“Princess,” he whispers.
I close my eyes as he slowly spins me around in his arms.
“Look at me,” he demands softly.
I can’t.
I want to disappear.
“Nikki, look at me,” he insists.
Clouded by unshed tears, I blink my brown eyes and peer into his that are full of concern and confusion.
“Shit,” he growls, wiping my cheeks with his thumbs. “Why are you crying?” I imagine Mike feels panicked watching me unravel. I can count on one hand how many times he’s seen me cry and three of them were over the last few weeks. He gets frazzled when I’m emotional, like I’m a freak of nature he doesn’t know how to handle.
I don’t blame him.
I hate emotional Nikki too.
“Is this about your dad again?”
Right. My dad. The reason everyone thinks I’m distraught. I suppose my dad being in prison is partially the reason I’m sad, but it’s not everything—it’s not the main reason I’ve been bursting into tears at the drop of a hat.
After Mikey proposed I was upset, and I cried whenever I thought about our wedding and how my dad wouldn’t be there. It’s not so much him not walking me down the aisle but knowing I won’t dance with him. I’m not even talking about the sappy dance a bride and her dad usually share, I’m talking about real dancing, where you break a sweat and have everyone on their feet watching you. Dancing was kind of our thing, we’d tear up the floor at every family function and on the most important day of my life, he won’t be there. Not to give me to Mikey or to dance with me.
It sucks.
It hurts.
“It’s not my father,” I snap, pushing him away and taking a step back to put even more space between us. “Not everything is about our wedding and my father spending the rest of his miserable life behind bars.”
I hated the words I spoke as they left my mouth. I hated the tone they carried and the sharpness of them, but more importantly I hated the look they caused in Mikey’s eyes.
“I’m not a mind reader, Princess. You’re going to need to elaborate and I’m not allowing you to brush me off so you better choose your words,” he grounds out, crossing his arms against his bare chest as he waits for me to explain my attitude and the tears we both weren’t sure how to handle.
“Two months ago my period was late, like two weeks late,” I start, assessing Mikey’s features, waiting for him to show some sign of a freak out but his face remains neutral. His eyes are blank as he gives me his undivided attention.
“I took a test, and it came back negative,” I caution, taking a step closer. The sigh of relief I expected never came. “I wound up missing my period that month altogether but the following month I got it and it was worse than ever before. The bleeding was so bad and the cramps felt as if my body was splitting in two. I was scared and didn’t know what to make of it. I started to think the test was wrong, maybe I took it too soon and I really was pregnant and the bleeding, the cramping—well, I thought I was having a miscarriage.”
Finally, Mikey shows some reaction biting the inside of his cheek as he uncrosses his arms and runs his fingers through his hair.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I wanted to be sure. I didn’t want to tell you something like that without knowing for sure,” I pause, tearing my eyes away from him to stare at my bare feet. “The test was negative, Mikey. It was just me over thinking or maybe it was a sign telling me I needed to go to the doctor.”
“Did you?” he asks. His voice thick with emotion and rough like gravel all at the same time.
“Yes.” I look up at him through the fringe of my lashes. “Turns out I wasn’t miscarrying, there was most definitely no baby but he also didn’t know what the cause of the problem was and sent me for a whole lot of tests. It could be a number of things.”
“Like?”
“Mike—”
“Like?” he repeats, clenching his teeth as he speaks.
“Like a cyst on my ovary that has burst or endometriosis. And then there is my personal favorite…uterine cancer,” I hoarsely finish, bringing another cigarette between my lips. My hand shakes as I fumble with the lighter but still manage to light the end.
He reaches out, takes the cigarette from my lips and breaks it in two before he grabs my hands.
“It’s not that,” he insists. “I don’t know what any of the other things are but it’s one of those. I’m sure of it.”
“How?”
