by Alisa Mullen
“People can persuade others to do what they want them to do but ultimately, it is up to the person to decide. Yeah, maybe a gun to the head would make someone do something desperate but even then, it’s the person with the gun to their head that makes the final decision. Give up or fight. Lizzie didn’t fight for me.”
“I didn’t give her a chance to fight, Nick. I mean, she might have had a few good points but she was tired. Are you really upset about that?” I asked wearily.
“Yeah, a little. More than that, I think she and I need to get on the same page in life. There are a lot of issues in our lives that are still unresolved. First, I need to find the little brat,” he smirked.
I laughed. “You call her a brat to her face?” Nick’s face lit up instantly and he laughed. I was mesmerized by his expression. Conner used to look that way when I walked into a room. Nick was so beautiful, even though we had no chemistry. He made any old shirt look sexy, just like Conner had. If Nick wasn’t so financially successful, he could sell his beautiful face as a second career. Photographers would eat him up. Women all around the world would fawn at how beautiful his eyes, his hair, and that perfect body are.
When Nick smiled, it still made me feel special. He was just that good looking. I am sure Lizzie missed his body alone. She had to. I thought about how long she would last being away from him. It had already been over a week and still she was standing her ground. She really was an obstinate ginger.
“Oh, we are much worse. She and I are ridiculously juvenile with each other. I have never had more fun with anyone in my life. She is something else. She is a smart ass and I love it. I love her for making light out of serious situations. Our method of communication is picking on each other instead of arguing. Sometimes laughter is better than yelling. We seem to get more accomplished through innuendos than straight out hollering.” Nick put his hand on the back of his neck and shrugged.
“But I guess that wasn’t enough communication. Maybe we should have taken our life together more seriously. That’s not to say that if I saw Lizzie right now I wouldn’t strangle her. She probably would let me, too.” He laughed. “And then she’d make me change Niall’s shitty diapers for a week.”
“Gross,” I gagged.
“Yeah, but it’s awesome. He is amazing.” He smiled to himself and laughed, like he was remembering something about Niall. “I miss him.”
“I am glad you found the one, Nick,” I whispered. “I shouldn’t have come back to Boston. I hope I didn’t destroy your relationship. I really do wish for you both to be happy. My father is…well he is a pompous asshole that I really don’t care to ever see again. I don’t even want to tell him that I am not going to pursue a marriage to you anymore. He will disown me.”
“Yes, he is a manipulative bastard but you need to be here now more than ever. I came here to see you today because I need you to grow a real spine and help me with Lizzie’s family. I saw her mom a little while ago and she is ready to hear the story of the night Conner died. She needs to hear it.” He pointedly looked into my eyes. He was serious.
My heart started to race and I couldn’t take deep breaths anymore. I sat up and clutched my chest. My head became foggy and I thought that I was going to collapse and die right now. Nick was next to me in seconds.
“Put your head between your legs and try to breathe deep,” he said, rubbing my back slow and precise. I did. When I started to breathe deeper, I slowly sat up.
“I can’t, Nick. I can’t tell them. They will know that he was going to be a father,” I cried.
His lip turned up in a sympathetic smile and sat quietly. He couldn’t make me do it. He knew that. He wasn’t here to talk me into doing it. He was hoping I would make the choice to.
“I will give you some time to think about it,” he said. “In the meantime, there are a few other things I need to do. I need to either help Lizzie get accustomed to our lifestyle or I have to adjust to hers. What should I do?”
He was asking me for relationship advice after everything I did? This was so bizarre but I wanted to help. I was starting to feel better. Maybe I was back here for a reason.
“I don’t know. She is very artsy, right? She loves music. Conner always talked about getting a large house in Cambridge. He said he and Lizzie talked about colorful houses to live in, near the main strip with all of the music bars.” I shrugged. “Maybe you should buy something real nice over there. Best of both worlds, you know?”
“Oh my god! That is brilliant! Yes!” Nick’s whole face brightened up and he stood up to pace. I could tell he was already making a list in his head. I giggled at his excitement. I realized I hadn’t giggled in months and damn, it felt amazing.
He sat back down and took my hand into his. My eyes started to water as I felt his compassionate touch.
“I will make you a deal.” He looked serious and determined.
I nodded. “I will explain that there will never be anything between us to your father if you give Conner’s mother one hour.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. It would be amazing and satisfying if Nick told my father off so I didn’t have to. My part of the deal? That was intimidating as hell.
“The offer is on the table,” he said. He pulled his hand away and got up.
He kissed me on the cheek and left the hotel room. I was left with a decision that would change people’s lives forever. Could I be that person again? At least this time, I would be honest.
EIGHTEEN - NICK
With every passing day, I worried more that Lizzie was never going to return to me. I tried to keep myself busy. I called a partner’s meeting at Frost and gave my notice to leave the company. Luckily, there was another potential partner who was willing to buy me out. I was worried that I would still financially support the company but the timing was more than perfect. I would receive my initial investment plus enough to buy a new home and the surprise I intended to present to Lizzie.
