Perfect Imperfection
Beautiful Mess #3
By
Jennifer Preston
Copyright 2013 Jennifer Preston
Kindle Edition
All Rights Reserved
This publication is protected under the US Copyright Act of 1976 and all other applicable international, federal, state, and local laws, and all rights are reserved, including resale rights: you are not allowed to give, copy, scan, distribute or sell this book to anyone else.
Cover art by Mayhem Cover Creations
Editing by Jenny Scofield
For my mom, J’ann-
Who taught me power and importance of forgiveness.
Not just for others, but for ourselves, as well.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Epilogue
Books by Jennifer Preston
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Connect with Jennifer
Anger makes you smaller,
while forgiveness forces you to grow beyond what you were.
-Cherie Carter-Scott
Chapter 1
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is the captain speaking. If you’d all return to your seats and fasten your seatbelts, we’re beginning our descent into Los Angeles. We should be arriving in about twenty-five minutes, so please sit back and enjoy the rest of your flight.”
Outside her small airplane window the California coast was rising up beneath her, and Ambria Donnelly’s heart began pounding.
This was it. The day she’d been dreading was finally here, and there was no escaping it. Layla’s wedding was six days away, and that meant in less than a week, Bri would have to face him. A wave of fear and trepidation shot through her.
It had been over a year since she’d last seen him. A year since he’d ripped her heart out of her chest and crushed it in his bare hands. The initial pain had almost destroyed her, pulling her apart atom by atom until there was nothing left of her but a hollow shell.
She’d spent months climbing out of that bottomless pit of anger, pain, and agony as she’d tried to put herself back together as best she could. She’d buried her feelings as deeply as possible, and locked away all memories of him. She refused to even think about him, though he had an infuriating way of slipping into her thoughts despite her rigorous strides to banish him. She’d even gone so far as forbidding herself to even think his name. She’d tried to diminish him into nothing more than a vague shadow from her past.
She’d done everything she could to prepare herself to face him, working to master all of her conflicting and painful emotions so she’d be a wall of perfect indifference. She’d be damned if she let him see what he’d done to her, so she’d fought to get herself to a place where she could stand before him and not fall apart. She couldn’t let him get to her, not again. She didn’t love him anymore, didn’t care where he was or what he did. She was over him, completely, and he could fall off the face of the earth for all she cared. She had repeated this like a mantra for the past year, pounding it into her heart and brain until she believed it was true. She was as ready as she could be.
But as she got closer to L.A., her pulse began pounding in her ears and nerves writhed in her stomach, and she realized that her preparations might not have been enough. Not if her rapidly pounding heart was any indication.
It hadn’t been easy, getting herself to this point. The past year had been extremely hard for her, even without having to face him on a daily basis. He had left school early for the NBA draft, before the end of their sophomore year. He had been drafted to the Utah Jazz, going seventh overall behind his Duke teammate and bromance partner, Jordan, who’d gone third. Living in Salt Lake, he was close to Layla and Devon, who were both at the University of Utah, and who’d promised to keep an eye on him. Not that Bri cared. She had no more interest in what he did with his life.
The one bright spot in the whole ugly mess was that when he’d left Duke for the NBA, he had also left his skank of a girlfriend, Jillian, behind. Jillian had been so sure she’d be a part of his fame and fortune, but he’d left her with barely a goodbye. Vindication was sweet, and Bri watched Jillian crumble as she was left high and dry like an afterthought. Actually, she was less than an afterthought. He didn’t even stop to spare her a final glance before walking away. Jillian had been humiliated, crushed, and furious, and Bri had enjoyed every minute of it. It may have made her a horrible person, reveling in another person’s pain and anguish, but Bri was beyond caring. As far as she was concerned, Jillian deserved everything she got and more.
Despite her tragic humiliation, or more likely because of it, Jillian’s pettiness and nastiness reached new levels. Unable to fathom another year with Jillian’s taunting and gloating, Bri had wanted to quit the dance team. Her friends, Stacie and Stephanie, had stopped her, reasoning that if Bri quit the team, Jillian won. It was what Jillian had always wanted after all, and she did everything in her power to push Bri out. Unwilling to let that treacherous bitch get the better of her, Bri had stayed.
Then, in October, Jillian had unexpectedly and shockingly announced that she was quitting the team. She hadn’t given an explanation when she left, but it was quickly revealed that she was pregnant. Jillian had tried to tell everyone that the baby was his, but the timeline didn’t come close to matching up, and nobody believed her. The rumor going around campus was that the father was one of three different guys, and it seemed even Jillian herself was uncertain which it was.
Completely humiliated and disgraced, Jillian had quit school right before the baby was born. Her parents, making her face the consequences of her actions, hadn’t let her give the baby up, and she was forced into her new reality as a young, unemployed, single mother. Despite the initial excitement about the scandal, Jillian quickly faded from the campus buzz, and nobody gave her another thought. Karma was a bitch sometimes. Even now, months later, the thought still brought a smile to Bri’s face.
The green and brown landscape of southern California began to take shape outside her window, and excitement rose up within her. She couldn’t wait to see her family and her friends. She missed them all so terribly. She just wished this homecoming wasn’t tainted with his presence.
