Lies In Rewind

by Tali Alexander

  “Sara, you need to tell me more. I need to know what happened once you graduated. I understand that you and he were always together, but tell me what transpired once you figured out that his wife wouldn’t be dying?” Em closes her eyes as she says it and quickly corrects herself. “I meant to say, what would happen to your plans if she got better and lived?”

  “It sounds awful, I know, and I’ve hated myself for years every time he’d tell me that she was doing better and that the doctors gave her a good prognosis. I would pretend that it was great news but I was fading; her living meant us dying. I’m not a monster, I didn’t want the poor girl to die; she went through so much! But her getting better directly translated into Jeff and I never being together like we’ve always imagined.

  “Remember that apartment I told you he had in the village? He ended up buying three more apartments in that building and combining them and that was ‘our’ place. I would go there every night and wait for him until he’d come see me. For years, her health was always in limbo. She would get better and then something would set her back. It wasn’t like her doctors said she’d live to be a hundred. If either one of us believed she would recover and go on to have a normal life, we wouldn’t have continued our affair. We didn’t think it was an affair until it was. We became liars and cheaters.

  “She also really wanted to give him kids. Jeff used to ask me if he and Jacqueline had children, and if and when she passed away, would I love those kids as if they were my own. I would always answer ‘no.’ I mean, obviously I would still love them, but I wanted us to have our own kids. They tried for years and couldn’t have kids; even though she didn’t have a hysterectomy, she still wasn’t fertile. They were going to use a surrogate and Jeff’s sperm so at least he would be the biological father. It was my idea to be the egg donor. Why should they use someone else’s eggs when I had perfectly healthy unused eggs waiting for him anyway? My logic was once Jacqueline was gone, those kids would be ours in every sense of the word.

  “We had twins, Em! Can you imagine…I’m biologically someone’s mother? Well, not emotionally or socially, but physically they’re made from my DNA. Two fools who loved each other too much to stop and think about the consequences made those two beautiful kids. Jeff promised me I could name them Juliet and Jacob. I call them ‘JJ.’ It gives me a chance to say their names all the time and nobody knows that I’m talking about my family—Jeff, Julie, and Jacob! Only you, me, and Jeff know about this.”

  I look up at Emily, wondering how psychotic she now thinks my life is.

  “Wow!” she exclaims.

  “Yeah, wow is right. Welcome to the fucked-up world I created for myself. Would you like to see pictures?” I ask her, excited for the first time in my life about having someone other than myself to share my kids with. I’ve never shown their pictures to anyone. My parents don’t know they’re grandparents; my brother doesn’t know he’s an uncle. But finally, my best friend knows.

  “Yes, of course! What kind of question is that?” Emily answers and I leap off the bed to find my phone. I get back and start showing my best friend what my babies look like. Juliet looks just like Jeff, with blue eyes and dark almost black hair. Jacob is all me. His hair is dirty blond and he has a lighter version of my eye color but his features and his lips and chin are all me. They don’t look like twins at all. Jacob looks much older than Juliet. Emily cries as she goes through my pictures. I probably have thousands of photos of my beautiful little babies.

  “Sara, there are so many pictures here,” she says in shock, as though she thought I would show her just one lonely picture. I have five years’ worth of priceless memories captured in pictures and video—my reasons to live.

  “He sends me a few every day and I see them every morning when they go to work and school. I love them; they’re perfect. They’re my life and they’re amazing! I’ve never held them or met them in person, but every minute I wish to one day be able to hug them. What would it feel like to touch them?” I cry as I always do when I think about JJ, and how I’ll never be a part of their lives while she’s alive. “I’m only crying because I feel sorry for myself, but I know they have a great life; I see it every day.”

  Emily wails, probably imagining what it would be like watching her children grow and be raised by someone else. “Why hasn’t Jeff let you meet them?” she questions between sobs.

  “We both decided it would be too painful.” Which is the ugly truth. “I think if I ever had the chance to hold them, I would never be able to let them go.”

