“I don’t have anything to say to you,” I said instead.
He sighed, so heavily that I could hear it from my side of the door.
“Let me explain-”
“But I understand so well already.” So snide, so dismissive. If I kept it up maybe he wouldn’t notice the hurt beneath every word.
“I seriously doubt that, Sunshine.”
I shook my head, gritting my teeth when another wave of tears threatened. He didn’t get to call me Sunshine. Not anymore. Not ever again.
“Don’t call me that,” I said thickly.
“But -” Here he paused and my back warmed. In a wild moment of fancy, I thought perhaps that he was pressing his palm against the wood in search of me and I hated myself just a little more for it. “That’s what you are.” His voice lowered. “At least as far as I’ve been concerned.”
Bullshit. So much bullshit.
I stumbled to my feet and in a clumsy rage I unlocked the door and threw it open. The tears were gone now. Evaporated on a wave of wrath. My breath came hard and fast and I made no move to calm my agitation.
“If you cared so much about me then why not tell the truth?” I challenged. “You’ve been stringing me along for months. Making a fool out of me…” I swallowed and stepped back, my throat working. If there was satisfaction to be found in any of this, it would be in the fact that his usual disinterest had begun to unravel. His face was flushed, and his eyes were bright with things unsaid. At his side, his hands formed fists I longed to unravel with breath and teeth and tongue.
“I was scared.”
I laughed incredulously before realizing that he was being sincere. Or as near to it as I could tell. Obviously, I had a history of being blind where Maddox was concerned.
“Scared.” My lip curled in a sneer. “Of what? Losing out on your inheritance?”
“Of losing you.” His teeth were clenched so tightly I was sure something would snap if he ground them any harder. “I was afraid if you found out who I was you’d think…”
“That you played me for a fool?” He flinched. “Used me? Lied to me? Made me believe that someone like you could actually-” I stopped shy of giving shape to the thoughts in my head. It didn’t matter.
The expression on Maddox’s face indicated clearly that he knew exactly what I was going to say and something dark and uncompromising swam to the surface and lingered.
“Do you love me?” he asked abruptly.
I drew back as if struck.
“W-what?”
Maddox took a step closer, crowding me against the doorframe.
“Because I know that you do,” he continued. “You’re just too much of a coward to admit to yourself that you haven’t fallen out of love with me so fast.”
“I’m not a coward.” I didn’t like being on the defensive and my eyes narrowed.
“Yeah, you are.” Maddox bent until his face was so close to my own that our breaths mingled. “You’re afraid that I could love you more than you love yourself. You think this marriage isn’t real, that we aren’t real, because you’re fat.” His forehead pressed against my own and the rigid line of my spine eased. “It’s easier to blame your weight, isn’t it?” he whispered. “It’s easier to think we could never work than it is to admit that you’re running away. Life doesn’t work like that, Sunshine. You can’t hurt me before I hurt you and then turn around and say you tried. You can’t take all the hope you had for us and give it to Marcus.” That last sentence struck like lightning. It took me a few seconds to steady myself against the impact. He wasn’t here because he wanted to be. He was here because he was jealous.
“You lied.” I forced myself to pull away from him, pressing flush against the doorframe so we were no longer skin to skin. If I weakened, even a little, I would fall into his arms without hesitation.
He was wrong, I could take all the hope I had for us and give it to Marcus. Right now, I wanted to be able to do that more than anything. I wanted the distraction of someone else. I wanted him to see me with someone else, even if it didn’t mean a damn thing and I wanted him to hurt because of it.
Most of all, I couldn’t afford to let him win.
“You can put a pretty spin on it, but at the end of the day you are a liar, Maddox.” I took a deep, shaky, breath. “I don’t trust a thing you say. I can’t.”
No matter how I felt about Maddox, it all boiled down to one thing; how much of what he said and did was because he cared for me and how much of it was to fulfill his father’s stipulations. He had six months to find a wife and if I pulled out of the agreement now, he’d be out billions of dollars. A man would fuck a llama if it meant becoming a billionaire. Hell, maybe I’d fuck a llama for that much. Marry one too.
But I wasn’t anyone’s llama, and I’d promised myself that I would try. Right now, that meant caring enough about my own wants and needs not to blindly trust a man who had everything to lose by not telling me exactly what I wanted to hear.
“Are you holding on for me or for your father’s money?” I asked. It was a simple enough question, but the look on Maddox’s face made it seem like I’d thrown a pot of grits at him.
“You,” he said, his voice rough and throaty.
“See…that’s the part I’m not so sure about, Maddox. You say things like you mean them, sure. But I’ve come to learn that your lies sound just as convincing as your truths.”
“Cornelia, please.”
I put a hand up and backed away from him as much as I could. “From where I’m standing, knowing what I know now, I can’t help but think that this is all about the money. You’ve wasted a lot of time trying to play house with me. You don’t really want to start over from scratch. A marriage, a divorce, another marriage – your tight on time. Plus, your father won’t think of you as trustworthy if you’re changing wives quicker than you change your briefs.”
“That is not what this is about,” he growled. I’d hit a nerve. Good.
