Forty-five minutes later, the doctor leaves me alone with my thoughts as I stare at the black and white image in my hands. It’s tiny and blurry, but it’s there. She or he, I’ve decided, just became the sole purpose of my life. This little thing knows exactly how to tug on the few strings of my heart that I have left. Right now, it’s enjoying playing with them like a puppet as it draws out all of my emotions hidden in the cold and dark corners.
An unwanted tear falls, and I dash it away before it can ruin what’s left of my makeup, but it falls onto the image in my other hand, leaving a mark the size of the baby in the picture. I wipe the picture off and swing my legs off of the bench, taking my time getting dressed before emerging from the room and walking out to the check-out area of the doctor’s offices.
The only time I speak is when I’m asked a question. I’m drifting off into some distant world while everything comes crashing down around me . . . but at the same time, my entire body is filling with an anticipated delight.
If there’s one thing that I know, it’s that I won’t let this little thing down. Not like the family I was born into let me down.
I make my way back home and get comfortable on the couch with a warm mug of apple cider, the television remote, and a throw blanket before I’m able to get the courage up to pull out the ultrasound image once again.
I mentally curse myself at the mark that the teardrop left beside the blurry baby’s image. While I still have the courage, I set the image down on the coffee table and take a picture of it with my phone. I type out a message and attach it to a text message to Hadley as well as Eden.
This is happening.
I sit back and turn the television on to some lovey-dovey romantic bullshit on Lifetime and get comfortable.
“Well, little dude, it’s just the two of us now,” I say down to my stomach and the frown. What if it’s a baby girl? Hell, I can’t handle a mini-me running around. I can barely handle myself at times.
My phone vibrates in my hand, bringing me out of my thoughts. A text from Hadley lights up my screen, and I swipe my finger across it.
Holy shit, Isla. I know that you must be scared out of your mind right now, but try to see the light in this, okay? We just landed, and I’m telling Wade to drop me off at your place. I hope that’s all right.
I’d actually appreciate the company right now. I reply.
I’ll be there in thirty.
I toss the phone onto the couch cushion beside me and groan just as it goes off again and a message from Eden comes across the screen. I lean over and swipe my finger across it: Isla. This better not be a late April Fool’s joke because I bite.
A tear falls onto the screen when I type out my reply: I wish it were that simple. Can we get together when you get back from your trip?
You didn’t even have to ask. Stay strong, and I’ll be there soon to kick whomever impregnated you in the balls. That way he won’t ever be able to do it again.
I giggle-sob as I hit the little letters on my screen.
You know, I’m lucky as hell that you applied to work at Blended four months ago.
Her reply makes me smile for a brief second before it disappears again: Duh.
Forty-five minutes and a second mug of apple cider later, there’s a knock on my door. I take my time getting up and straightening myself up before I walk to the door and pull it open without looking through the peephole.
I freeze when I look up and see broad shoulders in my doorframe instead of Hadley’s slim ones. Liam looks down at me but doesn’t say anything.
“Let me through, Liam,” Hadley says from behind him and squeezes through to me between the doorframe and Liam’s sturdy build.
She pulls me into a hug and whispers, “I tried to get him to stay in the car, but he naturally refused. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” I tell her while my eyes are still trained on Liam’s.
He’s staring at me like I’m something that he might want, someone that means more than just a fuck, but I don’t quite understand after every hurtful thing that he said to me. I might have understood what he wanted in life, and he understood what I wanted, but none of it matters anymore. Not when I’m going to be bringing another life into this world.
I’ve seen Liam passionately angry, vibrantly elated, and inconsolably dejected, but never have I seen him take a turn and aim all of that emotion that he harbors within himself at me before.
The only thing that is going through my head is that I’ve had much more than my share of dealing with all of his shit already. I mean, we’re not going to be getting anywhere, and while I need him to care and to be there for me, I know that once he finds out that I’m carrying his baby, he’ll push me away indefinitely.
I decide at this very moment not to put my love and life on the line for him. If he wants more, then he’s going to have to be the one to fight for it because I don’t have the strength or reason to do it anymore.
“Do you want me to get Jacobs to get him out of here?” Hadley asks while throwing her thumb in his direction.
I shrug and turn around, blanching when I see the ultrasound on my coffee table. “Uhm. I’m actually not feeling very well, so I’m not sure if it’s a good idea for either of you to be here right now.”
“Isla.”
It’s the first time that I’ve heard his voice in over a week, and my body betrays me by turning toward him and sending a rare spate of goose bumps down my arms and legs. All of which cause me to shiver and wrap my arms around my waist.
“I think you should leave.”
Hadley looks down at the coffee table behind me before moving toward it. I know that she’ll save me from him seeing the one thing that I’ll care for and about for the remainder of my life. I take a step toward the door where’s he’s still standing.
“We need to talk,” he says, and it’s now that I notice that the fight that once shone so deeply and prominently in his eyes is gone.
“I don’t believe that there’s anything more that needs to be said after what you admitted to me in Iceland.”
