Back To The Start Box Set: Five Full-Length Novels

by Aly Martinez

  “I can’t go home, Jesse. Not knowing that you are in there, hurt and upset,” he says, and the pain in his voice is almost enough to make me want to reach out to hug him. Almost.

  With his wife’s words ringing in my ears, I remind myself that I am no one’s dirty little secret. As much as I like Brett, he’s a lie. It’s better that I found this out now, before I had a chance to fall in love with the façade. I rise to my feet, squaring my shoulders, ready to fight for the only person I can really trust—me.

  I yank open the front door to see him instantly meet my gaze. His assessing eyes glide over my tear-stained cheeks. Rushing forward, he pulls me hard into his chest. He holds me, caressing my back, but I don’t reciprocate. As I’m tucked tightly into this man’s arms, my anger begins to fade from my body, but I refuse let it go completely. I stand limp, feet anchored to the ground, the rest of my body swaying, barely balanced enough to stand. He won’t let me fall, and that realization hits me like a hard punch to the stomach. I mentally allow myself one minute to melt into his safe and comfortable arms, smelling his scent and feeling his strength as he kisses the top of my head. I enjoy this feeling for one last second before snapping out of the trance.

  Shoving him as hard as I can, I push myself out of his grasp. I must have caught him off guard because he stumbles backwards a few steps.

  “Get out, go home, and never speak to me again. Find a new place to eat breakfast, too. You may think I’m a naïve, easy play, but I’m not falling for your crap anymore. I know who you are Brett.”

  “Oh really? Who am I, Jess?” He roughly runs his hand through his hair. Tousling it in the sexiest way. Crap!

  “You’re a liar and a cheat. You played me, which is bad enough, but for God’s sake, you played your own family, too.”

  “What did she say?” he asks, and I can almost see the flames shooting from his ears.

  “Go home.”

  He sucks in a deep breath, trying to collect himself. “Jess, when I’m angry, I cuss…a lot. Last time I cussed at you, you freaked out. So let me prepare you, because I’m about to say a lot of words that you may not like. Please, don’t take this personally, but I won’t be able to watch my mouth.” His calm voice rises to a shout as he obviously loses whatever control he collected just second ago. “Especially when you are telling me to go home to my wife and fucking kids. Now, before my head explodes, what the fuck did she tell you?” he screams.

  “It doesn’t matter what she told me. None of this is her fault, so don’t you dare try to blame it on her. You’re the one who lied to me. Why don’t you try telling the truth for once? You would be amazed how liberating it feels. Jesus, Brett, you told me your wife was dead. How do you sleep at night?”

  “I never told you my wife was dead,” he says, clearly befuddled.

  I throw my hands up in the air and walk away, leaving him standing in the doorway. I grab a beer from the fridge, not even bothering to offer him one. “You told me you lost her in a car accident. You said Caleb lost his fiancée too. Do you two work together? Lying about your dead wives to gain sympathy from unsuspecting women, just to get them into bed?” I ask, taking a much needed sip of the beer.

  He’s still standing in the foyer, his biceps bulging when he crosses his arms across his chest. Seriously, I have to stop checking him out. No wonder he got me into bed so quickly. This man is good. Even knowing he’s a big fat liar, I can’t stop myself from lusting after him. Damn it!

  “I told you I lost my wife in a car accident, and that is the truth. I didn’t realize that you thought she was dead. I see now how you would have assumed that though. I truly apologize for not being more clear. I never meant to imply that she was dead, but you have to know, that is the way I feel about her. She died years ago.”

  He sucks in another deep breath, ready to continue. “Caleb and I are not working some big play to get women into bed. You are the first, and only, woman I have gotten into bed in over four years. Caleb’s fiancée, Manda, actually died in the car that night. She was Sarah’s best friend, and her death is a large part of the reason why Sarah is the way she is today. ”

  “Sure. Are you done yet? Because, you really need to leave.” I can’t listen to his lies. He is explaining away the fact that he has a living, breathing wife. I’m not buying it.

