12/10/16

THE SOFT WET sand under my bare thighs makes my pink lips turn up in a content smile. The water is freezing, and everyone else is smart enough to stay away from the ice-cold ocean and just bathe in the hot sun. But I want to feel the salty water, I want to breathe it in, and if I could stand the cold long enough I would swim in it. But for now I let the water wash up on my bare feet.

I pull my thin cardigan around me a little tighter as the wind pushes off the ocean and brushes against my pebbled skin.

My neck twists lightly to see Clayton sitting by his parents. His sunglasses are pulled over his hangover filled whisky eyes and he's relaxing, but somehow I'm everything but relaxed. Every nerve is taut and on edge waiting for him to say something, waiting for him to say nothing. To acknowledge me in any way, but he won't. Last night wrecked me in a way I'd never experienced. It was wrong on every level, but what was most wrong about it was how right it felt. How right his hands felt touching me, kissing my sensitive skin, and making me feel alive and on fire. The way it felt, how right it was in the moment sits heavily on my chest making it hard to catch my breath against the chilled air. Because I loved every moment, I love it too much for the situation I'm in right now.

We barely know each other but the way his presence surrounds me reminds me of the way the ocean is pulled towards the shore. Even when the tide is low the water is still called upon to kiss the sandy edge. It's beyond control, beyond reasoning.

Just like Clayton and myself.

"You wouldn't be so cold if you didn't sit in the damn water," Chase remarks as he slides next to me on the beach. He's wrapped in a thicker hoodie, one that brings a faint smile to my chapped lips. It's one that I routinely steal from Chase because it's so warm and smells like him. It makes me feel safe. He then drapes a beach towel around my shivering torso.

"Thanks," I whisper as the sea rushes up to graze my toes once again. Chase will never understand how grateful I am for him in my life. While our situations are nothing alike, we are both lost in this huge world we call home trying to find our way through the maze that is life.

"Are you having fun?" Chase asks after a brief pregnant pause between us. It's as if he can see the guilt that fills me after last night even though I know he doesn't know what happened. No one does obviously, but when I saw his parents this morning I swear it was almost like they knew what transpired between Clayton and myself. Like I had it tattooed on my forehead for everyone to see, to know my faults. I thought about telling Chase, but I couldn't. I can't busy him with drama in his life right now, and I don't want to disappoint him. God, all I feel like I do is disappoint.

"Of course," I tell him truthfully as a small assuring smile pulls at my lips. "Just a little out of it," I admit. That's why I'm sitting so close to the ocean. When I'm by the ocean everything else falls away and it's only me and the water and the waves and the glittering blue that sparkles off the sun.

It's just me, and if I close my eyes I can picture my father and his words and his eyes that match my own. The rest of the world doesn't weigh me down. My eyes for an instance betray me and once again glance at Clayton's long body, before focusing on the water before me. I squeeze my eyes closed for a moment in effort to push him away. I'm not weighed down by confusing feelings, or by images of hands, lips, and teeth that make me want more. More of everything I need to stay away from.

"Yeah?" Chase murmurs.

My eyes flicker open and nod at him once before I lean my head against his shoulder. "Just tired," I tell him, which isn't technically a lie. And yet with someone who I tell everything to, it is a lie and so much more.

"Well I know I'm not the best sleeping partner so I'm sorry." My bones ache at his words, and my already tight chest instantly feels heavier as another wave of shame crashes all over me.

Chase is apologizing because he's kind and selfless and wonderful in so many ways, and I'm a horrible person. So I let him apologize, because telling him I was in the library at all hours of the night and starting to feel an odd mix of emotions for his older brother isn't something even I have the balls to do. So I sit in my own puddle of guilt and let Chase think he is the cause of my tiredness. When the real culprit is sitting just feet away acting as if I don't exist.

I lift my head from Chase's shoulder and shift my body just slightly to face him. "Can I ask you something?" I question with apprehension. A part of me wants to know, but the bigger part of me is aware I shouldn't know. Because I shouldn't care. But here I am, asking, caring, digging myself into a bigger pit that is Clayton Hasting.