“There is, yet there isn’t.” He looks behind me, and I follow his eyes as Hadley lifts my purse from the floor and places it on top of the ultrasound image on the coffee table. I’m hoping that he doesn’t notice what she’s doing.
I physically sag in relief as my evidence is covered up, but I attempt to feign cold detachment when I feel Liam’s fingers move over my arm.
It doesn’t work. Not for a damn second.
My body betrays me as my chest heaves with a breath, and the rest of the world becomes an unimportant blur. I manage to clear my throat before he says anything else. “Just tell me what you came here for and go.”
I watch as the frown lines appear on his face, and I feel like my knees are about to buckle. His leaving is the last thing that I want, but I refuse to hold him hostage when none of this, none of us, was meant to happen.
“I’m leaving for Mexico in a day.”
“You’re what?”
“I’ll be joining one of my teams for about two weeks. They’re struggling to have enough manpower to enter a compound that they’ve come across. I’ll be flying down with two other teams of mine.”
“Surely they don’t need you there, Liam.”
“They do, or they would not have asked.”
I watch Hadley slip past us and out of my loft before I look back up into his eyes.
“But it’s dangerous.”
“It is, but it’s what I live for. RW is one of the reasons why I don’t need—can’t have—commitments in life. I put my life on the line to save others, and I can’t have the pressure of someone waiting for me back home.”
I reach out to steady myself against the wall before I’m even able to come up with a reply. “But you do have . . .”
“Have what? What do I have, Isla?”
I want to yell at him and state that he has me, but I know that it won’t be enough for him to stay behind while his team literally drags
themselves through a man-made hell. I know that his finding out that he’s going to be a father will, though, but I decide not to put that on him. I know that he’s trying to find himself again, and if he believes that he needs to go, then who am I to stand in his way?
I force myself to believe my own feeble excuses as he pulls my body against his and wraps his arm around me.
“I’ll be fine, and I’ll check in with you or Wade as often as I’m able to.”
“This is senseless,” I say against his chest.
“Don’t be petulant, Isla. I wouldn’t expect you to grasp any of this even if it was standing right in front of you.”
I pull back to gape up at him and his cocky mouth. I refuse to let him or any other ever talk down to me after living through that exact thing for fifteen years with my grandmother. He knows that. He’s one of the few people who do, and this is his way of making sure that he pushes me away for good. Congratulations, Liam, I do not want another moment of my life to be spent beside you.
“You need to leave.”
“Isla.”
“No.” I take a couple of steps backward until the backs of my knees hit the coffee table. “I need you to leave. Go. Good luck out there.”
“Don’t be like this.”
“Like what?” I ask as innocently as I’m able to. I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to hold back the harsh emotions that are whirling around inside of me. I don’t want him here to witness me break down into the pathetic piece of ass that he’s come to regard me as.
“Forget it. It doesn’t surprise me that you’re unable to handle my shit. I’ll catch you later,” he says over his shoulder as he leaves his unborn child and me behind, and it hurts. Dear God, does the sudden stinging sensation in my core wound me in every way possible.
Once the door clicks closed behind him, I have to remind myself that he’s not a stone-cold human. He just doesn’t know. He has no idea what he’s putting on the line and what he’s leaving behind, and as much as I want to pull that door open and yell at him down the hallway, I hold back. He might not know about the baby, but he came here to spew vile words at me that he knew would knock the wind out of my sails.
I slump down against the door and cup my face in my hands. How can I feel so shut out and isolated when it’s half of my own doing? I could have begged him to stay, but what good would that have done? Why would I put myself at any more risk?
My phone goes off, and I fish it out of my pocket.
I’ll miss you.
The black and white words mock me as I try to come up with a reply to him, but my mind is twirling in a thousand different directions, so I simply close my eyes and pull my knees up to my chest as my body starts to hollow out.
Each and every sob rips through my muscles and bones until it guts me from the inside out. Heavy tears roll down my cheeks at the utter devastation and loss I feel. The overwhelming sense of vulnerability shatters what’s left of the hold that I had on my emotions as I willingly stand by and let it rip me apart.
Another painful emotion slams into me as my phone goes off again. I look down at it, and I cannot help the silent scream that tries to leave my lips.
Don’t cry, doll. I can hear you, and it’s killing me.
I shouldn’t let a man get to me like this, but he’s not just a man: he’s my best friend, and I think I’m feeling a lot more than those sorts of sentiments toward him. Another muffled sob leaves me as I clutch onto my stomach, as I will everything to go back in time. Back to when I wasn’t pregnant and to the time I could have said no to him. I should have said no the first time we let things get too far all of those years ago.
I attempt to blink away the briny tears from my bloodshot eyes when the knock sounds on my door, and my phone vibrates at the same time.
Isla. Please. Let me in.
I start to type out a message to him, but everything I look at seems to be so far away and blurry. Black dots dance at the edge of my vision as my body heaves, trying to expel everything I’ve consumed today, which is a mere two mugs of apple cider.
