The Broken Mirror

Make You Feel My Love

I will say that Thanksgiving was exactly what I was trying to avoid. My past and present collided and all I can say is I am happy to be back at home. The home I share with Cookie. Since then, Tyler keeps texting me. Gabrielle and Ethan have been asking me more questions. Then there is Xavier and I just keep remembering what it felt to be held against his hard chest. His strong arms around me.

What he said to me. I do not think I have ever had any guy speak to me like that or look at me like that. Shoot just do any of that. They usually look at me with complete lust, but his eyes had more than that. It scared me. What he said was extremely frightening. I must keep reminding myself that I don't do relationships and with all the crap I've been through, I can't now.

Even though I keep trying to convince myself of that, the touch of his hands is seared into my memory. I crave those hands. The way they made me feel wanted. They offered a promise to me, but a promise I know I cannot offer back. Now, I sit at my window and stare out.

My room is at the back of the house and looks out to plush green forests filled with palm trees and tropical plants and a pond filled probably filled with gators. I look straight down to see the beginning of a pool being installed. My parents seemed to have won that fight.

"Si! You have a visitor," Cookie calls out.

"Send her up!" I respond. I continue to look out waiting for Gabrielle to enter my room. I can hear the feet running up the steps and coming towards my door. The door begins to open. "El---." I stop midsentence when I realize the person in front of me is Xavier, not Gabrielle. I stare at him waiting for him to explain his presence. We continue to look at each other and awkward is the best way to describe this. I raise my eyebrow at him, signaling him to open his mouth.

"I...uh... hello, I guess that's where I should start," he finally says to me. I fold my arms over my chest as he begins to step in further. "Beautiful room, by the way."

"Why are you here?" I don't find any of this amusing.

"You hadn't been by the house and I wanted to check on you."

"Could've just asked El how I was doing," then something occurs to me. "and how did you know where I lived?" I shake my head. "don't answer, I'll kill her later."

"She was just the messenger and I was not going to be satisfied with her telling me how you were," he admits to me, inching closer to me. I continue to sit at the window. His eyes have that same intense look and it's just as terrifying now, as it was before.

"I don't want you worried about me or pitying me because I have issues with substance abuse," I tell him.

"Is that what you think this is?" He asks me.

I nod my head. "I don't need a captain-save-a-ho."

He laughs a little while getting closer to the window. "I am not here to save you. The day we met; I had already been looking at you before you bumped into me. I reacted badly and then I couldn't stop it. Next thing I know Ethan is inviting you out for lunch. My mind was racing because all I could think about was the fact that I was going to have to stare at your beautiful face and not have a single thing to say to you."

He is saying way too much. Sadly, it's not him, it's me. I am the problem and trust me its not an attraction issue. He could hold me for hours. Hearing him say these things to me, this revelation is making things worse. There is too much wrong with me and the amount of baggage cannot fit in one place. Yet, I remember the moment we had at the restaurant when he gazed into my eyes and I felt exposed by his empathy.

"Xavier, I am not ready for a relationship and I---," he closes the final gap and gently places a finger over my lip. I gasp at his touch.

"I am not trying to pressure you into one... I'm just here to let you know not to push me away," I go to speak, and he grabs my hands. I keep my mouth closed and he gently caresses them with his fingers. "You need someone to confide in. Have you told El about your past?" I shake my head no. "We are a lot more alike than you think... and after witnessing Thanksgiving," I begin to laugh at just how horrible Thanksgiving was and knowing that I was not the only one who felt that way.

"Since I can't get rid of you...fine," I finally say to him.

He responds with a chuckle. "At least you know...and since I'm here, how are you really?" He's still holding onto my hands. They soothe the truth out of me.

"Tyler has been trying to contact---."

"What the hell he wants?" He interrupts me. I'm a little a taken aback by his response. I smirk at him.

"Are you jealous?"

He shakes his head no. "No, but I know he makes you upset."

