- Nine Years Ago - Caleb -
TW: SA
"You still wanna marry me, right?"
Rachel answered me with a hiccup and a giggle, the smile on her face one I hoped was a yes before she finagled her hand from the grip I held it with. I smiled back at her, my nerves still swimming inside me despite the whiskey flowing entirely too fast through my system.
I watched her stumble back towards the house, then howled my laughter alongside Seth when she face-planted once in the sand and jumped up yelling that she'd saved it. Leah led her the rest of the way, nearly hoisting her up the stairs and through the door.
I shook my head and tipped the bottle to my lips, then passed it over to my best friend.
"You nervous for tomorrow?"
I shrugged. "Nah," was all my entirely-too-drunken self could come up with.
I loved that girl too damn much to be nervous. I was ready.
I just wished my grandmother could've made it to see this, to celebrate with us, but she wasn't doing well. I'd promised to send her pictures, but I knew she'd already seen Rachel's dress. And Rachel's parents—we'd never quite talked about the full extent they'd gone to with the pain they'd caused her. I knew they'd left her when she was a kid. And I knew that the years they had been there, the years before they dropped her off at that group home, they'd only ignored her. It was shitty, and it had me hurting for her. But she'd invited them anyway, and I knew she was still silently hoping they might actually show up though we hadn't gotten their RSVP saying so. The fuckers.
The thought had me diving too fast over the drunk and depressed cliff, so I opted to stop thinking and start drinking.
Well, drinking more.
I reached for the bottle again, downing the last few shots it held all in one good chug. I barely tasted it anymore, definitely didn't feel the burn. I frowned and held it upside down. Nothing more came out.
"Duuuuuude," I complained, "it's all goooooooone."
Seth stood and patted my leg—on the second try, because he missed my knee on the first slap of his hand. He spun around with a low laugh when his legs gave way and he landed on his ass, pushing himself up and reaching for the cooler to grab the last bottle.
He chucked it at me, and with my lack of coordination in my drunken stupor, it hit me in the face.
"Fuck, man, a warning next time!" I groaned, then broke into laughter and cracked the seal on the cap.
The moment I lifted it to my lips and swallowed, I regretted it—as much as I could in that state—knowing it was that final shot to send me rocketing over the edge into blackout-state.
Rachel's gonna kill meeeeeee, I sang in my head, then shook with a laugh, knowing how hot she looked when she was mad.
Worth it.
Arousal started to flow at the thought, especially after the start we'd gotten earlier without finishing it all.
Seth said something I wasn't listening to, and I nodded with a shit-eating grin on my face. My brain wasn't working in the right head to deal with him, so when I turned and blinked slowly, not seeing him anywhere, I shrugged it off.
I wanted to go find Rachel. It was the last night before I could call her my wife, and that thought—the thought of her being mine—it was doing things to me. I went to stand and immediately fell back into my chair.
"Fuck," I whispered, cuddling the bottle to my chest in some stupid hope it might anchor me to the ground.
My head rolled back on my shoulders, my eyelids drooping heavier and heavier with each blink. I chuckled to myself, my fingers stroking over the smooth glass of the liquor bottle like it was the soft skin of Rachel's face.
Suddenly, I caught the scent of her perfume in the next breeze that wound up the beach.
I groaned, wrapping my arms around her when I felt her settle onto my lap. I couldn't open my eyes, or maybe I had and was just ten steps past drunk to be able to see straight. My fingers flexed in the silk of the camisole she always wore to bed.
She tossed the liquor bottle to the sand beside the chair we sat in. And then her lips found mine.
She tasted like minty toothpaste, though remnants of whiskey still flavored her tongue. More aggressive and more tentative all at once, she kissed me, digging her nails into the back of my neck to hold me closer. When she started to grind on my lap and trail her lips down my neck, sucking and biting along the way, I groaned low in my throat and smiled.
"Finishing what we started earlier, huh?"
She nodded and sucked harder on the skin of my collarbone, my dick jerking against her. She moved enough to adjust my shorts around before my cock sprang free. When she sat back down, her own skimpy shorts—the sexy matching silk ones to the top she was wearing—had also been slid aside. She took me in one motion, groaning deep in my ear and biting back down on my neck as she began to move.
