Every Time He Leaves (The Raeven Sisters Book 1)

by Karington, Anna

  I hurry to the main entrance, trying to appear calm and collected, but desperately hoping that when I open this door, I'll see Jarek, who will have some reasonable excuse for his disappearance.

  I open the door, but the room is empty. I back up to a nearby column, taking deep breaths, trying to calm my nerves.

  “Lana, Lana, that was amazing!” Stephanie says as she steps out from the auditorium. She must have seen me leaving and followed.

  Oh, God why did it have to be right now? Not now!

  “You really impressed everyone.”

  “Thank you,” I say, but I'm still searching the room. Surely he's here. He has to be somewhere.

  He must be in the restroom. That's all it is. Over Stephanie's shoulder, I see Derren step out of the restroom nook, wiping his hands against his pants.

  “You need to speak at more of our fundraisers,” Stephanie continues.

  “Oh, really? I'm just glad it was coherent. Just one minute. Derren,” I say, stopping him before he enters the auditorium. “You didn't happen to see Jarek in the restroom, did you?”

  He shakes his head. “Nope.”

  Maybe he's in a stall...or maybe he's really gone again. As Stephanie and Derren return to the auditorium, I look for the nearest exit.

  Two dual doors open out to the side of the lobby. I scramble for it and walk casually down the steps, onto a patio. Between Garreth's and Jarek's wandering, I need fresh air.

  Maybe he's out here—but a few moments of searching are enough for me to see that that isn't an option. I sneak through a cluster of ferns, into a garden lit by a light hanging from the building, illuminating a fountain with water flowing in arcs into the pool around it.

  He's really gone.

  I collapse onto a marble bench before the fountain.

  This is what I get for letting him back into my life. This is what I get for believing he could be different. Why was I so stupid?

  My thoughts spiral back to that day, as I'm looking for his truck. As I'm waiting in my room, believing at any minute, he'll return to me. For two days, I thought he would return. Surely Mom couldn't have been right. He couldn't have left me. She had misunderstood the reason he needed to leave. Something must have happened to him. I thought, “He loves me. He must feel for me the way I feel for him.”

  But I was wrong. So wrong, and I'm clearly wrong again. I wrap my hands around my freezing arms and bow over, crying into my lap. I hope no one comes out here and discovers me in this weakened state. I hope the freezing chill in the air protects me in this moment that I need to unleash all the hurt that's lingered over all these years.

  I feel warmth on my shoulder. “Lana?”

  I jerk away and leap up from the bench. He looks at me with wide eyes.

  A part of me is relieved, but another part is trapped in this awful mood his absence has stirred within me.

  “What's wrong?” he asks. “I saw you walking out here and—”

  “Where were you?” I ask, my tone hostile.

  “I had to take a call from work. What's wrong? Tell me.”

  I wipe the tears from my eyes. What am I supposed to say? That I'm out here because I thought he left me just like back then? I thought I could do it. I thought I could shake all that and leave it behind me, but clearly I can't. “I can't do this,” I say. I start past him. He snatches my arm and whirls me around, pulling me close to him.

  “Lana, talk to me.”

  As good as I've been about keeping all this hate within me, I can't hold back anymore. “I can't do this with you.” The look in his eyes assures me he knows what I'm referring to.

  “Why?”

  “Because I can't live my life, every time you run to the bathroom or take a call, thinking that you've left me again.”

  His expression shifts from confusion to guilt.

  “Did you really think I'd left all that behind me?” I ask. He shakes his head. “Ever since you came back, it's all I've been able to think about. It's consumed me. When I first saw you again, I kept telling myself I just wanted revenge—to make you pay for what you did. I let you in because I wanted to hurt you as much as you hurt me back then, but I don't think that's possible, because obviously leaving me wasn't all that difficult. I can't spend my life always afraid that one day I'm going to wake up and you'll be gone. I don't deserve to live in fear that I'm going to be alone.”

