Crashing Into Me (Crashing Into Me #1)

by R. L. Jackson

  ***

  When Lana descended the stairs, Maureen was sitting at the kitchen island sipping coffee in her favorite mug again. Lana walked into the kitchen and Kayden placed a mug of coffee in front of her and kissed her check. Maureen winked at her.

  “Good morning,” she said to Lana. Lana put on the phoniest smile she possibly could. Here we go, she said in her head.

  “I was wondering if I could borrow my son for a few hours?” Maureen asked.

  So this is how it was gonna happen. The sting of tears started to return as she looked at Kayden who was drinking his coffee in the living room watching the news.

  “Don’t even think about it,” Maureen mouthed.

  Lana looked at her, one tear defying her will and falling free. She wiped it fast before Kayden could see.

  “Sure,” Lana replied and was very chipper as she walked over to him. She slipped her arms around him and kissed him.

  “Where are you guys headed?” she asked him.

  “We’re gonna catch up a bit on the business stuff. I’m sure you could come with us if you wanted, right mom?” Kayden asked looking at her. Maureen looked at Lana then her son.

  “I was hoping we could discuss some personal family matters and get some time to bond again,” she spread that fake smile across her face like butter on toast. Lana turned to Kayden and smiled.

  “It’s OK, honey. Spend some time with your mom. Besides it’ll give me time to finally call my own.” He bent and pecked her lips.

  “You’re the best you know that?”

  He turned to Maureen. “You see why I want to marry her?”

  The second smile Maureen forced looked like her whole face would snap off if she tried any harder. But Kayden couldn’t see it. He was finally getting his mother back—a second chance at family, so it didn’t surprise her that he couldn’t see what she did. Eventually he’ll see through it, she thought to herself. She gave him one more lingering kiss and he slapped her butt on the way to the kitchen where he picked up his keys. She couldn’t believe this was it, as she watched him walk towards the door with Maureen in tow.

  He exited first and before Maureen stepped outside, she turned around and winked at her and mouthed the words “So long” as she shut the door behind her.

  Lana couldn’t breath—that was it. It was really—it. She ran upstairs to their room and grabbed her bag. She wiped at her face, just wanting to get out of the house before she did something she’d regret. When she made it back downstairs Kim was standing in the living room.

  “What are you doing here?” Lana asked.

  “I’m Maureen’s insurance policy. You’re gonna get back in your piece of shit car and leave and I’m here to make sure that happens,” she said with too much pleasure.

  Lana shook her head and grabbed Kayden’s jacket off the back of the dining room chair. She put it on and grabbed her keys off the counter.

  “I don’t need a babysitter,” she replied as she started walking through the house ensuring she didn’t leave anything behind. Nope nothing. Just her heart. Kim followed behind her as she started towards the front door.

  “Well I’m just making sure the trash gets put out.”

  Suddenly, Lana swung around, and decked her in the nose, her fist tightened so hard her knuckles ached. Kim stumbled back on her high heels, and her ass slammed the hard wood floor. She was holding her nose, her face full of surprise and fear as she began to scramble backward away from Lana. Lana grabbed a tampon from her purse and threw it at her.

  “Here, cut this in half and stick it up your nose, it’ll help stop the bleeding bitch.”

  She turned and walked out of the house angry and ashamed at how she let Kim get the best of her. She wasn’t sure if leaving without something written and signed was smart or not. It was doubtful either one of them would sign it anyway. She stomped out the door and down the porch stairs dragging her duffle bag like a rag doll. She jumped in the truck, which was repaired, as Maureen promised, and started the engine.

  Kim appeared in the doorway of the house, the tampon string hanging from her nose and her cellphone to her ear, then came running down the porch towards the car. She tapped on the window, and Lana glared at her. What does she want now, she thought as she lowered the window.

  “If you come back here, I’ll put him away.”

  “What are you talking about?” Lana was thoroughly confused.

  “Everything Kayden’s done over the last couple years, his mother got him off. I have all the evidence I need, to take it to court and bury him if I need to.”

  “You wouldn’t.” Lana replied, in awe of Kim’s spiteful nature.

  “To make sure I get everything I’ve been working for and to keep him away from you? Yes, I would. This is my personal insurance plan.” she smiled, standing back from the window.

  Lana couldn’t believe her ears. She was every bit of the monster Maureen was.

  “You don’t love him at all, if you’d do that to him.”

  “What’s love got to do with anything? Kayden’s mine and that’s all that you need to know. You come back here, and neither of us will have him.” She stalked back to the porch and walked up the stairs to the house.

  Lana, her face fresh with new tears, backed out of the driveway, spun the car around and careened away from the house. The sobs coming from her body were intense as she drove closer to the town center. Steering the Ford down Deleveaux Circle, and around the roundabout, she applied pressure on the gas pedal and was on her way out of Hamby for good.

  ***

  Kayden and Maureen stood on a plot of land overlooking most of Hamby. She had her arm linked in his and Kayden couldn’t help but smile at her.

  “This is a beautiful place to build a house son. I wish you many years of happiness in it.”

  “Thanks mom,” he replied, surprised at the new attitude she had. He turned to her and looked into her eyes.