"Always," Chase answers immediately, because he doesn't hide anything from me. Just like I used to never hide anything from him. My body flushes with a shameful heat even with the chilled ocean air wrapping around me.

"Your brother," I start awkwardly, realizing how dry my mouth is I wet my lips and swallow. "Clayton," I clarify with a dry chuckle forgetting the about the many Hasting men. "What's up with him?" My words come out fumbled and odd because I lack any grace that I usually have when I speak about him, especially to Chase.

"What do you mean?" he asks as dark brows knit together in a expression of slight confusion.

I shrug not knowing how to explain why I think something is up with Clayton without revealing our secret meetings in the library. I know I could tell Chase about them, but something about them are so special to me I want to hold them close. They're slivers of time when I can see the real Clayton and he can see the real me, and I shouldn't crave those moments as much as I do. But I do, I want them more then anything, and it isn't healthy or good for me.

But here I still am wanting to know more about this man who sits in the same spiral of destruction that I live in.

"I just see him and he seems sad," I say as if it's just a casual observation. When what I really want to tell my best friend is how his brother was on a drinking bender last night, or point out how he rarely speaks, or even smiles. How he seems to be this man floating through life without anything tying him to those around him. My heart squeezes because I am also just floating through life waiting for my friends to tether me so I don't lose it.

"Yeah...." he trails off as his gaze falls to his feet dipped in the dense sand.

I can tell it's a touchy subject, but I don't stop. I push because a larger part of me needs to know everything about a man who doesn't even have to kiss my lips to make me feel like I'm falling. "So there's something there?" I comment, though it comes out more as a question. While I want to know more about Clayton I also don't want to overstep my boundaries.

"There's a reason why my father does a company wide shutdown for an entire month," he begins as he casts a quick glance over his shoulder as if he doesn't want his brother to know we are talking about him. I can see the need to protect his brother in his eyes, even though he's younger, even though he says he isn't that close to Clayton. He is still his blood, and nothing is stronger.

"Because of the drinking?" The question slides out without preamble and the instant it's out I know I shouldn't have said anything. Chase's eyes flood with pain and a touch of anger.

"How do you know about that?" his words come out harsh and hushed.

I swallow down the lump that has now formed in my throat and let out a soft sigh. Fuck. I can't just tell my best friend how I saw his brother barely hanging on by a thread last night, because that would just lead to other questions I'm not ready to answer yet. So I once again lie. "I went to the kitchen for some water last night and I walked by him," I answer slowly. "He had a bottle in his hand and he was stumbling, I honestly don't think he saw me," I end with a shrug.

"Shit," Chase grumbles rubbing his hand over his distraught face.

"It wasn't a big deal and I didn't know how to bring it up or anything...." I trail off awkwardly. My hands sink into the hard sand knowing my lies are going to catch up with me, it's only a matter of time before my world comes crashing down on me.

"He isn't usually like this," Chase tells me. "He is friendly, a little on the quiet side, but he is together and in control but—" his words end as if he doesn't know how to continue.

So I try and help. "But not for this month," I quietly offer Chase.

His hazel eyes meet mine, grief pulling at every part of his face and my whole body hurts for my best friend. I reach over and place my hand over his, and our fingers lace in with the heady sand and together we let the ocean ground us.

"His girlfriend died," Chase states out of nowhere.

A gasp falls from my lips as tears instantly prick at my eyes. "What?" It's the only word I can form as surprise and disbelief weave their way through my cold blood.

"Four years ago," he quietly adds.

I focus my eyes on the vast ocean ahead of me as images from my own past tempt to pull me in and make me lose it. Memories I push away and don't confront, and I realize even more then before how similar Clayton and I are in this life. I keep everyone at an arms distance besides the two people I trust with my life, and even now I'm hiding parts of myself from them. Clayton keeps his life together. Completely in control, but for one month he falls to his one vice to push the pain away.

I use meaningless sex, and he uses alcohol.

