Anywhere With You

by Stephanie Hoffman McManus

  “None of it was your fault,” I told him.

  His eyes snapped back up to mine. “How can you say that? It was my fault. I should have done something more. Instead, I told you it was going to be okay and then let you deal with it all by yourself. I was too afraid to stand up to my parents, even though I knew what yours were going to do.”

  “Stop, Eric,” I pleaded softly, unable to let him carry this any longer, even if it meant reliving the worst time of my life.

  “I can’t. It’s been killing me for eight years.”

  “Eric, I lied,” I choked out as a tear slid down my cheek.

  A confused frown tugged at his features. “What do you mean?”

  “I lied.” And then I did something I should have done back then. I told the truth.

  Understandably, Eric was shocked and devastated. After I finished with my confession, omitting only the parts I knew he wouldn’t be able to handle, he just walked out of the room. Without a word. He didn’t yell at me. He didn’t tell me he hated me or that I was a horrible person or any of the things I already knew. I think he was too shocked and too angry to really wrap his head around it, but I was sure the yelling would come later. It was possible that the things I’d left out would have helped him to understand, or maybe absolved me of some of the guilt in his eyes, but they would hurt him more and I didn’t want to be absolved.

  Forgetting all about the alcohol–it was the last thing I needed now–I followed after Eric once I knew he’d had enough time to make it back to his room, or hell, leave because I was sure he didn’t want to be in the same house as me after that.

  I made my way quietly back upstairs to my room, but when I slipped inside, it was no longer completely dark, and Luke was no longer asleep. He sat on the edge of the bed, elbows resting on his knees, eyes on the door I had just come through. The bedside lamp was on, softly illuminating the distressed and slightly apprehensive look he wore, as well as the fact that he now had on a pair of shorts and a shirt.

  “Hey,” I mumbled, softly nudging the door closed behind me. “What are you doing up?”

  He sat up straighter. “I could ask you the same thing.” His tone wasn’t accusing, but sounded almost hurt, or maybe he was just tired.

  “I couldn’t sleep. I went to get a drink. I hoped it would help.”

  “Did it?”

  I shrugged.

  He pushed up from the bed and came toward me. Reaching for my hands he pulled me into him, dipping his head to touch his lips to mine. Some of the ache and sorrow lifted at that simple touch. When he pulled away I wanted to sink into his arms and take him back to bed, but the look on his face stopped me. It was disappointed and more hurt than it had been moments ago.

  “You don’t taste like alcohol.”

  I blinked, but that was all I did, and then he dropped my hands and stepped away. “I woke up when you left the room. I was worried something was wrong, so I got dressed to follow you, but someone else already had. I saw him go into that room after you, and I saw your reaction to him earlier. I don’t know what it’s about, but I know there was something between you two. Did you ask him to meet you tonight?” His voice was little more than a broken whisper. For the second time tonight, I was torn apart by how my actions kept hurting people.

  “No,” I rushed to him. “I swear I didn’t. He heard me and followed me on his own. He just wanted to talk about something.”

  Luke nodded like he wanted to believe me, but wasn’t sure what to think. He dropped down to sit on the bed again. “But I was right and there was something between you two?”

  “Yes, but it was a long time ago. It’s in the past.”

  “Is it going to stay there?”

  I moved to stand between his legs, taking his face in my hands. “Yes. Of course, yes.”

  “But you won’t tell me what you two talked about.” He said it like was a fact, that he didn’t even need to bother asking, because he knew I wouldn’t.

  I had a choice to make. Luke would let it go if I asked him to, because he’d been doing it for years. Backing off when he didn’t want to, even when it hurt him to. He’d never put pressure on me if he thought it might push me away, but I didn’t want our relationship to be like that. I didn’t want him tiptoeing around me, or constantly worried that I might walk away.

  I caressed my hand over his jaw and then lowered myself beside him.

