Skin Like Dawn (When You Come to Me) Read online

  God, why did he love her so much? Why did she matter so much? What was it?

  Just for once he’d like her to go out of her way, find him, march right up to him and claim him. The chasing had lost its appeal.

  But like the sucker he was, he drunkenly concocted ways to make it better. He liked when she smiled and he knew that he had something to do with it.

  A trip. Yes, a trip. He would research flights while she was asleep tonight. They could go somewhere tropical. And then maybe…just maybe…when she was totally comfortable…and they were totally alone…she’d want to…

  Fuck it, he told himself. This is useless.

  It was the sex. It was always about the sex.

  He’d finished his fourth beer – it was at this moment that he felt comfortable picking up his phone and asking her about it.

  He dialed the all too familiar number, instantly recalling the look on her face when he left her sitting on his living room sofa.

  And then a memorable face walked toward him, halting his efforts completely. He knew her face from somewhere, but he’d lost sight of how. Class? Work? Another bar?

  She was ambling quickly toward him with a smile. She recognized him too. He knew his brows were furrowed, but he couldn’t discern if it was because he was trying to focus or if it was Tallie circling around in his head.

  “Brandon…?”

  In a previous life, she would have been his Kryptonite: pre-Raphaelite strawberry blonde hair, supple breasts, blue eyes as big as saucers. Damn it.

  He was staring, he realized. She was still trying to get his attention.

  “Hmm…?”

  “Brandon Greene…?”

  “I think that’s me,” he answered coyly. Then, she smiled.

  “I figured,” she replied. His eyes kept flickering to her breasts. Stop looking at her damn breasts!

  Then he chanted Tallie’s full name in his head.

  “You look…different,” she mused, cocking her head to the side.

  He’d fallen in love. It was his sickness. It hurt.

  “Thanks,” he replied facetiously. And he giggled. Then his groin glimmered to attention at the sound of it. Damn it.

  They’d kissed once. He remembered it now. He was drunk then too. But he was single. Yes, he was definitely single when it happened. They might have done other stuff too. He couldn’t recall.

  He realized he was staring at her again. And she was still talking.

  “…anyway. So what are you up to these days?”

  Trying to get my girlfriend who I’m obsessed with to sleep with me. Trying to get my girlfriend who I adore with every fiber of my being to love me the way I love her. Trying to understand said girlfriend.

  He shrugs his shoulders. “Not much.”

  But it’s so much more than that. It’s so much more. His life has become so fucked up in such a short period of time that he can scarcely catch his breath. And Natalie can feel it. Damn it she can feel it. She knows what’s going on. Maybe that’s why she’s so angry with him.

  “What about you?” he responds. And she takes off, tumbling down a series of events that have occurred since the last time they interacted almost two years prior. And then suddenly they’re in the middle of the dance floor, writhing together. And Scotty is watching him closely.

  He doesn’t give a damn. It feels good to be this close to a woman in this way. Or is that the beer talking? Is it the fragmented parts of himself coming together and acting out of turn?

  He should go and call Natalie now. Say “goodnight” and tell her he loves her. Because he really, really does.

  But then Strawberry Blonde leans up toward him and purses her lips. The music is taking them over. And her smell…goddamnit her smell.

  She’s trying to do something that he doesn’t want. But he’s entertaining it. Why the hell is he indulging this?

  He places his hand on her arm and ceases her movement. “Not here…come.”

  He tugs her by the elbow and leads her outside. The summer heat has dampened the part of her shirt covering her breasts. He rolls his lips in.

  “This is fate, isn’t it?” she murmurs.

  “Shh…”

  And he pulls her a little closer. His conscience is screaming at him. Pure, unsheathed screaming.

  Then Tallie and her debilitating ebony lion’s mane comes into view. His heart does something funny.

  And his phone vibrates in his pocket. He thinks it’s Scotty. He knows it’s Scotty asking him what the fuck he’s doing. He loves Natalie as much as he does. It’s almost alarming how much.

  But he looks and it’s her. His baby.

  He holds a finger up to Strawberry Blonde and languidly stumbles out of earshot.

  “Brandy…” she murmurs. The sound of his nickname…it takes him back swiftly.

  She’s been crying. He instantly hears it in her voice. He exhales heavily.

  “I’m coming home right now, baby…don’t cry…please, don’t cry…”

  He dashes home and she’s waiting by the door. They embrace tightly, and she crumbles into tears. He takes her to his bedroom and coddles her to sleep, squelching her need to tell him “I’m sorry” over and over again. He already knows this. He can feel her.

  Then he quietly tucks away to the bathroom, recalls what could have happened and empties the entire contents of his stomach into the toilet.

  Now, a couple of nights later, he stared at her sleeping peacefully. Yes, it was a drunken sleep. A pitifully drunken stupor that left him alone with his thoughts.

  She doesn’t want me. She said “no”. She doesn’t want me. She said fucking “no”. She laughed at me.

  He tugged open his nightstand drawer stealthily. And he pulled out the box. The blue box. And his hands started to tremble. And his throat ached a bit.