I swallow back the salty tears and once again focus on the depth of the water in front of me. My eyes follow the hues of blue, and the way they mix and change as different rays of sun hit the beautiful water before me. I let the water silence the past that wants to break free and ruin me.

I want to ask what happened, but instead another question flies from my lips without permission. "What was her name?" I don't know why this is the question I decide I need to know, but I do.

"Scarlett," he answers as he runs his free hand through his wavy locks.

Scarlett. The name is beautiful and perfect, and I imagine a girl who is compassionate and giving and the kind of girl for a man like Clayton. The kind of woman that a man like him deserves. The kind of woman who knows how to love without fear and isn't filled with so many flaws she's coming apart at the seams.

"She actually looked a lot like Gray," he says randomly.

"Really?" I question as images of her fill my head. Images of this woman who received Clayton's love, and he loved her back so much that even years after losing her he can't function without her.

He nods his head slowly. "I think it's the reason he doesn't like when Cale brings her around, I think it's just too much for him," he says with a slight murmur as if he's saying words he's thought about for a long time but never said aloud.

"Constant reminder," I whisper hating the sting that hits me. I've cut my reminder out of my life because I couldn't handle it. I understand way more then anyone can know the pain that fills Clayton to the brim.

"Exactly," he replies as his eyes wash over me. Chase can sense I'm holding something back because he can read me like a book. But he holds his tongue and stays at the topic on hand.

"Can I ask what happened?" I question next. The need to know more continues to fill me like an overflowing cup.

"Car accident," he answers openly.

"Oh," the word falls from my lips almost silently. My head tries to open the door to the past, but my heart won't let it because it knows the overwhelming emotion might kill me with how long I've kept everything locked up. But Chase's words are loosening the locks on my memories and it's making me nervous they might slip out and consume me.

"It was their senior year of college, and they had been together for six years," he continues on with his brother' story oblivious to my internal battle.

"Wow, that long?" I comment in amazement. I don't know anyone who's been able to stand someone long enough to stay with their significant other that long. Though Gray and Cale may be on their way.

"Yeah, Scar was a part of the family, my mom referred to her as her daughter, and everyone loved her as such," he tells me with a sad smile playing against his lips.

The way Chase says her nickname makes me smile along with him. I can see how much he loved her, how much he still misses her. Her nickname fell from his lips with such familiarity. She was another Hasting to this family, she was in, and she was loved. And the sudden sadness that fills me is from the acute awareness that while the Hasting family has taken me for the moment, I will never be loved how Scarlett was with this family.

"They were meant for each other," his words ring in my ears making my jaw clench. Meant for each other. "Everyone could see it. He had the ring and everything and was going to propose after their gradation," Chase says as the story of his brother begins to unfold in front of me.

I lower my chin so Chase doesn't see the unwanted tears that are welling up in my moss green eyes. I don't know why his words hit me so hard, but they have and the emotions filling me scare my heart. Clayton loved someone so much he wanted to marry her. He wanted to spend the rest of his life with her, she was apart of the family, and she was his everything.

And I will always be a fleeting moment in a bar. Nothing more.

"So," he begins with a sigh, and I know he's about to tell me about he night of the crash. I close my eyes and brace myself in hopes to keep my memories at bay. "He was supposed to pick up Scarlett cause she was going out with friends, but he forgot, and once she texted him he had already downed a few with some friends so she promised she was fine and she honestly was," he tells me as a sigh of relief flies from my lips knowing he didn't let her drive home drunk. "She only had a couple drinks over a few hours, but the driver that flew through a red light was anything but sober."

"Ohmygosh," I breathe as Chase's words play through my head on repeat. I know what it's like to feel responsible for someone else's death, and even if it isn't true that feeling doesn't leave you. And I know that's the feeling that eats away at Clayton. The feeling that causes him to drink.

"She died on impact, she didn't suffer, and I think that was what kept Clay afloat for a few months knowing she didn't feel any pain, but there was nothing to keep him from feeling pain. He didn't have the same relief," my best friend tells me as he continues to weave the story of his brother before my eyes.