Maddox straightened, and my thoughts cleared. Without him taking up so much room in my thoughts I finally noticed the cameras. There was no telling how long they’d been there. I’d been so used to being a background character that I wouldn’t have noticed them following me. With Sheila and Giles gone, Maddox and I were now the most interesting couple in the house. Seeing them all gathered together, staring at me with soulless red lights, I was abruptly sick of playing a game I’d been destined to lose since the very beginning.
“You need to leave,” I said and transferred my gaze from Maddox to the cameraman and Robert crowding the doorway. “All of you. Now.”
Robert opened his mouth to protest but Maddox, eyes still on me, held up a hand. Robert took the hint and turned to walk away, but before he was out of earshot, I called after him. “And Robert…fuck you for lying to Marcus that I asked for him to be here.”
His eyes shifted to Maddox and he shook his head. Maddox swallowed, like something had all of a sudden lodged itself in his throat. I didn’t like the look of that. There were so many other things that needed sorting through, however, that I didn’t have the time or the energy to tackle whatever had just passed between Robert and Maddox.
“How do I fix this?” Maddox asked, calmer, focused, his eyes not leaving mine. The skin between his brows folded and I shook my head, folding my arms beneath my breasts.
“I don’t know if you can.”
A moment of silence, two, then with a sharp nod he strode for the door. Pushing past the cameras and the lights Maddox left me. He didn’t bother looking back and I didn’t try to stop him.
Kids on the block
Time. It just never stops passing us by.
Time. It’s been more of an enemy to me than it’s ever been a friend. I wonder just how many people it’s the same for. How much of the world is divided because of it.
There are people like Cornelia, who look forward to a clock ticking, tocking, ticking. And then, there are people like me who feel like they’ve been holding their breaths thei
r entire lives. We’re the ones working against the ticking time bomb of minutes and hours. That Cornelia wouldn’t spend her happily ever after in this town, was no surprise to me. It wasn’t even a secret. But every day that went by was another day that came closer to her leaving.
Sara Lee’s funeral was just one more of those moments where I felt like I was a millisecond away from exploding. There was no body, which, according to my mother, was a good thing. At least a coffin wasn’t necessary. They could at least save some money on that front. My stepfather had introduced her to the back of his hand for that comment. I can’t even say that I blamed him. Surely, I didn’t step in to defend her. It wasn’t lost on me that I was a fucking hypocrite, a murderer, and quite very possibly, a little bit delusional.
There were times where I went through the motions of life knowing that my sister was dead but forgetting that I had been the one to kill her. The funeral was one of those instances. Even if there was a video of what had happened, no one would have believed that it was the truth, not with the way I’d bawled my fucking eyes out. Not with the way I’d thrown up at the foot of the church or the amount I’d had to drink once the proceedings were all done. Not with the hours I spent in the water searching for her body, my skin blue and my body close to hypothermia.
The day comes to a close, which in itself is sadder than sad. I’d never been to a funeral before, but even then, I know that this isn’t the send off anyone would have wanted for themselves. Sure, there were people from our school there, a pastor, some prayers said to a God that Sara-Lee didn’t believe in; a God who allowed her life on earth to be worse than that of gum living under a pig farmer’s boot. People cried, yes. But her murderer, he cried harder. It fucking sucked, there was no two ways around that.
I put one foot in front of the other, uncertain of where I am headed as I leave the beach. That’s been the story of my life following Sara’s death. I walk. A lot. Heading nowhere, but ending up somewhere, nevertheless. My chances of hypothermia die down as my body is replaced with the kind of heat only a sinner gets scorched with. By the time I get to the little house with the white picket fence and the perfectly tended to rose-bush, I am nothing short of exhausted.
Like a thief in the night, I climb over the barrier separating Cornelia’s home from the rest of the world. All lights are out, and all signs of life dimmed. That should be my queue to turn back, to find somewhere else to go. But it’s not like I’m here to say hello. I’m doing exactly the kind of thing that people do when they sneak around in the dead of the night. Spying. Spying on her.
As soon as my brain catches up with my intentions, it feels like a switch flicks inside of me. The thing is, I am not here to hurt her. I’m just here to be here. To fucking...I don’t know, make sure that she doesn’t leave.
The memories of Sara Lee that night out on the water come rushing in like a tsunami carrying its biggest wave to my heart. I feel like I can’t breathe as the sound of Sara’s words whisper in my air. It would have been so easy for her to carry out what she said she wanted to do. What she told me she had done. One finger could have lifted that frail wooden window frame. It would have taken next to nothing to slip into Cornelia’s house and subdue her.
The thought alone chills my bones to the core. My stepfather might not have an interest in her that extends past that night of the sleepover. Hell, he might be too lazy to seek someone out who doesn’t reside in our house. But there are people out there, people like him, who wander around in search of their next victim. How could Cornelia’s mother not be more careful? Don’t they know how fucking scary the world is?
The urge to barricade her window in a mess of metal bars storms me hard, though I know better than to think that she is mine to protect. After all, there isn’t some pedophile rapist hanging outside her window waiting to take advantage of her. No, there’s just me, thinking of all the things that could go wrong. Not only now, but later. When she’s away, trying to fend for herself in the big open world.