  “What is it son?”

  “Why the sudden change of heart? Why now?”

  “I guess when you spoke the other night, I listened for the first time.” She unlinked her arm and looked back over the landscape. “It wasn’t fair of me to hold what happened to your brother against you for so long. I understand that now.”

  He looked at her and believed what she was saying. Her face relaxed as she looked over the land and although his mother was still a pretty woman, her age was starting to catch up with her.

  “So you’ll come to the wedding?” he asked her.

  She looked at him not sure what to say. Surely she couldn’t tell him that Lana was gone by now, it would foil all her efforts.

  “Of course I will. I only want to see you happy,” she said as the crocodile tears dripped down her face. He wiped them away and gave his mother a huge hug lifting her from the ground and spinning her.

  “Kayden!” She screamed startled, “Stop that this instant!”

  “I can’t tell you how happy I am to hear that mom,” he rested her back down. “Lana is an amazing woman, she really is. She’s smart and so kind—” he started, and looked down in his mother’s face, “She’s the completion of me and I don’t know where I would be without her.”

  Maureen smiled but inside she felt a pang of fear for the first time when it came to her son. If he ever knew the lengths she went to, he would never forgive her and she truly would lose him and everything she had planned for the future. She just had to make sure that never happened. Maureen turned her head back toward the view of the town as Kayden continued to fill her in on his plans for the house. He spoke of plans to build a gazebo for the wedding and how he wanted to create a garden like the one Paula had in her yard.

  He was enjoying his time with his mother for the first time in ages and couldn’t wait to get back to Lana and tell her the good news.

  ***

  Paula and Garret sat in the loading area for their private plane as Paula watched her laptop screen in horror. There was her mother, setting up her best friend in an a
ttempt to ruin her! And Kayden had no idea. She snatched the headphones out, the look of disgust that crossed her face was obvious.

  “What’s the matter honey?” Garret asked.

  “We have to get to Hamby now,” she replied.

  She wanted to call her brother right that second and tell him everything she learned but she knew that wouldn’t be enough. She needed the evidence and she wanted to be there to present it to him herself. Paula opened the laptop up again and hit fast forward to watch the rest of the footage of what was happening in her vacation home. She couldn’t be more ashamed that her own mother could be so calculating and evil!

  Of course she held a grudge against Kayden herself for a while, but she loved her sibling and only wanted the best for him at the end of the day. If that was Lana, then so be it. She closed the DVR feed and clicked the web browser on her desktop. In the search engine she typed: “Rachel Brown, Hamby GA obituary” and waited for the results to pop up.

  15

  Kayden Capshaw thought he knew heartbreak but nothing prepared him for what he felt when he walked into the house and Lana was gone. Only the ring they had picked out was left on the granite counter top in the kitchen. She left no note, no text message, nothing. It was like she was never even there. He turned to his mother who was standing by his side, and she looked upset.

  “I don’t understand. This doesn’t make any sense,” he yelled waiting for his mother’s reply, “She wouldn’t just up and leave me!”

  Maureen trembled, at the sound of his booming voice. Her eyes welled as she thought she may have made a grave mistake. Witnessing the agony on her sons face, and the range of emotions he displayed, was like a person flailing in the depths of the sea about to drown.

  “I don’t know what to say dear, women are rare creatures,” she mumbled.

  “Did you do something?” he stood now looming over his mother who was only five foot two. Her eyes grew big.

  “Of course not Kayden, why would you say something like that to me?” she asked accusatory.

  “Because you’ve done worse in the past mother,” he replied, his eyes brimmed with tears.

  His head was spinning. This was all wrong.

  “I swear to you Kayden. I don’t know what happened. She was here when we left and she didn’t give any indication that she was going to leave you.”

  Kayden ran his hands through his hair and picked up his cell phone. He hit “Lana” on the screen but the phone just rang.

  “Please pick up the phone baby. Pick up!”

  He pressed the call button again, but only got the generic voicemail message.

  “Damnit,” he screamed and smashed the phone to the ground, where it erupted into a hundred pieces, and it scared Maureen.

  She had never seen him react that way before about anything. What have I done, she asked herself, as her son sank to his knees in the living room and wailed. Kim walked through the front door of the house, no evidence of her earlier brawl with Lana apparent on her face. She stopped when she saw Kayden on the floor and looked at Maureen, whose eyes were the size of saucers. She motioned her eyes for Kim to approach him.

  Slowly, Kim walked over to him and kneeled next to him.

  “What happened Kay?” she asked slowly and sweetly.

  This plan was working better than anticipated, she thought to herself. Kayden looked up at her wanting to scream, wanting her to go away but he couldn’t get out any words. He began to slow his breathing and wiped his face. He stood from the hardwood floor and composed himself.

  “She’s gone,” he replied and walked outside in the garden, closing the glass doors behind him.

  Once outside Kayden took slow deep breathes and tried to think of what had gone wrong. Maybe he really didn’t know her, maybe he scared her off somehow. He shook the thought from his mind—he couldn’t accept that. They shared too much about one another for it all to have been a lie. Why would she lead me on, only to disappear? Why make plans for a future she never intended on having? Maybe she couldn’t handle the type of life I wanted or she couldn’t spend the rest of her life with an eternal screw up. Whatever the reason, he was numb and apart of him died in the garden, like the flowers withered away by the snow.