  “Sarah and I are still married.” He finally tells the truth, and even though I already knew, it still hurts to hear him actually admit it. “But she is not my wife anymore.”

  “That’s not what it sounded like on the phone tonight.”

  “Jess, I have no idea what she said to you, but I’m starting to piece some of it together. She is the one who lied to you. We don’t have any kids. We haven’t lived together in over three years. I did lose her in a car accident that night. She didn’t die, but I lost her all the same,” he says in such a sincere voice that I almost want to believe him.

  Then I remember the heartbreak in his wife’s voice when all of his deception hit her tonight. That alone is enough for me to never speak to him again.

  “You must think I’m a complete idiot. I spoke to her!” I shout to prove to him, and myself, that there is no getting past this.

  “Where’s your computer?” he asks oddly.

  “I don’t have one.”

  “You’re a college student and you don’t have a computer?”

  “Are you here to make fun of me now? Add insult to injury? No, I don’t have a computer. My old one broke, and I didn’t have the money to replace it. I work in a coffee shop, and I figured rent was a little more important than a new computer,” I say sharply.

  “I’m not making fun of you. Stop getting so defensive. I told you I would never laugh at you. I meant it.”

  “Yeah, well you told me a lot of things that weren’t true, so please excuse me for not believing you now.”

  “Jess, I want to show you something. Where is your phone? Sarah wouldn’t give me mine back, and I didn’t have the time to fight with her about it. I wanted to get over here and make sure you were okay. Which you obviously are not.”

  “You need to leave.”

  “Where is your phone?” he repeats, not at all fazed by my stern command.

  “On the table.” I give in, punctuating it with a huff as he walks across the room to retrieve my phone. He hands it to me and steps away, careful not to invade my personal space.

  “Type this into Google: ‘Sarah Sharp Manda Baker April 2009,’” he instructs.

  Willing to momentarily humor him, I open the Internet browser on my phone and do a quick search. I’m floored by the number of articles that pop up. First about Manda’s death and the investigation into who was driving the car. Then there are several articles about Sarah’s attempted suicide covered by the local news. There’s even a picture of Brett covered head to toe in blood, wrapped in Caleb’s arms, while standing on the front porch of a small white house.

  “Brett,” I whisper. I’m not sure what any of this proves about our current situation, but I feel horrible for the tragedy these two men experienced. A single tear escapes my eye, and for the first time in hours, it’s not for myself.

  “Are you ready to listen now, gorgeous?” He steps back towards me. He barely drags his fingertips over my neck while gently brushing my hair off my shoulder. The graze of his gentle fingers sends chills all the way down my spine. It’s something so common, but the way he does it makes it intimate.

  “I’ll listen, but I can’t promise I’ll believe you.”

  “You’ll believe me. I won’t accept it any other way.”

  “Then tell me about Sarah before I lose my nerve.”

  “Sarah and I met when we were twenty-one, and I was lucky enough to keep her for seven years before I lost her one tragic night in a car accident on 290. She and her best friend, Manda, wrapped their car around a tree on the way home from dinner. To this day, no one is sure who was driving. Sarah can’t remember anything about the accident. They were both thrown from the car,
but Manda was killed on impact. Sarah was unconscious afterward but eventually escaped with just some pretty serious cuts and bruises. Or at least that was the way it looked at the time.

  “It wasn’t more than a few hours after the accident that I noticed something wasn’t right with her. She hated me as if I had done something to cause the wreck. See, Caleb and I got called away from dinner to close up a case. They were laughing and eating pizza when we left. So full of life. I never would have left if I had known it was the last time I’d ever see my wife. I’m not talking about Sarah. I’ve seen her a lot since that night. But I never saw my wife again.

