by Malcom, Anne
My stomach lurched. And in nowhere near a good way.
Heath’s expression did not change. Not one bit. “We’re looking into it. Until we are satisfied that shit can’t blow back on you, Keltan’s got a team on you. It was my rotation.”
I digested all of this.
And it wasn’t going down well.
Not just because this cold version of Heath was the one serving the news.
“You’re looking into my ex-husband?” I clarified.
“Keltan is,” he amended.
Ah, he needed to make it very clear that he didn’t care enough to do such things, it was part of his job. This, being anywhere near me, my business with the man I’d married instead of him was definitely not his choice.
“It’s not any of Keltan’s business,” I said, folding my arms. “Craig was having a bad night. He doesn’t deserve—”
“You’re fucking kidding me,” Heath seethed, fury leaking onto his blank face. “You’re defending the fucker?”
I didn’t react to the pure judgment in his voice. “I’m saying he deserves to get on with his life without whatever Keltan and his team is planning on doing to disrupt it.”
“He sure as fuck didn’t care about disrupting your life,” he countered.
I somehow held his gaze. “Love turns people into someone different from themselves. Heartbreak does that further still,” I whispered. “Pain makes people change, Heath.”
Heath’s face stayed blank. My words were doing nothing to him. What did I expect? There was only so much a man like him could take from a woman like me before washing his hands of it.
It had been years of pain. Of chaos. Of me toying with both of our hearts. I couldn’t expect him to be holding on like I was. Especially when he thought I was the one that let it all go.
“You still love him?” It was an accusation, pure and simple.
But, like us, not at all pure and simple.
I could’ve lied. Most likely any other person in the world would’ve. You had to be crazy to admit to the man you’d loved since you were eighteen that you loved your ex-husband who hit you, yelled and you and was just an all-around dickhead.
But no one had ever accused me of being sane.
Plus, I was already telling enough lies to Heath, to myself, I couldn’t stack something like this onto the pile.
“You want me to stop loving him because he’s a bad person?” I smiled because these days it was either smile or sob. And I could only deal with my sorrow smiling. “It doesn’t work that way. I fell in love with the man, it has nothing to do with what he’s shown me now, that love sticks. So I’m not going to just shake it off and move on. Not care about where his life goes now. About what will happen to him if I don’t at least try and stop Keltan from doing something because of me. Because that’s not how I work. And if that’s how you expect me to work, then we have nothing more to talk about. Because that means you never knew me at all. I don’t want a man who expects a woman to let go of love so easily. Because that means he’ll do the same too.”
And then I got in my car and drove away.
I was proud of myself.
I didn’t break down until I got safely inside my apartment.
Chapter Eleven
“Can you believe it?” I huffed after I told Lucy and Rosie the tale of my day and Heath’s part in it.
They were around for dinner, at the place where they both used to live, no matter the fact that they both had much bigger, nicer apartments. It was girl’s night. We’d had them regularly before I left, in the place where we could bask in the good and bad of the past, the simplicity of it, and the warmth of each other’s company.
“Can I believe it?” Lucy repeated. “Um...yeah? Have you been absent for, I don’t know, the whole time every alpha male we know has been drawing breath? Something dramatic happens to us and they turn up the drama and call it protection. I mean, there are more drama queens in that security firm than on all eleven seasons of Ru Paul’s Drag Race,” she said.
“To be fair, our track record does foster a small dramatic reaction,” Rosie put in, pinching her thumb and finger millimeters away from each other.
Lucy scowled. “Since when were you ever fair?”
Rosie scrunched her nose. “You’re right. Fuck ‘em.”
Lucy grinned, facing me.
“You need to tell Keltan to call Heath off,” I told her.
Lucy laughed.
Like threw her head back and cackled.
“I’m not joking,” I said.
She wiped a tear from her eye. “Oh, I know, that’s why it’s funny.”
I scowled.
She squeezed my arm. “Sweetie, I do boast a lot of clout with my husband, especially since I’m the one that pretends I control how my legs open and close, but have you seen how hot he is?” Her eyes went dreamy for a second. “But it’s not him that I have to convince. Nor is he in charge when it comes to you and Heath is involved.”
“He was the one that ordered the security detail,” I argued.
Lucy raised a brow. “And who told you that?”
I paused. “Heath.”
She gave me a look, one that told me I should’ve figured something out.
“Heath did not have anything to do with this. In case you haven’t noticed, he hates me,” I argued with her look that tried to tell me this was all Heath’s doing.
“He does not hate you, honey, and that’s the problem,” Rosie said. “He wants to hate you. But he can’t. I’m going to guess he hates himself for feeling the way he does. Someone really has to sue Disney for unrealistic expectations of love and romance. If you lose your shoe at midnight, it’s because you’re drunk. And if it’s a Manolo and you lose it, it means you’re dead. If you fall asleep in a tower, there’s no way a man is gonna get his shit together and fight a dragon then kiss you to wake you up. You know what wakes a comatose woman? The smell of fresh coffee.”
She was rambling at this point because her words had hit their mark. And not just with me. Just because she and Lucy were married and pregnant now, did not mean their stories were over. And I knew that it haunted them, the pain it took them to get there.