“How do I know? That’s easy, Princess,” he says, bringing one hand to his lips then the other. “I came back to New York because of you and I’m not done with you. I gave you that ring because I fully intend to grow old with you. You should know by now when I have something in my head it doesn’t disappear. It will happen, Nikki, me and you growing old and relying on Viagra.”
I laugh as he wraps my arms around his neck.
“You should’ve told me,” he whispers.
“I’m sorry for keeping you in the dark.”
“That isn’t why you should’ve told me. You’re not alone Nikki, you’ve got me and I’m in it for the long haul. There isn’t anything in this life you’re ever going to face alone as long as I’m breathing.”
“I have an appointment next week, the doctor said he should have my results by then.”
“I’m there,” he declares, wrapping his arms around my waist and dragging my body against his. “And whatever it is, I swear to you we’ll get through it.”
I underestimated Mikey, it wasn’t about the wedding but the partnership. The vow to stand beside one another in even the bleakest of times. Naively we think the happily ever after is the rainbows and roses crap you read in fairy tales but it’s not. The happily ever after is having the right person to hold your hand and weather any storm. It’s an unbreakable bond between two people. That’s the happily ever after.
I know one thing for sure, even if those test results are bad I still have my happily ever after. I still have my Mikey and nothing can change that.
Chapter Twelve
I stare at my face reflected in the mirror hanging above my dresser and bring my fingertips to the corners of my mouth. I press the pads of my index fingers into my skin and slide them upward, watching as the edges of my lips blossom into a forced smile.
Fake.
Manufactured.
Dropping my fingers, instantly the fake smile falls too and my natural frown appears. Just like the drama masks I keep inside the top drawer of my dresser.
I tear my eyes from the mirror and pull open the drawer, pushing around my lingerie until I find the masks I keep buried at the bottom.
For the longest time those masks depicted the person I was, the person I was before I admitted my truth. I am bipolar and those masks are the two sides of Lacey Parrish. The smile is for the girl I am when I’m not fighting for control over my mind and the frown is when my maker reigns over me. Some people call God their maker, believing he controls everything—Heaven and Earth, but for me the only thing that controls me is my mind. My mind is my maker and for most of my life I have been a victim of the vicious villain that lives inside my head.
I freed myself from the silence and used the only weapon I had against my mental illness—my voice. I sought help and was diagnosed and now I start my day with a daily dose of Lithium. It took some time adjusting to my medication but mostly my maker has been shut down. One would think I’d find relief in that, or it would make my life easier but instead I feel lost—like I don’t know who I am without that voice doubting everything I know and feel.
I guess I’ve become so used to the struggle I don’t know how to live life normally. My therapist tells me it’s natural but what does she know. To her I’m a textbook, just a case study, she has never lived with my mind, she doesn’t know how I became one with my maker.
It sounds sadistic, even to my own ears, but I sort of miss that voice. At least I had an excuse for the devilish thoughts that filled my head with do
ubt. Now, those thoughts are mine, they are pure and they are real.
I close the drawer, taking the masks and bring them to my chest. I step out of my bedroom and stare at the empty room across from the bedroom I share with Blackie.
I should be on top of the world.
I should be smiling.
I’ve got everything I ever wanted, everything I never thought I’d have, everything my maker tried to keep from me.
And yet today I’m miserable.
There is no voice telling me my happy life will be ripped from me. No voice feeding me lies, telling me I’ve conjured the whole thing up.
The facts that are driving me into a depression.
Cold hard facts that are dragging me down.
I’ve avoided reality for so long I have no fucking clue how to deal with it. I don’t know how to make sense of everything I’m feeling because I’m still learning how to differentiate real life from my illness.
I think people automatically think once someone undergoes treatment they’re healed with a snap of their fingers, but it’s a process, erasing everything and starting fresh. Learning how to exist normally is just as much a struggle as living in torment.
Add adjusting to living on your own with a man to the mix, and the fact that your father has been avoiding you because you fell in love with his best friend, well, I’m fucked and that’s putting it mildly.