  “At first, I felt like maybe she was harboring some bitterness towards me for leaving them that night, but within days of coming home from the hospital, it was obvious that something more was going on with her. She wouldn’t even sleep in our bed. I had to go out and buy a whole new bedroom set for our guest room just to keep her under the same roof with me. A month later, she tried to kill herself.”

  I take in a deep breath as his voice painfully cracks. I’m not sure I want to hear the rest of this story after seeing Brett covered in blood in the picture online.

  The pain of his memories is etched on his face as he continues. “She took every pill we had in the house. If I hadn’t found her when I did that night, she would have been successful.

  “She thankfully made it to the hospital in time to avoid any permanent damage to her body. Even knowing the way she had become after the accident, I was unwilling to accept that my Sarah would have done that to herself. I became a madman on a mission, demanding answers from everyone who even walked into the room. The doctors, for the longest time, said that it was guilt eating her away, but she just refused to talk to anyone. I knew it was more than that though. Even her taste in food changed. She just became a different person.

  “I beat down the door of every doctor in town, trying to get someone to help me get my wife back. In the end, one doctor finally diagnosed her with Post-Concussion Syndrome as a result of her head injury after being thrown from the car. There is no cure or treatment for PCS, so he just sent us along on our merry little dysfunctional way. But at least we had something. After that, all of her doctors started taking her issues a little more seriously.

  “Over the seven months after the accident, she tried to kill herself a total of three times. Each time, the method she used became more drastic. The last time, she sliced open what seemed like every inch of her body with a kitchen knife.” He looks down at the ground, intertwining his fingers and resting them on top of his head.

  I can see the effort it is taking him to keep it together during this story. It is heartbreaking to hear this level of devastation, but it’s worse to watch him relive it.

  “After that, I let her move out, and it actually helped a lot. I think not being forced to deal with her issues with me calmed her down a good bit. I basically just let her live in denial. She doesn’t face any of her issues, but she doesn’t try to kill herself either.”

  It isn’t until Brett pauses that I realize I have been holding my breath while he was speaking. My heart actually hurts for him, but I don’t know what I could possibly do to help. It sounds like Sarah isn’t the only one not dealing with their issues.

  “So listen to me, Jess. I am an idiot for phrasing it the way I did when I told you I lost Sarah. But you have to understand, I never lied to you. Never. Not once. That is not the way I’m wired. I tell the truth even when you don’t want to hear it, and you probably aren’t going to want to hear what I have to say next.”

  He leans into me, forcing my eyes to lock with his. “I go to Sarah’s apartment every Thursday night. I take her favorite dinner and spend time with the evil woman who now inhabits her body. I’ve been doing this for years. She doesn’t like it when I show up. I’ve never quite been able to figure out why she hates me the way she does, because before she changed, we were more than happy together. We were perfect.”

  He’s right. I don’t want to hear this. My mind is spinning. I can’t figure out if I should believe him. What’s worse is that I no longer want to believe him. What he is telling me now is almost more disastrous than the things Sarah told me earlier. If he is a liar and a cheat, I can walk away with no guilt of my own. But I have no idea how to deal with the idea that he might still be in love with the living, breathing ghost of his wife.

  “Is she still in love with you?” It surprises me that this is the first question that pops out of my mouth. I’m too scared to ask what I really want to know—if he still is in love with her.

  “No. Tonight, I told her I met someone. She deserved to know, and honestly, I thought she would throw a party in celebration. She has been asking for a divorce since she first came home from the hospital. However, when I told her about you, she flipped her lid. The phone call tonight had way more to do with me not giving her a divorce, which she has so desperately wanted for years, than it did about her feelings for me.

  “I’ve fought her every step of the way about the divorce. I feel like I have a responsibility to take care of her. I owe it to my old Sarah not to turn my back on her, regardless that this new person has turned her back on me.

