by Ali Parker
Those words hung in my head, and I tried my best to make sense of them. It had been a long time since a woman had told me she loved me. I couldn’t remember the last time. But I wasn’t going to forget this one after the way she had said those words like she was ripping open some deep-down part of her she’d tried her best to keep hidden all this time. Maybe she would have been better off keeping her mouth shut, sucking it up and dealing with it. Wasn’t what I gave her enough? I didn’t understand why, if her feelings had grown for me, this would all suddenly turn into a problem. We were married. So she loved me. Wasn’t that the way things were meant to be?
But I knew why she had left. She knew damn well that I was never going to love her the way she loved me. I just couldn’t do it, no matter how hard I tried. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to have that kind of love in my life, just that I had no idea how to build it, cultivate it, tend it so it grew into something positive. It was far easier to pay off some woman I barely knew to play at being my wife than it was to think about falling in love for real.
I slammed the bottle of vodka down, the shock of the bottle on the bar enough to whip me back to reality. She had fucked me over. I wasn’t about to start getting sentimental about it now. All that time, when she had been pushing for the contracts, she’d had no intention of signing them. She just wanted the power of knowing she could take my cash whenever she wanted to. She was just another fucking gold digger like all those women who had come before her who I’d shot down for that very reason. She had stuck around long enough for me to pay up her sister’s home and to take advantage of my apartment and get her car fixed up. Now that she had what she wanted, she was out of there. “In love,” my ass. She was doing what she had to in order to keep me at arm’s length. She knew I was too broken to love her back, and she knew it would keep me away.
I stormed over to the table and grabbed the contracts. Pages upon pages of them, drawn up to make sure she couldn’t do this to me, and what had it been worth at the end of the day? Nothing. Nothing at all. She had still fucked me over, still left me, still never signed these. How long had it taken her to decide she was just going to keep hold of them to hang over my head? Why would she even push for them to be drawn up in the first place? It didn’t make any sense.
Well, she wasn’t coming back, and I was going to make damn sure of that. I ripped the pages in two, all of them, and tossed them to the floor of the apartment, letting them splay wildly across the floor. I watched them as they drifted out in front of me, and I ran my hands through my hair and let out a grunt of annoyance. I wanted to yell at the top of my lungs, but even the booze hadn’t got me losing control that much.
I slumped down against the counter and then slipped down against the floor. She was gone. Nothing was going to change that. The worst part was that some small part of me had been wondering since the moment she’d moved in if there could have been something between us. Sure, the start was unorthodox, but maybe, just maybe, we could have made something work.
I shoved those thoughts angrily to the back of my head. Nothing would have worked between us because she was just a gold digger, a liar who had taken me for a ride and wrung me dry. I was lucky she had left after only a few weeks. Fuck knew what else she would have tried to squeeze out of me if I’d given her the chance. I wondered what else she’d been playing me on as well. Was her sister really disabled? Surely, they couldn’t have faked that on top of everything else, but I was questioning everything now, going back over every single one of our interactions, combing them out to see where the lies might have started, where she had changed her mind.
I could put my finger on the moment it cracked. The night we’d fucked. It had felt so damn right at the time. Shit, I’d been pulling for us to wind up in bed or elsewhere again since the day we had woken up next to each other and this whole thing had started. Had she even been that drunk when we’d ended up heading down the aisle together? Perhaps she’d known who I was and planned this all from the start.
I pushed my face into my hands and let out a groan. I felt as though my brain was turning to mush in my head, all the questions that had followed her leaving crushing down on me, the weight of them hurting. My chest felt constricted like I couldn’t pull in all the air I needed to keep functioning. How had she done this to me? How could she do this to me? Didn’t she understand how hard this was for me?
Yes. The answer to that was yes. She knew that, and she had still gotten up and walked out of here, lying to me and avoiding me because her own guilty conscience was nagging at her. At least she had a scrap of decency left in her, enough to see what she was doing was wrong.
I dragged myself back to my feet and leaned on the counter, shooting another look at the bottle of vodka. I could take another shot, but it wasn’t going to fix anything. She had gotten me drinking before breakfast, so I could already say with some certainty that the rest of the day was going to be some kind of a bust. My chest ached hollowly at the thought of going to work and then coming home and knowing that she wasn’t going to be here. She had taken most of her stuff, from what I could see, but there was no way I could go into her room and clear out the last of it. Fuck, up until last month, that had been my bedroom and my bedroom alone, and now I couldn’t even think about looking in there. I kicked the door shut as I headed through to take a shower, hoping to sweat out the worst of the booze I’d poured down my throat. I was such a fucking idiot. What was I, a college student thinking this was going to help, that vodka shots were going to make anything better?
I scrubbed myself near-raw under the shower, the water burning hot. It felt good, even though I knew it probably wasn’t doing me any good. I got dressed and headed through to the kitchen, running on autopilot and hoping if I tried hard enough, I could pretend none of this was happening and life was the same as it had been before she turned up. I had been happy without her before, and I would be happy without her now. It was that simple.
