explode | burst or shatter violently
• • •
4/2/17
I WATCH ASHER tie off and toss his condom into the small trash can in the corner of the moonlit conference room. My stomach twists in a mix of relief and disappointment in myself. Pure relief that he remembered to use one and utter disappointment that I didn't even care. That I didn't even notice. I ignored every protest my brain broadcast and let my heart and body take over.
I let my heart take the lead and that choice has already led me in a reckless direction.
"You ripped my dress," I tell Asher as he tucks himself back into his trousers and messes with his jacket. I examine my powder blue dress and the torn strap and the now puckered bodice.
He flips around running a hand through his silky hair. "It's your fault," he states with a flippant shrug.
My eyebrows draw together as confusion fills my light eyes. "How?" I ask with a tinge of annoyance in my tone.
The smallest touch of a smile lifts his lips and stops my heart all together. "You made me lose my mind," he tells me openly. And in this moment I push every fear, every red flag, and every ounce of apprehension that fills my bones away, and I listen to my heart instead of my head.
Even if I know it's wrong. I no longer care.
Asher and I have started something we can't turn back on now. We have lit an inextinguishable fire in our souls. It is going to ruin us. Destroy the world around us. The fire is going to burn wildly and neither of us is going to have time to prepare for what happens when it finally burns out.
But we don't want to either. We enjoy the thrill too much.
I slide off the desk and let the skirt of my dress fall past my thighs once again covering me. "That doesn't make us even," I argue with a faint smirk. I take a few steps towards him and let my fingers trace over the lapels of his tuxedo jacket.
His dark eyes rake over my slightly disheveled form. He takes in my messy hair, my flushed cheeks, and the bite mark on my shoulder. "Why not?" he questions his words coming out breathy as if he wants to push me back up against the table and go another round.
I take a step backwards towards the conference room door knowing if we don't leave now we would once again let each other consume one another. "Because you made me lose mine a long time ago," I answer him. Telling him my truth. Giving him even more of my heart.
Asher takes a few strides forward to open the door for me. We step into the hallway and a sliver of doubt fills my veins as bright yellow light fills my eyes. We are back in the real world. In that dark conference room time stopped and we became one with each other. But out here it's senior prom and music slips through my ears bringing me back to our surroundings.
My head drops with fear clouding my chest when Asher slides up next to me and wraps his arm around my waist drawing me in as if I've always belonged there. My head lifts and our gazes meet and a genuine smile lifts his perfect pink lips and he steadies the storm, and stops the flames of doubt from burning me.
My fingers lift to trace the mauve smudge near his chin. "You have lipstick on you," I murmur letting myself fall once again into this bubble only we can create.
"Is it my color?" he quickly teases. His eyes wash over me as a calmness spreads over his face. Asher once looked at me with an inquisitive gaze as if he was trying to figure me out. Dissect me and take me apart so he could later put together the pieces. But now it's as if he's put together the entire puzzle, as if he's got me all figured out, and with that knowledge he's found peace.
"Yeah," I breathe as he leans in and places his lips against mine. He kisses me slowly as if we have all the time in the world. My arms lift to slide up his chest and the idea of time makes me melt in his arms even more.
"What?" A broken whisper echoes in the hallway and breaks us apart. The singular word freezes my blood, stone cold, because it's a voice I would know anywhere.
I pull away from Asher and drop my arms as my heart begins to race in double time. "Fran?" I ask in shock almost as if my eyes can't believe what they are seeing. My mind can't comprehend what is happening. The world begins to tilt off kilter and my focus goes fuzzy at the edges as I take in my best friend just a few feet away.
Standing shell shocked at what she's seeing in front of her.
Her mouth opens and closes as if she can't find the right words for this moment. This betrayal. "What?" she questions again this time louder and clearer. The word slicing through my heart like butter making me bleed before her.
Before I can stop them I blurt out, "It's not what it looks like."
I try to ignore Asher at my side and the slight flinch my words cause him. I try and ignore the way the delicate skin around his dark eyes crinkle and flash with an emotion that can only be described as hurt.
