Till It Hurts by Cora Brent
Jace
Now
Every time the thought crosses my mind that driving across the country to torment Tori Malene is a crappy idea, I get in touch with my anger. I don’t know what it says about me that I can’t forgive her after ten years. Not that she ever asked to be forgiven.
Anyway, it’s too late to have second thoughts because here I am, rolling into Arcana just past dawn. McClane has been napping in the passenger seat since we got back on the road at three in the morning. He raises his head when he feels the truck slow down.
When my grandmother died, I was sure her funeral would be my last visit to Arcana. With her gone there was nothing here for me. There’s still nothing here for me.
Downtown Arcana is looking a little sickly these days. The past decade has been rough on small local businesses and at least half the places I remember are boarded up or have been replaced by national chain stores. This must have been the case for quite a while, however I don’t remember being bothered by the shabbiness before.
I’m bothered now.
From here it looks like the town’s essence has been sapped away and while I have plenty of reasons why this is not my favorite place on earth, I know there are still a lot of good people around. I should figure out a way to put my banked millions to some good use and I make a mental note to look into this.
Once I’m finished dealing with Tori.
On that note, during the long drive it’s occurred to me to wonder what ‘dealing with Tori’ will look like. Nothing pretty, that’s for sure. We won’t be hugging it out and letting bygones be bygones, not if I have a say in the matter. And I do have a say in the matter.
Tumbleweed Lane is less than a mile from central Arcana so within minutes I find myself making a right and then slowing to a stop in front of my grandmother’s house. Once again, a profound feeling of loss hollows me out. The last time I spoke to her I was in a hurry because the first game of the season was only hours away and on game days I don’t like to deal with anything that breaks my concentration. Two days later Gloria Zielinski was dead and for the life of me I can’t remember what we talked about during that final conversation. I was probably grunting out one word comments while my head was somewhere else.
When I look at the house, I can’t believe my grandmother is not waiting inside. There’s a car parked in the driveway, a silver compact Toyota with a California plate and it could use an appointment with soap and a garden hose. That’s got to be Tori’s car. McClane issues a soft noise of impatience while he waits for me to do something more exciting than sit in the truck now that we’re stopped.
I open the driver’s side door and whistle through my teeth so he’ll follow. Then I snap my fingers, making him understand the need to stay close. He trots obediently at my side as we cover the short distance to the front door. I’ve walked these very same steps many thousands of times and the familiarity of this place melts away the years.
Without intending to, I pause in the middle of the front yard and glance at the house next door, which has been dormered and painted brick red, bearing little resemblance to the way it looked the last time I was inside. Back when Tori and Colt lived there the exterior was a light blue. In the front yard was a sprawling mesquite tree that Colt fell out of in fifth grade. He landed on the concrete driveway and was knocked unconscious. Even though I’ve witnessed tons of gruesome football injuries by now, that remains one of the scariest moments of my life. An ambulance came and Tori clutched my hand and cried on my shoulder while the paramedics loaded her brother onto a stretcher. Colt spent three days in the hospital and Tori blamed herself for failing to stop him from climbing on the flimsy high branches. The first night he was in the hospital she couldn’t sleep so she sneaked through the window of my bedroom and we watched Harry Potter movies on my laptop until daybreak.
I’d forgotten all about that incident until this moment. There have to be ten thousand such memories stowed away and waiting for the chance to catch me off guard.
My fingers have already picked out the correct key on a ring filled with keys. I’ve always kept my original house key close no matter where I move to and what I’m doing.
“Do you live here now?”
Twenty years vanish in a heartbeat and I’m here in this same spot; a lonely, sad kid who’s just glad to find some other kids to talk to.
Now I’m about to barge through the front door in the hopes of inflicting misery on a girl I once loved. My reputation as a cold-hearted asshole feels very well deserved. It’s also not going to stop me from turning the key in the lock and walking right in. There’s something blocking the door, a piece of furniture, but I push it aside easily.
Even though I’m aware that Tori is inside, I don’t expect to lay eyes on her the instant I get the door open. She’s sound asleep on the living room fold out sofa. She doesn’t stir over the sudden intrusion of light or the noise of the door shutting. McClane takes two tentative steps toward the couch with his tail wagging. He looks back at me, waiting for permission to jump on the sofa bed and make a new friend. I shake my head at him and take a good long look at the girl I used to know.