An uncomfortable warmth settles over my entire body as the room spins, and I fall into nothingness, past oblivion, and into unconsciousness. The room dips and sways into a silent sanctuary as my eyes fall shut.
I open my eyes again to a continuous knocking on the door, but I close them quickly, willing all of this to go away. I must have been out for less than twenty seconds, but it feels like a lifetime.
I hear a key turn in the lock, and the door pushes against my back, making my nerve endings scream.
“Doll, let me in.” This time his voice sounds heavy and thick with emotion instead of the annoyance and resentment that it was laced with earlier.
I manage to move my body a foot or two away from the door, and before I’m able to comprehend what’s happening, he’s on his knees in front of me, pulling me into his arms.
“Jesus.”
I don’t bother reaching up for him or holding onto anything. That sturdy and sovereign woman is nowhere in sight right now, and for the first time since being locked away, I truly lose myself to the monster buried inside of me.
“What the hell is going on in your head, huh?”
“Please,” I manage to choke out with a wobbling chin and quivering lips.
“Let me get you into bed, and then I’ll leave.”
I don’t reply because I know that he’ll do what he wants regardless of what I tell or beg of him. He lifts me easily and carries me up the stairs in my loft to my bedroom. He sets me down and pulls the comforter over me as a series of blatant tears start up again.
“I’ll have my phone with me, and if you can’t reach me, I’ll text you the satellite phone’s number. We may be over, Isla, but that would never rule out our friendship.”
I nod even though I very much disagree with him and pull a pillow into my arms, feeling as abandoned and sullen as I did all of those years ago. Why does it feel like my best friend keeps breaking up with me when he never truly held that responsibility to begin with?
He places a kiss on the back of my head, and I watch him as he walks around my bed with purposeful strides to the door and then out of my sight down the stairs.
He exits my world without even saying goodbye, and although I know it shouldn’t hurt, it does. It hurts like a bitch. These pregnancy hormones are going to be the death of me, and I’m barely past my seventh week. This little dewdrop is turning my life into a hell storm, but I wouldn’t ever consider the alternative.
I tried to cover up my pain, but it’s turned out to be hopeless today. Instead of setting aside the sensitive part of who I am, it seems to have taken center stage. Every word and every action have fought straight past my resistance and grabbed hold of my heart. I’m exhausted from trying to be strong and fight my way through this battle between what I feel and what my heart knows. I’m trapped somewhere I feel I don’t belong, and as much as it should not hurt, it’s unambiguously painful.
I’m currently stuck between missing him and letting the asshole become someone else’s problem.
My tears have gone from wrenching wails that rack my body to soundless and aching as my emotions whirl around me. I’ve stepped into the rip current, and I’m already exhausted from swimming against it. It’s time to lie back and allow it to lead me on my journey like the waves of an ocean, pulling me into its deep and uncertain waters.
Screw living in this hookup society when I’m a hopeless romantic at heart.
Screw the rest of the world as I struggle to go on.
Screw everything and everyone.
I’m done.
I acknowledge the fact that I’ve botched shit up for the third time. I know that I’ve made her question herself when the problem is me. I’m the guy who isn’t enough, and he knows it. I question every part of who I am on a regular basis because of it. I’ve found my faults, and I don’t know another way around them except to punish myself for them, and if that punishment harms another in the
process then it’s all fair in love and war.
Just not this time.
This time, the guilt I feel has transformed from something emotive into an entity that’s somehow defying gravity. Instead of numbing her out, I’ve welcomed her in because I’m no longer immune to Isla Madden.
She’s dug deep and made herself comfortable in my soul, and as much as my pride, experience, and reason argue, I know that I have to give her more. More than what I’ve allowed myself to give in years. I know that I somehow need to shift from toying with her emotions to providing her with the validation that she deserves, yet as of right now, I cannot bring myself to do it.
I’m not the lifeline that she needs me to be. I may be the help for those women who are held captive, but when it comes to my personal life, I tend to see things differently. I’m finally starting to see what it means to be alive again. What it’s like to wake up each morning and take in that first deep breath of air that a new day provides, instead of attempting to suffocate me with my past.
I take a step into my private jet where I’m greeted by eight other team members who are mainly based in the States. The majority of them come from Gage’s teams, and I’m glad that they have all volunteered to go along with me. In addition to the nine of us in total, another nine will be meeting up with us in Mexico City.
I set my shit down on one of the leather seats before making myself known.
“Listen up,” I yell out to get their attention. They shut the hell up for a moment to let me say my piece. “We are well aware of what we are going into today and the days to follow. I know that all of you have read the prompt and legal contract on this one, but I’m going to reiterate the important parts before we take off. You all need to realize what you’re putting at stake if you’re still on the jet while it hurtles itself down the runway. The men who run the compound that we will be raiding are under the assumption that I’m there to buy as many women as my dick desires.” I clear my throat and try to continue after my brash words.
Intertwined (Redemption #2) Page 13