One Last Chance (Complete Series Box Set)

by Lauren Wood

  We got into my truck and he blew out a breath. “Man, this is some crazy shit.”

  I agreed, but I didn’t want to tell him that this was shit that he had brought on himself. No one wanted to hear that, especially when it was true. I didn’t know how it was going to turn out, but I knew that one sure-fire way to get his mind off everything was to get him drunk. It wasn’t the best plan, I know that, but it was the only one that I had. Anything else just didn’t seem right.

  There was one bar that I knew was the best guess. It knew us, and it wasn’t a place that was going to call the cops or cut Jesse off when he’d had too much. He needed to have a bit too much and, in the morning, while his head was throbbing off his shoulders, he would wise up. That’s how I got over Mariss or moved on and it was the only thing I knew to do. I just didn’t know if it was going to work or not, but I was willing to give it a try.

  We pulled up at Scully’s and I waited for him to get it together enough to get out. He looked like a dead man walking and his eyes were hollow. This man needed some booze, badly. I think we both did.

  Mariss

  She was a mess and I didn’t know how I was going to comfort her. I didn’t know the story, but the story didn’t matter. It really mattered what she thought about it because I was going to agree with her, right or wrong.

  “What do you want to do Anna? Let’s get out of here and do something. We can’t just sit in here and commiserate.”

  “I want to get this dress off. I want to leave too, but I literally don’t know how I can do that with this dress on. It’s huge and it weighs like twenty-five pounds at least. I just had to have all of this beading.”

  I got up to help her get it off because I had to help her get it on. It had over fifty tiny little pearl buttons that had to be fastened and unfastened. She took care of it herself by just ripping one of the arms off. I wanted to stop her and remind her how much money that dress was and how much she loved it, but it was clear that this was part of her process.

  Anna ripped the other arm off and then the lace neckline that had taken silk that was shipped in from far away to complete. I was seeing dollar signs coming off her, but I didn’t say anything. I just moved the pieces away so that she didn’t trip on them.

  When it was all said and done, Anna was huffing and puffing, her porcelain skin was red and blotchy. She was wearing just her bra and panties and staring at me. I didn’t know what to say, but when I finally did it made her smile.

  “Feel better?”

  “Yeah, but you know what I just realized?”

  “What?”

  “I don’t have any clothes. I really didn’t think I was going to be doing this.”

  “I’ve got something in the car. I’ll go get it.”

  She smiled at me and I moved out of the church. I was hearing the gossips that stopped only long enough to ask if Anna was okay. They were concerned, but really, they wanted to pump me full of information. They wanted to know the latest gossip so that they could have something to share with the next person. I didn’t want to fuel that, so I got my bag from the car and went back in. I had a couple more outfits because I was going to be here a couple more days and I kept it in my trunk, so I wasn’t leaving stuff everywhere. Now I’m glad I had it because Anna was in tatters inside. The dress was gone, but I didn’t doubt for a second that she would have walked out as she was. I knew Anna and I knew that she would, daring anyone to say a word.

  Not wanting that to happen, I got back upstairs and gave her the bag to rummage through. “I’m glad we’re the same size Mariss.”

  I just smiled at her and waited for her to get dressed. I made a mental note to come back in a bit and clean up the mess, but they had it for the day. Right now, I was going to have to let the OCD just linger and not clean it up immediately.

  “So where do you want to go Mariss. We have the whole day ahead of us.”

  I knew that keeping her busy was key.

  “I don’t know. I kind of want to just get in the car and drive. Remember those roundtrips that we used to take?”

  “Yes, a lot of them were with Eve.”

  “We should totally go pick her up and go somewhere.”

  I still had time off, but I didn’t know how busy Eve was. I had a feeling that she would drop everything and come. I could have given her a heads up, but I didn’t. I agreed to the crazy idea and we started towards the car. Anna smiled at a few people and ignored the rest. The gossipers weren’t going to get anything else from us.

  “Do you think we should go to the reception?”

  “Hell no. There’s food and booze. They’ll be okay.”

  Anna wanted to argue, but she didn’t want to face them. I gave her the excuse that she needed to not have to do it. I was thankful for that because I don’t think that it was going to end well.

  I didn’t know where we were going, but at least we were in motion. It had to be better than standing still.

  “Okay, but just for a couple of days. Where are we going?”

  I smiled at Eve and thanked her for agreeing. Eve was packing her bags and I still didn’t have an answer for her. This crazy train was being steered by Anna and I don’t even think that she knew where she was going.

  “Where are we going Anna?”

  “I want to go to the beach.”

  We were a few hundred miles from the east coastline, so that worked. At least we had a destination now, no matter how ambiguous it may be. It was at least a direction, something.

  Eve gave me a look and I just shrugged and smiled at her. What else did she expect? This is how Anna used to be. She wasn’t the grownup that I’d came to know via text and email. This was the girl I remembered, and Anna was always a little reckless.