If I ever saw her again, she would see that we could be successful together, equal partners, beautiful lovers and best friends. She was my best friend and I missed her like crazy. If I sat on the couch and thought about her too much, I wanted to drink so I tried to keep my mind filled with petty details so that I would fall into bed, hug her pillow, and pass out immediately.
I called her parents and Sean every day. Nothing changed. She occasionally called her parents but still wouldn’t tell them where she was. Sean still hadn’t heard from her and I could hear in his voice that the more time that passed, the more concerned he became. I resorted to telling Sean that Lizzie was pregnant in hope that he would take my distraught investigation more seriously. He effectively lost it then. I had never heard someone swear so much in three sentences. Even Lizzie would have been impressed.
“Do her parents even know that she is pregnant?” he questioned during his rant.
“Nope. We decided not to tell anyone until she is further along, but I need you to understand that I didn’t only lose Lizzie. I lost my growing baby, too. You know what I mean?” I asked.
I was exhausted and a bit blasé at this point. I had these conversations in my head with myself hourly. “But I am telling you because well… I don’t know what to do. If I tell her parents, they will flip out on her and she won’t come home on her own. I can’t tell my parents because they will end up disliking Lizzie for leaving. Shit, I haven’t even told them that she left. I just don’t believe that she is gone for good, but then again it’s been weeks now.” I closed my eyes and tried not to choke up. I was so lonely without that woman. She was my life. If she never came home, I would never survive. Everything I had done this week was for our future.
“Yeah, man. That was a shit move on her part. You are the father. You deserve to know how she is doing in her pregnancy.” I wanted to kiss Sean in that moment. Finally, I had someone I could chat with and understood how much I stood to lose. I explained my plans and he was impressed. I asked him to help me look at houses and he agreed, saying he would know the p
erfect house when he saw it.
I called Mac, Lizzie’s former partner and boss, at Leeman Financial and asked him about the trade that went sour. This was the crux of Lizzie’s self worth. She lost her job the day she left. She needed to recognize that it wasn’t her blunder.
He practically cried into the phone that he didn’t want to lose my millions in investments and was personally looking into it. Somehow, he had already found out that the trade was made from out of state. That information would certainly help with a SEC investigation to clear Lizzie, but it was still her name on the trade. They believe it was either a typo error or she was set up. Mac claimed that without Lizzie, the firm was going to lose their biggest client. I imagined he was talking about Mrs. Crayton. I told him that clearing Lizzie’s name should be his number one priority since he was about to lose my accounts to boot. The silence that answered me on the phone confirmed that he understood the importance of his investigation.
I spent some of the week looking at space near Berklee College of Music. I didn’t see anything that screamed Lizzie or the guys. I was able to contact Jeremy and asked him to help me out with looking for a space. It sounded like he had just won the lottery. A full recording studio in Boston’s prime location was a dream of Conner’s. Jeremy asked about Lizzie and I told him she would be willing to sing with them for a few of their songs. The band had decided on a new name.
“Desired Pitch” would have their first gig as a new band at The Crimson Club the following weekend. They were testing out singers and they weren’t sure that they would ever find one. Jeremy asked about Lizzie again, wanting to speak with her about singing with them. I couldn’t lie anymore. I broke down and told him that she had left me. He was concerned but didn’t sound shocked by my story.
“Have you checked the Maine cabin yet?” he asked indifferently. It sounded like he was eating a chip. So nonchalant. I was dying here and he was eating chips.
“What Maine cabin?” I jumped up from my chair with my eyes wide open; my heart lurched out of my chest. I went to grab a pen and spilled my coffee everywhere. I didn’t care. I held on to Jeremy’s every word.
“That’s where Conner would go to get away. I think Lizzie goes up there frequently, too. It’s on Peaks Island, off of Portland. It’s one of the islands in Casco Bay,” he said.
I was silent. I couldn’t believe her parents wouldn’t have told me about the cabin or even try to look for her there. Did they even care about their daughter and their grandson? I suddenly felt so exhausted. Lizzie and her family were disjointed in ways that I would never be able to fathom. But I needed her voice, I needed her smile. I would do anything for just those two things.
“Does the place have a phone number?” I pleaded with him as I silently cursed the hot coffee dripping onto my leg. I literally crossed my fingers on both hands, praying that he would know something. I’d do whatever it took to bring Lizzie and me back together.
“Yeah, dude. I got it somewhere around here. Hold on.”
Minutes passed as I paced the kitchen. It couldn’t be this easy to hear Lizzie again. One phone call away? It seemed so simple but such a miracle. This is what I had wanted for days and days.
Jeremy came back on the line and rattled off the number. He sounded a bit taken back that I didn’t have the number but I told him that I probably had it somewhere in the house and didn’t have time to look for it. I wrote the number down twice as I repeated it back to him three times.
“Jeremy? Can I ask you a question now that you know all of this?”
“You want to know why The O’Malley’s aren’t concerned with where she is.” It wasn’t a question. He was probably thinking the same thing and didn’t have the answer. I couldn’t straight up tell Lizzie’s dad that he was sort of a shitty father for not worrying about her.
“Yeah, man. Every time I call him, he just… he is disconnected. It’s like he knew she would do this,” I admitted.