"He was a part of what caused my sister's death," I tell him. "And nearly killed me," I admit. I can feel the tears welling up in my eyes, remembering that fateful night. Xavier extends one of his hands to much cheek and wipes away the one tear that sneaks out.

"I've almost died."

"What? When?" I ask him in shock.

"When I was nine. My dad got an emergency transfer here after my mom almost burned our house down while we were all asleep," he explains to me. He lets go of my hands. He pulls on his shirt and it comes off. My eyes widen at the sight of his sculpted body. I fight the urge to touch his chest.

"What are you doing?" I ask, although I don't fully care, because his shirt is off in my room. He turns his back to me. While it's chiseled, I see the scarring on his back that I've seen before. I never had the guts to ask about his back. Without thinking, I touch his back, and I feel him shutter a bit from my touch. I know if I touch him anymore, he would probably melt more into my hands.

"I was trapped in my room and passed out. The firefighters rescued me, but I had been burned, mostly first- and second-degree burns, but my back was third degree."

He turns back around to me and I decide to share with him my scars. I lift my shirt to show a massive scar on my right side. "I was impaled during the accident, my sister and I got into. It punctured my liver. The doctors couldn't do anything, so they chose to keep me comfortable until I died of my injuries. I stayed alive for hours. My sister, on the other hand, needed surgery to fix some broken bones and she died on the operating table.

"They gave me her liver," I confess to him. He touches the scar on my belly and it's all I can do not to let out a moan. I want his hands on more than just the scar. Partially wishing he would just grab me, or his hands would explore further up.

"Is that why you feel like you destroy everything?"

I shake my head no. "It just adds to my guilt." He pushes some of my hair off my face and tucks it behind my ear. I look down from his penetrating gaze. He lifts my face up to meet his gaze, anyway. I feel his thumb gently rub my chin.

"If you're not ready to tell me, don't. Besides, I am hungry, and I want to know if you'd join me for lunch?" He asks me.

"I... I am hungry," I answer looking at him with the fakest scowl. "But remember this is not a date."

"Who said it was? I am having lunch with my friend," He jokes. "A friend I find beautiful." My cheeks get hot and I grab a pillow that's next to me and I hit him with it.

"Careful! Just a friend!" He laughs.

"Is that how you take compliments?"

"I am just trying to cool you off," I respond to him still laughing. "I'll meet you downstairs. I need to change my clothes." He nods and runs downstairs. I quickly get changed. I check my hair, that looks like a red frizzy mess. My roots letting people know that I am not a full white girl. I used to get my hair relaxed. I pull it up into a ponytail because it will take me hours to straighten.

I wash my face quickly and add a little bit of make-up. I stop for a second and I realize I feel better after talking to him. Like some of the flames from my inner turmoil has decreased. Maybe this is what I need. The image of his body does not help either. But it's not about what I need, he doesn't need me.

I shake myself out of my thoughts. I just need to resign myself to having fun today with him. It's not a date. I'm hungry. He wants to eat with me. But I'd love for him to taste me... okay, thoughts going all over the place here. Let me get out of this bathroom and hang out with him for lunch.

I run downstairs to the living room where Xavier is sitting with Cookie.

"...exactly what she needs," I hear Cookie say as I am going down the steps.

"What needs?" Trying to figure out this conversation. My grandmother jumps a little bit and I walk over to kiss her cheek. "I didn't mean to scare you."

"She was saying how you need to get out of the house, so come on," Xavier says to me. He stands up from the couch. "I'll bring you back something Professor Price."

"Call me Cookie, sweetheart and don't worry about me. I am about to go out. Enjoy your date," my grandmother denies his offer, but both my cheeks and Xavier's goes red with the mention of date.

"Woah, this is not a date," I quickly explain to her.

"Oh, yeah... sure... whatever you say, love," she responds sarcastically. I shake my head and I feel Xavier put his hand on the small of my back to lead me to his truck. I climb into the passenger seat and he takes his seat at the wheel. He turns on the car and hooks his phone up to the Bluetooth.

"Any requests?" He asks me.