  ***

  A week had gone by since Lana had left him. Sometimes he woke up in the middle of the night and wondered if she was just a figment of his imagination. His mother had been there for him the entire time helping with the contracts and legalities of KDN and Capshaw Realty, so it kept his mind busy. When Lana’s voicemail was too full to accept any more messages, and he got no responses from Twitter direct messages, he had contacted three private investigators to try and track her down but neither came up with much. He called the hospital she worked for, and never got anything other than she wasn’t available. When he explained that she could be missing, they told him she hadn’t yet returned to work and they couldn’t give more information than that.

  He even had Taylor run a license check on her and was elated when they obtained her address. When they dispatched a colleague out to her apartment, it was vacant. She had moved.

  How hard could it be to find a registered nurse in Florida, he thought.

  Kim was around a lot and was helping his mother settle her affairs for retirement. He didn’t trust her and never would. Some things you leave in the past and Kim was one of them. The contracting crew broke icy ground on Aunt Mae’s so the work had officially begun. It would take a few weeks for the full takeover to be legal, but he was starting off strong and it was the only bright area of his life at the moment.

  Kayden couldn’t help thinking about Lana's face. Her perfect beautiful smiling face. He was truly more worried about her than anything now. Did she make it home OK? How was she? Why did she leave me? Kayden sat at his drawing table and day dreamed about her as he looked over the blue prints for their house on the hill. He wasn’t about to give up on her not now, probably not ever.

  ***

  Lana lay in the bed of her darkened room where she had been the last week of her life. Her new townhouse was still unpacked and the duffle bag from Hamby still lay on the floor where she dropped it. Her lease had run up at her old apartment and she decided not to re-new it. She thought a change would help her but it didn’t and still felt the same dread she did every morning she woke up away from Kayden.

  Her cellphone had long since died and she purposefully didn’t charge it. She couldn’t ignore his calls for fear of picking up and she couldn’t listen to his recorded messages without falling to pieces. She didn’t want to talk to anyone, or see anyone anyway. It was easier to sleep away the pain instead of accepting that he was gone from her life for good. Lana squeezed her eyes shut for the third time that day and willed herself to stop crying and to fall asleep again.

  16

  It had been almost a month since she’d left Hamby and Lana still wasn’t sure if what had happened there was a dream or an elaborate hoax. She was running along a trail at her favorite park, in an attempt to return her life back to some semblance of normal. The huge green palm trees gave little shade as the sun was high and scorching. She dripped sweat as if she’d just stepped out of a shower. Slowing to a stop, she bent forward, her hands on her knees to catch her breath. Although hot, the feel of the sun was welcome after weeks trapped in the snow with him.

  The storm leading out of Georgia had gotten better the farther she drove away from Hamby, but the effects of the weather had taken its toll on her truck. While at a rest stop, in between fits of rage and anger, the truck wouldn’t start and she had to call triple A to rescue her. They took her to a car rental company where she was able to get a small mid-sized vehicle to take her the rest of the way home.

  She had contemplated calling Kayden back every second of everyday and had over a hundred missed calls from him—her voicemail box full. Lana couldn’t bring herself to listen to any of them. The sound of his voice might send her running back to Hamby and she knew full well the consequences of what
would happen if she did. She stood up straight and turned the volume up on her iPod, then sprinted down the track, as if someone was chasing her. As long as she could keep the up tempo beats in her ears, she didn’t have time to think of anything else.

  ***

  Later, Lana walked into her small townhouse still trying to catch her breath from her run. She threw her keys on the small table by the front door and stretched her arms as she stood in the living room. Her new place wasn’t fancy. It was minimal, nice couch, decent sized TV on the wall with a bookshelf filled with her books. It was all she needed and she was content with that. She didn’t own the house, so painting was out of the question, but she did her best to bring color into her domicile with throw rugs and pillows to add a pop of color here and there.

  Walking into the kitchen, she opened the fridge and it was bare as she had no appetite as of late and didn’t feel the need to grocery shop. The answering machine light on her home phone in the small kitchen was blinking and she knew it was the representative from the state board of Nursing to inform her that her license was OK. Although Maureen didn’t report her to the police as promised, someone contacted the board and filed a complaint against her, putting her license under review, and taking her out of the ER until her file was reviewed. Probably Kim, she thought at the time. Lana had been struggling on whether to return to work anyway, and this gave her the time she needed to sort it all out. With all he free time, her new itinerary was spent hanging out with Carmen hitting the clubs or at home watching Netflix.

  Anything to numb her pain. Although clubs never were her scene, they served as a distraction much needed. With Lana unable to confide in anyone what she’d been through, her way of letting it out, was to dance and run it away—for as long as that would last. She trudged into her living room, kicked off her Nikes and sat at the computer desk. She rubbed her burning toes against the cool hardwood floor while she pulled up an application for Nurses without Borders. It was a travel assignment program that would take her out of her comfort zone.