  Mulling over the course of events in his head, he slowly cracked the box open. Natalie stirred a bit and murmured something that he didn’t understand.

  He didn’t have the energy to figure it out either.

  And he looked at it – really, really looked at it.

  He deterred away from remembering how long it had taken him to pick out that fucking ring, dragging Scotty and Asha along as if they had the faintest idea who Natalie was and what she liked.

  He’d never even thought about doing this before – going to jewelry shop after jewelry shop, trying to find the right one. Nobody knew her better than him. He would always be certain of that.

  He saw dozens of gorgeous rings over the course of a week, but none felt right. He likened the experience to the women of his past, pouring through them one by one. He’d given each just enough energy to get by. But none of them in no way could measure up to the feelings he experienced at present – a girl who innocuously refused his every charm and grace. A girl who proudly thwarted every single one of his advances, subtle or obvious. A girl who completely came out of nowhere, and left him dumbfounded to submission. Unscathed submission.

  Fucking love.

  He’d planned out everything – and Scotty and Asha were with him from beginning to end. Sure, he should have taken a moment or two to remind himself that Natalie was only twenty. Sure, he should have recalled that she was still in school, and would be in school for a while. Sure, he should have fucking told himself that she still got anxious every time they went to bed together each night. He’d gotten his fill of reassuring her that he wouldn’t touch her in a way that she didn’t want to be touched…unless she wanted him to…unless she looked at him that certain kind of vulnerable way…exposing every facet of his carnal vulnerability.

  He was a man, damn it. And he was in love. Why shouldn’t he want to make love to his girl? Show her how much he really loved her?

  But he was ready through and through – what’s a man supposed to do when he finds “The One”? Watch her walk off into the sunset?

  Fuck no. That wasn’t his way.

  But he realized something while looking down at her while she slept. She
was in his oversized t-shirt. Her hair was pulled back tightly into a bun. He could have easily bent down and kissed her lips. He never wanted to erase how defenseless she looked lying beside him. She was comfortable. This was the only way he could see who she truly was – when she was far away, away from him, away from the conscious world.

  And it killed him.

  He wouldn’t make it. Damn it, he wouldn’t make it if she chose to walk away from him. He couldn’t live without her laugh. He couldn’t live without her intelligence. He couldn’t live without her ability to calm him.

  He couldn’t fucking live without her.

  But she…she could live without him. No question. She could wake up the next morning, and she’d be fine. She never really needed him. It was all in his fucking head.

  Damn it, Tallie.

  The odds are stacked and fucked up against him. He knows what he has to do, but he hesitates. Why? Shouldn’t this be an easy solution for him? For them? After the way she acted that night, he got his answer loud and clear.

  The ill-teetering love steadiness between them had shifted a long time ago. He’d just refused to recognize it.

  But, damn it, he loved her. Shouldn’t there be a better way?

  No, this was the only way.

  He wanted to blame her for this steadfast misfortune. But he couldn’t. He could never force her to feel a certain way that she didn’t. It wouldn’t be right.

  He initially wanted to wait until the morning and explain his feelings and his forthcoming actions. But she wouldn’t understand. She would only scold him.

  “You’re so stupid, Brandon,” she’d say. “What do you mean? Do you even know what you’re saying?”

  This is it, he told himself, rising from the bed. This is it.

  He didn’t even know where to begin. He scavenged the first bag he could find and begin filling it aimlessly – clean clothes, dirty clothes. His hands were still quaking. What the fuck was he really doing?

  It didn’t matter. This was it.

  And he’d glance at her periodically. She didn’t move. God, she was beautiful.

  Once he thought he was finished packing, he moved back toward the bed. With caution, he slid the blue box into his back pocket. She wouldn’t have missed it anyway…

  Then he looked at her – really studied her. He educed the nights where he stayed up and watched her sleep. She’d find a nook in his chest and nestle her head there. He’d run the back of his hand along her cheek gingerly, listening closely to her every inhale and exhale. She was with him. She was his. In his possession. And he’d smile at the audacity that someone so precious so could bring him to his fucking knees. That someone understood him and all of his fucked up quirks and nuances.

  His subconscious made one final attempt to stop him as he hoisted his bag over his shoulder and searched for his car keys.

  This will blow over…like everything else…give it time…stop right now…

  He did move instinctively toward some action. He found a pen and some paper and knelt over his dresser.

  Natalie, you and I…

  Let’s be honest with ourselves…who were we kidding to think that we could really do this?

  I really love you…far more than you ever loved me. So this is…

  I can’t think straight…I need time to…

  He looked at the crumbled sheets of paper on his bedroom floor. And he huffed. There was no real way he could make her understand. But he had to tell her something. He took a deep breath and picked up his pen again…

  Tallie, I’m sorry…

  Then he grabbed his car keys, assembled his bag on his shoulder, and he left…

  JUST A FEW MILES DOWN THE ROAD, he thought about the audacity of it all. And unwanted tears marked their course along his disinclined hot cheeks. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Somewhere along the line, it could have been easier. It would have been easier.

  He shouldn’t have met her. He wished he didn’t. So many unwilling truths could have been avoided.