It wasn’t something you just forgot.
“Can we please just change the subject?” I pleaded.
“Gladly. Rosie, are you scheduling a C-Section or doing a natural birth?” Lucy asked.
Rosie widened her eyes. “My hair color is never gonna be natural and neither is the birth. C-Section locked and loaded. Why, are you considering pushing a human out of your body?”
“Women have been doing it for thousands of years, it’s not some horrific act,” I cut in.
“Have you seen birthing videos?” Rosie snapped. “The Conjuring has nothing on the ‘beauty of natural birth.”
And from there, it went on. Because it was Rosie and Lucy and they almost managed to distract me.
Almost.
* * *
“I know what I want to do.”
“For dinner?” Lucy clarified, glancing up from her phone. “Thank goodness, otherwise we’d be here forever.”
I smiled. We had been known to take two hours to narrow it down to three different food options, and then we ended up ordering all three.
“Anything but Chinese. Or Mexican,” Rosie interjected. She frowned. “No, wait. What am I, high? No, just pregnant. Mexican is always on the table.”
“No, not for dinner, in life.” I paused. “Well, not life in general, but a job.”
Lucy blinked, her face carefully empty. I knew this look. This was his neutral ‘let’s humor whatever new thing Polly has decided is her calling.’
I didn’t resent it. Because as many boyfriends I’ve had, I had about the same careers. The two were usually mutually exclusive. When I had the boyfriend who wanted to own a farm, I thought I’d make a great alpaca breeder. Or when I briefly—very briefly since he took himself way too seriously—dated a doctor I entertained some Gray’s Anatomy fant
asies and decided nursing would be amazing. Each of these new careers were met with that same blank face from both Lucy and my parents.
Rosie had no such reactions. She was grinning wildly. “Oh, can I guess this time?” She didn’t wait for me to answer. “Lion tamer? No, chef at some raw food shop that doesn’t even cook anything so you just chop and blend vegetables?” She paused. “Wait, you’ve done that. Please tell me it’s something that’ll give me some entertainment and excitement now I’m not able to chase after drug dealers and rapists.” Her eyes were bright and wild like that of a child.
I smiled. “Well, I don’t think this latest profession is going to give entertainment or excitement, I’m sorry to inform you. In fact, kind of the whole point of it is peace and calm.”
Rosie rolled her eyes. “Yes, for anyone else. But it’s you.”
She wasn’t wrong. I was me.
But I hoped she was wrong on this occasion. Peace and calm was exactly what I needed right about now.
“I want to be a yoga instructor,” I said.
Rosie paused, screwing up her nose. “Wait, haven’t you already done that?”
“No, that was a Pilates instructor,” Lucy cut in. “They’re different, right?”
“Yes they are different and no I haven’t already done it,” I said.
“Are you sure?” Rosie asked.
“Reasonably,” I replied.
“Hmmm okay,” she murmured, not sounding convinced.
“That’s great, Pol,” Lucy said, her voice only slightly more convincing than Rosie.
Slightly.
I sighed. “I know that I’ve had as many careers as I’ve had boyfriends, but this is something that feels right to me,” I said. “This is something I’ve put thought into. I love the idea of helping people find peace.”
“I thought it would mainly be about helping housewives finding ways to be more flexible to please their husbands who are already banging their secretaries anyway,” Rosie said, screwing up her nose.
I laughed when Lucy scowled at Rosie with somewhat of a smile in her eye. She was trying to be my protector but also Rosie’s best friend.
“I’m sure there will be some of that,” I agreed. “But once I’m certified, I want to open my own place. Have it be about something other than a social media image and a place to wear Lululemon leggings or whatever. “ I paused. “I just want to create...something that stands for calm. Even when my life stands for chaos. I’ll use Craig’s money.”
Rosie gave me a knowing look. “Or you could use it to hire a hitman. I’d give you the five-finger discount since I’d be the hitman. But you’d still have to pay me because I need a new car. I’m thinking a convertible.”
I narrowed my eyes. “You’re not killing him.”
She pouted.
“No,” I said to the silent plea.
“Even after he accosted you in a bar?” Lucy asked. “And he ruined two margaritas.”
Obviously she didn’t know that he’d once ruined my face. Because Lucy would’ve actually killed him. I knew that.
“We aren’t talking about him,” I gritted out.
“Okay,” Lucy agreed.
That was too easy.
“We’re talking about Heath,” she amended.
I knew it.
She held her hand up as I opened my mouth. “Before you talk about not being ready or try to brush off what it is that the two of you have, you know that’s impossible now, right? There’s only so much patience we can have on the matter. Two years is our freaking limit. And we’re pregnant, you have to give us what we ask, right?” She looked to Rosie, who nodded.
“Yep, it’s like law or something.”
I raised my brow, my stomach curling in on itself at the knowledge that there was going to be no way to escape this one, because they were right, there was only so long I could keep silent. And I wasn’t certain they wouldn’t resort to waterboarding if I tried to keep them in the dark any longer.
“It’s law to get you pickles and ice cream if you’re craving them,” I tried to stall because I had to gather up the strength. “Not tell you details about my private life.”