My stepmother is pregnant and while I’m genuinely happy for Reina and my father, for this new life we’re all going to love to pieces, I can’t help feeling some kind of way.
What if this new child is born like me? And if I’m asking myself that question, I wonder if my father is too. Is he worried that another innocent child will fall victim to the illness that is generated in his DNA. I become angry because I know how it is to live impaired by my mind and wouldn’t want that for anyone let alone an innocent child. I can’t help thinking that it would be negligent to bring a child into this world, knowing there is an illness he or she may inherit.
Since I’ve been diagnosed I try to put myself in my father’s shoes. He’s survived mental illness and somehow he doesn’t let it dictate his life. I try to understand his logic and ask myself if I could live like him. I’ve always wanted children, and now that I am with Blackie, I want nothing more than to give him everything he’s ever hoped for but never thought he’d have. I know he wants kids, maybe not now but eventually he wants to fill this house and the blank pages of our story with children.
I close my eyes and I can see it all so vividly, the life we dreamed of having—the little girl with her daddy’s eyes and her mommy’s sweetness. She’d have a smile so big and so bright that it will melt her daddy’s heart. In my dreams we always have a girl, and she’s the apple of Blackie’s eyes. She’d be his true angel, and I’d be the one who gave her to him.
I want it so bad.
For that dream to become our reality but how selfish would that be? Or would it? Am I letting my own fears, my own demons dictate Blackie’s future? On one hand I think it would be cruel of me to have a baby, knowing I could pass down the illness that runs in my family to my child and watch my baby suffer like I have. Then on the other hand it would be cruel to take that dream from Blackie especially when the man just started dreaming again.
It’s times like this, when I want to talk to my dad, when I wish things were different for us. If there was anyone who might understand my thoughts it would be my father, but he’s not ready for me to discuss babies with him. He barely can handle me living with Blackie.
Funny how even when I’m not silent—I am.
I walk into the empty room and lean against the wall furthest from the door, looking around the space. It would be the perfect room for a baby. I slide down the wall, bring my knees to my chest and rest the masks on top of them.
Happiness.
Sadness.
Would I ever find the middle ground?
I close my eyes and drop my head to my knees, deciding I was done with the torment for the day. All I want is to forget reality just for a little while.
I was too engrossed in my thoughts to hear the front door close, or the sound of Blackie’s boots pounding against the wooden steps, but the moment I hear him call for me I lift my head and stare up at my Leather.
“Lace,” he whispers, threading his fingers through his hair, pushing it away from his face as his eyes dart around the room before they gaze into mine. “What’re you doin’?”
I shrug my shoulders.
“Nothing,” I say. Advancing toward me, he crouches down in front of me and continues to stare at me, concern etched across his beautiful face.
“Everything okay?”
I glance down at the smiling mask and force myself to mimic the gesture. He diverts his eyes to the masks on my knees, gently reaching out to take them from me. I wanted to snatch them back, hang onto them like a child clutches a blanket for security but refrain from it.
He stares down at them for a moment before lifting his eyes back to mine. He places the masks on the floor beside him before reaching out and caressing my cheek with the back of his hand.
“Talk to me, girl,” he coaxes. “Did you forget to take your medicine today?
His question feels like a slap to the face and causes me to flinch. It wasn’t an accusation but a question of concern, yet it angered me he would even ask.
“Of course I took my medicine,” I snap. “They’re not magic pills, Blackie. I still have the ability to feel, just like every other human being.”
“Then tell me what your feeling because I’m not a mind reader, girl,” he replies, keeping his voice calm.
“I’m just sad is all,” I mutter. Frustration chomps at the words, making them sound edgier, meaner and more aggressive than I mean for them to be. If I don’t have a smile plastered to my face at any given time everyone automatically assumes I skipped my meds and unleashed the crazy.
“I’m allowed to be sad,” I argue.
