“I can’t believe he did this to us,” she says.
I know I need to tell her what else I haven’t said or she’ll never forgive me. It physically hurts me to know I’m going to wreck her further, but if I don’t tell her now, it’s only going to be worse later. I can’t take the chance that if she forgives me and we move on, that she’ll leave once she finds out everything.
We’ve been out here so long that the sun is staring to peek over the horizon. “Li, there’s something else I need to tell you. But if you want a break, I’d understand.” She shakes her head no, just like I knew she would. “Let’s go to the Bean and grab some coffee and bagels. I think we should talk at one of our condos, if you feel comfortable.”
She looks back at the condo building, holding her hair back so it won’t blow all over her face. I study her while she contemplates my offer, memorizing everything just in case what I tell her next means she leaves me for good. “Mia’s here still. Let me go say goodbye to her. Can you get coffee and breakfast and come back to my condo in an hour?”
I don’t want to let her go back to her condo alone because I’m afraid she’ll change her mind, but what am I going to say? No, you aren’t allowed to go back to your condo? There’s no way I’d try to tell her what to do. I’m thankful she’s still standing next to me and has agreed to continue talking to me after everything she’s found out. My only hope is that Mia will keep her from panicking while I’m gone.
We walk back to the condos in silence, so much having changed since the last time we’d walked back together like this. It was just last night that I left her at her door and hoped I’d see her again, and now everything has changed. Or at least I hope it has. I feel like a huge boulder has been taken off of my shoulders, and I just hope that what else I have to tell her will relieve the rest.
“One hour,” I repeat.
She smiles. “One hour.”
“Same order?”
“You still remember?”
I tuck a stray piece of hair behind her ear. “I remember everything, Li.”
“SHE’S HERE,” I say when Brooke answers the phone. I hear her gasp; she doesn’t even need me to explain further. She knows where I am, because it’s that week every year when I close my shop and come here to lose myself in her memory. My family has long stopped trying to talk me out of it; they know it’s no use. My parents rarely come here on this week anymore.
“And?” I hear small voices in the background, and I smile. Brooke has been married for ten years and has four little kids ranging in age from a few months to eight years old. She lives in South Carolina with her husband Thomas. Brianna lives just a few miles from her and is also married and has two kids, six and nine. My parents enjoy spoiling my sisters’ kids rotten, and that keeps their mind off the fact that I haven’t given them any grandchildren. Bennett lives in Texas with his new wife, so my parents are focused on them having a baby. I miss them all so much, but I’ve lived in Florida so long now that it’s home. I’ve been here since the summer I met Melinda. My family thought I was finally going to move on, except that wasn’t possible. We all try to get together at least once a year, and sometimes that’s right here in Sanibel.
My shop is in Fort Myers and it has done well there the ten years it has been in existence. I have a good reputation, and my dream has come true. Well, one of my dreams. And up until two days ago, I thought the other could never be a reality again.
“He left her,” I answer, knowing that there’s so much more to the story than that, but I have to start somewhere.
She sucks in a breath. “Blake.” I know that voice; she’s warning me. I know exactly why, too. The last time we went down this road, it had been right after Ronan had broken up with her to go to college. I’d spent two weeks thinking my whole life was ahead of me, and then it was pulled out from under me. Yes, we’d been so young. But, nothing has ever compared to that for me, and I don’t think it ever will again. It’s always only been her.
“I know, Brooke.” I know that I should be careful, and that putting all my proverbial eggs in her basket again means opening up my fragile resolve to be destroyed again. The problem is, my stupid heart doesn’t believe that.
“You know I love her,” she continues. “But Blake, you can’t do this to yourself. You almost didn’t survive it last time.”
I squelch the urge to argue with her because I know she’s right, but I want to defend Li. “I love her.”
“Do you love her now, or do you love the idea of her from all of those years ago? You’ve never let yourself move on from her. You need to really think about what you’re doing. A whole lifetime has passed since you knew each other, Blake. How can you possibly know her?”
“I know her,” I say, knowing I sound defensive. In the back of my mind, I understand Brooke is right. “She’s still the same person. She makes me feel whole, Brooke. I know that isn’t right and it shouldn’t be that way, but it just is. The second I touched her, it was like coming home again.”
“It’s not that someone shouldn’t make you feel whole or that you shouldn’t feel at home with her. That’s what it’s like when you really love someone. I know because that’s how I feel with Tommy. It’s just that you can’t put your entire self worth into one person. It isn’t healthy. So what happens now if her husband comes forward and wants her back? What’s she going to do? Leave you in the dust again? I’m terrified that none of us will be able to pull you out of that hole again, Blake. She has children with her husband I assume. At least one, right?”
“They have one. Carter. She just took him to college and came home to her husband having left her. We’ve spent a lot of time talking, Brooke, and we’re going to continue to talk. I’m trying really hard to be cautious. I am. But when she’s in my arms, it just feels right.”
“I feel for both of you,” she says. “Because it seems to me that both of you have lived without each other unnecessarily. Neither one of you have had the life you envisioned. It’s sad that things had to end the way they did all those years ago.” If only she knew. I never told my sisters or my family anything about what had happened with Ronan. And after what Li and I have figured out, it will devastate both of our families just as much as it has us. I know I can’t jump the gun on any of this. I know how I feel, but we have so much to discuss and work through.