“Lizzie has always been a free spirit. Conner was, too. Their parents were always supportive but never overbearing. They didn’t have curfews in high school but both kids were always home at a decent time and more times than not, we were all over there anyways,” he laughed. I started to pace the kitchen. I tried to laugh, too, but it came out as a humming sound.
“When Lizzie moved to Oregon, no one was shocked. She basically took off for five years, Nick. Sure, she came back and visited. She talked to her parents on the phone but she was… she is her own person. She follows her own agenda. You are the first person she has had to answer to in her adult life. She obviously doesn’t comprehend that element of a relationship. She needs to stay in touch with you because this is more than just the two of you. You are a big part of Niall’s life. That is what pisses me off.” He sighed into the phone and cleared his throat. “Conner wouldn’t like it.”
“It fucking pisses me off, too,” I bellowed into the phone. Jeremy was silent for a minute until he continued.
“You know, Conner would leave and not tell anyone where he was going, too. They all have this understanding and it’s weird but it is just a given that they expect each other to ask if they need help. If one person doesn’t, then they leave each other alone. But Conner and Lizzie weren’t like that. It was like they read each other’s minds. If he was still around, he would probably already be there. That’s the thing I don’t understand. What if Lizzie feels so alone, especially now without Conner, that she doesn’t know that she needs to ask?”
A sudden urge came over to me. “Dude, I got to go.” I hung up so fast and clicked the button again to dial the woman of my dreams. I punched in the numbers and waited for it to ring. Nothing. No ring tone. Someone was on the line.
“Hello?” I asked.
“Hi.” It was Sam. Why was Sam in Maine?
“Sam? Are you… are you?” I trailed off.
“I will do it. I will go see Conner’s parents. I am sorry, you sound busy, but I needed to call and tell you I will do it before I change my mind,” she said in a rush.
Oh she called as I was dialing out.
“That’s great, Sam. Really. That’s great. Can I call you back in a bit? I am right in the middle of something,” I said frantically wanting this woman off the phone like yesterday.
I hung up on her but I didn’t care. I took a deep breath and dialed the numbers again. It rang three times and then my whole world turned upside down.
“Hello?” A male Irish voice answered the cabin’s phone.
“Who is this?” I demanded without any niceties.
“Um, who is this?” the man asked defensively.
I was so confused, maybe Jeremy gave me the wrong number but what were the chances I would call and someone with an Irish accent answers the phone? This was definitely the Maine cabin and Lizzie had a man there with her. Mother fucking god damn shit.
“I am Lizzie’s fiancé,” I snarled into the phone.
I was quaking mad. Not only was I going to erupt, but the dreadful foreboding cloud that settled over my body had me starting to sweat. My heart picked up full speed. I brought myself back to the call and prayed that this person on the other line wasn’t who I thought it was. This guy wasn’t Freddie either. Freddie was a lot more laid back that this douche.
“This is Teagan, an old friend of Lizzie’s,” he replied casually and without any threatening tone.
Teagan was either confident that Lizzie was his again or she already told him she was involved with me. Either way, he had no idea that within two weeks, Lizzie pulled out my heart, sliced into a hundred little pieces and then set it on fire. Teagan back in town was the final explosion.
I didn’t need to know anymore. It was over. She had moved on already. I grabbed my hair and tears came down my face. I just fucking quit my job. I was buying a studio for her and the band. She was already so engrained in my life.
I slammed the phone down and slid down the cabinets to the floor. I tried to wrap my head around the biggest fear I had since I met Lizzie
O’Malley. My fear that she would be lost to me had come into fruition. That day was today and I was not prepared. Teagan actually came back. He came back for her. I just lost her forever.
Two hours later, I was still on the floor. My brain hurt. My body hurt. I was vacant inside. At once, I felt a slow burn inside my chest. I was depressed. I was enraged. I was jealous. I was heartbroken.
After everything Lizzie and I had been through together, she owed me an explanation. Did she say that I needed someone else? It looked pretty clear to me that she was the one that needed someone else. Teagan was in a cabin alone with her on an island and she never explained that she wanted him back. When she broke it off with me, I deserved to know that she was with him. Did she leave me to go back to him that exact day?
The phone rang and I stood to pick it up. Sitting on the floor gave me a back pain and I achingly leaned over the breakfast nook to answer the phone.
“This is Nick,” I said blankly.
“Nick?”
It was her. Holy mother loving hell. I started to breath heavy. My chest hurt. I wanted to tell her to fuck off. I wanted to beg her to love me, not him. I had nothing nice to say so I stayed silent.
“Nick?” she asked again, sounding pained and a bit nervous? “Please, I know you called. Teagan told me. Please talk to me.”
“What can I do for you Elizabeth?” I heard her inhale sharply through the phone. I never ever called her Elizabeth. But right now, she was the fucking bitch that tore my heart out and she didn’t deserve a fucking nickname.
“It isn’t whatever you are thinking Nick. I didn’t know he was coming here. He showed up this morning,” she whispered.
She was whispering. Why was she whispering?
“I was in shock when he showed up and I had to leave the cabin. I took Niall down to the boat dock and you called while I was gone. Really, I don’t understand why he is here.”