Play It Safe

“You wrote me a note?” He was still talking quietly.

Shit.

This again.

I stood and crossed my arms on my chest. “Yes, Gray. Seven years ago I stole off in the dark of night but before doing it, I wrote you a note. This happened seven years ago and those words are the only words I’m going to give this shit. It’s over. It’s been over for seven years. I’m not going over it.”

It was like he didn’t hear me and I knew this when he asked, “You came back?”

Okay, now, he really didn’t want to get into this.

“Listen, you said what you had to say, we had it out, now can you just leave?”

“You came back,” he stated, again not listening to me.

“Gray, I asked relatively nicely and I’ll do it again. Please leave.”

“You came back,” he repeated and I uncrossed my arms from my chest, planted my hands on my h*ps and snapped, “Yes, I came back.”

“Why didn’t you come to me?”

I took a step back because I had no choice. His words came at me in a roar, a wall of sound that was physical, beating into me.

“I –” I started, thrown, stunned, scrambling, unable to think.

“Why the f**k didn’t you come to me, Ivey?” His voice was deep and rasping, it was so abrasive.

“Gray –”

“Why the f**k didn’t you come to me?” he shouted and once again, I lost it.

“Because I saw you, you ass**le!” I shouted back, leaning in. “I saw you with a pretty brunette walking down the sidewalk, smack in town, your arm around her, holding her close, smiling in her face. Like only three months before you’d hold me!” I kept shouting. “I knew about Cecily and Nancy, all of them, all the way back to Emily, all your history. Twenty-five and Mustang’s resident player who played me. So do not stand there and pretend you didn’t get my note and do not stand there and bullshit me that this is about me leaving. This is about you and your pride and needing to get something off your chest. Whatever. You did it. Now get the f**k out.”

“I wasn’t with another woman, Ivey,” he ground out, his eyes locked to mine, his burning.

“Bullshit, Gray, such f**king bullshit. I saw you with her. I was not seeing things. It was not the dead of night. The sun was shining. You were smiling. Do not…bullshit me.”

“I wasn’t with another woman,” he repeated.

“Do not bullshit me!” I leaned forward to shriek.

He didn’t move, not a muscle, just stared at me.

Then he whispered, “Brunette.”

“Yes, Gray, she was a brunette. Switching it up again. Cecily was too.”

His eyes held mine and I noticed his chest was rising and falling deeply (just like mine) then he tore his eyes away from me at the same time he tore his fingers through his hair. Then he dropped his hand and when his eyes came back to me it took everything I had to keep my feet at the pain etched in his features.

“I didn’t get any note,” he whispered. “And that girl was my cousin Chandler. She went to Auburn back then. She was back for summer vacation. Outside Audie, she’s the only cousin I like. Fuck, I’m closer to her than I am Audie. Closer to her than anyone but Gran.”

Every word hit me like a blow, each carrying too much force I couldn’t stop myself from swaying back. I hit chair and steadied.

“You should have come to me,” Gray said softly but each word held at least a ton of weight.

I couldn’t process that. If I gave those words time, they would crush me.

Instead, I whispered, “I left you a note.”

He shook his head. “I was outta my mind when you disappeared. Looked everywhere for you. Janie and I went up there. Swept clean. Nothin’ there but the stuff you borrowed from me.”

My heart was beginning to race and something was crawling in my belly, tearing at the lining, trying to get out.

“That isn’t true,” I said quietly. “I packed in a hurry. I left clothes behind. Books. Shoes. I told you I’d be back.”

“There was no note, Ivey. There was nothing left of you at all.”

It was my turn not to hear him.

“I told you I’d be back,” I whispered as that thing tore through the lining of my stomach, infiltrated my system, rushed to my brain.

“Baby, there was no note.”

“I told you I’d be back,” I repeated in a voice so soft there was nearly no sound because in that instant it hit my brain, all of it.

It never made sense.

Until right then.

Casey.

And all that acid leaking out of my shredded stomach drenched my system, I couldn’t hold it back anymore so I turned and dashed straight to the bathroom. I hit the tiles painfully as I fell to my knees, sliding. I tagged the toilet and barely got the lid up before I let fly.

Breakfast. Gone.

My back arched and bowed with the strength of sick pouring out of me but I could vomit forever and never get it all out.

It ran in my veins.

It was me.

Vomit. Sick. Filth.

Fucking Casey.

My stupid, f**king, loser, dickhead, user, ass**le brother.

“Ivey, baby, Jesus, you’re scarin’ me,” Gray’s voice whispered from close, his hands shifting my hair away from my neck. I couldn’t endure his touch so I lurched away.

Throwing myself on my ass in the corner, pressed between the wall and tub, I saw Gray crouched by the toilet start moving to me.

My arm flew out straight, palm up toward him and I cried, “Don’t!”

He stilled.

“Don’t,” I whimpered, dropping my arm.

Then I looked at the wall, reached out, grabbed a towel from the rail, pulled it down and gathered it close like a security blanket, holding it to my body, the edge of it to my mouth.

Gray closed the toilet lid, flushed it, sat on it and leaned his elbows into his knees before he begged, “Dollface, talk to me.”

“He had money,” I told my bent knees, curling them closer, wrapping one arm around.

“Get outta that corner, honey, come with me. We’ll talk in the other room.”

I didn’t move.

“He had money. A lot of money,” I semi-repeated.

“Ivey –”

My eyes stayed glued to my knees. “I thought he’d stolen it. Now I don’t know. I don’t know where he got it.”

Gray was silent.

I kept talking.

“He said they were after him, us. They’d beaten him badly. I saw that. But months we were on the run. He never pushed the hustle. Never asked for money. Never dropped a con. I looked through his stuff and found the money. I just thought he stole it.”