Shooting Star

Home : Stories by Catw00man : Star Series : Shooting Star

Summary: Someone please…tell me what is left.

AUTHOR: Catw00man
EMAIL: catw00man@cryptoffic.com
RATING: R
SERIES: Star Series
CHARACTER: Kevin Harvick, Kevin POV
PROMPT: Taming the Muse #59 (#34 for me) - Desolate
COMPLETED: September 4th, 2007
WORD COUNT: 2,983
DISCLAIMER: I own NOTHING and am affiliated with NO ONE mentioned here. Not the drivers, not the teams, no one. This is all fiction and fun. In other words...NOT REAL, NOT REAL, NOT REAL. ;-)
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This may make sense to no one but me and I really only want this shared with the TtM group. This muse finally needed his say but honestly it was really just for me.
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February 28, 2001.

That should have been the most meaningful day of my life.  It should have been the day my heart, my life, my everything should have become complete.  That’s the reason you exchange rings and promise forever, isn’t it?  Because you found the other half of your soul?  Because you’re finally putting to rest the search for love and completion?

But it was never that way for me.

Oh, it should have been.  I’ve never, ever been with another woman since I made that promise to her…and I never will.  But that was only one side of me.  That was the side that I let her see--or the only part she wanted to see.  My other half, the dark and twisted, sadistic side…she’s never known.  And I never wanted her too.  I didn’t want to scare her.  God knows I corrupted her in more ways than most people can even fantasize about.  But she couldn’t give me the pain I craved and so once the fire began to wane…I went right back to my old ways and back to the darkness.

I tried to change for her.  I swear to God I did.  I tried to forget the deep-seeded yearnings for danger and viciously rough sex.  But I couldn’t.  And Wonderboy was so damn broken…I couldn’t turn away.  He needed to be rebuilt.  He needed to be back in a position of power…and I needed the pain.  So before I knew it I was slipping back into clandestine meetings and rough, hard satisfaction.  But I always came home, and somehow I convinced myself it was alright.

She had to know.  There’s no way she couldn’t.  She knew I had my boys, my dark side that we never spoke of, and for awhile everything was still ok.  I loved her so fucking much and I swear we burned hotter than anything.  There was actually a time she was almost enough.  How was I to know that our marriage was nothing but a shooting star?

But that’s been every relationship I’ve ever had in my life.  Burn hotter than the hottest fire, more searing than the sun, and there’s no way you can possibly have enough.  Take as much as you can handle day after day until finally, without warning, the inferno burns out and you’re left with nothing but ashes…nothing but a shadow of where there once was a powerful, all-consuming force.

So you move to the next.  It’s what I’ve always done.  Bounce from one brilliantly burning star to the next, letting it sear the hell out of you until it’s all you know and all you feel.  That’s how I’ve lived my life.  Reach for the next bright thing as soon as the first burns out and that way you never have to really feel, never have to get attached.  When it didn’t work with D, that’s when I finally realized I didn’t have a heart.  I couldn’t.  Not when she showed me so much love.  It wasn’t until Wonderboy that I found out I didn’t even have a soul.

Everything with him was a twisted, fucked up mess.  There’s nothing in this world I wouldn’t let him do to me, and he did it all…more than once.  And there was no pretense with him.  He hated me.  I knew that.  He hated what he was with me even though he needed it to survive.  And I didn’t care, or at least, I didn’t let myself care.  I let him take what he needed because I needed it to.  I am a masochist and he knew how to give me exactly what I wanted.  But it wouldn’t last.  I knew that and as always I looked for my next conquest.

And there was only one that I really, really wanted.

I’d wanted Earnhardt for a long, long time.  You could even say he was…my holy grail, the one unattainable reward.  He wasn’t like all the rest.  He wove this tapestry of friends around him that defined his world and only the very lucky were allowed a part.  For the longest time I was on the outside looking in, even though I was driving his Daddy’s car.  You see, those things don’t matter to him, who you are or what you do.  He has his own criterion of who he lets close and I have no idea how it works.  I just know that one day, somehow, I was on that list.  And I took full advantage of it.

That boy didn’t stand a chance once I set my sites on Dale.  I knew they’d been together awhile, friends even longer, but I didn’t care.  I just knew what I wanted and I was bound and determined to take it.  Besides, anyone could see he was no match for him at all.  There was no fire between them every time they touched.  The air didn’t fucking crackle and spark between them every time they were in the same room.  Not like us.  I swear every time we looked at each other it felt like the entire would was going to combust.  Electric.  Dangerous, and completely irresistible.  I knew I’d get him…I just never knew he’d be my match in every way.