  “I would never leave you.”

  “But you did!” I scream, now overtaken with rage rather than fear. “You left me when I needed you most. My father died, and I thought I had one thing in the world that could make it all better, and then he left me. You left me! How am I ever supposed to live knowing that? Tell me, Jarek, because when tonight began, I convinced myself I could do it—that I could find a way to make it work because I wanted to be with you so much. Now I know that's just a lie. That fear will never go away, because I'm still that little girl wondering why you up and left me all those years ago. Well?”

  “Well what?”

  “Why did you leave? Can't you just tell me that much? Tell me there was a good reason. Tell me there was something beyond my understanding that will make it all right.”

  His gaze shifts to the ground. There isn't a good answer, because there can't be. My face trembles and a rush of tears pours from my eyes. He starts toward me, as if to console me.

  “No!” I scream. “I don't need you to be here for me. Not now. There was a time where that was the only thing in the world I wanted, but it's passed, and I can't ever let you hurt me again.”

  “Please, Lana. Can we just put all that in the past?”

  At a moment like this, all I want to do is say yes. Can't I? Can't I just release all this hate? He's still such a beautiful person. He's still that boy I fell in love with. And that's the problem. Because as much as I care about him, as much as I desperately want him to be happy, I know that what he's asking can never be.

  He gazes at me with those loving eyes, and though they're disarming, I can't help but feel the rage well up within me. “I wish I could say yes. That day, when we went to the lake, you made me laugh. I hadn't laughed in such a long time before that moment...and I didn't know that I'd ever be able to. And we teased and played and I actually believed I could see a future. One where I could be happy. I didn't even think I could be happy without Daddy. But you made me believe I could. One day. I trusted you so much...I guess that's the problem with being a kid. You trust everyone and you believe the people close to you will never hurt you. You took me in your arms and gave me something so beautiful...so magical...and so enchanting. I never knew a person could feel that way. You gave me a high that I didn't ever want to come down from, and then I didn't just come down from it, I came crashing down.

  “When I woke up that morning and realized you were gone, I thought, surely he's just downstairs. My perfect Jarek, just waiting for me. I was sitting there imagining a future with you. Imagining the things we could do together. The life we could have. Oh, God, I don't even know how I can stand here telling you all this. I guess it's just because my feelings now...When I came down, and Mom told me that you'd gone and that you weren't coming back. My mom! Not even you. Do you know what that did to me? Do you have any idea how that destroyed me? You didn't say anything. Nothing! Is that what I deserved?”

  “No.”

  “Why? Please...just tell me why I meant so little to you that you didn't do me the honor of saying goodbye—of giving me a reason why you were leaving.”

  “I—”

  “How could you leave me then? You knew how much I needed you.”

  He hesitates, his gaze shifting before him. “Because I knew you couldn't be happy with me.”

  As if I'm not furious enough. “That's not a good enough answer! That's not a reason not to tell me why you were leaving. That's not a good enough reason to abandon me and my family—to abandon those who Daddy cared about. He cared about you like you were one of his own, and you ditched us. How can I ever forgive you for tha
t? Do you think my father could forgive you for that?”

  His expression sobers, as if he's considered my words and come to some realization, but it isn't sadness. It's certainty. “I know you can't understand this,” he says, “and you won't ever, but if you'll trust me in saying that I left because I was doing what was best for everyone, then—”

  “Trust you? I trusted you with everything. I gave myself to you in a way I can't ever give myself to another person. But you ruined it. You soiled my heart by tearing from me the last good thing I believed there was in the world, and you showed me that it never really was good. It was just like everything else...a wicked, tortuous disappointment. No, Jarek, I can't trust you. I can never trust you again—just like I can never bring myself to trust any man.”

  “Lana, please, don't—”

  “You need to go.”

  My words are cold, severe. I'm glad, because I've given him too much of my time, and I let him hurt me again. As much as I tried to guard my heart, as much as I tried to maintain control, I know I never really had it, and that when he leaves this time, it won't be any easier than the last.