I turn the engine off in front of the Bean, watching as families pour in and out of the small shop, most of them going next door to rent bikes. A smile plays on my face as I think about all the times we’ve been right here together, either with our families or just us. A woman that resembles Li catches my eye, and I watch her scoop up a little girl that’s probably about two. Her husband walks over and hands her a coffee, leaning down to kiss her softly before then doing the same to his little girl. A lump forms in my throat. How badly I wanted that to be us. I’d wanted it my entire life. I had thought Melinda could get me over that, but she hadn’t been able to.
“Blake?” I forgot I’m still on the phone with Brooke.
“Sorry,” I say, stepping out into the hot Florida sunshine. “I’m going in to get us some breakfast. Thank you for talking to me, Brooke. You know I love you.”
“I love you too, Blake,” she says. “You know I only want you to be happy. Just be careful.”
“I want to be happy too, sis. I want to feel the way you and Brianna feel when you look at your husbands. I don’t want to live like this anymore.” I admit more to her than I admit to anyone. Except maybe Li. She makes me want to tell her everything.
“If she’s the one, then don’t let her go again,” Brooke says quietly. I’m shocked silent as I walk up the steps to the door of the cafe. I nod, but realize she can’t hear me.
“I’m not planning on it.”
I WATCH HIM walk away, my fingers automatically going to my lips as the memory of the searing kiss assaults me. As soon as I remember he’s coming back to tell me something else I don’t know, my stomach clenches. How could Ronan have d
one this to us? He wanted to win me so badly that he manipulated everything? He gave Blake a letter meant for him, he told Blake I was lying to him, he had to have talked to him when Blake had shown up at my school. I’d bet a million dollars he was in on the photos and note that was sent to me. I want to call him and demand an explanation, but I know he’ll lie. He’s been lying to me for our entire lives. What would he have done if I hadn’t gotten pregnant? What lengths would he have gone to in order for Blake and I to never end up together? I’m afraid to ponder that for too long.
Blake let Ronan convince him that I was a lying, cheating person. And as great as his lips feel on mine and the feeling of euphoria I have seeing him again, I can’t believe he didn’t give me the benefit of the doubt. I open the condo door, feeling guilty when I see Mia in the kitchen making coffee.
“Where’ve you been?” She grins at me, wiggling her eyebrows up and down. “And someone was worried about me.”
“I couldn’t sleep,” I explain. “So I went out to the beach to walk.”
“And?” Mia knows me well, even though she has only known me for a week.
“Ran into Blake.”
“Don’t make me force info out of you,” Mia waggles her finger at me, holding out a cup. I take it, trying to keep my emotions in check. She’s seen me lose it enough in the last week. “Uh oh. What happened?”
I sip the hot liquid, waiting for the warmth to spread throughout my body. “A lot of stuff happened that I never knew. My husband is an asshole, Mia.”
She tilts her head, her eyes searching mine for an answer I didn’t give her. “Well, we know he’s made some bad choices. But what does he have to do with Blake?”
I sigh, looking out the kitchen window. I can see the parking lot from there. My heart physically aches like it’s sore from beating. “He did this.”
“Sweetie, you’re going to have to give me more than that,” Mia says in her therapist voice. I want to be annoyed, but I know she’s just trying to understand.
“Let’s go sit on the porch,” I suggest. This isn’t something I can explain while standing in the kitchen. We walk silently to the porch, and I know Mia’s waiting for me to begin.
“I’m so confused,” I start, pulling my legs up under me as I settle myself into the porch chair. “Everything in my life has been a lie, Mia. And Blake says there’s something else he wants to tell me, and I’m terrified what it could be. I’m not sure how much more I can take.”
“Where’s Blake now?”
“He went to get us breakfast. He’ll be back soon. We kissed, Mia. And as much as I knew it wasn’t right, I haven’t felt something that perfect in a really long time.”
I dare to look over at her. In true Mia fashion, she’s just listening, her feet propped up on the chair across from her. “Why aren’t you saying anything?”
She sips her coffee, making my nerves on edge. “Tell me, Liane. What did he tell you?”
A KNOCK ON the door makes me jump to my feet. The time went by so quickly. Of course, I’d cried my eyes out again telling her all the things Blake had told me. She’d talked me through it all, even my paranoia about what he might tell me now.
“That’s him,” I announce. As if it would be anyone else. “Are you sure you’re okay with this?”
Mia nods. “As long as he’s okay with it.” Mia had offered to stay and help us both through the things we’ll have to come to terms with today. My fingers still itch to dial Ronan and tell him all the ways he can go to hell, but my need to figure out what Blake has to tell me is more prevalent right now.
I open the door, the breathtaking smile on Blake’s face as he holds the bag and coffee up knocking the wind out of me. I wish I could just forget that we need to work through any of this and just jump into his arms and pretend for the next week that we haven’t lost an entire lifetime of memories due to my jackass husband.