I shake my head, trying like hell to get the thought away. There is something wrong with me. Clearly there is. I am even more convinced of that fact once the night comes to a close and another night takes its place with me right in this very spot like I am some kind of protector. Like I am not the enemy I have been the entire time she’s ever known me.
This thing that I am feeling, feels a lot like an obsession. The fact that my stepfather is gone more often than he is home doesn’t exactly help the case. He could be coming here, or somewhere else, playing the predator. We are about to be heading out of town, trying to start anew. This will have been the perfect time for him to make a move, to do something horrid to Cornelia or someone else, and skip town, never to be found again.
I had to do something.
Chapter Eight
The next day dawned quiet considering all the chaos of the night before. Unsurprisingly, I slept poorly and what little rest I managed was plagued by nightmares. In my dream I was back on that beach and Sara sat beside me, idlily cleaning her surfboard and glancing out over the waves. When I reached out to touch her she felt cold, wet, and the eyes she turned on me were gray and lifeless. I didn’t scream. Sara had been dead for a long time, so her appearance didn’t shock or horrify, only sadden.
“You should’ve paid attention,” she told me.
I could feel myself warm.
“How was I supposed to know he was a fucking trust fund kid.”
Sara rolled her dead eyes. “Not about that, dummy. Look.” She pointed and squinting, I clambered to my seat to see past the glare of the sun overhead. There was someone surfing, riding the waves with ease, speeding through tunnels of water only to come out victorious at the other end.
I don’t know when the surfer saw me, but I knew the moment when his attention shifted to me with the certainty that only comes in dreams. He lifted his hand to wave just as the ocean behind him surged and swallowed him whole.
I froze, staring.
It was Marcus, it had to be. But just as I thought his name, I saw him at the edge of the water. A vise wrapped around my chest and I rushed forward. He was struggling for purchase and gasping for air. If I didn’t act now…who knows what would happen.
As soon as my feet made contact with the tide, I was brought up short by some invisible force. I tried pushing past it, tried throwing myself into the ocean, but nothing worked.
The man’s head popped back up to the surface. This time, it wasn’t Marcus, but instead, Maddox disappearing beneath the waves. The ocean went as still as glass as if snatching him away had been its one and only purpose.
Sara was standing beside me now. In the time it had taken me to realize the futility of my actions, her skin had begun to slough off in wet, sluggish, trails. Her body was bloated with water and when she spoke seafoam dribbled down her chin.
“You should’ve paid attention. If you had, you wouldn’t have lost him so easily.”
“I didn’t lose him.” There was an overwhelming, clawing, grief crawling up the back of my throat. “He left on his own.”
She simply stared at me and the next time I reached for her arm her body dissolved with a flash of ocean water and she merged with the tide and drifted away. I couldn’t follow, and the world went black.
The chime of my alarm clock sounded like screaming at first and I jerked awake with tear tracks on my face and my hand clutching my chest. Dreaming of Sara was nothing new. Like I said, she’d been dead for a very long time and I’d spent years feeling somewhat guilty for what had happened on the beach that day. But she was the only one who ever made an appearance, so the presence of both Marcus and Maddox was more than just a little disturbing.
A knock at my door caused me to shoot up faster than whiplash in my bed. I rubbed at my neck and swept the sleep away from my eyes before planting my feet on the floor. Carefully, I pulled the door open just a peep. Marcus stood on the other side, a look I couldn’t quite make out marring his face.
“Can I come in?”<
br />
“I’m not sure that’s such a good idea,” I said.
He nodded, accepting my rejection before turning to walk away. The dream, Sara, him, Maddox, they all played like a broken video in my mind and I found myself reaching out, trapping his arm in my hand.
“Just for a minute,” I said and his lips lifted, forming something that didn’t quite shape up to be a smile.
I wasn’t exactly sure why I invited Marcus into my room. What I do know, however, is that it turned out to not be such a bad idea. We settled down on the rug in the center – it would be a while before a invited another man into my bed, sexually or otherwise.
“I heard you and Maddox fighting last night,” he said. “Are you okay?”
I nodded and breathed. Dammit, I needed someone to talk to. But dammit, he should have been the last person to her me voice my thoughts. Still, it was better than nothing and if I sat with this anger, it was sure to eat away at me.
“I’m a good listener,” Marcus said.
“You’re trying to be Maddox’s competition,” I reminded him to which he shook his head.
“Right now,” he said, smoothing a hand down my arm, “I’m here as a friend.”
I bought the genuineness in his tone and decided to give it a go.
Marcus listened while I poured my fears down the barrel of his attention. Never in a million and one years did I think he would be the one to offer me comfort again. But he did. And he did it so expertly. Not wanting a damn thing in return.
There wasn’t even a hint of the man who was trying to win my heart over to be seen. All he was, was a friend, offering a shoulder to lean on. I told him about how sorry Maddox sounded and how much of a liar he was. And he told me that maybe Maddox was sorry and maybe he’d just lied about that one thing.
“That’s not how you try to beat out the competition,” I said, and he laughed.
Morally Imperfect: A Bully Romance (The Bully Project Book 2) Page 7