I stepped over the shredded papers scattered on the floor and started to make breakfast, smacking a pan down on the stove and switching it on. Eggs. Eggs would make it better, along with enough coffee to make me forget I’d thought vodka was a good idea this early in the morning. I just had to make it through the next eight hours, and then I could come home and sleep the rest of this twenty-four hours off and make like none of this had gone down in the first place.
25
As I drove down to see Jolene, I felt as though there was a damn war going on inside my head. I couldn’t make any sense of my thoughts, but I knew seeing my sister was going to help remind me what exactly my priorities were right now.
“I’m here to see Jolene.” I put my hand down on the reception desk, and the woman slowly raised her gaze to meet mine. She looked tired. I knew the feeling. I had barely slept all night, tossing and turning back in my own bed once I’d made it back to my apartment.
“Go right up,” the woman replied, waving her hand toward the stairs after she checked my credentials. I headed up to Jolene’s room and opened the door, plastering a big smile on my face so she wouldn’t guess the turmoil that was running through my head right now.
“Hey!” she exclaimed, wheeling over to me at once. “How are you?”
She wrapped her arms around me, and I swiftly hugged her back, closing my eyes and leaning down to inhale the sweet scent of her hair. This was why I had done this in the first place, that was what I had to keep reminding myself. This had all been for her, for her, for her. I would have done anything for her. Just not getting my heart broken.
“I’m okay,” I lied, deciding not to tell her about the breakup yet. She didn’t need to hear it, and I didn’t know how she’d react. It had crossed my mind last night that she might find out if Kristo decided to pull the funding to the home, but I was pretty sure he, at the very least, wouldn’t have a chance to do that before I got here. I didn’t think he would do it at all. He was an ass in some ways, but he seemed to genuinely like Jolene, and he must have known what a d
ick move that would have been.
The visit was good even if Jolene did ask a couple of times where Kristo was and how he was doing. I brushed by them, offering a few excuses, just wanting to spend some quality time with my favorite person in the world. I couldn’t help remembering how it had been when Kristo had been here, how he and Jolene had chatted, how they’d laughed, how they’d made plans, how I’d convinced myself things were working between us better than I ever could have dreamed of.
“Are you sure you’re doing all right?” Jolene frowned as I glanced at my watch and sighed heavily. I didn’t have work that day, but I needed to get the house back together, bed Toby back in, and get some food.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I assured her, even though I was lying through my teeth. “Just tired, that’s all.”
“You should go and get some rest.” She slapped me lightly on the arm. “Don’t worry about seeing me if you’re tired.”
“Oh, you’d miss me too much,” I teased, and she rolled her eyes.
“I have a life outside of you,” she replied in that classically teenage way she had. I nodded and got to my feet.
“In that case, I’ll leave you to get on with it,” I replied, and I hugged her so tight one last time before I left.
“I love you, Sis,” I murmured into her ear, and she squeezed me back.
“I love you too,” she promised. And with that, I was on my way once more.
Toby was still at Kristo’s place, and I had to stop by the grocery store in the city to fill my house with enough food to live on once again. I had to start my whole life over, and the thought of moving away from the comfort and calm of his apartment and throwing myself back into the bare-knuckle panic of my usual life was already exhausting me. Damn, why couldn’t things just be easy? He had come to me, all wrapped up with a neat bow on top offering to solve all my problems. And I had to go shoot myself in the damn foot with all of it because I couldn’t keep my feelings in check. I was a mess, a fucking mess, and I hated how badly I had screwed myself out of an easy life.
Making my way around the grocery store, I barely noticed anyone else in that place, so lost in my own thoughts until I heard my name and my stomach dropped.
“Amaya?”
I lifted my head and found myself face-to-face with a woman I hadn’t seen before. Despite that, however, she seemed somewhat familiar.
“Hello?” I wrinkled my brow at her, hoping I could get out of whatever this was quickly.
“You’re Amaya, right?” the woman continued enthusiastically. “Kristo’s wife?”
“Uh, yeah?” I finally managed, even though it hurt to acknowledge what I knew was no longer true. She grinned widely and caught my wrist.
“Oh my God, I can’t believe it!” she exclaimed. “He’s been hiding you away all this time and then I run into you at the grocery store. What are the chances?”
“Sorry, who are you?” I asked finally, and she threw her hands in the air.
“I’m Cleo,” she replied. “Your sister-in-law.”
“Oh, right, yeah.” I nodded. “I think I saw some pictures of you when I was visiting your grandma.”
“Come on, we’re going for lunch right now,” she informed me, and my eyebrows shot up.
“I actually have a lot I need to do today,” I protested, but I could already tell there was no way she was taking no for an answer.
“I’m not letting him hide you away anymore.” She shook her head. “My friends and I are going out for some lunch just down the street. You’ll come with us. You’ll love the place.”
“I really don’t have time.”
“It won’t take long,” she promised me, and I stood there for a moment, trying to come up with something, but I was too tired to offer her anything more convincing. My shoulders sagged.