Francesca scoffs at my words. "It's exactly what it looks like," she laughs darkly as her eyes narrow in on me. "My best friend is messing around with my prom date," she states easily as her eyes flicker between her date and myself. She can see the evidence plain as day with my fallen hair, Asher's untucked shirt, my lipstick on his jaw. There's no hiding what transpired between us, no dark room to run back into.
I step forward away from Asher. "Let me explain," I start needing to work this out with my best friend. Needing to stop this train in its tracks but it's no use. It's derailed and we are headed straight into the side of a mountain. Crumbling, crushing, and breaking apart.
"Why?" she inquires with a sneer lining her lips. "I don't need to hear you explain what a slut you are," she spits at me looking at me as if I'm the trash at her feet. Looking at me as if I'm some stranger. And in this moment I am. Because the old Maeleigh would never betray her best friend like this. The old Maeleigh wouldn't even think twice about Asher. But as my eyes lift to meet Asher's I finally realize that he has been dragging me towards hell. He isn't my savior. He's my downfall. But the downfall I can't seem nor want to escape.
Asher steps forward at my best friend's harsh words. "Fran," his strong voice calls out from beside me. Standing up for me. But I don't deserve him swooping in to be my knight and shining armor. I am what she's named me because I am what he's made me.
Her head snaps to him. "Don't get me started on you," she exclaims as she points an angry finger at him. Heated emotion pours out of every part of Francesca, an anger I've never seen from anyone let alone her.
"Please," I beg desperately. My heart might've blackened and become singed at the edges and I may not look at the world the same way. But I still am the girl she once knew. The girl who held her hand when her dog died. The girl who sang cheesy pop songs with her at the top of our lungs. The girl who pushed her to never take no for an answer and to exceed what her piss poor excuse for parents expected out of her.
A tear slides down her cheek leaving a shinny trail of salt. "You two deserve each other honestly," she tells us brokenly. Her words may have been meant for us both but her eyes are locked on me. Eyes staring at me as if I'm unrecognizable to her at this moment.
I step forward once again. "Francesca please," I plead with thick emotion clawing at my throat and hot tears lining my faint eyes.
She lifts her hand in a single movement. "No, I can't even look at you," she admits as her eyes fall to the tiled floor.
I don't want to push her when I know I've hurt in a way that can't truly ever be fixed, but I can't let this end here. I can't let our friendship die in this hotel, in this hallway, because of me. So I reach forward to grab her arm to stop her from pulling away from me when her hand makes contact with my cheek. Shockingly. Harshly. Deservedly.
I've never been slapped, and truthfully I never thought I would. And if I did I didn't expect it to hurt as bad as it did. Maybe it didn't. Maybe it only hurt so badly because of whom it was from and the reason that weighs behind it. The tears that lined my eyes openly fall as warmth blooms in my cheek. Blood rushing to the spot and making my entire face feel on fire with disgust at myself.
I can see Asher step towards me but I lift a hand to stop him. He can't fix this. I can't fix this. Nothing can fix what my best friend has witnessed.
"You were my sister, and my best friend in the entire world," she admits as her lower lip begins to tremble. Tears continue to fall from her eyes letting them streak her makeup without a care.
My nose flares. "I was?" I question with emphasis. The reasonable side of me is being pushed away by the storm of emotions reeking havoc inside me. My heart is speaking and not my head who knows the truth. The truth my heart refuses to acknowledge in this situation.
That this will never be fixable.
A scoff falls from her lips. "I don't know this person, this Maeleigh," she tells me with complete hatred dripping from every single word.
I know she's right. I know I'm not the same Maeleigh who once hid in her shadow unassumingly but I can't stop the words from coming out anyways. "I'm the same person," I lie.
"No, you're a shell of the person you used to be," she says as her eyes rake over me. Almost as if she can't believe she didn't see the change in me earlier.
Her words come at me as sharp as arrows being shot one by one into my heart. "No I'm not!" I argue painfully. And then words fall out of me that I can't stop. That I can't take away. "Just because Asher wants me over you doesn't mean I've changed."
As soon as the words leave me my mouth falls agape in shock at what I've just said, and darkness begins to fill my veins as a deep self-hatred weaves its way through me.
A humorless dark laugh resounds in the hallway. "God, you are so fucking dumb if you actually think this is about Asher," she tells me crossing her arms over her chest.
I blink, taken back by her words unable to respond.
