Permanent (Indelibly Marked) (Volume 1)

by Kim Carmichael

  With his heart pounding, he turned to the Stevens. “I’ll be right back.”

  He ran into her bedroom, opened the closet door and yanked out the two boxes, knocking a couple of clothes off the rack. He threw the garments aside and tore the first box open to find the horse trophies he’s seen before. He pushed them away and ripped the second box open and stopped.

  The past he always searched for lay in that box, those little pieces of someone that made them unique, different from anyone else. A picture of her parents, one of her and her sister, an old-fashioned adding machine, some awards, the touches Lindsay lacked were personified in a box she hid away.

  Part of him ached that she felt she had to hide it away. Did she think he wouldn’t want her? That he would do what the others did? The fact that she felt the need to change in such a drastic way and attempt to hide everything else spoke volumes. All he wanted to do was hug her and tell her buck teeth, brown hair, glasses and all, he wanted her.

  Then he flipped the coin over and stared in the box. In Lindsay’s world of new furniture and perfection he was an artist who owned a business. The parts of him she didn’t want to recognize she put into a box and stored away hoping no one would notice. He touched his head. The worst part of it all was that he’d played right into it, thinking he’d done the right thing.

  Where was she anyway? He shoved his hand in his pocket and got his phone. They needed to talk. He wouldn’t have a wife who was ashamed of him or of herself. As he dialed, he heard the front door open and returned in time for Dorothy Stevens’ scream. Ivan had entered dressed as a burglar.

  *~*~*

  The old saying about horrible things happening in slow motion was definitely true. The day couldn’t have taken longer if it was a week.

  The two hours Lindsay spent driving around wiping her eyes with Shane’s hidden letters could have been days, and she still wouldn’t be able to justify his actions. But she couldn’t hide any longer, so she went home and opened the door to one of the most terrible scenes she could conjure.

  Her family sat with Carson and Emily flipping through her photo album. She left it in Ohio on purpose, yet there it was, like backed up sewage she couldn’t flush away. No doubt they saw everything.

  Before that thought sank in she noticed that Carson and Emily looked strange. Emily wore a pink knee-length princess cut dress with her hair pulled back and subdued makeup, and Carson. She tried to swallow. Carson’s hair was cut above his shoulders and combed back, and he was in a shirt and tie. Were they making fun of her? Where was Shane?

  She put her hand to her chest and closed her eyes. If Emily and Carson saw the pictures, Shane had as well. He knew everything and he couldn’t even stay to tell her he didn’t need a pathetic bookkeeper as a girlfriend? She pressed her lips together, trying to stay calm when her mother screamed.

  “Lindsay Ann Stevens.” She jumped up and put her hands over her mouth.

  “What have you done to yourself?” Her father finished her mother’s thought.

  She opened her eyes to say something, when she felt a pair of hands on her shoulders. She could only pray Shane was behind her to make things better. That was what he did. He’d have a magical reason why he hid the letters, and the scene in front of her hadn’t really happened.

  Then it got worse.

  She turned, not to find Shane, but Ivan. Not her Ivan. This Ivan was dressed head to toe in a long overcoat looking like some sort of pervert. “What are you doing?”

  “Lindsay!” her father yelled.

  The room seemed to move with her and before she addressed her parents she needed to find Shane. Where was he?

  “Lindsay?”

  The voice. The best voice in the world, the one that comforted her, and she turned wanting to see anything normal. Normal meant a blue-black Mohawk.

  It was gone.

  Absolutely gone. Vanished into thin air, and in its wake it left a man who held some sort of resemblance to Shane. Through her tears, she saw a man with Shane’s face, but without his signature hair, and in its place a nearly shaved head of black stubble. This man wore a grey suit and matching tie covering all of his tattoos. What did he do?

  “Shane?” She needed to wake up from the dream of an alternative universe where everything she loved had disappeared.

  “Lindsay, I demand an answer to what’s going on.” Her father tried again to get her attention, but she kept her eyes on the stranger who answered to Shane’s name as he walked toward her.

  “I need to talk to you.”

  Time stopped and she went through the motions as if she were in another person’s body. The night at Shane’s parents’ house, he asked to talk to her, but this time his harsh voice resonated through her bones and she had no doubt what came next.

  “We’ll be right back.” Shane took her arm and guided her back to her bedroom.

  Her gaze darted around and she caught sight of her boxes open and askew. She swallowed tears and prepared for what she knew needed to be done. For once in her life she would not allow herself to be on the receiving end.

  “Lindsay.” He put his hand on her shoulder.

  At his touch, she snapped. She had to act fast. Get it over with, rip off the bandage and she spun on her heel. “I don’t know what you’re doing or why you did it, but I do know about this.” She summoned her strength, reached into her bag, and threw the letters at him.

  “Where did you get those?” He bent down and picked up the envelopes.

  “I went to the shop to get some papers.” She wrapped her arms around her middle. “You lied to me. How did you expect me to fix this?”

  “You lied, too! Why did you hide from me?”

  She backed up. “To avoid this.”

  “What?” He approached her.

