"Look at me, Sarah!" I demanded as her eyes opened and she stared into mine.

Her release came fast and hard. I felt her nails dig into my back as she surrendered, and knew she wasn't holding back. I pushed harder, driving my way in, forcing her to take and accept what she was doing to me.

My own climax hit soon after and she stole everything I had to give. Her body held tight and her hips froze under mine. She gasped another breath, then positioned her face in my neck, leaving it there until the shudders of our bodies' releases subsided.

My forehead leaned to hers, and her lips met mine briefly before pulling back. When I opened my eyes, I found hers staring into them with an unexplainable expression.

Then she smiled.

I held her in my arms the rest of the night. We didn't talk; thoughts expressed in words would've felt small in comparison to what we'd just shared. No longer mourning the loss we were both drowning in, we sat quietly together, her body wrapped around mine as I held her closer than I ever had before.

Sarah's presence in my life had always been there-alive, certain and a.s.sured, but after our intimate time together, everything changed. In those moments, she took what she needed from me, and I gave it to her freely, without questioning what would happen after.

Bean was right.

Sarah had always been mine. No further mental tug of war would deny that for what it was.

I loved her. Every maddening, crazy, uncontrollable, ridiculous piece of her.

It was one night, one that feels so long ago, in a moment of care as our grief and sadness were held deep beneath the surface when I felt something I had never felt before.

I was content and comfortable in another person's presence. She wasn't a stranger, or someone I'd been forcing myself to get to know.

She was Sarah.

And, for the first time I could remember, I was happy.

CHAPTER THREE.

Sarah BEAN DIED ON January 14, three days after I turned nineteen. The day of my birthday was the last time I saw Bean smile.

Her body, old and weak from sickness, gave up and surrendered to its final stroke. After the initial prognosis we knew her body was already broken. One day she was there, the next she wasn't, and even knowing it was coming, her death felt sudden.

By far, saying goodbye to her was the hardest thing I've ever had to do.

As Travis held me in his arms, offering me everything I needed to safely fall apart, I begged G.o.d to give her back. The pain in knowing that was impossible was suffocating. My eyes burned and my throat closed. I couldn't deny what I felt; it was inescapable.

And it wasn't f.u.c.king fair.

The feeling of loss spurred an emotional reaction so heavy and forceful I could no longer face it. Travis was there; I knew he loved me. Although he didn't always appreciate my blunt candor, he didn't turn me away. What I asked him to do for me, to make me forget, was something he had every right to refuse.

He didn't.

So that night, after knowing Travis most of my life, I felt him change me. I was once a child, lost amongst my brother and his friends. Then I was a teenager who sought the acceptance of those around me. But that night, I had shared my body as a woman, and I'd given it to a man I'd always loved in one way or another.

Although emotional, it was also one of the most beautiful experiences of my life. I felt as though we had come together, offering peace and serenity to one another, in a world that had stopped moving.

It wasn't until the next morning, as the sun came up, that my life took the course it was meant to.

I was facing Travis's front door, waiting for Ace to pick me up. I had gotten up before Travis and called Ace to come get me. He was nervous and concerned as to why I'd choose to leave Travis, since I was supposed to stay the entire week to give Ace time with his family. He knew Travis and I were close, as close as Travis would allow anyone to be, anyway.

I made up a story about how I was missing his dog, Diamond, and Rae's son, Decklan. I promised to help him around the house while he oversaw the others. It wasn't a great story, and I could tell Ace internally questioned it, but he said he'd be over as soon as he could.

He was taking way too long.

Travis was leaning on the kitchen counter, drinking a gla.s.s of orange juice. He hadn't said much to me since I told him I was leaving, but Travis never said much about anything that upset him. And I had upset him. His quiet disposition hadn't ever felt uncomfortable to me until that day.

"I deserve to know why you're leaving," he demanded, losing patience.

My back was to him so he couldn't see the tears in my eyes. "You know why."

"I f.u.c.king don't."

Turning around, clutching the dress I had worn the day before to my chest, I watched a sad expression cross his face. What we had done had already changed us. There was nothing I could've attempted that would've made Travis look at me the way he had just the day before.

"I can't be here."

"Why not?" he asked, setting his gla.s.s down on the counter and walking toward me.

Although I was nearly a room away from him, I took a step back until my body hit the door behind me. Putting my head down to avoid seeing what I'd already done, I told him what I wanted him to hear.

And it was a lie.

"Last night shouldn't have happened. I shouldn't have asked you to do it. I don't love you that way."

"You don't love me that way." He repeated my words in a venomous tone while continuing to walk toward me, but stopped near the dining room table. "You woke up this morning and decided last night shouldn't have happened."

His voice was changing from hurt to angry, and I silently thanked G.o.d for giving that to him. Anger was going to be easier to accept.

"Yes. It was a mistake."

As I waited for Travis to say something, to offer some kind of way out of the night before, I contemplated the severity of my lie.

I'd taken something that could never be mine. I couldn't be with Travis. I couldn't accept whatever he was offering. Being with him would be putting everything he was to me at risk.

Travis was my best friend, my anchor, and if not for any other reason, Ace wouldn't allow it. I couldn't jeopardize Travis's nearest and dearest relationship. He and Ace had been close for so long, I'd be putting Travis in a precarious position if we were together.

I'd be putting myself in the same position if we weren't. I could suffer through wanting something I'd never have. I couldn't lose the one person whom I'd turned to and leaned on for steady support all these years. Losing his friendship would ruin me, especially now that Bean had died.

He couldn't be in love with me, though.

"I have f.u.c.kin' waited," he started, leaning his broad body down on the table with his hands braced in front of him.