  We all piled up into my car and took off east. It wasn’t going to be long until we were there, maybe half a day, but since it was late we wouldn’t get there until it was dark. I hoped that some time away with just the girls was just the thing that we needed. I know that I needed a little time with them two as well. I missed them, and it was good to get us all together again, even if it is for this kind of circumstance.

  Cal

  The one-night bender turned into a week-long extravaganza and I couldn’t keep up. I didn’t have the hate-filled thoughts to keep me going and I was starting to think that Jesse might legitimately drink himself to death. It certainly looked like he was doing his best to try, and it was all getting out of hand.

  I woke up with a headache that I now knew so well I called her Molly and I went to the bathroom. We were in a motel, though I can’t really say where except that it was on the southside of town. It wasn’t the good side of town and when I came back into the room, I saw a couple of naked women lying around. We’d picked up a couple of other guys as well that were laying with some of the chicks. What the hell happened in here?

  My memory wasn’t serving me very good and I didn’t have a clue what happened. I knew that this was getting out of control though and something had to give. We had to get out of here. I didn’t have a job to get back to. I’d been fired naturally because of my own mistakes. What a pair of shits we made.

  I tried calling Mariss again, but she hadn’t been answering. I figured she wouldn’t answer this morning, but she did.

  “Hey Mariss. I’ve been trying to reach you for days.”

  “I know. I see the missed calls. We’ve been busy.”

  “We?”

  “Me, Anna and Eve. The girls.”

  “Where are you?”

  She lowered her voice. “Myrtle Beach. Anna wanted to see the beach, so we’re staying in a villa. This is such a mess, she’s a mess.”

  “Well so is Jesse. I don’t know how he is going to get through this. We need to get them back together.”

  “Like hell we do. He cheated on her and the girl announced it in front of everyone that Anna knew at her wedding. They better not get back together. I will make sure that she never thinks about that loser again.”

 
“Damn Mariss, that’s kind of harsh.”

  She made a huffing sound and I knew then that I should end the conversation. It was crashing and burning. This wasn’t our shit, but right now we were in the middle of it. I didn’t want to be, but I was. There was nothing that I could do about it.

  “It’s not harsh enough. I can’t believe your friends with him.”

  “I’ve been friends with Jesse a long time. He made a mistake. That’s it. Everyone makes mistakes.”

  “Well that’s true, everyone does. But that doesn’t mean that the other person must forgive them. He messed up and Anna is trying to move on. I’m not going to let anything get in the way of that. It’s not going to happen.”

  I could tell that she wasn’t going to budge. I didn’t know all the facts but didn’t think that it should involve us.

  “I don’t want to argue with you Mariss. I just missed you and wanted to hear your voice. I’ve been babysitting him to make sure he doesn’t anything too stupid, though I don’t know if I’m doing a very good job or not.”

  “Me too. Anna is not thinking clearly. She gets this way sometimes and it’s been interesting. I just get worked up thinking about it because I hate to see her upset.”

  “Well, I don’t want to get into it with you. I just wanted to know that you were okay. I hadn’t heard from you and after what happened. I thought that things would be different.”

  “Right now, things are complicated.”

  I started to agree, but then there was a loud knock on the bathroom door I’d escaped into and one of the girls asked me if I was going to be long in the bathroom. I covered up the receiver part of the phone and told her to fuck off, but I knew it was too late.

  “Are you serious?”

  That’s all I heard before she hung up. It didn’t take a genius to understand what she thought. She thought I was with a woman, which I did have them in the room, but I hadn’t touched any of them. Now I was in the doghouse too and I hadn’t done anything wrong. What the hell?

  “Fuck, fuck!”

  “What’s up man?”

  Jesse was sleepy eyed and when he looked at me I could see they were bloodshot.

  “I got to go Jesse. I’m sorry, but your shit just became my shit and I can’t do this anymore. You fucked up, she left. Fix it and grow the fuck up. I’m not losing her again for no one.”

  “Who are you talking about?”

  “Mariss.”

  “You met her once a long time ago, what is with you and this chick?”

  “I don’t know. I just know that I don’t want to be without her. I know that I don’t want to mess it up and I think I already have. One of your skanks said something while I was on the phone to her, so now she thinks that I’m sleeping around like you.”

  His face screwed up a little and I thought he was going to get mad. Then he just kind of sighed loudly and apologized. “I’m sorry Cal. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. I don’t have a job anymore. I called and quit the next day. I don’t know what the hell I’m thinking or what I’m going to do.”

  “Have you tried calling her?”

  “She’ll never answer. I’ve lost her for good.”

  “How can you give up so quickly?” I should feel the same way, but I couldn’t make myself do it, no matter how hard I tried. I wanted her and that was that. I wasn’t willing to give her up.

  “If you love her, you can never give up Jesse.”

