Mess Me Up
Page 15

I knew that.
But hearing my best friend’s voice reminded me of Matias because I’d named my son after him.
Hearing Izzy’s voice reminded me of Matias and how he’d wanted her there with him because she brought him cookies.
Hearing Liner’s voice reminded me of Tara—which reminded me of Matias.
It was a vicious fucking cycle, one that was just easier to ignore than to admit that it hurt.
The only people who didn’t remind me of Matias were complete strangers, and even then, it was a crap shoot. Hell, there was a girl that was eighteen or nineteen that’d been visiting her father at the penitentiary that had shaved her head for some fashion statement. She’d been spouting about feminism and how she shouldn’t be labeled by her hair, so she’d done the unthinkable and had shaved it off.
And then she reminded me of my boy with his peach fuzz head—both when he was a baby, and again when he was a little boy.
“You don’t know me,” I snarled, pushing back from the table.
Tamales forgotten, I stormed up from the table and ran my hands viciously through my hair, hating the way it’d gotten so long—but still unwilling to go cut it because I just didn’t care to go see my barber and see the saddened look on his face when he saw me for the first time after Matias’ death.
But before I could work up too much anger, Izzy stood, too.
And then did the last thing I ever expected her to do.
She hugged me.
Threw her arms up around my neck and pulled me in close.
I inhaled deeply, and I was once again fighting to draw breath through a closing off windpipe.
Goddammit! Was it too much to ask for a little fuckin’ time?
But, the longer Izzy hugged me, the more I started to calm down. The faster the anger leeched off of me.
I blew out one final breath…and then gave up.
Wrapping my arms around her tightly, likely too hard, I hugged her to my chest and dropped my face down on top of her hair.
Her hair smelled like peaches. Peaches and cream.
Her body also fit inside of my arms perfectly.
Feelings I’d been denying since the first time I saw her roared to the surface, and all of a sudden, it wasn’t just a hug anymore. It was more. It was everything.
But before I could get too comfortable in that hug, she had to open her mouth and ruin everything.
“I need to tell you something.”
I dropped my arms from around her and lifted my head, unsure that I liked the tone of her voice.
She sounded like she was battling with something, and she really, really didn’t want to tell me that something she had to tell me.
“What?” I asked.
She backed up some more, and then reached for the other bag she’d brought with her, pulling it across the breakroom table like it was holding venomous snakes instead of the papers that I could now see since the bag’s tie had come loose.
And what I saw was familiar handwriting.
My handwriting.
I stiffened, a feeling of unease shifting through me.
Then I had my worst nightmare confirmed.
Because the letter that I’d written last week. The one that I’d written to someone that I thought was anonymous, was the first paper in a stack of similar papers—all with my handwriting.
All of them to some random fan that had become just as much of a lifeline after Matias’ death as she was before.
The letter that I’d written last week, the one that had shared how truly alone I was, was staring me straight in the face.
And there was no doubt in my mind that Izzy had read it.
Because, as I started to put two and two together, Izzy was RP’s Biggest Fan. Izzy was the person that I’d been writing to. Izzy knew everything that there was to know about me. My hopes and dreams, my worst fears come true. My entire life had been in those letters, and she knew.
She knew.
I swallowed, and then looked up at Izzy, unsure what to say.
But what I knew was that I couldn’t look at her right then.
I just…couldn’t.
“Please leave.”
Izzy’s shoulders slumped.
Then, without another word, she left, leaving everything that she’d brought with her behind in her haste to leave.
Even her jacket.
I watched her go, and all the while I wondered what that feeling in my chest was—disappointment or anger.
***
The first thing I did when I got to my empty, mausoleum of a house was go directly upstairs and find the letters I’d been getting over the last year. The moment I found the sealed lifelines, I started opening them, starting with the one on the bottom first.
It was only when I was through the fourth letter that I realized how very stupid I’d been.
I should’ve realized that my letter-writer and my Izzy were one and the same. They were both brash, said what they felt, and didn’t have the time for bullshit.
By the fourth letter, she’d also straight-up admitted who she was, too.
By the tenth letter, I was angry all over again.
Irrationally angry.
Why hadn’t she told me any of this face to face before now?
Sure, she’d given a pretty explanation as she had explained what happened and who she really was to me during my lunch break earlier, but that wasn’t the real reason.
Unfortunately, I was just too pissed off at her to ask her any more.
Lucky for me, she came looking for me. Otherwise, I might’ve held that grudge a lot longer than I had ever intended to.
***
Dear RP’s Biggest Fan,
I’m not sure this hole in my heart will ever heal. What I do know is that each and every day I wake up and he’s not here, the hole grows bigger and bigger and bigger. One day I’m afraid I’m going to wake up and the hole’s going to be so big that I’m not going to be able to pull myself up out of it and get out of bed.
I don’t know why I’m telling you this. Maybe I want you to tell me that it gets better, even though I know that there’s no way that it will ever be okay again.
I’m sorry this letter is so short and depressing. I haven’t found time or the desire to write lately…and now I remember why.
Hope you’re okay,
Rome.
Chapter 10
Life changes. Sometimes it’s easier to say ‘fuck you’ than to accept it.
-Izzy’s secret thoughts
Izzy
This walking everywhere bullshit had to stop.
One day, I’d get a car…but then again, a car would come in a lot handier if I knew how to drive the stupid thing.
New goal: one day, I’d learn how to drive. Then I’d get the car. The car that I could finally afford now that my mother and father had stopped getting my cut of the houses I cleaned.
At least walking kept me in shape—round was a shape, wasn’t it?
I looked down at my too tight clothes and realized rather quickly that Rome wasn’t the only one that was depressed. I was, too.
I hadn’t realized just how dependent I’d become on the letters that Rome wrote until he’d stopped.
It’d been six long, miserable months since Matias’ death.
Each day I missed the little boy, and I’d missed that little boy’s father.
And each day I realized how selfish I was.
There I was sad about not getting a letter, and Rome was missing his son.
There was no comparison. I had no right to be so upset about it…yet my brain didn’t care.
When I’d gotten that last letter from him, I realized that I had to do something.
If I wasn’t going to get the letters, then I’d have to talk to the actual man who wrote them. I had to bring him back, because what he didn’t realize was that he was my lifeline. He was the man who was the only constant in my life and had been for quite a long time.
The man who, despite the fact that I felt like complete and utter shit ninety-seven percent of my life, made that other three percent bearable.
Which was why I found myself once again at the door to said man’s house.
My legs were tired. I’d walked over eighteen miles today and hadn’t gotten a single bit of cleaning done, but I hadn’t had any scheduled. Today was my day off, and I’d used it wisely. If I hadn’t made two long ass walks clear across the damn town—twice—then I would’ve had a much more relaxing day off.