  “We dated in high school. We’d known each other most of our lives. Our families were long-time friends. I’m not even sure how we ended up dating. I don’t think either one of us really had those kinds of feelings for each other. We were more friends than anything, but somehow, we convinced ourselves that dating made sense, that we were probably going to end up together eventually anyway, but if you’re worried there might still be leftover feelings, don’t be. We never loved each other, not in any way. That’s not what tonight was about.”

  He didn’t say anything. Giving me room to go on, or not if that’s what I chose. “I did something back then. I made a mistake and it spiraled out of control and hurt a lot of people. Eric was one of them. You should know that it’s not pretty and it’s why I moved to South Carolina and why I didn’t want to come back here. I just hope you won’t judge me too harshly. I was an angry, hurt, teenage girl.”

  Luke caught my hand and I looked down at where he laced our fingers together. “Nothing you tell me could make me think less of you. I know you. I may not know everything about your past, but it doesn’t change that I see exactly who you are. You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to. I’m sorry I acted the way I did when you came in. I never thought that once I had you I’d be this terrified I was going to lose you at any second.”

  I squeezed his hand. “I’m scared too, that eventually you’ll realize you made a mistake taking a chance on me, because I know I’m difficult and I come with baggage. That’s why I didn’t want to tell you. I don’t want you to think I’m anymore screwed up than you already know. I didn’t want you to feel like you’re always having to take care of me. But I realize now that I don’t want to have any secrets from you. They never do anyone any good. They only hurt people, and you’re the last person I want to hurt.”

  “I don’t want there to be secrets between us either, because there’s nothing you need to hide from me, but I’ll understand if you need to keep this one a little while longer. I can see that it’s still hurting you, whatever it is. And that’s the last thing I want.”

  “It’s okay. Maybe it’s time for me to tell someone.”

  “Then I’ll listen.”

  God, where to start. I let my mind go back there, trying to pinpoint where everything went so wrong. I don’t think there really was one particular moment, though. I think the events that unfolded my senior year of high school were really a culmination of bad choices, one after another. Mine and other people’s.

  “I told you my father cheats on my mother, and that I found out when I caught him one time,” I brought up the conversation we’d had before as I scooted up on the bed, sitting crisscrossed so I could face him.

  “Yeah.” He turned, bringing one leg up on the bed and bending it, so he could face me as well, letting the other hang off the edge.

  “The person I caught him with was a friend of my mother’s. We were having a party at our house; I don’t even remember what for. My parents were always throwing them, and I was trying to sneak away. I planned to grab a bottle from the liquor cabinet in my father’s home office, but I didn’t realize I wasn’t the only one with that intention. They were already in there and all over each other. They didn’t even see me, or care that their spouses were elsewhere in the house.

  I was so angry. Our families had been friends forever and there they were like that friendship and their marriages meant nothing. Then when I told my mother and she seemed not to care, it just pissed me off even more. I wanted to get back at them all. I became out of control. I acted out more than ever, drinking constantly, getting into tr
ouble at school. I almost wasn’t allowed to go to my senior prom. It would have been better if I hadn’t, because I did something that night I couldn’t take back.”

  Luke squeezed my hand, but didn’t say anything. The simple reassurance was enough.

  “Eric and I didn’t stay at the dance long. It was lame and we wanted to go get drunk. We went back to his place, but he passed out early and I left him. I hadn’t had as much to drink as Eric, but I was still buzzing and that morning I’d overheard my father talking to someone, making plans to see them later. I knew it was her. It was all I could think about that night and the more I thought about it, the more pissed off I got until I went to see her husband.

  “I thought even if my mother wouldn’t leave my father, maybe I could destroy his mistress’ marriage, at least make someone suffer. But it didn’t go as planned when I confronted her husband. Like my mother, he wasn’t surprised, but what he did was listen. He invited me in, offered me a drink and made me feel like what I was going through mattered. He made me feel like he understood, like he was on my side. Then he provided me with the opportunity to get back at them all.”