  “Why did you marry Gavin?” she finally asks me, changing the subject so we can catch our breath. Em hated Gavin, so I knew she would need to address that disastrous portion of my life.

  “He needed to be married to get his parents off his back and release some of his frozen funds. They thought he was spending all his loot on whores and parties, and he was! He’s a good guy to know but not to marry. Believe me, no normal woman would agree to marry him. We had an agreement to stay married for five years, but once we got hitched, his parents released his trust funds and his lifestyle choices made me look like a total idiot. I couldn’t even pretend we were married. He said that I was ruining his vibe because I scared his girlfriends off. Relax, don’t give me that look, I’ve never even slept with him. All we did was kiss in front of people and even that was faked most of the time. We were just helping each other out. I helped get his uptight parents off his back and he helped me momentarily make Jeff believe that it was over between us. I wanted Jeff to see that I’d moved on and that I wasn’t that stupid twat who’d wait for him forever.

  “I know what you think,” I say, looking at Emily. “You think that Jeff is horrible. You think he tricked me into being the other woman. Well, he didn’t! I really believe our reality is a product of stupid choices made with the best intentions. Em, I promise you I always felt loved and adored by him…it’s only when he went back home to his family that I felt alone and unwanted. He thought he was doing the right thing by accepting a job and standing by a sick girl. He didn’t fathom that his chivalrous choice would jeopardize our future. The problem was, as he was trying to do the right thing and be a good guy, I believe he fell in love with her, too. She’s a good girl and God knows she’s been through hell. I know when we’re together, he feels guilty for loving her enough not to leave her and cause her more pain.”

  “But what about you?” Emily says in a small voice. “Doesn’t he love you enough to stop hurting you? He has his family—with your help—and now he needs to love you enough to let you start your own family. He needs to love you enough to let you go! I want you to know what it’s like to hold your own children in your arms. I don’t want you living your life by watching a home from the outside. You are kind, beautiful and smart and any child would be lucky to have you as their mother. You need to start again. A blank page with no secrets, no lies, no Jeffery, just Sara!”

  “We Belong” by Pat Benatar

  Unburdening my conscience and telling Emily everything feels fucking exhilarating! The last twenty-four hours have turned my whole life upside down and yet it’s the most right my life has ever been. I thought she would hate me, I was sure she would spit in my face and cuss me out and tell me that she’s embarrassed to even know me. But Emily is right here, holding my hand and supporting me, loving me, after I’ve done nothing but lie to her. The images of my kids dance around in my head and it doesn’t hurt so much now, knowing I can talk about them and share them with Em without her judging me. I should probably go and offer a sacrifice somewhere to thank whoever or whatever decided that I deserve to have her in my life. Having her near is everything.

  Liam’s eyes and beautiful smile keep coming into view and I physically miss his presence, as ridiculous as that may sound. I wish he were still here. I am beyond thankful I got the chance to disclose the truth to Emily first, but I wish he’d given me the opportunity to tell him everything as well. He’s the only man besides Jeffery I’ve ever had this unexpl
ainable bond with. But he left me, ran away like I knew he would. I don’t even blame him. I wouldn’t wish me and my problems on anybody, let alone a nice guy like him. He has enough of his own issues to work through, he doesn’t need to try and understand mine.

  Emily is still looking through my phone at all the pictures I’ve collected over the years of Juliet and Jacob. She finally tears her eyes away from the screen and pins me down with her baby blues, saying, “William Knight… Start talking.”

  I’m scared because I can’t tell if she’s mad or curious or both. “I’ll tell you whatever you want to know! But, promise to not go ape shit or try to murder me until I finish telling you everything.”

  She begrudgingly nods. The poor girl knew she signed up for crazy the day she agreed to be my best friend. That’s it, I promise from now on to always tell her everything, good or bad, she can handle it.

  “The truth is, I can’t stop thinking about that damn British fool, Em. It all started by me trying to do the right thing, as usual, and get rid of him for you. At first, it was all about you and him and his feelings for you, and I don’t know how and when, but something just shifted and started happening between us. You must believe that my only agenda was to get him out of your lives. I didn’t want him to try and come between you and Louis, not that he could. You see, I had a whole plan worked out to get him to talk to me about what happened that night with you. And once he revealed what you and I wanted to know, I was hoping to convince him to go back to wherever he came from.