For starters, she’s no longer a girl. And she’s only grown more beautiful. She’s curled up on her side, hair fanned out on the pillow behind her, a bare shoulder peeking out from a handmade quilt that’s usually stored in the hallway cupboard. Thanks to my so-called celebrity status, I’ve met all kinds of supermodels, actresses and celebrated beauties who rank among the world’s most stunning women. Not one of them can hold a candle to Victoria Malene. Lying there in the soft light of early morning she’s unfairly lovely, a storybook princess waiting to be kissed awake.
If that’s the case, she’ll we waiting a long goddamn while.
Because I’m not her fucking prince.
My two duffel bags are still in the truck and they can stay there for now. I’m kind of surprised that Tori hasn’t budged, not even when I make a racket tossing my keys onto the entryway table. When we were kids the three of us would often camp out in someone’s backyard or in the park out by the meteor crater where overnight tents were allowed. Tori would flail around with irritation if she heard a sound from either me or Colt. “You guys, quit rolling around!” She was always the lightest of sleepers.
I’m still in the middle of this flashback when I spot the bottle on the kitchen counter. It’s two thirds empty and it’s the cheapest of cheap wine, likely plucked from the refrigerated bowels of the shitty drugstore that replaced the Arcana Market. The bottle adds a bleak factor to the scene and I almost feel a twinge of pity.
Almost, but not quite.
What I do feel is a little creepy standing around and staring at a woman who’s passed out on my grandmother’s couch. I’m also hungry.
The paneled wall between the kitchen and the living room was knocked down years ago. Before searching the kitchen, I fill a bowl of water for McClane and he gladly laps it up. The refrigerator contains only a nearly empty gallon of milk, one egg and half a package of bologna. Opening the cabinets brings slightly better luck with the discovery of a box of granola bars and some cornflakes. I have no qualms about using every last drop of Tori’s milk in my cereal. I also don’t take the trouble to chew softly while heaping cornflakes into my mouth and looking at my phone. I catch a glimpse of my name on a sports site and deliberately bypass the article, instead reading about college basketball, followed by a lengthy analysis of the upcoming national bowling championships in Reno.
Half an hour passes and I’m started to get impatient. I don’t like wasting time and I don’t plan to sit here all day waiting for Tori to emerge from her wine nap.
McClane has been sprawled at my feet and accepting handouts of dry cornflakes but suddenly his mottled ears twitch and he bleats out a soft whine. His tail is wagging again and it’s because his hearing has already picked up what mine has not.
Tori is awake.
Getting out of bed seems to be a process for her. The springs of the mattress creak as she rolls back and forth a couple of times. She sighs. She stands up. She yawns and then she languidly stretches her arms with a soft moan. Her nipples are visible through a white tank top and the chilly air has made them hard. Like my dick. It’s now hard too. Usually I have more self control, but I wasn’t expecting to see nipples. I haven’t seen any in a while and I like looking at these. I can despise Tori and still acknowledge that she’s got fantastic tits.
McClane can’t contain himself any longer. It takes him half a second to leap from the kitchen to the living room. He jumps on the sofa bed and barks.
Tori screams.
“Hey!” I stand up and whistle at the dog.
Tori screams again, louder than before. This is turning into a real circus.
I snap my fingers and McClane slinks off the sofa bed and back to my side. He doesn’t understand why his overture of friendship has been denied.
Meanwhile, Tori has covered her mouth with both hands and her eyes are so wide they might drop right out of her skull. A can of what looks like pepper spray rolls off the end table.
“Jace,” she whispers through her fingers. From the way she’s looking at me, you’d think I’d just risen from the dead.
I cross my arms over my chest. “Morning to you too, sunshine.”
She snaps into reality and drops her hands away from her mouth. Her expression goes from shocked to wary. “What the hell are you doing here?”
Is she kidding? She’s got the gall to ask what I’m doing here? At this point she’s just begging to be fucked with. “This is my house. I live here.”
Her eyes narrow. “Bullshit. Since when?”
“Today.”
She gestures wildly. “You have a mansion!”
Ah, so she’s been keeping tabs. “I have a mansion? Really? Where?”