  I saw realization flash in Luke’s eyes the moment he realized where I was going with this, but instead of disgusted or appalled or any of the hundreds of other things he could have felt, he only seemed sad.

  “I was so ashamed afterward.” Still was, as evidenced by the stupid tears that I couldn’t hold back. “I’d thought someone finally cared, but afterward he acted like it was nothing and said if I tried to tell anyone and ruin him, no one would believe me. I realized then that not only was I naïve to think he gave a shit about me, I hadn’t achieved what I wanted. The only person I hurt was myself.”

  “God, Ci. I can’t even imagine what you were going through, and what you felt. And you’ve been beating yourself up for this for years.” He was so sad for me, and even outraged. I could see it, and he started to tug me into his arms, but I stopped him.

  “There’s more. A few weeks later I found out I was pregnant. I was so scared. I didn’t know what to do. I went to Eric to tell him, and he just assumed it was his. He’d passed out that night and didn’t remember that we hadn’t gone all the way before he blacked out. Letting him accept responsibility seemed like the easy way out, easier than admitting what I’d really done, so I let him think the baby was his. He said it would be okay, that we would tell our parents together and figure out what to do.

  “Our parents were so livid.” I could still recall the way they’d all looked at me, as if it was all my fault. I could still hear my father’s rage as he’d yelled at me. That was one of the lasts conversations I had with him, and since that day he hadn’t looked at me with anything but contempt and disappointment. “We weren’t allowed to see each other after that, and the same day I told them, my mother made the appointment for me to have it taken care of. I convinced myself it was for the best. That it was better to just make it all go away. I told myself I couldn’t have a baby, but then the day my mother drove me to the doctor, I was having second thoughts.

  “She knew I didn’t want to go through with it. She said I either had the abortion or I’d be thrown out and cut off. She drilled in that I had no clue how to be a parent and that I could never support myself, let alone a child on my own. She said I’d never be anything but a whore and my baby would never be anything but the child of a whore and it would be selfish of me to do that to a child, as if she’d ever been anything but a selfish parent herself,” I snorted through the tears that clogged my throat.

  “But at the time, I believed her. I convinced myself she was right and it was my only option. I regretted it the moment it was over. When I walked back out of the room where the procedure was done, I couldn’t even look at my mother. The next day I moved out of my parents’ house and in with my aunt. I lived with her for a year, grieving and trying to cope and come to terms with all of it, but every day I woke up hating myself and feeling sick, until I couldn’t do it anymore.” Tears were falling in streams now. I squeezed my eyes against them, but it did nothing.

  I’d lived with all of that inside me for eight years, and now that I’d let it all out, for the second time in one night, it felt as if something in me had broken wide open and every awful emotion I’d shoved down over those eight years was coming back up, all at once.

  This time, when Luke pulled me to him, I didn’t stop him. I went into his arms, burying my head against his shirt, soaking it through with my hiccupping sobs as I tried to stifle them.

  “Listen to me,” he whispered against my ear. “You were a kid, and you made a mistake.”

  I shook my head and choked on my next words. “No, getting pregnant was a mistake. Killing my baby was a choice.”

  “Don’t say that.” He cupped my face and thumbed away the fat tears.

  “But it’s true. God, do you know what it’s like to have to face myself in the mirror every day knowing that? Or face Shae? She loved her child more than anything, the way a mother should and he died. I know she’d give anything to still have him here. I never even gave my baby a chance to live. I don’t even know if it was a boy or a girl,” I sobbed. Not a day went by that I didn’t wonder. Did I have a little boy or a little girl up in Heaven? Would I have been a good mom? Could I ever be forgiven? Would I get to meet him or her someday? I jerked my face away from Luke’s loving touch. I couldn’t bear it. I couldn’t bear to meet his warm gaze through my tears.

  “Ci, look at me.” He firmly tipped my chin up. “You have to stop punishing yourself. You have to stop carrying this guilt and shame. It’s too much and it’s not right.” He wiped at my tears again with the backs of his fingers.