Rosie waved her phone. “Um, welcome to the twenty-first century, hippy kid, there are apps for all of our pregnancy cravings. And husbands. So your job, as the aunt to these two, precious, precious children is to spill every sordid detail of your past with Heath. Including girth and tongue talent.”
“My job as an aunt to your precious, precious children is talking about girth and a man’s ability to perform oral sex?” I clarified.
Lucy nodded. “You’re catching on.”
I sighed, long and hard. I couldn’t say that there wasn’t a part of me that wasn’t itching to talk about this. To tell someone, anyone, what I’d kept inside for so long. And the two women in front of me knew me better than I knew myself. Plus, they’d been witness to my many stupid decisions over the years. They cleaned up my messes, and more often than not, made even bigger messes.
Keeping this large part of my life, my identity, from them felt like an ongoing and exhausting deception. And it wasn’t just that Heath was a large part of my identity, it’s what he made me learn about myself. How he taught me that I could be the ugly stepsister in the fairy tale.
How I could break hearts and ruin lives.
It was a heavy burden to carry alone. But this was one thing that my sisters couldn’t save me from.
“Okay,” I whispered, the word silencing Rosie and Lucy as they bickered over who I’d babysit for the most.
“Okay?” Lucy said, shocked. “You’re going to tell us?”
I nodded.
And I told them.
Everything.
* * *
“Holy. Fucking. Fuck,” Rosie breathed.
It was the first words she’d spoken it what felt like a lifetime.
I’d stopped speaking a full minute before she uttered them. I’d counted. Braced for their reaction. Their judgment.
They were shocked because I was sure that they didn’t expect the history of me and Heath to stretch back to when I was eighteen years old. Obviously we’d done a great job at convincing my family we were strangers.
I’d done a terrible job at convincing myself.
But there was no judgment, not even an ounce on their faces. Not that I had ever witnessed it. I’d thought this might be different. This wasn’t me disappearing to the Dominican Republic and volunteering with my new boyfriend for three weeks.
This was years of half-truths, deceptions. This was me marrying another while breaking the heart of a good man. One both of these women respected.
“Holy fucking fuckedy fuck,” Lucy whispered.
I nodded in agreeance.
“This is a lot,” Lucy said.
“Even for you, this is a lot,” Rosie continued.
“For us, this is a lot,” Lucy corrected.
“Okay, it’s starting to get creepy you two speaking a run-on sentence,” I said.
“Why in the fuck didn’t you tell us?” Rosie demanded.
“Because I was ashamed,” I whispered, looking downward. “Not at the start, no at the start I wanted it just to be mine. I wanted to keep that weekend inside me so nothing could corrupt it. Like some really old painting that just crumbles to dust if it’s exposed to sunlight.” I picked at my chipped nail polish. “Especially since I didn’t think I’d ever see him again. I didn’t even entertain fantasies about us meeting randomly sometime. I didn’t let myself do that. So when I saw him, I didn’t know how to react. I couldn’t react. I made him into a stranger when moments before he’d been the most important part of my past. And then it got worse. Got messy.”
Understatement of the century.
“It was a moment that everyone would’ve expected me to grab with both hands if they’d known,” I added. “The storybook moment when that first love comes back and everything is right and perfect and it happens how it should’ve the first time around. But it d
idn’t happen like that. I didn’t grab it with both hands. I used both hands to push him away because I’m a big fat coward.”
I emptied my wine before looking to my sister, blinking away my tears.
“Everyone thought I was looking for the one. When in reality I was trying to find a way to lose the one.” I sucked in a strangled breath. “I made a mistake,” I whispered. “With all of it. All I wanted was the fairy tale.” I blinked at my tears. “But I ruined whatever chance I got at that.”
“You didn’t ruin a fairy tale, my love, because fairy tales don’t exist,” Lucy said calmly. “Watching you grow up in your beautiful world, I thought maybe they might, for my peaceful and chaotic baby sister. I hoped that the ugly world would grant that small thing as to give you a fairy tale. But that’s not how it works.” She smiled. “Sometimes the story didn’t follow the rules. The girl made the wrong decisions because she was scared and naïve and most importantly, human. We don’t make the right decisions when it comes to love, when it comes to the real deal. We make choices to protect our hearts when they fuck everything up even more. Take it from someone who knows. I didn’t get the fairy tale. But somehow I got the happy ending.”
I smiled at her, a real one, even in the middle of my pain. Because I was always going to be happy that the two women in front of me got that. Got their happy endings even though they didn’t get their fairy tales.
“I don’t know if I’m going to get mine now,” I whispered. “I think marrying someone else and running away to Europe after divorcing him has set fire to whatever future Heath and I could ever have had.”
“Why did you marry him?” Rosie asked. It was a question neither of them had asked me until now, despite their obvious disapproval.
“Because I was a coward,” I whispered. “Because he was someone that seemed safe. Easy. Because I loved him with the surface part of Polly that everyone knew. He would never know the deepest parts of my pain. Because I didn’t think he’d hurt me.” I laughed. “But it was me that hurt myself marrying him.”