"He's going to drop you the minute he finds something new and shiny to corrupt, and I won't be here to help build you back up when he inevitably crushes your heart. Because Asher Lawton doesn't love. Even I know that," she tells me with harsh eyes. "This is proof of that," she adds with a shake of her head.
"I'm sorry," I breathe out, unable to say anything else. To find any other words to remedy this moment.
"No, you're not," she responds with a look of despair painting over her feminine features. "I have one last question," she pushes as pain seeps into her delicate eyes.
"What?" I reply instantly wanting to give her anything to lessen the pain reflected in my best friend's gaze.
"Why didn't you just tell me you liked him?" she asks almost desperately. "I would've backed off. Yeah, I liked him. A lot. But Asher has always just been a guy, and you were my family. We could've talked about this," she tells me once again letting her eyes fall away from mine as if she can't handle the look of me anymore.
Heat flares in my chest as my heart squeezes at her truthful words. Words that strike me with the knowledge that she's right, and I've failed her in every way. "I don't know," I admit quietly. "I'm so sorry, please let's talk," I urge her, my voice shaking, because I know what's going to happen next. I know my pleas mean nothing anymore.
"No, I'm done," she responds with a calmness that shakes me more than her anger. "Have fun in the hotel room he was going to fuck me in because you're his second choice Mae, remember that," she states maliciously before turning on her heel and walking down the hall. Away from me. Away from our friendship.
Air seems to escape my lungs and my fingers begin to numb as unfiltered anxiety begins to course through me. I'm shaking, I'm crying, I'm calling out after my best friend in a hoarse cry, but she doesn't turn around. She doesn't cast me another look because I'm not worth it. I'm not, and I begin to feel everything slip away.
Two arms are around my waist in a flash as my knees give out and I fall back into Asher. He holds me up. He supports me as everything around me begins to blur with tears and fall away. A sob escapes my parted lips and Asher's arms wrap around me even tighter refusing to let me go, to let me fall.
"What do you need?" he questions roughly. His words in my ear, his arms strong and steady.
My eyes squeeze shut refusing to look at my surroundings. "Take me home," I beg in a strained whisper.
"With me?" he replies in my ear, drawing me closer.
My head twists slightly so my cheek grazes his lips. "Will you make me forget?"
Asher doesn't move away. He pulls me in until I'm standing on my own two feet steadily. "Everything," he promises letting his lips move against my skin.
He wraps an arm around my waist as he leads me out of the hotel. Eyes fall on us, but no one says a word as he rushes me away from our senior prom. The night sky is above us with a cool breeze whipping across my salt stained cheeks. Asher leads me to a car when I realize he has called an Uber for us considering our ride here was a party bus that wasn't arriving for another couple hours.
Asher opens the door and slides in after me before he slams the door shut and the driver takes off. He quickly hands me his flask and I take it without question. I bring the steel to my lips letting the vodka burn my throat and numb my chest and mind. I chug and I chug until it's almost empty, and I feel sick. But I push it away and once again close my eyes trying to block out the world that's suddenly become too ugly and painful to focus on.
He pulls me in and lets his fingers trace my back and sweep my hair over my left shoulder before leaning in to place a tender kiss against my bare right shoulder.
"You're going to miss getting crowned," I comment about him missing winning prom king, though I don't really care. My tone is monotonous and devoid of true emotion.
"Doesn't matter," Asher replies instantly letting his fingers play with my already torn dress.
I don't respond and let him place kisses on my skin and twirl his fingers in my hair as his vodka takes effect.
A sudden ping rings through the air and I pull out my phone to see Brooklyn has texted me. My heart stutters at the sight and the memory of how sweet he was to me on the dance floor tonight. I move to swipe my finger to see what he texted me when the phone is pulled from my hands and tossed on the seat next to Asher.
I want to fight back, but I have none left in me.
"Ignore everyone," he murmurs into my skin, his warm breath sending chills down my spine.
"Make it go away," I tell Asher, referring to the pain festering in my chest as I turn into him and let our lips meet. Messy and desperate.
I ignore the next two text notifications I receive. I ignore everything besides the man next to me all night long as he takes me to his bed and touches and kisses me in ways that make my head spin until it all just turns off.
It all turns black as I finally let the fire consume me.