“Okay, just for an hour,” I conceded, and she clapped her hands together.
“Amazing,” she exclaimed. “Let’s get out of here.”
Before I knew it, I was sitting at a table surrounded by a half-dozen women, all of whom were piling on question after question, so fast that I could hardly keep my head straight.
“How long did you know him before you guys got married?”
“Don’t you think it’s a little fast?”
“Where is he now?”
“What do you do?”
I held my hand up, and they fell silent. I almost giggled at the amount of power I had over the lot of them. I wondered if any of them had ever imagined what it might be like to marry Kristo themselves, to wed into this rich, successful family once and for all. I could see a couple of them looking at me with something close to envy, and I understood where it came from. Had I been in their position, I would have been envious too. But they didn’t know the dark side of it, the bleak side, the one that burned me up as I sat there surrounded by women who wanted to know my secrets while I kept the biggest one of all from the lot of them.
“We met while he was on a business trip, and we got married not long after that,” I replied. Well, that was the truth. “It was pretty fast, but it worked for us. And he’s at work right now as far as I know.”
They fell silent for a moment, and Cleo crossed her arms over her chest and eyed me from her spot at the head of the table. I looked back at her, hoping I had done enough to warrant me scooting out of this lunch early, but she seemed to have plenty more to hit me with.
“And tell me, what kind of family do you come from?” she asked, leaning forward with interest. “I know my father was surprised he got married to someone outside the community.”
“Uh, just an average family,” I replied vaguely. “It’s just me and my sister now, and I take care of her as much as I can.”
“Does she live with you?”
“No, she stays at a home,” I replied. “They take care of her better than I ever could, and besides, it gives me a chance to focus on my job.”
And that was how the rest of the afternoon went. In some ways it was a good thing since I was too distracted to do anything but answer their endless questions about Kristo, me, the marriage, what I did, and what I wanted to do. These women were relentless, and Cleo was the worst of the lot, clearly not trusting her brother to allow her to have a crack at me again so squeezing every drop of information out of me that she could.
I had only promised an hour, but before I knew it, three had passed, and I was stuffed full of food with my groceries wilting in the car. I needed to get back.
“I really have to, uh, I have work tomorrow, and I have to get some things organized,” I offered. They had no idea how painful this was for me, of course, having these questions heaped on my head about a relationship with a man I was no longer with, a man I had managed to convince myself that I loved, but in some ways, it was cathartic. I could create this future, this past for us that had never existed, filling in the blanks of what could have been in my head. The fantasies I’d imagined for Kristo and me provided most of the inspiration, and I was happy to let my mind and my words wander a little. He could deal with the blowback. He was the one who had let me walk out, after all.
“No way.” Cleo waved her hand. “You have to try the desserts here. They have a new one every day, and they’re all amazing.”
Fuck. I was trapped for another hour, time stretching out impossibly in front of me until I was practically begging to be given a reprieve.
“I really need to get going,” I begged Cleo, but she shook her head as the waiter cleared away the dessert dishes. I understood why someone like her, someone who could flit around town without an ounce of worry for what the world would bring her, wouldn’t understand how the exhaustion of work could settle in, but I sure as hell did, and I needed a break.
“Come on, we’re only just getting to know each other.” She beamed at me across the table. My heart sank. She seemed to really like me, and she was a sweet, well-intentioned girl, but I knew this was the last I would be seeing of her. How weird would she think I was when she figured out that
this lunch had happened after I had walked out on her brother? But what was I supposed to do, tell her right there and then? No, that was up to him.
“You could come out to the club with us tonight,” one of the other women suggested excitedly. “We have an amazing VIP table at—”
“No, I have work early tomorrow morning.” I got to my feet and reached into my bag for my wallet. I hated to think how much this had all come to, but I was no moocher.
“Put your purse away. I got this,” Cleo assured me and frowned. “You really have to go?”
“I really do.” I pulled an apologetic face at her, and she sighed and got to her feet.
“Well, tell your husband not to hide you away so much,” she ordered me, and with a flurry of perfumed hugs and kisses, I was back in my car.
I gripped the steering wheel tightly and let out a long sigh. That had been exhausting, and I still had so much to do when I got home. I pulled out of the city and drove on autopilot, head thrumming with all the lies I’d told today just to get the conversation to stop. At least I could go home and get some rest, let my brain relax a little before I could lose myself in my work the next day.
But when I got home, I saw a car sitting outside the condo, a car I recognized. With a sinking feeling in my stomach, I climbed out of my car and headed toward the door. Right where I found Kristo waiting for me.
26
I watched her as she climbed out of the car, eyeing me warily as she did so, and she slowly made her way to the door like she half-expected me to lunge out at her out of the blue. I crossed my arms over my chest as she tried to walk around me and into the apartment, but I stepped in front of her.
“Amaya, I need to talk to you,” I told her firmly, but she shook her head. Her eyes were focused on the ground, and I didn’t blame her. But I had found some time to think, and we needed to discuss the ins and outs of this relationship before she blew it up.