"So he just began drinking?" I question, not judging as I am far from someone to judge. I am just trying to understand more about the man who is far too much alike me.

He shakes his head. "No, at first he just become reclusive and didn't speak to anyone for months before the drinking really happened, or we were aware of it," Chase admits with a small wince. Almost as if he feels he should've known and stepped up for his brother.

Chase continues on with the tale of his brothers downfall. "Soon his life became school, and then grad school, and now my father's company. He's a workaholic and focuses his life solely on it." So he doesn't have to think about anything else, I want to say but I don't as I let Chase finish. "But every year around the anniversary of Scarlett's death he loses it. It's like all the emotions he pushes away come flooding out and he doesn't know how to handle them."

I nod understanding more then he knew. More then anyone knew. My friends knew little of my past because I don't speak about it, and I don't think about it either. I push it away and bury it and focus on being fun Hayley, drunken Hayley, and the Hayley that takes home random guys to help make her forget her past.

"The first year after she died he lost it on some people at work and threw a paperweight through a window, he was low level at our father's company at the time, but that was the first time my father suggested he take a break," Chase says as he stands his back up straighter with a sigh and I can tell the story of Clayton is coming to an end. "He was already off for school, and he came home for that month to just be around family, and it helped to an extent. My mother was the one to suggest that the company shut down so everyone could be home the next year with him, and ever since then it's been a thing. Sometimes we are all home, and other times it's just me like this year."

"Wow, your dad shuts down his company for his son," I state with complete admiration.

"Yeah, it's a little over the top," Chase jokes dryly as his gaze leaves mine and focuses on the big blue sea in front of us.

"No," I respond immediately. "That's love," I voice my words cracking slightly at the end. That's something my father would've done for me, he would've moved mountains and built oceans for me. Because that's what father's do, they love unconditionally.

"I guess so," Chase murmurs as if he never thought of it that way. "I thought last year was going to be the first year he was going to be okay," he says next taking me by surprise.

"Why?" I ask as I pull my legs in further realizing my toes had gone numb. I may love the ocean but I don't want hypothermia either.

"Well he visited Chicago with Cale when he was trying to win back Grayson, and I don't know what happened but he was his old self for a couple weeks," he tells me as his hazel eyes meet mine, and I can see it. I can see how much he misses his brother, and how that flash of the old him is what keeps Chase together. The hope.

But those words don't give me hope; they make my heart completely stop.

"What do you mean?" I ask rushed as my heart now shoots into overtime beating so fast I feel like I might pass out.

He shrugs. "I don't know he was just happier, more like his usual self," he tells me as a ghost of a smile lifts his lips. "But after a couple weeks he slipped back into his old quiet self," he says his words echoing the defeat I know that fills him.

"What do you think changed?" I breathe out not being able to stop the words from flying out. My head floods with images of me and Clayton meeting at the bar the same night Cale came to win Grayson back.

His head shakes slightly. "Cale thought he might've met someone," he says as a chuckle escapes his lips.

"You don't think he could meet someone?" I question slowly as if I'm afraid to hear the answer to my question.

"Never," he says without hesitation.

My heart sinks into the pit of my stomach. The small, minuscule part of me wanted to believe I was the change that Chase saw in his brother. That I could be a light in someone else's life. I think back to that night at the bar, and while he wasn't much of a talker he also didn't seem as sad as he does now.

But I'm not the change, I'm not kind and perfect like Scarlett, I'm messy and falling apart more every day.

I was a weak moment, nothing else.

"The way he loved Scarlett, damn Hayley if you could see them together you'd understand, he could never love someone that way again," he declares, confirming even more the love Clayton had was epic, but is now gone.

An epic kind of love that someone like me doesn't get in this life. Because I'm the girl who loves fun times, and I'm the girl who uses her body to forget. But I'm not the girl who gets grand love stories, and perfect men.

But somewhere in the back of my head something whispers, "Clayton isn't perfect anymore, he's broken like you."