"Fuck, Rach," I whispered, grabbing tight to her hips, knowing she'd liked it as rough as I did. When she gasped and her hands pushed mine away, I frowned.
"Shit, gorgeous, I'm sorry," I slurred, knowing I'd probably grabbed with too much strength that I hadn't been able to fully register.
I opened my eyes but I couldn't see. My eyes weren't working. Everything was a blur of night and dark, and the only light I noticed was the pale skin and soft pink, silky pajamas. I groaned and shut my lids again, blinking in an attempt to make them work properly. Blinking to bring myself back to the moment I wanted to stay in.
"Fuck, I love you, Rachel," I whispered, the words thick on my tongue.
"Just shut up and fuck me, Caleb," she moaned in my ear, moving her hips, riding me faster.
"No, wait," I groaned, noticing too late that the feeling of the woman on top of me was not the ones my hands had memorized. Not the one every inch of my body knew.
My eyes snapped open. And while they still didn't want to work, while my limbs were drunken jelly and didn't want to move, I forced them all to.
"No! Get the fuck off me!" I bellowed and shoved against the silken material, watching in horror as my eyes focused just in time to watch Leah fall back and hit her back on the edge of the chair beside mine.
She scrambled up with tears in her eyes, pulling the silk sleep set I knew to be Rachel's back into place to cover each piece of her that I never wanted to fucking see again.
"Caleb, you stupid fucking asshole! God, what the fuck is wrong with you?!" she screamed, jumping up and running for the house.
I was shaking. Worse than shaking.
I stumbled back, my legs knocking into the chair behind me. Much too drunk—regardless of my recent slam back to semi-sobriety—to catch myself, I went down with a huff and yell, slamming into the sand on my tailbone in a harsh blow. I lifted my trembling hands to look at them, feeling betrayed by how they hadn't noticed the difference until it was too late.
She'd even smelled like Rachel. She'd never smelled like Rachel before. I'd been sure of it. Was she wearing her perfume?
I slapped myself in the face, the blow mainly aimed at my nose for failing me as badly as my hands had. I did it again.
Again.
Blood and tears were falling before I even noticed their presence. They began pouring from my eyes, the blood from my nose, and with each drip, a new thought crushed me.
I fucked up. How the fuck had I let that happen?
Rachel would never forgive me. Not after that.
I fucked up.
I just cheated on my wife.
I shivered and more tears fell.
Not my wife. She would never be my wife, not after this.
I turned and threw up in the sand, coughing and choking on the sobs I couldn't let out quickly enough. I couldn't remember the last time I'd cried like this, if I ever even had. But it was suffocating me now, and the pain of it ricocheting through my heaving chest was the only truth I had that this wasn't some fucked up nightmare keeping me stuck in its clutches.
I forced myself to sit up, sand stuck to my soaked face and still-quaking hands. With a disgusted, violated shudder, I re-situated my shorts and got to my feet in a haze. I didn't remember the walk to the house, or the shower I knew I took. I didn't remember when my nose stopped bleeding or how long I scrubbed my entire body, just that my skin felt raw and ached to the touch. I dug through my bag, grabbing the pair of sweats, but hating that I hadn't packed a hoodie. I pulled on my tee, feeling exposed and wishing I'd had something long-sleeved.
With chills racing up my spine and my palms sweating, a churning stomach still riling with alcohol and nerves, I slipped from my room and crossed for Rachel's, pausing with my hand on the knob.
What the fuck was I going to say?
Would she even believe me?
I'd let it happen. I was barely coherent, but I'd let it happen. I'd gotten too drunk. It was my fault.
Fuck. My hand fell back to my side. I turned and let my back hit the wall, sliding down and bracing my forearms on my bent knees. I wanted to hang my head, but with Leah's room a few feet away, too, I refused to let the door escape from my sight while I sat there.
And then I heard a voice I desperately wished to never hear again speak.
"I know. Seriously, Rachel doesn't even appreciate him...She's been having second thoughts throughout their whole relationship anyway, which is obvious. Come on, who doesn't want a real wedding?" There was a pause. "Exactly. It's just less people to disappoint when it's canceled."