  “Shane, let’s just get this over with.” She held her chin up high.

  “I don’t care what you were back then. I only care that you felt you had to hide it.”

  “You wanted something from me.”

  “At the beginning, but you know that’s not true now.”

  She looked down at the floor. “This won’t work.”

  “I’m not those other guys.”

  She turned her face to him. “Yes you are. You just lasted longer.”

  “What are you saying?” He crossed his arms.

  The tears poured down her face. “I can’t do this anymore. I’m worried all the time. I can’t take it. I want to go home.”

  “What?” He stepped toward her.

  She turned her back. “I want to go back home, and I don’t want to walk in heels, or dye my hair. I don’t want to watch you with other women. I don’t want to open drawers and wonder what horrors are hidden there, I don’t want to care, and I don’t want you to change because I know what it’s like.”

  “Put it in a box.” Shane came up behind her and hit the wall.

  She jumped but didn’t say a word.

  “You’re right. If you do this, I’m not going to beg you or chase after you with flowers. If you can’t trust me that I had my reasons like you had yours, then put me in a box and forget about me, too. You’ve already tried.” He leaned to meet her eyes.

  She braced the wall for support when he came close enough for her to get a whiff of his soap. It hurt too much and she pushed away and with the last strength she possessed she ran toward the one person who never changed. “Daddy?”

  “What’s happening?”

  “I want to go home.” She ran out of the cheap apartment in Hollywood for the last time.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Rachel reached forward and touched Lindsay’s hair. “It’s so pretty.”

  “It’s such a pain to take care of.” Lindsay wiped her eyes on the sheet of the hotel bed.

  “You look different.” Rachel sat cross-legged on the bed and tilted her head. “You’re teeth sparkle.”

  “I bleached them.”

  “I saw that on television.” Her sister leaned forward. “Can you rea
lly see without your glasses?”

  Lindsay nodded. “The surgery only took a few minutes.”

  “Wow.” Rachel lay down next to her. “Mom and Dad are mad you didn’t tell them.”

  “I know, but I needed to do it my way.”

  “I wish I could.”

  “No.” She ran her hand through Rachel’s hair.

  “Why did you do it all?”

  “I wanted to look different. I thought it would be easier.”

  “Was it?”

  “No, it was worse. I was always worried.” At least she didn’t have to worry about being found out.

  “I thought Shane had a Mohawk.”

  “He did.” If she closed her eyes she could see him.

  “I thought he did tattoos.”

  “He does.” She was pretty sure she was going to throw up again. “Amazing tattoos.”

  “I heard the overcoat guy say he only wore it to cover up his tattoos.”

  “I don’t know why they did that.” She hated how they looked.

  “Don’t you want to be with him?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “Then why aren’t you?”

  “We’re too different. In the end it would have never worked. I’m not really what he wants.” She hugged the pillow, the best she was going to get. “Let’s go to bed.”

  *~*~*

  “Everyone we rely on leaves us.” Emily stood at the screen door of Shane’s apartment.

  “You’re not an orphan.” Carson threw a crumpled paper at her head.

  “Are they almost done?” Shane watched the movers take more things out of Lindsay’s apartment.

  “She won’t take my calls.” Emily stomped her foot. “She just disappeared, like Dillon.” Her voice cracked. “Maybe they should have been together.”

  Shane’s audit was the next day and she hadn’t contacted him once. So that was how it was going to end. This time he wouldn’t go to her.

  He spent three days drinking his way through the hours, especially after his mother called telling him his grandmother’s ring was ready to be picked up for Lindsay. If he had come clean with those letters, she would be getting ready for tomorrow as the future Mrs. Elliott.

  He pounded his fist into the screen door. She didn’t want him. She couldn’t even tell the truth about him, or have the decency to come through when he needed her. Still, he blinked back his emotion, refusing to admit he cried.

  “Ivan has a friend that said he’ll help you tomorrow. I told him to hightail it over here.” Carson called to him.

  Another accountant. His stomach lurched and he broke out into a sweat. He couldn’t have anyone else, but he needed someone and he was about ready to accept the offer when Rachel and Mr. Stevens come up the stairs.

  He opened the screen and caught her father’s attention, but he walked right by.

  Rachel, wide eyed, stopped and pointed. “You do have tattoos.”

  “What?” Shane wanted to run over and shake her for any information that would set him free.

  “Lindsay told me about them, she said one side had a painter’s palate and the other is made to look like a robot.” Her gaze traveled to his arms.

  He held out his arms to her. “When did she tell you this?”

  “Oh, all the time.” She leaned closer. “I wanted to see the tattoo shop, my dad did, too.”

  “You knew about the tattoo shop?” He motioned for Carson to come over.

  Rachel nodded, blushing when Carson waved to her. “Before we came out Lindsay said we could go there.” Her face crinkled. “But, we’re leaving tomorrow to go home.”

  He grabbed the doorjamb. If she got on that plane he would never see her again. “Rachel, do you have any messages for me.” He was not above begging a sixteen-year-old.

  She shook her head.

  His heart hit the floor.