“In New York!” She practically screams this.
“Huh. I must have gotten sick of it.”
Tori rubs her eyes. She’s wondering if she’s having a nightmare. “I don’t understand.”
“Ah, well. Story of your life.”
Her jaw sets. “You don’t know anything about my life.”
“Nope. Nor do I care.”
McClane barks and this time he’s barking at me. I could swear he’s calling me a liar.
Tori shivers and turns away. She sifts through the pile of clothes on the armchair and finds a gray sweatshirt, which she quickly pulls over her head. I’m sorry to lose the view of her tits but that’s probably for the best. She yanks a pair of black sweatpants over her pajama shorts and keeps shooting me fearful glances all the while. What does she think I’m going to do, eat her?
I point to an empty kitchen chair. “Take a seat. Let’s talk.”
She rubs her arms and pads barefoot into the kitchen. “I need some coffee before I can deal with this.”
“Coffee? Thought you’d prefer something in the Merlot family.”
Her cheeks redden and her eyes dart to the counter where the bottle sits. “I drank the equivalent of two glasses and it was right before bed. Wait, what the hell am I doing? I’m not obligated to explain anything to you.”
“Yes, I remember.” My voice could cut glass. “You never explain anything to me.”
She knows what I mean. It’s why she winces before grabbing a mug out of the cupboard, filling it with water and popping it in the microwave. She’s leaning against the kitchen counter with a can of instant coffee grounds in her hand and trying not to look in my direction when McClane takes another stab at an introduction. He tiptoes over to her with his tail thumping, his ears flattened and a beseeching gaze that says Please love me.
Tori looks down at my dog and breaks into a smile. I’m unprepared for the sight of her smile. An ancient deep crack in my heart throbs to life.
“Where’d you come from, handsome?” Tori murmurs as she drops to her knees and scratches the delighted dog behind his ears.
I watch as his giant tongue unfurls to lick her face. “His name is McClane.”
“McClane,” she repeats, confused. “Strange name for a dog.” Then her forehead smooths. “I get it. He’s named after the guy from Die Hard.”
“Yup.”
“You and Colt loved that movie. And he’s yours?”
“We have a mutual understanding.”
The microwave dings and McClane whines when Tori stands up to turn her attention elsewhere. She dumps a heaping spoonful of coffee grounds into the mug and stirs with a silver spoon.
When she’s still stirring after thirty seconds I decide to speak up. “No matter how long you stare into that cup I’m not going to disappear.”
Tori throws the spoon into the sink. “A girl can still hope.”
She takes her time sipping from her mug before gathering enough internal fortitude to sit at the table. Her big blue eyes are suspicious as she eases into the worn wooden chair directly across from me. My arms remain crossed and I’m sure my expression is arctic. There’s something kind of unhealthy about the way we glare at each other. We’re adults and I doubt we’re going to act like it.
She squirms and breaks the silence first. “Did you drive here?”
“No, I walked.”
She’s plainly aggravated. “So what do you want, Jace?”
“This is my grandmother’s house. Arcana is my hometown.”
Tori cringes at the word ‘hometown’. “I was under the impression that you’re not in the habit of visiting.”
“And I was under the impression that I could move about the country freely for whatever reason pleases me.”
She rolls her eyes as if I’m an annoying five year old. “Being in Arcana pleases you?”
“Honestly, no.” The truth. But pissing her off does please me.
Tori turns her coffee mug around in her hands and lowers her eyes. “I’m not trying to be a jerk. I just wasn’t expecting to see you.”
“I guess you thought you were in the clear after skipping Gloria’s funeral.”
The comment hurts her. “I didn’t skip Gloria’s funeral. I had...well, there were reasons why I couldn’t be here.”
“Can’t wait to hear the explanation.”
She starts to say something, then meets my eyes and withdraws. “It’s none of your business.”
“Maybe you and Colt had the same problem. He couldn’t seem to make it here either.”
Tori shuts her eyes for longer than a blink. “I don’t know what Colt’s reason is.”
“You don’t talk to your brother?”
“Not much,” she mutters.
In spite of my resolve to stay detached from the troubled look on her face, I’m genuinely shocked to hear that the two of them don’t talk. “Why not?”