  “The good news is I got him to talk, but the bad news is, you’re not going to like what he told me. You should know that something did happen in St. Lucia, whether you remember it or not. The two of you didn’t just fall asleep in the same bed, you were intimate that night you got trashed. I’m almost a hundred percent sure you didn’t fuck each other, but he did touch you and I’m pretty sure some kind of orgasm inducing activity was involved.”

  I wait for Emily to freak out, but she’s calm and poised and strangely, doesn’t react at all so I keep going.

  “I can also promise you that he has no intention of ever publishing his sister’s book. He just wanted to be your hero, and it was kinda sorta sweet the way he wanted to protect you from Louis. He’s a bit confused about who the real villain is, but in his defense, he only has his sister’s accounts and narrations and her horrible death to go by. He wanted to believe that Louis was this horrible guy that cheated and sexually abused her and you. He wanted someone other than himself to hate for failing to save Isabella. I tried to explain to him how great my friend-in-law actually is without hurting him too much. I did my best to enlighten him as to how much Louis loves you and the kids, and the kind of love you guys share. I think he was starting to understand.”

  I hope she knows I had really done it for her. My intentions were honorable; I wanted to help them.

  “Then Louis came and brought that video you told me about. We were going to watch it together, and everything would make sense and be okay. I was hoping that footage would make him understand that Louis isn’t a monster and that Isabella died because she was mentally unwell, and no one is to blame. However, before we got a chance to watch it and allay his worries, things started escalating fast between us. He was making me feel things that I had no right feeling and I think he felt them, too.”

  I tell Emily how Liam and I came close to having sex and how Jeffery appeared and the shit show that ensued. I know I left out just how intimate Liam and I really got but she doesn’t need a detailed account of that. I’m sure I gave her enough information to make her poor head spin. We’re both quiet and I think I’m just waiting for her to finally run away, too. I’ve said it all. Emily needs to say something and give me a freaking clue as to how she feels about me being with Liam.

  “Okay, now you need to promise to not be mad at me,” she says, and I nod. “I heard almost everything. Well, Louis heard everything first. This whole place is under video and audio surveillance on all three floors. He wasn’t trying to snoop or spy or intrude in any creepy way, but Louis was worried and when he told me about you being here alone with Will, and Jeffery coming back to see you, I was too! Don’t worry, he didn’t watch any footage, but he heard everything. He told me about all the conversations you and Will—or Liam—had since this morning.

  “After Louis came to give you the video, Miguel, the manager, informed him that Jeffery was coming up to see you. He knew you were with Will, so he decided to tell me what was going on and intervene to make sure nobody got hurt. I was going to let you know we were here but then Louis talked me into letting you guys work things out for yourselves first, knowing we’d be outside in case you needed our help. I’m sorry,” she says and as mad as I probably should be, knowing that she and her husband have been eavesdropping on Liam and me, I’m not! Those two love me enough to worry about my wellbeing. Louis and Emily Bruel stopped their lives to make sure I was okay. If that’s not love, I don’t know what is.

  I hug her and say, “‘Endless Love’ by Diana Ross and Lionel Richie.”

  “Ditto and ‘Always On My Mind’ by Willie Nelson.”

  “Emily Marcus Bruel, you are and will always be my first love. ‘We Belong’ by Pat Benatar.”

  “Sara” by Jefferson Starship

  “Mr. Knight, this is the second ticket this lovely police officer has written us. Shall I move the car or continue to stand here and smile?” the driver questions me for the second time.

  “Don’t you dare move this car! I’m not going anywhere until I see her leave that bloody building,” I bark, not sure why I’m taking my anger out on my poor driver. He’s had to put up with my cross mood for weeks, ever since I came back to this dreadful city. New York hates me and has always triggered nothing but pain for my family. He nods and accepts another citation from the livid old bill who very colorfully threatened to have our Benz towed. I don’t care! I only care about seeing who leaves this wretched hotel. The way our car is positioned, I have both hotel exits in perfect view and I won’t miss a thing.