I frowned, shaking my head. No, we both wanted something small, right? Or had it just been me and she'd just gone along with it?
Had that been the case? I couldn't remember now.
"I'm telling you, she doesn't trust him, never has, and for good reason. He was so easy tonight. He just let it happen, and he fucking liked it, too. He was into it or it wouldn't have been able to, you know, like, happen."
I flinched, my sweating hands starting to quiver all over again. Bile began to rise in my throat once more and I started to stand, bracing my hands on the wall like they weren't useless.
She was right. God, I was such a piece of shit. I'd let it happen. I hadn't stopped it from happening.
"I know. He's a pig. She deserves so much better...Yeah, that's what I said too...Yeah, I just have one more thing to do and then I'll be out there."
Shame. Disgust. Guilt. Fear.
I felt them all, and they slammed into me. They knocked the breath from my lungs and the hope from my heart.
Even if Rachel wasn't second guessing things, even if Leah was lying, how could I tell her that I'd been into what had happened outside? How could I possibly explain why it had been able to happen at all?
I wanted to scoff at how it would've sounded. I might have had I not lost my breath from the repulsion gnawing at my insides.
"I thought she was you, I swear. I didn't mean for it to happen."
God, it sounded as pathetic as I was.
Leah had a lot of things fucked up. She was fucked up. But she was right about one thing—Rachel deserved a hell of a lot better than me.
I'd known it for years, but it had really hit the last few months. She was heading to grad school soon. Would we make it when she did? I had to stay with my grandmother; I couldn't go, and I couldn't ask her to stay.
Maybe it was better if we just stopped pretending. Maybe that was why she was second guessing. Maybe she knew it too and didn't want to say it.
I pushed away from the wall, turning and staring back at Rachel's door, hoping she wouldn't open it and would at the same time, wondering if she saw me, if I saw her, if it might change my mind. But as I felt my stomach turn inside out yet again at the mere thought of her seeing me like this—my battered face, the hickeys I'd refused to acknowledge on my neck and shoulders, the nail marks I could feel stinging into the back of my neck—I knew it was best if I left before she had to.
I wouldn't be able to leave if I saw her face, even if she was screaming. Even if she hated me. I wasn't sure I'd be able to walk away.
But the door didn't open.
I made quick work of my bag, zipping it alongside my battered emotions. I needed to get the fuck out of there. So I made a break for the front door, and I let it slam behind me.
"Whoa, Jesus, dude!" Seth stumbled, physically when I ran into him and also over his own words. He laughed, clapping me on the shoulder. "Nice going earlier."
I froze. "What?"
"Don't act dumb, man. I came back from taking a piss and saw you and Leah. That's hot. Best friends? I didn't know you were into the open thing. Can I have a go at them next? Leah and I kinda already are, but Rachel, I could—"
I fell backwards out of the grip he'd had on my shoulder and cocked my own arm back, letting it fly and crunch into his face. Maybe I'd thrown too much of the night into that punch where it wasn't all his fault, but I'd more than hit my limit of betrayal from one act of the evening. I wasn't about to listen to another.
"Don't you ever lay a fucking hand on her. And don't ever touch me again."
"What's wrong, Caleb, Leah come on a little stronger than what you're used to?"
I was already walking away, still too drunk to even think about driving. I was fifty feet down the beach when I shivered and turned back to the sound of Leah squealing and jumping into Seth's arms, kissing his face before noticing the shape it was in.
But I kept walking, bag in hand, because I was too fucked up to turn back now.
And not only from the alcohol.
_
I sat in my room at home the next night—our wedding night—the door locked and blinds shut. I slid my wedding band onto my finger, twisting it around where it should've now been sitting permanently before sliding it back off. Again. Again.
Again.
My phone lit up.
Future Wife: You really thought Leah wouldn't tell me what you did? What the fuck is wrong with you? You're a piece of fucking shit
I know I am, baby. I know.
I slid the ring onto my finger, twisting it around and sliding it back off.
Future Wife: I fucking hate you. You're disgusting
I hate me too.
I blinked into the darkness of my room, the nothingness of it. It looked as I felt.
I slid the ring onto my finger, twisting it around and sliding it back off. Again.
Again.
Again.