It was molten fire the instant we came together and for the first time in my life it was almost too much.  Fuck, I had no idea he’d like it so rough, that he could be so fucking vicious.  I had no idea he’d match me with cutting words and sharp nails, mentally and physically my equal in every way.  I thought it would be another tryst, another fling.  Wild and dirty sex with two people who couldn’t get enough…until one night he asked for my heart.

I laughed at him to be honest.  I told him I didn’t have one, that there was just a hole in my chest where real love should be.  And I was right.  I just didn’t know the reason I didn’t have a heart was because he’d already taken it away. 

It didn’t hit me until much later the extent to which he owned me.  I thought I was in control.  I though I held the keys to my own existence.  But I didn’t.  He did and he brought me to my knees in more ways than one.  He made me feel.  He made me love with a passion that completely swallowed me up.  He caused changes in me I didn’t even know until I was suddenly making promises I never had before…and meaning them.  I’d found my completion.  I just…thought we had more time.

I thought I had more time to change, more time to stop being such a fucking loser.  He was my very breath, but I didn’t know how to make him see.  I didn’t know how to be tender and sweet and to be honest…I figured he’d laugh at me for trying.  I was the slut, the bitch, the one with the acidic tongue.  How could I possibly express this unbelievable feeling inside?  I thought we had time.  Fuck, I thought we had the rest of time, even with my fucking indiscretions. 

No, it wasn’t perfect.  Not by a long shot.  We fought, viciously, and it always led to the most explosive and amazing sex of my life.  But it wasn’t just sex.  Not between us.  Somehow when we were fucking there would be this connection that wound us together in a way I’d never known.  If only we could have communicated with our mouths the way we did with our bodies…maybe we would have had more time.

He made me so fucking blind, there was so damn much I missed.  And I never deserved him.  Hell, I even cheated on him.  It was misguided and for all the wrong reasons.  I thought I was doing the right thing, offering my body to someone in pain because it didn’t mean anything, right?  Dale held my heart and what was left of my soul, so I didn’t really betray him, right?

Wrong.  So fucking wrong.

But he forgave me.  He took me back without a hesitation so when he had that…“slip” in January, I just let it go.  It hurt, oh it hurt that he let himself be weak.  But who was I to condemn him for falling prey to a lost love?  I still had D that I came home to most nights.  It was him I loved.  It was him I trusted with my existence because he was my existence.  So I looked the other way, believed him when he told me it was a one time thing and never questioned him again.  How could I when I was nothing but a whore myself?

And I still thought we had time.

I knew I was changing.  I could feel it in my very being.  I could see it in everything I did.  It just…wasn’t fast enough.  I was so lost in him, so lost in what I was becoming that I didn’t even open my eyes.  I didn’t even see that when I was in Mexico running for second he was fucking the winner behind my back.  And maybe, somehow, there was a certain poetry to all.

Here I was, the self-proclaimed whore of NASCAR being cheated on by my latest conquest.  I was the perceptive one, always had been.  I’ve always been able to look at two people and tell you instantly if they’re fucking, wanted to fuck or had fucked sometime in the past.  It’s what I do and how I’ve always been able to twist the knife on anyone with the perfect selection of words.  I could make the hardest bastard weep, just find his weakness and show no mercy.  But I was the fool then because I didn’t see what was right in front of my eyes.  I thought that since I was finally coming home to him…we were getting closer, not further apart.

I didn’t know that team meetings involved fucking as well as race strategy.  I didn’t know that as I tried to find myself he was finding himself with someone else.  At least…I think that’s what happened.  To this day I don’t even know.  One minute all was right, at least right for us, and the next it was gone.  We still had shit tons of problems but I didn’t think it mattered because…I thought we had time.

And then all at once we were out.

Somehow I looked away and the glass broke, spilling the sands of time at my feet and no matter how I tried I couldn’t gather it back up again.  He was just…gone and I was left with a black hole the size of which I can’t even describe.  Finally I really knew what it was like to have a hollow in my chest.  Suddenly I knew what it was like to have your soul ripped out and torn to shreds.  But honestly, it was the silence that hurt the most.  The fact that he never even said goodbye.  The fact that to this day I still don’t know why.  But apparently that’s a theme with me.  I just didn’t know it then.
 
Part of me thinks my life ended the day he left, the day he finally went back to the one I’d stole him from so long ago.  And that’s the ridiculous part, really.  Deep inside I never really thought he was a threat.  Deep inside I believed him, believed them, when they told me it was over and that I had nothing to worry about.  I should have been more suspicious but…what gave me the right?  Fuck if only I’d been able to fight for him…but how could I?  I’d already given him everything I had and in the end, it just wasn’t enough.