"Songs? Let me just see your playlist," I tell him. "I'll be DJ."

"I don't know."

"Listen, I need to know what you listen to for this friendship to work," I respond giggling. He hands me his phone and his playlist on Spotify shows up. He backs out of our driver way begins driving to wherever we are about to have lunch. "Okay, a lot of hip hop. Not shocking."

I continue to scroll through his list of songs and start seeing other songs that I would typically listen to. I even find one of my dad's songs on here. I will question him about that later.

"Anything good?" He asks me.

"Definitely don't have basic tastes, a good sign," he laughs at me. "Oh, I love this song!" Stayin' Alive by the Bee Gees begins to play. Xavier begins to laugh even louder once I start singing and dancing, his perfect dimples on full display.

"Out of all the songs?" He asks me.

"I was born in the wrong decade," I explain. "My soul loves old music. And by the looks of it, so does yours." He joins my singing, but it's horribly off-key. I cannot help but laugh even harder.

"I never said I could sing."

"Clearly!" We both laugh and enjoy the music. September by Earth, Wind, and Fire comes on next. "Seriously? I expect the Bee Gees, but them?"

"I spent too much time at Gabrielle's and Ethan's house. Their mother would play everything from the seventies, eighties, and nineties," He explains to me. I can't help but dance in the chair, still singing while his car zooms through traffic. I realize we are going downtown. "Why are we going on the Causeway?" I ask him. We are getting closer to one of the many beaches in Tampa.

"Just wait!" I shrug at his response and continue to enjoy the music as it finishes up. A very somber song begins to play, and I hear Adele's voice. Her song Make You Feel My Love changes the atmosphere in the car. I close my eyes and sing with her as we approach our destination. I lose myself in the song.

"I could make you happy, make your dreams come true. There's nothing that I wouldn't do. Go to the ends of this Earth for you. To make you feel my love, oh yes. To make you feel my love," The song ends, and I hear the engine turn off. I open my eyes to see that Xavier had been watching me the entire time. "How long have we been here?"

"Just a couple of minutes, I didn't want to stop you," he tells me. His eyes have that same intensity, a yearning. I would say it terrifies me, but I can feel my heart yearning, too, an odd feeling for me. I've never felt like this before, and that's what's scaring me. This lunch is starting to feel like a mistake.

"What is this place?" I ask him to cut the thick tension.

"Whiskey Joe's. I know, probably not the best name considering, but it's family-friendly and right off a beach," He says while opening his car door. He runs around the car, but I am already out by the time he gets to me. Obviously, wanting to open the door for me. I thought this wasn't a date.

We walk over to the restaurant and get seated immediately. Our seats are next to the window and you can look down at the water, where you can see people wading in the knee-high water. There are fish jumping further out. It's a beautiful view. We order our food and we talk about his childhood.

He's the baby of five kids. He tells me how his music taste became so eclectic. His oldest sister, Ashley, who was like a second mom to him, was obsessed with Broadway, Operas, and Ballets, and would make him go see them when he was little. Which is how he knows about my father. His older brothers hated it, but he didn't. None of his siblings still live in Tampa. Ashley went back to New York, his other sister, Alice, lives out in California, and both of his brothers live in Miami.

They never come home for holidays, he explained to me, they all are married living their own lives. They stay in communication through a crazy group chat that it is filled with filthy memes and videos. They still speak to his father, but no one contacts his mother. He is the only one who still talks to her, but rarely. He says Ashley stopped coming the moment he became eighteen and was free to take care of himself.

"Let's go sit on the beach," he suggests to me. I smirk at him with my right eyebrow raised.

"This is starting to feel like a date," I accuse, and his dimples appear before he starts laughing.

"I sit out there every time I eat here. Great place to think." I playfully glared at him. He offers his hand and I take it. He leads me back to his car to grab a blanket before we head out to the sand to sit. I stare out and you can't see much but a bridge further away. We both sit in silence, it's not awkward, but just enjoying the other one's presence. I lay back on the blanket and close my eyes.

