He showed me what life could be made of.
Just more of his bullshit lies.
My backpack and bag were sitting on the bed in the master suite as I strolled into the bathroom, heading straight for the tub. I laid in there until my skin pruned and the water ran cold. Once I placed my silk robe over my shaken body, I went to look for the addict I’d been sleeping with.
He was nowhere to be found. It wasn’t a surprise to me he’d ran away again. It was what he did best. Instead of dealing with the uncertainty of our future, I went to bed. Only to be woken up in the middle of the night...
With the villain laying on top of me.
“Journey ... Junie ... show me what love is, I need you to show me,” he rasped, kissing all over my face.
My neck.
The top of my breasts.
Tugging at my silk nightie with his teeth.
I wanted to shove him away, scream at him, tell him how much I hated him.
I didn’t.
With each kiss.
Each caress.
Each groan escaping from his lips, I felt myself fade away a little more.
We were stuck in this vicious cycle like a classic broken track on repeat. At first, it was an adventure. He was a thrill. The things we saw, the stuff we experienced.
It was euphoria.
He was my drug.
My high and my low.
They say every couple had a love song they identified with. Every relationship had that one song they could relate to, that one song that expressed everything they couldn’t say, they couldn’t do, they couldn’t be...
Well Cash and me?
We had fucking albums of greatest hits written by legends, including him, that summed up the ballad of our love story.
Every intense melody.
Every tragic lyric.
Every powerful emotion you felt deep in your soul.
We were music.
Music was us.
I found myself panting in a heady, torturous tone I surrendered to deep in my bones.
“Please ...” I begged. I didn’t know what for.
My heart and mind battled the reality that had become my life.
I tossed and turned all night, restless, dazed, and completely at my wits’ end when it came to him. The whirlwind of my emotions lingered in the room, in the air, in the bed we were laying on.
There was no distance between us, and yet it still felt like he was miles and miles away.
“Junie ... baby ... show me what love is,” he coaxed, kissing his way down my body.
I was there, but I wasn’t.
“Journey,” I heard him whisper. “I love you. You know I fuckin’ love you.”
We’d been here before.
Repeatedly, he’d manipulated me.
“I know what my June needs,” he coaxed, beginning his performance just for me.
My eyes half closed.
My legs trembled.
I felt him before I ever saw him.
He buried his face in between my legs.
“Ah...” I moaned, and my back arched off the bed as he slid his fingers into my heat, all while sucking hard on my clit.
His body took on a whole different demeanor now. He was getting what he wanted.
Me.
The fraud, the addict, the fuckin’ drunk. He was gone. In his place was the boy I fell in love with.
The one who made me laugh.
Made me smile.
Showed me what love was.
He was being gentle with me, like he was afraid I’d break.
How didn’t he realize he’d already broken me?
As if reading my thoughts, he sang, “’Cuz you’re mine, I walk any line.”
I shook my head, swallowing hard.
Johnny and June.
Cash and Journey.
Where did one begin and the other end?
“Jesus, Cash...” I stirred, fluttering my eyes open. Blinking away the dark room’s haze, my eyes adjusted to the light cascading off the moon from the sliding glass doors.
Our eyes connected.
I couldn’t help myself, stating, “You can’t even walk the line.”
He grinned. “I can when I’m walkin’ to you.”
My eyes swelled up with tears. I’d cried a river over this man.
“Please don’t cry, Junie ... you know I hate it when you cry.”
“I can’t do this anymore,” I whispered so low he could barely hear me.
“You don’t mean that.”
In that moment, his intoxicated eyes held so much emotion. His sincere expression was almost too hard to follow. Cash always showed me everything through his eyes. When he couldn’t find the words, his eyes did the talking.
All I could see was pain.
My chest ached seeing my world so broken for what had felt like the hundredth time. I could physically feel his distress as he looked up at me.
I was submerged in a sea of his agony.
Praying I’d be able to breathe again.
Without him.
Chapter