And how could it be?  I’m nothing but a shooting star…right?

You know, I’m sure he thought I’d get over it.  Or maybe he didn’t…I don’t know.  I like to think maybe he didn’t know how much I worshiped him, that if he did he wouldn’t have left me.  But I showed him so many times, bared my soul to him in ways I hadn’t with anyone.  He looked into the deepest darkness inside me and never even flinched.  So I thought he knew.  I thought he understood.  But he couldn’t have…and he probably wouldn’t even know me now.

He probably thought I went back to my old ways, fucking the nearest warm body just to sate my insatiable lust.  Or maybe he though I went back the dark clubs filled with pain and the fulfillment of sadistic desires.  But I didn’t do either.  I didn’t even go back to D because somehow she’d finally moved on.  Oh, she’s still my wife in name, but she’s long since been gone to me.  She’s found someone to make her happy and someday I know we’ll dissolve this joke of a marriage and find a way to share the racing dynasty we’ve created.  But for now, it’s just easier to let things remain the same.  The company’s in my name after all so it just makes sense to stay joined on paper if not at the heart. 

No, I couldn’t go back to her, didn’t even try to go back to Wonderboy.  I couldn’t because…I wasn’t the same.  He’d changed me and suddenly even the fire of a sun wasn’t enough to warm me anymore.  I didn’t want to go back to the meaningless gratification of lust.  So I didn’t.  I didn’t have anyone.  Suddenly the whore of the garage was suddenly celibate.  And I probably would have stayed that way if it weren’t for the persistence of a certain teammate of mine.

It was almost comical, really, when I look back on it now.  I didn’t even have a clue.  I swear Clint did everything short of wait for me in my office naked to proposition me…and I didn’t even notice.  The biggest slut, the most shameless flirt the world’s ever known…and I didn’t even realize he was interested in me.  I wasn’t even looking.  I was too busy looking back.

I finally cracked the night Dale announced he was leaving DEI.  I was so fucking afraid he might come to RCR.  How could I live with him in my shop as my teammate when…I know how he is with teammates?  I was drunk off my ass, sitting in my backyard when Shifty found me and it wasn’t until days later that I even remembered what happened.  He looked like he had stars in his hair as I stared up at him and it almost seemed to make sense.  Wouldn’t it take someone larger than life to replace the God that I lost?

I never should have let it happen, but fuck, he was so good to me.  He was slow and he took his time and he never really pushed.  He knew I still loved Dale…as much as I was still capable of love anyway…and he never held it against me.  I was scared and broken and so afraid of everything.  And he was strong and loving and Jesus he was so fucking sweet.  He even covered himself in glitter one night so I could see the stars again.  And when he finally showed up one day with a stylized “K” tattooed on his hip…I fell hard.

Permanence.  That’s what it was.  That’s what knocked me off my feet and to my knees.  And I clung to it with every fiber of my being.  He told me he’d never go and I wanted to tell him the same.  I didn’t even think.  It was all back to actions and now I wasn’t going to be outdone.  I wasn’t going to be the one that didn’t give enough.  I wasn’t going to be left again.  And now I bear the reminder on the back of my right shoulder in the form of the shape of Kansas with “Shifty” --my nickname for him--tattooed across the middle.  God, sometimes I miss my sweet Kansas boy.  But I destroyed him…just like the rest.

Jesus, fuck, somebody please tell me WHY!

Why do they leave without even a word?  Why am I so twisted, so sick and diseased that I can turn them into these emotionless shells of who they were?  I don’t understand.  I just don’t fucking understand.  Why can’t they get mad and shout and yell.  Tell me I’m dirt, that they hate me that I’m nothing but a pathetic piece shit, God, then I’d at least have CLOSURE!  But I guess I’m not even worth that.  No, they just leave, no words, no explanation and I’m left here all alone. 

I still don’t know why Clint broke it off.  All I know is I tried to give him everything I could…but maybe there just wasn’t enough to give.  I thought I gave him everything I had left but maybe he saw something else when he looked at me.  Fuck, why couldn’t he just tell me?  Why couldn’t he talk to me instead of running away?  Why can’t I ever get an answer when I scream into the night?  How ironic is it that I end up shattered to nothing by my teammate of all people, by someone I trusted completely?

Maybe there just isn’t enough left of me to love.

Maybe the shooting star has finally burned out for the very last time.

Now I don’t even know if I did love my Kansas boy.  I know I wanted to.  I know I tried to.  But maybe I’m just too hollowed out inside.  Dale took my heart and soul with him when he left and I don’t even know if he has a clue.  I think Clint has taken my sanity.

So someone please tell me…what is left?

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Catw00man - catw00man@cryptoffic.com