  “She doesn’t work, and she lives off the settlement from the auto insurance company. She’s completely alone. Slowly over the years, she has closed herself off to everyone. She doesn’t speak to any of her friends or family. Every week, she lets me in, and it’s silly, but even just that simple act makes me believe that somewhere, deep inside, is my wife. She spends the entire night abusing me, reinforcing that my Sarah really is gone. Yet week after week, I return. I think, after tonight, I’m done though.” He stops talking, and I can almost see a decision being made and a weight lifting from his shoulders.

  “Did she do that to your lip?”

  “Yes. She was pretty pissed. After she hit me, I took off before things could escalate. That’s how she ended up with my phone. I left it sitting on the counter. Jesus, I’m so sorry you had to put up with all of this tonight. Please, Jess, I don’t want to stand here for another minute without kissing you. I’ve had a shit night and I’d love to forget it with you. When I’m with you, the world goes silent.” His last words make my heart stop. I feel the silence, too, but I’m nowhere near ready to forget.

  “Brett, I’m really confused right now. I don’t know what or who I should believe. I need some time alone to think.”

  “Can you please tell me what poison she injected into your brain? I can’t be your anti-venom if I don’t know what she bit you with tonight.”

  Crap. He’s right. I don’t know if I believe him or if I will ever be able to trust him again. But I have just enough belief in his words and hope in my heart to make me tell him everything.

  “She told me she was your wife, and she loves you, but you have a wandering eye. Your apartment is just to save you the commute home when you work late. You have two children, and they suffer the most from your infidelities. Oh, and she asked me if we had slept together.” I can’t help but look down at my feet, partially embarrassed but predominately terrified of how he is going to respond. Which parts are true? Which parts are lies?

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see him reach up and grab the bridge of his nose. He takes in a quick breath before closing his eyes for a second then snatching up my beer bottle and hurling it across the room. I’ve seen Brett mad before, and I’ve seen the angry ogre, but I just witnessed this man go nuclear.

  Stunned by his violent outburst, I instinctively take a step away from him and push my hands up between us to keep him from following my retreat.

  “You’re scaring me,” I choke out before my throat closes, blocking any further words.

  This seems to snap him out of it, and his face flashes with shame before he starts to apologize. “Shit! Come here, gorgeous. I’m sorry.”

  But I can’t move. I stand, staring at him as his mood drastically changes directions yet again. “Can we talk about this tomorrow? Please, just le
t me have some time.”

  “Okay,” he answers, resigned. “Let me explain something first. Jess, I have been living in a fog. I can’t tell you that this will work out between us. Hell, after tonight, I’m not sure if this isn’t already ruined. I’m a mess. I’m angry half the time and a miserable bastard the other half. You’re a good girl who deserves someone who can open themselves up and actually offer you something. You deserve more than I can probably ever give you. I don’t know if I can handle even saying the word forever again.

  “So with all of that said, I’m sorry for scaring you tonight. I’m just so frustrated. I think I have used every cuss word I know at least fifteen times tonight.” He tries to crack a joke, but it only sounds sad. “I feel like Sarah is determined to completely ruin me, even more than she already has.

  “I’m broken, Jess, but I need you to hear these words before I go. Trust me, I know saying this makes me a selfish bastard, because I’ve seen you cry three times in the five days we have been together. But for me, these last few days have been an awakening. I now see the sun behind the fog, and it’s a damn good feeling.

  “I’m sorry about all of this. I truly am. Please believe me and think about what I’ve said. I can’t promise you anything more than tomorrow, but maybe one day, the fog will disappear, leaving only sunny days ahead.” He doesn’t stall even a minute longer. He simply walks to the corner, cleans up the broken glass, and then walks out the front door.

  Just as the door clicks, I hear a breathy, “Whoa!” come from behind me. I turn to see Kara standing in the hall. “Are you okay?” she asks, walking a few steps in my direction before checking the door to make sure Brett really left.

  “No.”

  “Come here, girl.” She walks over and slings an arm around my shoulders, trying to comfort me. “You understand you’re the sun in that scenario, right?”

  “What if I don’t want to be the sun?”