  “Come on, Rachel.” Mr. Stevens came out.

  “I have to go.” She waved and got another long look at Carson. “I wish you would have kept the Mohawk.” She ran after her father.

  Shane spun on his heel and faced Carson. “They knew about me.”

  “I cut my hair for nothing.” Carson slapped him.

  He rubbed his hands along his head, searching for the shock of hair that was supposed to be there. “I didn’t care if she was blonde or brunette or anything, I just wanted her.”

  Emily came out from the kitchen. “You said she couldn’t accept us.”

  “I don’t know.” He paced back and forth. “I have to do this audit thing.”

  “I’ll call the guy.” Carson lifted his phone.

  “No.” He ran to Carson and took the phone. “I have to do this. Myself.”

  “Then what?” Emily hit his shoulder.

  “I don’t know. She broke up with me.” He covered his eyes. “She doesn’t want me. But I can’t do this with anyone but her.”

  *~*~*

  “I promised you that if you came home I would give you part of the business.” Her father sat across from her in their hotel room.

  Lindsay stared down at her skirt that matched her sister’s and mother’s. No wonder they were always outcasts. The floral wonder ensemble boasted summer pinks, yellows and blues.

  “Look how beautiful the two of you are.” Her mother came out of the bedroom with Rachel. “Simon you should really get a picture of the two of them together.” She touched Lindsay’s hair. “It looks much better curled and back to its real color.”

  She sighed. Her hair color didn’t matter anymore.

  “We should get going soon.” Her mother flitted between the pieces of luggage.

  “I will be proud to call you my partner.” Her father continued his conversation.

  “Thank you.” A tear rolled down her cheek.

  “You don’t want to work with me, do you?”

  She lifted her head. “It’s not that.”

  “Tell me.” Her father leaned across the table.

  She tried to speak but couldn’t get the words out.

  “Lindsay, you need to tell me.”

  “Simon.” Her mother came over. “Don’t make her cry.”

  “Go check our tickets.” Simon waved her away. “I need to talk to Lindsay. Tell me. I can’t stand to see you like this. You haven’t left the hotel since you got here.”

  “I was supposed to be the accountant for the tattoo industry.” As the sentence hung in the air she realized how stupid it sounded. “When you came out here, I was going to ask you to help me set up my own business.”

  “I didn’t think you could be happy in California.” He blew threw his lips. “Maybe I didn’t want to lose my little girl.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” She didn’t have Shane, which meant she had nothing. “He lied to me.”

  “I think the man was probably terrified to show you.”

  “You always say your clients can’t lie to you.”

  “I never loved any of my clients. Those letters had to be eating him up and it snowballed.”

  “I know how that feels.”

  “You know, in a way the two of you did the exact same thing.”

  She wiped her eyes. “What do you mean?”

  “You changed to fit in, he changed to fit in. He withheld information, and so did you.” He strummed his fingers on the table.

  For the first time in days her heart seized with something other than sadness and pain.

  “I see two people who wanted so badly to be together, they did anything to make it happen against the odds.”

  “What are you trying to say?” For days she tried to let go of any hope she harbored, but was there hope?

  “Just telling you my observations.”

  “His audit’s today and I left him when he needed me most.” A fresh batch of tears began. “He’s always been there for me.” She never returned the favor. Once again she never heard him out. All she did was put him in a box. She couldn’t expect him to come after her again, not when she didn’t give him any r
eason to. “I left them all.”

  She opened up her ledger. One side said she could go back to Ohio, fulfill every expectation, and become a partner in her father’s accounting firm. Eventually she would meet someone nice and then their children would end up wearing matching dresses until one of them escaped to California. It was a sure investment. Sound and stable.

  She closed her eyes and ran the other side of the ledger. It involved risk, running back, ripping her heart open, and praying Shane still wanted her. But that side also had joy, excitement and the man she loved. She gasped and put her hand over her mouth. She loved him. How could she leave? “I didn’t want to get hurt again.”

  “You left, not him.”

  “I have to go, Daddy.” She wrung her hands together.

  “I understand.”

  “I have to find him.” She grabbed her purse and turned trying to make a plan. “I’ll go to the apartment. He’ll be there, or the shop.”

  “That’s not fair.” Rachel got up. “All I wanted to do here was see the shop, and all I got was tourist traps and crying! This trip sucked!”

  “If I go to the audit, I need you, Daddy. You said you’d help.” Lindsay held her hand out to her sister.

  Her father stood and hit the table. “These airline tickets will cost me a fortune!”

  Rachel wrapped her arms around Lindsay’s waist.

  “Go find your guy and your mother and I will meet you there.” He pointed.

  “Come on.” Rachel tugged her.

  “What if …” She faced her father.

  “Then you’ll know.” He opened the door for them.

  They ran out and she tried not to think about that ugly what if. She needed to get to Shane before he got to the audit.

  *~*~*

  They drove up to the apartment building and with both Shane and Carson’s cars in the lot, she let the cab go.

  With her sister in tow, she raced up the stairs and took a deep breath before she knocked on the door.