“Of course you are but if you’re sad then you need to tell me why,” he demands. “Let me make it better for you,” he adds, softly.
I shake my head, wishing it was as easy as he made it.
“You can’t fix every part of me that’s broken no matter how much you want to,” I rasp, pushing off to stand. I go to walk away, meaning to put space between us until I gather control over myself because Blackie didn’t deserve my demons—not when he had his own threatening to avenge.
But he had a different plan. Closing his hand around my ankle he stops me in my tracks.
“Lace,” he rasps, demanding my attention. He rises, his hand traveling up my leg as he stands to his full height. “Don’t underestimate me,” he says gravely. “Give me your broken pieces and let me glue them back together.”
“You can’t,” I insist, my voice barely audible. “It’s not fair to you.”
He brings his hands to my face, bending his knees to make his eyes level with mine.
“I love you, Lace,” he says simply. “And all the broken pieces of you are the missing pieces of me.”
I understood those words better than anything because I owned the broken parts of him too, claimed them a long time ago when he gave me his fractured soul.
His gaze burns into me before giving me a slight nod as he lifts me into his arms. I surrender my pieces to him as I wrap my arms loosely around his neck and let him carry me out of the room of broken dreams.
He carries me into the bathroom, sets me down on top of the vanity before taking my face in his hands and pressing his lips gently against mine.
“Hold tight,” he murmurs against my mouth. Shedding his leather jacket and hanging it on the door knob he rolls up his sleeves and crouches down alongside the bath tub. He runs the water, sticks out his hand to test the temperature before he turns back to me.
“Get undressed,” he says softly, crossing his arms against his chest as he waits for me to follow his instructions. I grabbed the hem of my shirt, work it over
my head and drop it to the counter, sliding off to stand up and shimmy my shorts down my legs.
He turns around once the tub is full and closes the faucet. I strip down to nothing by the time he turns back to me, his eyes firmly planted on my face as he extends his hand.
“Come on, girl,” he urges as I take a step closer to him, dropping my hand into his. He holds me as I lift one leg over the wall of the bath tub and sink into the warm water. Lifting my eyes to his, I see the concern reflected in them. He gently pushed my shoulders back so I lean against the back of the tub. Running one hand over his face, he stares at the water for a moment, drawing a deep breath and reaches for the washcloth.
“Blackie,” I whisper, wrapping my hand around his wrist and forcing his eyes back to mine. “I’m okay,” I assure, feeling guilty for not rising up and masking my depression.
“I know you are,” he insists, leaning over the wall of the tub and pressing his mouth against mine.
His lips are soft as they work mine, slowly easing them open sliding his tongue over mine. I lift my wet hands to his face, dragging my fingers through his hair as I kiss him back, hoping my kiss calms the worry in his eyes.
“Lean back,” he murmurs against my mouth before easing back from me. He squirts some body wash into the cloth and lifts it to my neck, slowly soaping me up. Intimately, with the gentleness he buried beneath his steel exterior, he takes care of me, calming my thoughts and forcing me to relax.
I close my eyes as the merry-go-round ride of emotions I was on comes to a halt. He works the lukewarm washcloth over every inch of my body in silence, the only sounds heard are those of our breathing and the water lapping around my body.
After a while he stops washing me and my body feels the loss of his touch, forcing me to open my eyes and watch as he squeezes out the washcloth and drape it over the mouth of the faucet. He turns his eyes back to mine and tips his chin toward my hair.
“Do you want me to wash your hair?” he asks huskily.
I shake my head as he pulls the stopper from the tub and lets the water drain before he rises to his full height and grabs a towel from the rack on the wall. He spreads it wide as I stand up and step out of the tub and into his arms. He wraps the towel around me. I feel his large palms circle my body, through the thin cotton of the towel as he pats me down. I glance down, secure the towel to my body, tucking the edge just above my breasts while I watch him take a step back and hold out his hands.
The Tempted Series: Collectors Edition Page 166