  I’ve gone through at least twenty different emotions over the past two hours I’ve been sitting here physically trying to contain myself from running back up to fetch her. When I first heard Jeff, or the love of her life as she refers to him as, mention that they have children together, I was certain it was a hallucination. I mean, bloody come on, if they had children, she’d have told me, wouldn’t she? Does she think me that thick? Once his words penetrated the proper side of my brain, I began to operate on autopilot. All I wanted to do was run away and never look back, pretend the last twenty-four hours were all a bad dream.

  Then, to make sure I lose the plot, after weeks of waiting, I finally see Emily. But since fate is a blind whore with mental disease, she had to make sure I saw her with Louis, crying. I didn’t feel the way I’d imagined I’d feel seeing them together. All I could think when I saw Emily upset and in tears was, Please take care of Sara… Please don’t be hard on Sara… Please don’t hurt my Sara more than I just did. Which only confirms that I must be delusional to be infatuated with yet another unattainable woman: Sara, a girl I clearly know close to nothing about, who’s told me about a whoreson she loves, a dickhead that abandons her in the middle of the night, with whom she happens to also have children. It’s safe to say I’m well past livid. I’m not even sure my body has gotten enough oxygen since I haven’t been able to breathe properly; I’m just numb. Words mean nothing, they’re just an arrangement of letters, and yet I’m certain they just did more damage than any bullet ever could.

  I’m still here at the corner of 5th Avenue and 61st Street waiting for her like a lifeless loon. She pulls every string in my heart and by walking away, I just stretched those strings even tighter. The poor girl had begged me to stay. I can hear her tormented voice echoing in my head as she yelled after me. She was crying. I’m no different than him; I also made her cry. But she must understand I couldn’t just bloody stand there and hash things out in front of that
bastard. I couldn’t have her announce that she chooses him right to my face; I wouldn’t survive it. Not her, I couldn’t let her do that to me. How can I expect her to choose me if they have children together and they have a history? What if he was her husband? Fuck!

  Now that I’ve had a few hours to be away from Sara and simmer, I’m rather upset with myself. I acted cowardly—not like a Knight, not even like a man. Jeffery Rossi may be a monumental arsehole, but he continued to fight for her, he was ready to do or say anything to intimidate me and break the bond he felt we shared, and he did. If he was our first test, then I failed miserably; crash and burn fail. She begged me to stay, why didn’t I listen? Why did I leave her? She deserves a man who will fight for her. I reckon she needs a real man and not a wally like me. I only wanted to make those beautiful, sad eyes happy, and yet I made everything infinitely worse. I fucking ran the first chance I got.

  I’m buggered and famished and logic tells me to leave. I had my chance with her and I handed her back to him. I don’t deserve Sara, and she certainly deserves much more than me. Why am I still sitting here, holding on to hope? Hope is gone. Is this my family’s curse—to love and never be loved back? I only need to see my broken ballerina one last time to say goodbye. She won’t know I said goodbye and she will always think me a coward, but I’ll see her and know I did the right thing by handing her back to him.

  At first, I felt lied to and outplayed by her. She should’ve been the one to tell me that she shared children with him. I never asked her if she was a mother or someone’s wife, I just assumed she was mine for the taking. I just assumed it would be okay to love her. I don’t fancy being like everyone else she fibbed to her whole life. She lied! Even if this was a lie of omission, I still feel lied to and it hurts terribly. But I know that it’s me who made everything much worse for her, like I always do. I’m certain she felt what I felt because her words, or lack of words, may have been a fib but her eyes bared the truth. I should face it that I’m as much of a liar as she is, promising a safe haven and at first sign of difficulty, scurrying away. I did the square thing; she belongs with the father of her children, the one who stayed to fight for her. I’m no good for her. I just pray he looks after her the way a beautiful fragile ballerina ought to be handled…with loving care.