  He nods, his lips trembling as if he's fighting back tears, and though I can appreciate his weakness, I can't help but feel that he deserves to feel the pain that I endured so many years ago. As sad as he might be that I've slighted his heart, I don't believe he can ever feel the depths of despair I felt after he left me.

  I worry I may never recover from this moment, that it will be too much, but I never truly recovered from the first time, so perhaps it doesn’t really matter.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The following day, I call Mom. Since I've ejected Jarek from my life, I need the support of someone close to me. She and Kelsey are heading to dinner later, and she invites me to join them. It's the perfect opportunity to repair the damage that's been done between my heated argument with Kelsey and the one with Mom. They are my family, after all. I can't just exile them like I did with Jarek. It'll take time for these wounds to heal, but I trust they will. And perhaps this new transparency will even make us stronger in the long run.

  The front door's unlocked, so I let myself in. I hear Mom and Kelsey chatting away in the kitchen.

  “I just can't believe it!” Mom exclaims as I head down the hall. I stop. It sounds like they're in the middle of a serious discussion—one I may not want to intrude on.

  “Who were you talking to?” Kelsey asks. I start to turn around when I hear—

  “That was your father's attorney on the phone!”

  I whirl back around. This is a subject I don't mind being nosy about, as Mom has clearly worked to keep me out of the loop about her exchanges with Geoffrey.

  “That money I've been fighting for him to give me—I can't have it.”

  “But you're contesting it, aren't you? I thought you filed a suit to strip Geoffrey of the executor title.” So that's the real story. More deceptions from my mother.

  “That's just it,” Mom says. “I can't contest it.”

  “What?”

  “It's not your father's money. It's Jarek's.”

  “Jarek Dean?” my sister asks, astonished.

  “He's the one responsible for the trust. It turns out he made an agreement with Geoffrey a few years ago, when he allegedly discovered this mystery trust, that he would put money into the trust on our behalf, but none of it was your father's money.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “I guess he feels responsible since Mike helped him so much, as he should. The amount of money he spent taking care of that delinquent...”

  “Mother!”

  “I'm grateful for what he's done, but you remember what he was like back then. He was a stray. He didn't have a future. At least, none that was obvious. Oh, he wanted to go off and fix up cars...a mechanic, I thought. Not an engineer. It's a miracle he's gotten as far as he has. If I'd known where he would be today, I wouldn't have kicked him out.”

  “You kicked him out?”

  “Of course I did. He was starting to get a little too close to Lana, and one morning, I just did what I needed to do.”

  Everything's come up so quickly I almost can't keep up with it. All I know is that I can't stand back any longer, because now that Mom's opened Pandora's box, it's time to bring on the monsters.

  I step into the kitchen. “Mom,” I say to get her attention.

  She turns sharply, clearly shocked. She shouldn't just be surprised. She should be terrified, because right now, all I see around her is red, and everything in me tells me to attack. I fight the primal impulse as I approach slowly, like a predator about to pounce.

  “Lana, I didn't know—” Mom begins.

  “What did you say to him?”

  She glances around, as if inspecting the kitchen for knives or sharp objects that I might try to use against her.

  “Lana,” Kelsey says, stepping between the counter and Mom, defending her.

  “This is between me and Mom!” I shout. My veins are surely popping forward in my neck and my face must be bright red because Kelsey steps back, allowing me to continue toward Mom, who backs up against the counter along the far wall. “What did you say to him?”

  Her expression turns serious. “I told him what any loving mother would have. When I came home, I saw your jacket and your jeans on the floor outside your room and I knew—I just knew what was going on in my house. I can't say I was surprised. I'd always felt something between the two of you. I just believed, I guess foolishly, that we'd gotten beyond that. And the next morning, when he came downstairs, I made sure to be the first person he saw, so I could advise him, to protect you.”