  “How can you say that? How can you still look at me like that?”

  “This is the only way I know how to look at you. I love you and for the first time I can finally see all of your heart and understand it. You need to listen and understand this; you are not responsible for everything that happened. I want to take back all that bullshit I said about giving your parents a chance. Fuck them all. If anyone is to blame for what happened, they are. I just want to take you away from here, away from them.” He pulled me to his chest and then his arms surrounded me, holding me tightly while I cried into his shirt. One hand made soothing stokes up and down my back while he laid kisses against my hair. I clung to him for what seemed like forever. When I finally pried my face away from his chest, I peered up at him through my watery eyes. “If I haven’t said it yet today, I love you.”

  “I know.” He brushed my hair, which stuck to the damp spots on my cheeks, out of my face. “If I doubted it at all, I don’t anymore. Not after you shared that piece of you with me. Thank you for trusting me with it.”

  “Thank you for being you.”

  “Always.”

  Twenty-Seven

  Cici

  Present

  The Big Day

  You know when someone says, what’s the worst that could happen, and immediately you look at them like the moron they are because you know they’ve just doomed everything with those six little words?

  Just call me a moron.

  My only saving grace was that I hadn’t spoken them out loud, merely thought them at my reflection in the bathroom mirror, so maybe the universe didn’t hear them.

  Oh, who was I kidding? A sinking feeling entered my gut and I gave my mirror self a how could you look, because I knew. I knew that I’d just screwed myself.

  It was probably too much to hope that I’d have made it out unscathed even before I went and tempted fate with those foolish words.

  It was only twenty-four hours, I told myself. Tomorrow morning, we would be back on the road. Surely, I could handle whatever was thrown at me between now and then. Then again, this place and these people were poison.

  I managed to skate through the morning without disaster. It was relatively uneventful for the most part, though slightly chaotic with staff and decorators and caterers rushing around the place doing final
preparations. My parents were in the thick of it, which meant they were both too busy to focus any attention on me. Luke and I had a quiet breakfast with Shae and Kellen in the sunroom, watching everything come together on the lawn behind the house as my mother, grandmother, and the wedding planner barked orders at the minions.

  Somewhere in the house, Tabbi and her bridesmaids were being prepped by a beauty team, and soon my brother would be arriving and some of the other family. I was both nervous and excited for my brother’s and aunt’s arrival. I dared to even be a little hopeful. After coming clean with both Eric and Luke last night, I sort of felt like I could face anything.

  Funny how having the one person that mattered most on your side made all the difference. At this point, even Eric with his hurt, moody looks when I passed him in the hall, didn’t get to me. Too much.

  “Miss, your sister would like to see you,” I was stopped by one of the housekeepers on our way up the stairs. “The bridal party is in the blue bedroom.” Message delivered, she continued down the stairs.

  “You guys go ahead and get ready,” I told the other three and then wound may way to the other end of the house to the large suite that had been dubbed the blue bedroom for its mostly monochromatic décor. I knocked softly and the door was pulled open. My cousin stood in the doorway with a pinched look on her face, looking less than thrilled as she pulled the door open wider for me.

  Tabbi was perched on the edge of a blue floral wingback chair having her face painted on by a professional makeup artist, while a woman with a camera captured the entire process. As Tabbi’s eyes danced over me, she waved the artist and the photographer to a stop and rose excitedly, although somewhat stiffly, in the corseted brassier and trumpet slip she wore. “Celia,” she chirped, shuffling toward me, pulling me into an awkward hug so as not to ruffle the intricately woven headpiece and veil that had been pinned in her hair.

  “You look gorgeous.” I wasn’t sure what else to say or why I was standing here instead of getting ready myself.

  “Thank you. It’s been three hours of beauty hell, but it will all be worth it,” she breathed out.” I just wanted to make sure I saw you before the ceremony. I know it will be crazy later, and I wanted to tell you again that I’m so happy you came and–”