I saw his stance in the corner of my eye; it remained rigid. His bare chest was taut, every muscle angry. His shoulders clenched, waiting for me to tell him the truth.

Finally, inhaling, I lifted my eyes to meet his. All signs of love, care, and pa.s.sion were gone. In their place were anger, resentment, and regret.

He was already regretting our time together.

"Stay," he snapped.

"I can't. Ace is already on his way."

"f.u.c.k Ace. Ace can go back home. Stay with me today, Sarah. We'll talk about this. Then stay tonight because it's what you want."

"I can't," I returned, holding my breath.

"Did I hurt you?" he asked. "Is that it?"

Physically he hadn't hurt me. He'd been aggressive when he touched me, but not in a way that caused me pain. He was pa.s.sionate before, during, and after we. . . . So the problem wasn't him. It was me. I woke up before he did and realized, I had somehow manipulated his emotions and ultimately used his own brokenness against him.

But, I'd take a piece of him, and a memory of that night that no one, not even Ace, could ever take away.

"You didn't hurt me," I whispered.

"The night of Hayden and Lacey's wedding," he started, ignoring my words. He straightened, but didn't make a move to step closer. "I wanted you."

Surprised by his admission, I inhaled a strangled breath.

"I did," he reiterated. "I felt your reaction when I put my hands on you. When I kissed you that night, you kissed me back."

"That wasn't this, Trav," I coldly reminded him. "That was a kiss. This wasn't."

The night Hayden and Lacey got married, Travis and I had kissed. It was pa.s.sionate, and we'd both known it was wrong. We were drunk, but that wasn't why we did it. Even then we had been testing the boundaries of our relationship.

"I didn't just want to kiss you that night." He spoke over my denial. "I wanted all of you, even then. I told myself to walk away and forget it happened. I wanted to believe it was the alcohol, and to a point I did."

"It was the alcohol. We both drank a lot," I try to excuse him, but he's not listening.

"I told myself you didn't feel that way about me. Since that night, every time I saw you, Sarah, I've had to fight to keep from shaking you so you'd notice me. I wanted you to see me."

"I do," I whispered.

"You f.u.c.kin' don't!" Travis's voice echoed off the walls; his anger was no longer contained. "Years, Sarah! I've been by your side. I've accepted being whoever the f.u.c.k you need. A playmate, a chauffeur, a target for your f.u.c.ked-up att.i.tude, and now. . . ."

"Now. . . ."

The unfinished sentence hung between us. His hands balled into fists at his sides. His jaw continued to tick and his eyes looked void of any emotion at all.

"Now," he said. "Now we're exactly what you wanted us to be." He paused, studied my face as though memorizing it. "We're a f.u.c.kin' mistake."

Swallowing hard, I started to step in his direction, but he moved his hand up to keep me still.

Unable to touch him, I felt as if he were building a wall between us. All my worries of anchors, friendship, and love were being replaced with his sudden distaste for my presence.

"It's best you and I don't talk for a while," he voiced with a piercing glare. But his words were hollow, each echoing off the walls of my chest.

It was everything I'd feared when I woke up, and it was coming full circle. I was already losing him.

"Wait, Travis, please," I begged.

"It will take everything I have to forgive you, and even then I'm not so sure if I can."

I released a sob and dropped the dress I was holding; visions of him removing it flashed through my head. I covered my mouth with my hands, trying to remain quiet.

"I can't look at you anymore," he said, before turning around and walking away.

Marlee and Toby, as well as Lacey and Rae, tried to help me through the initial loss. Travis was insistent that I never be left alone. He and I didn't talk for a few days after what we had done. Finally, unable to continue avoiding each other, we started exchanging words in front of the others. It was a false sense of friendship, but it was a start.

Several times, Trav tried to get me to talk about our night together. I refused, never trying to make him understand my reasoning for letting him go. I wasn't sure he'd believe I could be so selfless and selfish at the same time. Travis was so sure of us; it was me who wasn't.

My concerns were simple to feel, but hard to put into words. Travis was my best friend. It would have been selfish of me to risk his friendship; what if things didn't work out? If Ace found out and didn't approve, I'd lose him.

Ace. He was another concern. Ace saw me as a child, nothing more. Travis, being Ace's best friend, stood to lose the most if Ace felt betrayed by what we had done. Letting Travis go was the most selfless thing I could do.

Eventually, as the days turned into weeks, we set invisible, unspoken boundaries between us. It was an unsaid truce, an understanding that we'd never discuss what we had done with anyone-not even each other.

The others continued to stop by Ace's house daily to check in. They each, in turn, told me eventually I would get through this and soon everything would be okay again. A new normal, they called it. It was as though each of them was reading from the same heartrending script and the sentiment soon lost its meaning.

Ace never did try to console me. Instead, he kept his distance; each of us looked for solace, but found it impossible to find it in each other. Looking at one another was a constant reminder that our lives were no longer filled with the same purity and happiness they once were. It was up to us to make a new start, but neither of us cared to acknowledge what the future without Bean looked like.

As days pa.s.sed, Ace and I fell into our old routine of pushing and pulling each other until we had nothing else to give. He continually tried to tell me what to do and when to do it. My presence in his home was cause enough for him to resent me.

He had built a life with Rae and Deck and I no longer had a permanent place with him there.

CHAPTER FOUR.

Travis THE DOOR TO the trailer is closed, but I can still feel the winter air seeping through the cracks at the top and bottom. The wood is old, splitting down the middle. Dad hasn't replaced it as he promised Mom he would.

It's not so cold in here that I shake with chill, but cold enough to know I want my blanket, which sits alone on the couch.