Tori takes a deep breath. “Jace, I don’t think you’re really interested in solving my family problems.”
“I don’t think I am either. So what did you do to get fired from your job and end up homeless?”
It was just a guess but she’s startled. “I didn’t do anything!” Her eyes flash and her cheeks redden. “But since we’re talking about careers, why aren’t you off acquiring another Super Bowl ring?”
I shrug. “Not the right season for it.”
She leans back in her chair and tilts her head to the side. “I seem to recall reading that in the sports world you’re referred to as Mr. Personality.”
I’m aware of my nickname. “Is that right? I don’t really keep up on the gossip columns.”
“I understand it’s meant to be sarcastic. Because everyone thinks you’re a complete asshole.”
“Huh. Maybe I am. But I’ll take bets that I have a far bigger fan club than you do.”
Tori shakes her head with irritation and chooses not to fire back. She sips her coffee. McClane stands a few feet away and looks from one of us to the other as if he’s watching a ping pong match. The old chandelier lamp directly over the table is not on but with each passing moment the morning sunlight grows brighter and shines through the window above the sink. I’m starting to notice things that I did not notice at first, like the fact that Tori’s nails are bitten down to the skin and from the way she clutches her coffee cup it looks like she’s trying to keep her hands from shaking.
“I know,” she snaps.
“What do you know?”
She exhales raggedly and looks miserable. “I know that I look like shit, okay? So allow me to save you the trouble of saying so.”
Actually, I don’t think she looks like shit at all. I kind of wish she did. Sure, she’s a little too thin and her hair appears as if it was dipped in Easter egg dye at some point but none of that erases her beauty.
When she lifts her eyes to confront my scrutiny, she becomes even more agitated and rearranges her hair. “It was a car accident.”
“What was?”
“The reason for the scar.”
Now I see it, a semicircle line over her left cheekbone. Very faint and halfway covered by her hair.
“I was in a friend’s car,” she says and the way she babbles out the words makes me think she’s not telling the truth. “There was a rainstorm and the roads were slippery. It happened months ago and the scar has faded but it’s still noticeable. Just thought I’d throw that out there so you can stop looking.”
“Tori, I don’t give a crap how you look. I didn’t drive all the way to Texas to look at you.”
Her tiny smile is full of sadness. “Then why did you come?”
Rather than try to come up something witty or mean, I get up and leave the room. McClane could probably use an appointment with an obliging patch of grass. He gladly follows me to the patio door.
The backyard of Gloria’s house is like a museum of my family history. Along the back wall that faces north, the vegetable garden built by my grandfather long before I was born remains, although part of the fence has begun to fall and the raised beds are littered with weeds. McClane explores the wide lawn that my own father complained was the bane of his existence when he was tasked with mowing it as a teenager. The grass will need to be reseeded for the spring. The stately red oak that was planted by my grandparents the year they were married looks healthy. I got a lot of use out of the old tire swing that still hangs from a sturdy branch.
I have no memories of this house before the summer my father deposited me on his mother’s doorstep. My grandfather died when I was three and up until then the only vague recollection I had of my grandmother was when she visited us in Austin for Christmas two years earlier. She and my father erupted into a heated argument and he ordered her out of the house. Gloria left in tears. And my mother, who was both weary of her husband’s temper and not especially maternal, told me to stay out of the way and never mention my grandmother again.
The first time I saw Arcana was from the passenger seat of my father’s truck and it was pouring rain out. Five days had passed since I’d spoken a word, five days since hearing the bewildering news that my mother had gone away and left me behind. A woman I’d met only once waited outside with a red umbrella. Her silver hair was coiled on top of her head and she wore a lot of mismatched necklaces made from colorful rocks. When my father gruffly dragged me in her direction she smiled and held out her hand.
“Hello, Jacek. If you don’t want to call me Grandma then you can call me Gloria. The children who live next door call me that. You’ll be meeting them. I know you will all be friends.”
“The grape vines are gone.” Tori has soundlessly opened the back door and stands behind me.
McClane abandons his fun in the grass in order to dash over to the patio, run circles around us both and then gallop to the far corner of the yard.