I feel him lay down next to me and I stifle a smile. What is wrong with me? This feels amazing. I want to feel like this every day. His presence gives me peace. My phone begins to ring, and I look down and groan once I see the name.

"I wish he'd leave me alone," I say out loud.

"Give me the phone," Xavier says, and before I can say no, he is answering it.

"Who is this...no, this is my phone number...are you sure...I'd like for you to stop calling me or I'll tell the phone company to block you for harassment." He hangs up the phone and I scream with laughter. "Supposedly your mother gave him your number."

I feel a wave of fiery anger rise within me. "That woman gets on my f*****g nerves...she never calls me but gives my number out to anyone."

"Your mother doesn't speak to you?" I let out a painful chuckle.

"When she's forced to... she resents me."

"I didn't get that during Thanksgiving. I did see the tension between you two," he explains confused over what I just revealed.

"That's cause we had guests, it doesn't look proper not to look like a loving family. So, she pretends we are the picture-perfect family for everyone else."

"Pretends?" He asks me.

"It's always been about the image for my mom. They have an open marriage, but you wouldn't know looking at them. He was a rich boy turned musician and she's a party girl. She didn't want a divorce, so that was their compromise. My sister and I were kept on diets our entire lives. When the accident happened, she never came to see me in the hospital or for anything else that happened after that. But she had everyone believing she was there for me the entire time."

"Your dad and grandmother don't seem that way," he says.

"Yeah, my dad was absent a lot when I was young, but after the accident, he has always been there, although he throws money at everything, but he's there. My grandmother is a different breed of woman. My mother changed when she was introduced to my dad's world. She couldn't handle the pressure of gossip and being constantly judged."

My family's history was the initial reason I never wanted to be in a relationship. I watch my parents almost divorce several times. Either they were never home or when they were, they were always fighting, until the open marriage thing happened. Then, knowing my mom was not the same after getting married to my father. Why would I want to put myself through that?

"I watch her, and I never want to get married. I don't even want to be in love," I say freely. I turn to see that Xavier's face has lost all its color. s**t! Exactly why this lunch thing was a bad idea.

I stand up and take off my shoes. This moment is getting to be a little too much for me. I already have on jean shorts and I head to the water that stops right below knees. The water is cold, but it's also December. My feet slowly adjusts to the coldness as I stare off.

I hear the water splash behind me. I feel his big hands gently touch my lower back. He stands beside me and I decide to rest my head on his chest. Relishing the moment before I ruin it. "We cannot be friends," I finally say after a few minutes of silence.

"What? Why?" His voice sounds confused and hurt at the same time.

"You want more from me. I'm incapable of giving it. All I am going to do is hurt you."

"Shouldn't that be my decision?" His deep voice sounding somber.

I turn and face him. His eyes pleading with mines. "I can't handle any more guilt." He brushes a loose strand of my hair behind my ear. "Take me home." He nods and begins to walk away. I hold myself as I walk back to the sand to grab my shoes.

The drive back is silent. His music isn't even playing. He's lost in thought and I'm pretending to be while I look out the window, not able to look at him. I see my home appear before me and he pulls into the driveway. We sit for a second.

"Why are you so afraid?" He says interrupting our silence. I look at him and my heart just aches. Today made me realize even when he was being mean, I wanted him then. But I don't deserve him. I turn to get out of the truck and he quickly gets out and gets to my side. He blocks me while I'm trying to get out. He hovers over me and our eyes meet. "I need a question answered."

"What?" He doesn't say anything. Instead, he leans in closer to me and I almost fall back into the truck. His lips hover over mines and my breathing gets heavy. I just want to taste his lips. He watches me stare hungrily at his lips and I let out a soft moan from the anticipation of his lips and then he pulls away from me.

"That's all I needed to know." He moves out of my way and I slowly walk away from him. I don't turn back because I can't let him see how he's undone me. But I know he got exactly what he wanted. I go inside the house and I hear his car speed away.