Enemies with Benefits

Chapter Twenty-Six

If it was the former, I understood. If the latter...I only had myself to blame. As vile as I felt for reminding myself of it, I'd been as quick to leave him as others had done to me—the very thing I'd always tried to save myself from, I knew.

Caleb's unspoken answer wasn't in the blackness of his eyes or the curl in his grimace, nor in the flex of his forearm where blood was pumping too quickly through his body.

But it was in the trembling of his hands...Their trembling had my lip quivering in sync. With the slightest steps towards him, he seemed to shrink smaller than I'd ever seen him. The sight had me standing in a frozen statue, clenching my hands at my sides to keep from reaching out. He didn't have to say anything aloud because his body was screaming already. I wondered how long it had been doing that without an ear to hear it. Without my ear to make my mouth and legs shut up and listen—and stay.

So I closed my eyes for a moment and dropped my head, a silent offer of submission but also to cease any tension he might've felt in the eye contact I'd desperately wanted to hold. I afforded him one more light, non-predatory look, but it was a look that still had his shoulders tensing impossibly further. And that was when I knew he wasn't telling me to leave because he didn't want me around. Rather, he was begging me to do so in a soundless voice he might've been afraid of himself.

And if even the silence on the matter was terrifying, I couldn't imagine the dread of the words he'd still not yet said. Maybe he was more horrified to say them to himself than he was to me, but I couldn't be sure.

"Rachel...Please. Go."

His voice broke and with its crack, I harbored a flinch. Before I turned away, I offered a smile, one I had to force to stay level on my face.

"Hailey's leaving late tomorrow night, so I'll be home with her all evening after I finish my last class up. So I'll be around. Okay? Whether you want to talk or not, Caleb, I'm here. I promise. I'm not going anywhere...I promise."

Caleb didn't say another word, didn't acknowledge my departure at all. But in my peripheral vision when I turned, I saw his shoulders lower a fraction of an inch and watched the slightest of movements in his legs, as though they might've buckled had I not still been standing there. With one more forced smile to seal my promise, I took a step backwards and bumped into the door frame, not wanting to turn my back but not knowing the place well enough to not. So I turned from him and kept my steps as quiet as I could, in less than a hurry to leave him in my wake but knowing it was what he needed me to do.

_

"What do you think happened?" Hailey asked quietly, softer than I'd ever heard her speak about the situation.

I lifted myself onto the counter in my kitchen, then immediately frowned when the memory of doing just that at Caleb's while he'd cooked plagued my mind.

I hadn't heard from him since the night prior, not that I'd expected to. But the not knowing, the constant try and fail to understand something I was clearly missing, was bouncing around my brain like a lead balloon, wreaking havoc every spot it hit.

I stared down at my swinging feet as my fingernails tapped along the underside of the counter.

"I don't know, honestly. I wish I did, but...all I do know is that the story I heard from Leah isn't it. God...You should've seen his face, Hails. I don't know how to be there for him when he won't let me be there."

My friend shrugged and pursed her lips, opening the freezer to grab the filled wine glass she'd stuck in there for quickest chilling.

"This might sound kinda harsh," she started, and I wanted to laugh. At least she gave me a warning. Lord only knew she usually didn't.

"Rach," she took a long sip, "it doesn't matter how he wants you to be there. It doesn't matter how long it takes him to talk about whatever happened. It doesn't even matter what the truth is. It's his truth, and it's not up to you to give him orders on how or when to tell it. If you want to be with him, if he makes you truly happy, stay. No matter how long it takes him to talk, or how bad it is when he does. His truth isn't up to your timeline to decide, babe. You either buck up and wait, or don't. But fuck. Don't force him, and when he does tell you, let him talk. Shut up and listen. You know damn well how you jump to conclusions and shit, and he does too, just in another way if that makes sense."

She looked over at me and sighed, adding a little pep to her voice. "And then! You can tell him that I said he needs to stop being a dumbass." She smiled when my shoulders shook with a tittered giggle. "Seriously. Tell him I said to stick around too, or don't and y'all can be happy elsewhere. But choose. Stop letting your shitty ass parents decide who you are as adults now. They're not a good enough excuse anymore. Honestly, why is it so hard for people to just shut up and listen to each other? To talk to each other? I love you, and I'm rooting for you two idiots, but you're making me turn into an alcoholic."

She drank deeply from her glass as if to prove her point. I laughed a little, but her words rang too true for me to not focus on them. I nodded with a tight smile still on my lips.

Hailey walked over and hopped up to sit next to me, bumping my shoulder. "You call that office today?"

I kept my eyes on my still-swinging feet. "Yeah. I have an appointment with Dr. Briar on Monday at six."

"Good. Cause God only knows your ass needs a heap of therapy."

"Thanks, babe," I groaned in a mocking voice. Not that she was even remotely wrong.

"I got your back, Rachel. Always. Even from the other side of the country because you left me to come back here."

Hailey bumped my shoulder again and offered me her glass. I took it with thanks and lifted it, but when my front door slammed open and against the wall behind it, I flinched and jumped from the counter with slight enough sense to thrust the glass back at my friend to keep from dropping it.

I turned in time to see Leah's hand come forward and connect with my cheek.

"You stupid, selfish fucking whore! Are you serious, Rachel? Caleb? Are you actually fucking serious? You came back here just to fuck him again, didn't you? Not for your shitty little job? You really couldn't handle him wanting me, could you?"

My hand covered my stinging cheek, burning with shock and rage alike.

"Excuse me?" I growled back. "He never wanted you! God, that sick, twisted little delusion is really still in your head? Huh? Why? Because he was mine? It's why you went after David too, isn't it? Because he liked me first? God, Leah, it's just like high school all over again, isn't it? You've always wanted what I had! Clothes, boys, jobs now too! It's all about you! Always has been. I used to prefer it, honestly, but you're just a real piece of shit. And you haven't changed a fucking bit."

She scoffed and glared at me, dark and deep enough I actually got chills. "Fuck you, Rachel. But Caleb? You think I still want him now? After what he did to me?"

My teeth ground and I felt Hailey at my back, knowing she'd be happy to take the leap forward if I moved for her to do so.

"You're full of shit, Leah. I don't know how I didn't see it before. I wanted to believe you because I didn't want to believe anyone could lie about something like that, but you're a sick fucking person. You need help."

"Wow," she cackled, a fake sound, and pointed at me. "Dick's that blinding to your common sense, huh? Yeah, he fucked me with it, too, Rachel. Remember that? The night before your wedding? Because I do. I remember every second of it. Can't forget, honestly."

The twisting smile on her face had me wanting to scream and gouge her eyes out. But even more, it had me going back through every word she'd ever told me about that night. Every second she'd cried to me about. Every letter she'd made out to be some horror-induced moment that he'd forced upon her. And while I'd known she was lying in my gut, while I knew Caleb had been hiding the truth from me, too, the grin on her face now proved it all.

The only thing was, I knew what was a lie. But I didn't know the truth. And the difference between the truth and a lie is the story in between, where in my mind now, was nothing but a blank space of confusion and rage.