“You remember them, don’t you?” Tori asks as she changes her position. She’s now six feet to my left, peering at the remnants of the garden and toying with strands of her faded cotton candy hair. “The vines climbed the whole length of the fence and every summer there would be gobs of fat green grapes. We’d eat them by the handful right off the vine no matter how often Gloria would try to get us to wash them off first and-“
“Yeah, I remember the damn grapes.” I don’t feel bad about rudely cutting off her wistful tour down memory lane. “They’re fucking gone. They’re not coming back.”
That’s right, nothing good is coming back. Not Gloria and not her garden. Not the simple days of childhood summers or foolish hopes of first love.
Tori looks at me. More specifically, she scowls at me. “Are you planning on staying for long?”
“Does my presence bother you, Victoria?”
She raises her chin in the air. “I think we can agree that we have nothing constructive to say to one another.”
“Probably not. But to answer your question, I’m staying as long as I feel like it. If this fact is not to your liking, then you are welcome to leave.”
She mutters something. The words aren’t clear, but it sounds like she says, “If only I could.” Then she moodily stalks into the house.
I already suspected she had nowhere else to go. Hearing her confirm as much comes with a weird sense of satisfaction. Yet in a way I wish I could feel sorry for her. I wish I could feel anything at all except a dim sense of restlessness. Coming here was a distraction, a way to put off reality because I didn’t feel like answering Mike Campinelli’s calls or making a decision about next year. I’m keeping a whole lot of people of pins and needles, everyone from my agent to my teammates to legions of lifelong football fans. What an ungrateful bastard I am, standing here and staring at a dead garden in a Texas backyard while composing new ways to irritate my ex-girlfriend.
McClane trots over with something in his mouth. Whatever it is, it’s brown and dirty and looks disgusting. He proudly lays his prize at my feet and gallops back to the far side of the yard in search of something else worth digging up. Dropping into a crouch, I get a better look at McClane’s treasure. It’s a decrepit scrap of what was once a football. The thing must have been abandoned or lost years ago and could have belonged to Colt as easily as it could have belonged to me. It was Colt who pressed me to join the local pee wee team with him when we were kids and because my best friend stayed with the sport I did too, playing throughout middle school and trying out for the Arcana High varsity squad at the first opportunity. Sure, my dad always pushed me to play from an early age, but he was hardly around and could have been easily ignored. While I could hold my own on the field, the game was always just background noise. In a part of the world where Friday night lights and state championships are obsessions, I was going through the motions when it came to football. Colt lived and breathed the game, dreaming of pro sports glory. My head was always inside whatever story I was writing and any future plans were vague at best.
Strange, but I’ve never given much thought as to where I’d be if certain events in my life had happened differently. The question is a favorite of reporters. “Jace, you’ve become one of the most famous quarterbacks in the NFL. If you could thank someone for your success, who would it be?”
It’s a stupid, unanswerable question and I’ve never bothered to respond. Not until now, standing here in the backyard of my dead grandmother’s house amid the ghosts of the past, do I understand that the question does have an answer after all.
Nearly a decade ago, a series of excruciating events altered my timeline. When all was said and done, my friendship with Colt Malene had imploded. And my relationship with Tori Malene ended in agony. After that I never wrote another creative word. I’ve also never been in love again, nothing even close. All my old dreams were set aside and I grew intensely focused on the sport I’d always been uncommitted to. Football became my life. I would annihilate the competition. I would be the best.
And I was the best.
I am the best.
In a big way I have Colt to thank for that.
McClane lifts his head when he hears me snap my fingers. “Stay,” I tell him and his tail wags furiously as he resumes his exploration of the backyard.
My keys are in my hand as I walk around the side yard to exit the rusted gate, figuring I might as well grab my bags out of the truck and unpack. The baffled, pained look on Tori’s face keeps flashing through my head and I feel my mouth twisting into a smirk. She hates seeing me again. That’s why I’ll be staying right here, in my old house, in my old bedroom, face to face with the girl who would have bolted through the front door at the first hint of my shadow if she had another option. Watching her squirm through the daily humiliation of looking me in the eye makes the trip worthwhile.
Because if it’s true that I have Colt to thank for my career then something else is true as well.
It’s true that Tori is the biggest reason why I have no more use for the stone cold husk that is my heart.
And I just might be bitter enough to stick around for a while in order to extract my share of revenge.