  “What did you say to him?” I repeat, unusually calmly, like the day I came to the house to discuss her lies about Daddy. I'm in the eye of the storm.

  “I warned him about how crippled he would leave you if he ever considered taking things beyond your fling. How he could so easily ruin your life by forcing you to live the nothing of a life that a man like him could provide. He didn't have a future back then. You're thinking about him now. This success. This ambition. We never saw that. He was perfectly content to live a mechanic’s life.”

  She starts to approach me, as if she somehow thinks that will make her point better than her words. “That wasn't the life I wanted for you. You were meant for bigger things...you deserved a man with real dreams—”

  “You mean real money? Like you want for Kelsey?”

  She balls her hands into fists. “Lana, don't act like that's such a terrible thing. You don't know what it's like to be poor. Not really poor. You don't know how hard the world can be. You've seen us scraping around for what's left of the estate, but if you only knew what it’s like to really go hungry—to really be deprived—then you'd thank me for what I did.”

  “And what about love?”

  Her gaze shifts again. It's the thing I know she doesn't want to talk about, but it's the piece I'm obsessed with. “How could you deprive me—your daughter—of that?”

  “Love is a fleeting, silly thing. You would have loved him for a summer or two, and then who knew who you'd be on to next.”

  “If you'd thought it was so fleeting, you wouldn't have felt the need to step in. Admit it! The only reason you got involved is because you were scared to death that we would end up together.”

  “All right, I'll admit it then. I could tell. I told you I sensed it from early on, but you deserved better. Look at you, Lana—you have never really understood how beautiful you are. Not to Kelsey's degree, but—”

  “What kind of mother compares her daughters’ beauty? Do you think I ever wanted to be like Kelsey? Do you think we've ever had anything in common? I don't even know her.” I look at Kelsey, because I'm not just trying to attack Mom now. “You think I wanted to be a selfish, money-hungry bitch who never thought of anyone but herself?”

  “Lana!” Kelsey exclaims.

  “You spent the entire time Jarek was here trying to woo him. For what? For love?�
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  “You don't understand!” Mom insists. “You've just never thought clearly about these things. Some of us have to live in the real world.”

  “I live in the real world, Mom. I was there when Daddy died, and I was there when the man I loved left me. And now I'm here realizing that all along my mother has been at the heart of one of the most painful experiences of my life! How could you do that to me?” I'm not angry. I'm hurt. “Didn't you see what that did to me? Didn't you see how crippled I was after that? Do you think it's helped me form healthy relationships? And what about Jarek? How was it fair to him to say that? And so he went off, and he did all that. For what? For our family—because you made him feel like he was nothing?”

  “If you were thinking about this clearly, you would realize you should be thanking me. If I hadn't had that conversation with him, he'd never be the success he is now. You'd never have the money from—”

  “I didn't want him to be anything other than what he was!” I scream out, my voice echoing through the cabinets. “I just wanted him! But look at how much time we've lost because of you. If there was one thing Daddy ever cherished, it was the time we had together, and of course God would leave it for a great man like him to reach an untimely end, but how did you think this would end for me? Would you have preferred I lived a long, miserable existence instead of one where I had something that I cherished? Would you have preferred I know a comfortable life instead of a passionate one?”

  “You and your way with words, Lana. You always had a way of making me sound like a villain. I did it because I love you.”

  “You have a twisted notion of love. Is that what Kelsey would have had for Jarek? Love?” I laugh a nervous laugh, the sort of laugh I assume only people who've lost their minds make. How can I not laugh at the absurdity of all this, though? “If you had only known that all along the man you were trying to force your daughter on was the very person feeding our twisted, greedy family, you wouldn't have had to go to such great lengths to whore her out.”

  I feel a sharp sting on my cheek. My head jerks to the side. As I regain my composure, I see Mom's hand in the air beside my face. My cheek smarts. She certainly didn't hold back.