  I needed to listen to my own advice. I started to gather up my things. I wanted to clear the room, but Jesse wasn’t ready for it. He wanted to continue in his downward spiral trajectory and I was just going to have to let him. He was pulling me in and that wasn’t going to work either. I had to find out what was going on between me and Mariss, but I didn’t know how to find her. I didn’t think that Anna was going to help me out. She probably thought I was the devil right now. She already thought I was a bad influence on Jesse, so maybe in her eyes it was all my fault.

  And if Anna felt that way, it wasn’t going to be long until Mariss did as well. I had to get to her before that happened.

  Mariss

  “Are you thinking about him again?”

  “I could ask you the same question.”

  “And then you’d be reflecting.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “So, are you thinking about him right now?”

  I told Anna that I was. I didn’t mean to mind you, but I did think about Cal way more than I should have. Just like I knew that she thought about Jesse more than she would have liked to. It wasn’t anything that we could do to change what happened though, so I didn’t really think about too much more than regret. I missed him and then at the same time I hated myself for missing him. It was all very confusing and I thought it best to just leave it lie. It seemed to be the best solution.

  “Yes, I am. I can’t help it. It’s because I’m still around here.”

  “I don’t want you to go home yet. You should stay with me for a while. You can paint stuff here.”

  I told her I would still stay a little longer, but I didn’t know if painting was on my mind. I wanted to get away again and if I knew that it wouldn’t be such a bad idea, I would have asked her if she wanted to go travel some more. But Anna wasn’t into traveling now. She had for a couple of weeks, but now she was back home, and she was trying to get on with her life after everything that happened. To me, she was brave. Every other day there was still things coming in the mail about the wedding or a gift that was late. It would make her tear up, but now it was getting better. At least she didn’t feel the need to break everything anymore. That was a fun stage of grief.

  So, I decided to stay for a little while longer, but my mind repeatedly went to Cal. Where else would it be? I knew that I shouldn’t want him and miss him, but I did. There was no telling what he was doing right now, but the truth was that I didn’t really care. All I cared about was the fact that I couldn’t have him. That’s what kept me up at night. I wondered how things could have been different.

  Finally leaving Anna’s, I went back home, hoping the change of scenery would help my mood. I wanted to get back to my life, the one I loved not too long ago, and I was determined to put all the mess that happened with Cal behind me.

  Eve was there to help me. She knew what happened, but it still wasn’t enough to get me out of my funk. I was starting to think that nothing was going to be enough and I was going to feel like this forever. I didn’t know if it was true or not, but I knew that I wanted to feel better.

  Some things started to happen though. I started to get sick all the time and of course, I thought it was allergies or some bug from all the traveling. Planes were known to be gross and I was sure that it was just something I’d picked up on the last flight.

  That lasted a couple of weeks before Eve brought something up that I wouldn’t have thought about. It was the last thing, very last thing from my mind.

  “What if you’re pregnant?”

  I didn’t even want to think about that. It was literally the worst thing that I could think of happening because I knew whose it would be. That was not someone that I wanted to see, let alone go up to him and tell him that I was carrying his child. Would he even care? I doubted that he would.

  “I can’t be. I haven’t had that much sex in a long while. Maybe once in the last few months.”

  “Well, it only takes one-time Mariss. If I didn’t know any better, I would say that you are definitely knocked up.”

  I didn’t want to hear it. I was sure that she was wrong, but then I started to do math and realized it had been that long since the wedding and there was missing that I hadn’t thought about. It wasn’t like I didn’t know I hadn’t had my period, but it wasn’t something that I thought about much more than in passing.

  Now I was thinking about it and I hated to think that she was right. That would complicate everything, and it was not something that I was prepared to process, I just couldn’t.

  “I hope not. Wha
t the hell am I going to do if I’m pregnant?”

  “What do you mean?”

  I didn’t know what I meant, and I dropped it. I wasn’t going to talk about it and let it take my peace until I knew what was really going on. I could be freaking out and stressing out over nothing at all. I was going to have to wait and see what was real and what wasn’t. I can’t fret over something that may not even be real. I refused.

  When I left Eve’s new place, I wasn’t fretting, but I was certainly mulling it all over. I knew that it wasn’t going to matter how I felt about it, if I was, I was, and I was just going to have to deal with it. I was financial going to be fine, but emotionally it would be a lot. It wasn’t something that I ever saw myself doing.

  So, to spare me the agony of wondering, I went and got a pregnancy test. I’d never had to use one before because I was always so careful. I didn’t let it all go to my head like I had this time. This time, I’d lost my mind and the consequences may be more than I’m willing to pay.

  I had never been so nervous in my life as I was waiting for a line to appear on a little stick. I had a gut feeling that I was in fact pregnant, but that didn’t mean that I was okay with it. I wasn’t. I couldn’t be pregnant. This was not supposed to happen. Not like this. I wanted to be married and in love when I had children if I ever did.

  I called the one person who knew how bad I was going to feel because she had her own dealings of an ex. Anna had found out she was pregnant a couple of weeks after the wedding was called off. I hadn’t been able to believe it, but the whole time, I might have been pregnant myself. None of it made any sense.