  There was a split second he could have stopped himself – but there had always been something about her. Sounded trite, yes?

  But he could have stopped it from happening.

  His birthday was always at the beginning of any school year, and he’d always treated it as such. But that particular year was different – one should always do something different for their twenty-first birthday. And he wanted to, but he couldn’t think of what.

  He chocked it up to his young foolishness. He thought about a weekend in Vegas, or a drive down the eastern seaboard to Miami. Just him and the guys, uninhibited for an entire weekend.

  But something had happened…Sophia Baldwin. She watched his every movement and his every thought. And the night before, they’d gone out to eat, and amongst the loud, collegiate chaos surrounding them, uttered something that sent a cool chill down the entire length of his spine.

  “Why haven’t you proposed yet?”

  He wanted to blame the beer she’d only taken two sips of for her foolish words, but he couldn’t. She just glared at him, green eyes exposing his skeletal makeup, as though she proudly held the key to his masculinity, wearing his balls as fashionable earrings.

  He unfroze himself and returned to his meal as though she hadn’t said anything.

  “Brandon,” she pressed. Then, he looked at her again.

  What could he say exactly?

  Suddenly, his mind was tumbling down the shards of their relationship, pieced together shoddily, and torn apart all in the same millisecond. They were shit, and he knew it then.

  But she was beautiful; man, she was beautiful. And being with her made sense.

  “What?” he answered dumbly. He quickly scanned the room for the waiter – he needed to get the check and get the fuck out of there.

  “Did you hear what I said?”

  “I’m not sure, Sophie,” he replied calmly. “Did you hear what you said?”

  “Of course I did,” she replied confidently, grinning at him. Suddenly this was his cue to be profound, say something romantic that totally swept her off her feet. But when it was all said and done, he hadn’t thought about them at all, lasting the length of time that maybe she envisioned in her head.

  He grumbled something. She wasn’t pleased with the type of response she got.

  “Is that supposed to mean something, Brandon…?”

  Of course it did, but nothing she would like.

  “Let’s just go home,” he suggested, placing his napkin on the table. “I can’t deal with this right now…”

  And that was the truth. He couldn’t. Twenty was no fucking age to discuss such things, especially since he was still financially tethered to his parents, practically indebted to them, and had no real sense of the world outside of his little, comfortable bubble.

  Sophia’s pale green eyes glared into his and he read them plainly. But he couldn’t really formulate a better way of expressing his unadulterated anxiousness.

  “I’m sorry,” he said simply, pointedly getting to his feet. “This just isn’t the right time…”

  But he took her home and fucked her anyway, in spite of his innate reticence to sever any type of connection to her.

  He didn’t need this shit.

  HE SPENT THE NEXT DAY cleaning the house on Trent road, and being totally silent, almost to the point that it scared his roommates. If it hadn’t been his twenty-first birthday then he probably wouldn’t have made an appearance at all. Tritely and emotionally drained in his early twenties was no way to live, but he couldn’t imagine an outlet.

  Sophia left to shop and to change, and he welcomed the space. She, too, had detected the disparity in her emotions against his and there was nothing she could really say about it.

  He wasn’t changing his mind.

  But that wasn’t the saddest part: he didn’t know how to tell her. He didn’t know how to articulate the idea that he didn’t want to spend the rest of his life with Sophia. He didn’t like her enough.<
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  He figured he didn’t love her enough either.

  She called him once around dinnertime, and he didn’t think to call her back. At that point, he was already on beer number two, lounging irreverently on the front lawn with Scotty watching scholastic passersby.

  Scotty was already pretty close to his limit.

  Whose birthday was it again?

  The sun was still higher than it should have been, and the breeze was hot and stifling, but he gazed upward anyway and peered through the trees above him. He’d never really gotten used to the southern heat. He missed New York more than he thought.

  He knew that day was different, but he couldn’t have guessed why. And what the hell was he searching for up there? Guidance, forgiveness, a good ass pat on the back?

  Scotty didn’t seem to notice his strange behavior, but nobody did, really. Nobody listened. But even if they did, would he even be willing to divulge?

  But, hell, it was way too much to process all at once, and he was far too fucking young.

  The seriousness of it all could wait another couple years before it all manifested and slammed into his face.

  Sophie called again while he was in the shower, and he didn’t think to call her back then either.

  He only got dressed while Bob Marley played softly from his stereo. He even stumbled a bit shrugging into his Syracuse t-shirt. Despite his athletic prowess, he was never very agile in his basic movements. And the beer he consumed didn’t help either. He attributed it to some malady in his brain that never got corrected.

  He just knew that by the end of the night his clumsiness would bring harm to himself or somebody else.

  HE DIDN’T RECOGNIZE A GOOD NUMBER of the people who came to the house on Trent road for his birthday party. But come midnight he couldn’t give a fuck.

  He was drunk, beyond drunk, abysmally absentminded.

  One moment he was chugging a Bud Light with his old friend from the dorms, and in a split second, Sophia was dragging him into a bedroom, confronting him with mind-splitting anger and glass-shattering screams.

  He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen her so angry.