Playing Patience(74)

He looked at me like I was an idiot.

“Ah, yeah. He left about…”

I didn’t even listen to the rest. I rushed to my car and jumped in. Thankfully, the apartment complex wasn’t far from the trailer park.

His dad’s tow truck was nowhere in sight, but his car was parked in the yard when I got there. I could hear his loud stereo outside the trailer, and I thought it was strange that he’d come to his dad’s and play loud music. I knocked extra hard on his door and after five knocks he never came. I was starting to get worried, so I tried the doorknob.

The door opened and I slipped into the small, smoky space. I shut the door behind me and called out his name. Still, I got no answer, which meant either he couldn’t hear me or I couldn’t hear him. The music was so loud it seemed to be shaking the tiny trailer. The guitar was pulling my arm down, so I sat it up on the grimy, plaid couch and worked my arm to ease the tension that had worked into my elbow.

I heard a noise coming from his room and figured he was back there packing. Maybe he had his shirt off and I’d catch him with only a pair of those deliciously ripped jeans he was fond of. Hopefully they were the ones that barely held onto his hips and showed his sexy tattoos. I’d seen him without a shirt on before and I’d seen every tattoo he had down into his pants line. I wasn’t disappointed; nothing physical about Zeke was disappointing.

I found it funny that such a dangerous guy like Zeke would be the one that finally caught my attention. I wasn’t the kind of girl that looked for trouble. Especially since trouble seemed to find me at least once a week, but something about him caught me and reeled me in. Getting to know him and seeing the secret parts of him made my attachment to him all the better. He was perfect for me.

The soft floor of the hallway buckled under my feet. The door to his bedroom was cracked so I pushed it the rest of the way open and stepped inside. I’d secretly wished I’d catch Zeke half naked, but when I’d wished that, I’d wished he was alone when I caught him. What I saw before me was like a punch to the ribs.

Zeke was lying on his bed, his hands behind his head as he relaxed against the headboard. The redhead straddling him was pressing herself against him in every way possible. The rhythm of the headboard hitting the brown paneled wall made my stomach turn. The sounds of the creaking mattress made me want to drop to my knees and cover my ears. I knew those sounds well and they brought nothing but nightmares.

I wanted to cry. I wanted to slowly dissolve into nothing and float away in the air, blown around by the clicking, circulating fan at the foot of his bed. The messed-up part was I couldn’t be mad. He wasn’t mine and as badly as I wanted to be the one having carefree sex with him, I couldn’t. No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t do it.

Seriously? What else could the universe drop on me at this point? I’d all but died inside on several occasions in my life. You’d think finally I’d just drop, but I kept going and I kept running into things that broke down my spirit. Seeing Zeke have sex with another girl was breaking me big time.

In that moment the remaining open doors to my soul slammed shut. Zeke was it for me, and if I couldn’t bring myself to give him the part of me that was taken away so many years ago, then there would be no one else. All the thoughts of a physical relationship in my life drifted away. The thoughts of marriage, children, or real life in general were gone in the blink of an eye.

He was only receiving what I could never give him. Proof was purring and bouncing in front of me. I could never be what Zeke needed or wanted. The crescent moon tattoo on her lower back matched the star tattoo on his hand that was now gripping her ass. I couldn’t take my eyes off the two tattoos. They were symbolic to me. They were a sign that they belonged together and I was the starless wonder who belonged in the sanitized, padded walls of my supposed safe world. The truth was I was safer in this broken-down trailer park surrounded by drug deals and gang members than I was in my own home.

And then I saw his snowflake tattoo and I died a little more. How could he brand me on his skin that way and then have carefree, meaningless sex with someone else? What kind of person does that?

I stared at the single snowflake. I couldn’t take my eyes off of it.

The redhead made a loud whining noise, causing me to avert my attention. I knew in the back of my mind I should slowly exit the room, but I couldn’t peel my eyes away from her. The way her long, crimson curls swayed across her hips, the arch in her back, her perfect rhythm as she pleasured him with her body—it was all so hypnotic. She gave herself so freely and I envied that freedom.