But I know he wasn’t. I know I should hate him. But, if I’m sad, does that mean I don’t hate him?”

  Lifting her chin to look at me, I say, “I think you’re just in shock. I think you need a little time to sort this out in your head.” She rests her head back on my shoulder, and I feel her body lightly shivering under my arms. “Let me go get you a towel. You’re freezing.”

  She slips off of my lap as I grab a couple of large towels from the guest bathroom, and when I return, I wrap one of them around her shoulders and then pull her back into my arms.

  “You need anything to drink?”

  She sits up, and I lose her touch as she clutches the towel around her, shaking her head no. I reach to her again and slowly pull her back against me. I’m selfish, but I don’t care. I’ve missed her so much. No matter how hard I try to give up on her, I just can’t. I bury it and keep myself busy enough to where I don’t think about her. But she’s always there, lying beneath, deep inside of me where I’m starting to believe she will always be. It’s like she’s the other half of me. The half that would make life miserable if I didn’t have it, so I’ve always kept it. It’s not even a choice.

  “Talk to me,” I urge.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t even realize I was here until I was in front of your door.”

  “I’m glad you’re here,” I tell her before I move to hold her face in my hands, trying to keep myself together when I let her know, “I’ve missed you so much.”

  My words hurt coming out of me, a confession that shouldn’t be because she should just know, but I tell her anyway. The thought of her walking away from me now that I have her here in my home, in my hands, and so fuckin’ deep in my heart makes it hard to breathe right now. But she gives me hope, a hope I thought was forever lost, when I look into her eyes that are rimmed red with tears and she touches me. She gives me her soft hand as she places it on my face and runs it down my jaw, and then she crumbles. With her eyes shut, she chokes on the sobs that break through.

  “Baby, don’t cry.”

  Leaning in, I kiss her forehead, simply resting my lips against her. I need every second of this as I feel her coming back to me, until she pulls away, shaking her head, and then the knife strikes when she whispers, “I can’t.”

  “Babe.”

  “I can’t. It hurts so bad, I just can’t.”

  “I swear to you,” I beg because that’s all I have at this point. “I will never hurt you again.”

  “But you swore you wouldn’t hurt me before and you did.”

  Lowering my head to look her in the eyes straight on, I affirm, “I love you. God, I love you so much,” as I move in, holding her face in my hands, and gently graze my lips across hers, tasting the sweetest thing I’ve ever had.

  “I’m moving,” she breathes against my lips, and her words echo in my head. A painful reality that I knew would come, but to have it here when I finally have her, is something I don’t want to face.

  I shift back to look at her, not wanting to accept her words, when she says, “I got a job. I’m moving to New York in two weeks.”

  Dropping my head, I feel the panic in me. The finality of this has never been more tangible than it is right now, and it’s a sharp blade in my heart. A slow bleed that bears the agony of an unrelenting suffering.

  “You can’t kiss me,” she says as a new slew of tears starts. “If you do . . . I’ll never want to leave you.”

  “Then I’ll come with you.”

  “Ryan . . . I just can’t. I’m too scared you’ll hurt me again. I just need to be on my own. I’ve been working so hard to pull myself out of the hell I’ve been living in.”

  “I know you have. I ask Jase about you all the time. He’s told me how well you’re doing. I just wish I could be around to see it, babe,” I choke out around the knot in my throat that I can no longer fight as I drop my head and cry. Cry for what we once had. We were so good and happy. Completely in love and bound together in a way I never thought two people could be. But we were, and I don’t think something like that comes around too often.

  “All I ever wanted was for you to be okay, to be happy,” I tell her.

  “I’m okay.”

  She lets me hold on to her, so I do. Scared to let go of her because I know what it means when I finally do, and it’s a pain I’m not ready to feel. So I let time pass as I keep her tucked into me, her head nestled in the curve of my neck, the feel of her damp hair against my skin, the smell of her soft scent that filters into my lungs . . . my senses consumed with her, and then comes sound as she finally speaks.

  “Do you think you could drive me home?”

  “Yeah,” I whisper, wondering how you say goodbye to someone like her. But I find happiness in one thing, and that is, after all we have been through and all the time that has passed, she ran to me for the comfort that she needed.

  I let my tears fall as I drive her home, and with each glance over, I see her own stained face. My gut is in knots, and with my eyes on the road ahead, I ask, as desperate as a man could, because I have nothing else, “Tell me how to fight for you.”

  “Please,” is her only response, spoken softly, pleading for me not to push any more.

  When I pull up to her house, I turn to her and ask, “Can I walk you in?”

  “Ryan.”

  Nodding my head, I get it. I see the pa
in in her eyes, but when she turns to grab the handle, I give her my last attempt to let her know, “I’ll never love anyone the way that I love you.”

  She looks back at me, tears streaming, and she nods. Without words I hear what she’s telling me, and I hate that she’s denying us something we both know is great. She feels my words too, and having the knowledge that she feels the same way about loving me makes this all the worse. With the click of the handle, she steps out as I hear her crying begin to crack though, and the sound is excruciating.

  And that’s it.

  She’s gone.

  “How is it that you’re so good with Bennett?” Traci asks me as I lay him down on the floor on his blanket.

  “Because for the past five years my cousins have been pushing out babies,” I tell her.

  Max returned to work this past week, and he wanted me to stop by and check on Traci. He told me she was freaking out about being alone with the baby, so I decided to bring my camera along to take some photos of Bennett for her.

  “Can you turn off the light? I just need the natural light right now.”

  “Yeah, sure,” she says as she flips the lights off.

  The sun is shining today, making it perfect for these pictures. Bennett is asleep as I adjust him before bringing the camera to my eye and taking a few shots then moving him into a different pose.

  “Thanks for doing this.”

  “No problem. I wasn’t doing anything today, so I’m glad I have the distraction,” I tell her because I feel like I just went back in time a few months, and I’m feeling the loss of Candace all over again.

  “Max is worried about you,” she says, and when I look up at her, I say, “Is that so?”

  Tilting her head at me, she adds, “Yeah, that’s so.”

  “Tell him I’m fine. Life is full of shit. It’s nothing that I’m not used to.”

  “That’s a depressing outlook.”

  Sitting back on my heels, I scan through the photos I just took as I say, “Not everybody gets what they want, Traci.”

  “There’s probably someone else out there that you’re gonna want more; you just haven’t met her yet.”