“I come bearing gifts,” he says, winking. I open the door and he moves past me, brushing his lips on my cheek as he enters the kitchen. “Vanilla bean scone and a Vanilla Bean latte, extra large for you.” He unpacks it and puts it on a plate, moving around my kitchen like he’s been here his whole life. So this is what it would’ve been like, I think. Blake buying me my favorite treats and serving me, maybe even in bed. “Li?”
I look up at him, realizing I’d zoned out. “Thanks, Blake. I have a question for you.”
“What’s that?”
“My friend Mia? She’s out on the porch.”
Blake looks over my shoulder and sees Mia. “She’s still here?”
“Hear me out,” I begin. “I met Mia here last week. We connected immediately. It just so happens, she’s also a psychiatrist. She specializes in situations like…” Like us, is what I don’t say, but he nods in understanding.
“Anyway, she’s offered to help us. I hope you don’t mind, but before I ever saw you here yesterday, she knew all about you. She’s helped me through what’s going on with Ronan and my unresolved feelings for you. Now that we’ve got so much to work through, she’s said that she’ll talk us through it if we want her to.”
Blake looks at me for so long, my palms start sweating. It was a bad idea, asking her to stay. Blake won’t want to tell me whatever he has to say in front of a complete stranger. “Unresolved feelings for me?” He’s teasing me, and despite how messed up this whole situation is, I find myself smiling. I can feel my cheeks turning red as I realize what I admitted to him.
“A psychiatrist?” he continues, and I’m relieved he’s let me off the hook for that comment. I can’t read his expression, and I want to tell him never mind, that I’ll ask her to leave. He takes my hands in his, kissing one at a time before brushing his lips ever so softly against mine. “If you think it’ll help, I’ll do whatever.”
“Really?”
“Li,” he says, pulling me so we begin walking to the porch. “I’m going to do what I should’ve done years ago. I’m going to do what’s best for you. So if her being here helps you, I’m all for it.” He opens the door to the porch and I follow him. “Mia, nice to see you again,” he says. “So I hear you’re going to help us through this.”
“I’m going to do my best,” she says, shaking his hand. “I’m sure Liane told you that I know all about what happened with you guys so long ago. Of course, I also know what’s happened to her in the last week. She also told me the things that you shared with her last night. And you have something else you wanted to tell her?”
Blake looks at me, and I feel lightheaded. “Yes.” He shifts so he’s facing me, and we can almost pretend Mia isn’t sitting at the table. “I was there on your wedding day.” It’s a simple sentence. There isn’t any emotion or descriptive words, but I feel every syllable like a punch in the gut.
“What?” There’s no way. He wasn’t there.
He nods, looking briefly at Mia before looking back at me. He grasps my hands and I watch as one tear slides down his cheek and hits the top of my hand. I stare at that droplet of water for so long, it isn’t long before my own join. “I was there, Li.”
My watery eyes try to focus on him, but all I can make out is his colorful outline. “Why?” My throat is so thick with unshed tears that I’m not sure he can understand that one syllable, because I’m not sure about anything anymore. Blake came to my wedding. All of a sudden, I remember hearing commotion outside the door right before I walked out to marry Ronan. I had pressed my ear against the door, trying to hear what it was, but just as fast as I’d heard it, it was gone. It had been Blake.
“I found the invitation in my parents’ bedroom. They hadn’t told me. I had to stop you, Li.”
But he hadn’t stopped me. “I never saw you.”
He shakes his head. “They wouldn’t let me.” His voice cracks, and that’s the final nail in my coffin. I begin to sob, my body losing control as I wish I’d had the chance to at least see him one of those times. So many lost chances to make things right. I feel his arms around me, his hands rubbing
up and down my back as I soak his shirt with the years of tears. “And then Ronan…” I feel the vibration of his chest, but it’s his words that have my attention.
I snap my head back up. “Ronan saw you?”
He nods. “He showed me the ultrasound. He told me you were pregnant. I put him against the wall. I wanted to kill him, Li. I hated him so much in that moment, but I think I hated myself more. Then my dad came in, and he made me leave.”
“Blake,” I cry. “Oh, my god.”
“I was in a really bad place when I left there, Li. That was the beginning of the downward spiral for me. For months after leaving Sanibel, I’d been self-destructing. But when I saw with my own eyes that not only weren’t you mine anymore, but you were having a baby with Ronan, I lost my mind. It really is a miracle I’m still here. I was so messed up.”
His honesty shreds me. This is entirely my fault. I’d almost destroyed him. “I wish it was different,” I whisper, and I mean it. As much as I love Carter and would never trade anything for the years of raising him, I wish that I could’ve fast forwarded a few years and had him with Blake. I wonder in the back of my mind what I would’ve done had I seen him at my wedding that day. I had convinced myself that marrying Ronan was my only option and that Carter needed both of his parents. But what I hadn’t thought about at all was my own happiness. I hadn’t been given the chance to make that decision myself, because yet again someone else controlled what I did.
“It’s my fault,” he admits. “I did that. I ruined us. And I’ve had to live with that every single day of my life.”
“You tried,” I reassure him. “You didn’t know.”
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