Because as it always did, everything kept coming back to him. He had destroyed her, left her a hollow broken mess, and still she couldn’t seem to rid herself of him completely. She knew this meant that there was something deeply and disturbingly wrong with her, but she had no idea how to fix it.
Bri’s plane touched down, and excitement and fear battled it out in her stomach. She had a fleeting thought that maybe he would be there waiting for her, apologizing and begging for her forgiveness. She quickly shut down that ludicrous idea. There was no way he would show up to meet her. She hated that traitorous part of her heart that still clung to him, and hated even more the fact that she had been unable to snuff it out. She loathed her own weakness for not being able to banish him completely.
Getting off the plane, she held her breath as she walked to the baggage claim.
“Bri!”
The chorus
of screaming boys was just what she’d hoped for, and she smiled as Liam and Logan tackled her with hugs. Her twin brothers were getting too big. They had just turned seven a couple of weeks ago, and they were tall enough now that she could hug them without having to bend over. Bri felt bad she’d missed their birthday, again, but she’d brought lots of presents with her to help make up for it. She had no problem buying their affection, and she spoiled them rotten.
“Pumpkin,” her dad smiled, pulling her in for a tight hug as soon as the boys relinquished her. “It’s so good to see you.”
“You too, Dad.” Bri felt tears welling in her eyes as her happiness grew. No matter what was going on in her life, no matter how bad or miserable things were, she would always belong here with her family.
“Hi, Summer,” she turned to her stepmom, and the two embraced quickly. Their relationship was still a work in progress, and physical displays of affection were still a bit awkward, but they were trying. They were both working on letting go of the past and moving on. Summer had made more of an effort to include Bri in family affairs, and Bri had been slowly letting her stepmom into her life. They’d talked and interacted more in the three years Bri had been away at college than they ever had before.
Her dad grabbed her suitcase from the carousel, and they all headed out to the car.
“It never gets old, you all coming to meet me at the airport,” Bri grinned, wrapping an arm around each of her brothers.
“Yeah. Dad almost didn’t let us come this time,” Logan protested.
“But we weren’t going to let him leave us behind,” Liam grinned triumphantly.
“Good,” she grinned back. “It wouldn’t be the same without you two.” She squeezed them closer, dropping a quick kiss on each of their blond heads.
“So, we’re really excited we get to keep you for the whole summer this time, instead of the three weeks we usually get,” her dad said as they pulled onto the freeway, glancing at her in the rearview mirror. “But, are you sure quitting the dance team was the best decision? Dance has been such a huge part of your life. Won’t you miss it?”
“I’ll definitely miss parts of it,” Bri conceded. “But to be honest, I’m a little burned out. I want to take this year to focus on my thesis, and graduating, and applying for grad school. Plus, I’m still minoring in dance, so it’s not like I won’t be dancing at all anymore. I just won’t be cheering and performing at the games. And really, I’m okay with that. Plus, Stacie and Stephanie both graduated and won’t be there anymore, so there’s really no reason to stay on the team.”
There was another reason she’d quit the dance team, but this reason would remain forever unspoken. Being on the dance team reminded her too much of him. Cheering and dancing at the basketball games just reinforced the giant hole in her heart, and emphasized the fact that someone was missing. She had barely been able to keep it together last year, and she was tired of being haunted by his ghost. She needed less reminders of him, not more, and she had no intention of putting herself through that torment again.
“As long as you’re sure,” her dad eyed her through the rear view mirror. “I just don’t want you to regret anything.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t,” she assured him. Then, to get the conversation off of her and her questionable life choices, she turned to her brothers and asked them about school. The twins spent the rest of the ride home telling her all about their friends, their sports, and the puppy they wanted but hadn’t gotten for their birthday.
Later that evening, Bri was unpacking her suitcase, soaking up the warm, comforting nostalgia of being in her old room, when her phone rang. Glancing down, she couldn’t help but smile when she saw who was calling.
“Are you here?” Layla’s excited voice chirped over the line.
“Yes, I’m here,” Bri smiled, and she had to pull the phone away from her ear as Layla screamed.
“Finally! I can’t wait to see you, which should be tomorrow because you have your dress fitting tomorrow morning at eleven. I can’t wait for you to see your dress; you’re going to love it. I know, we should meet for breakfast and then go to the fitting together. We could meet at the diner down the street at ten tomorrow, and that’ll give us about an hour to catch up before we have to be to the dress shop. And then...”
“Wow, Lay,” Bri interrupted, laughing. “Have you been quadrupling your caffeine intake lately? It’s ten o’clock at night. You should not have this much energy.”
“Sorry,” Layla chuckled. “I’ve just got so much to do before Friday, and I’m going crazy trying to keep up with everything. It’s finally here, you know? And I’ve been running around like a chicken with my head cut off, trying to get all of these last minute details covered. Sorry if I’m a little intense. I’m just so worried that I won’t be able to get everything done in time, and the wedding will be ruined.”
Some people might think that Layla was just being overly dramatic, but Bri could hear the genuine fear in her friend’s voice. Layla’s wedding was a huge production, Bri would admit, but Layla just wanted everything to be perfect for her and Devon. And of course, this being the most important day of her life, the day she’d been dreaming of her whole life, Layla wasn’t about to leave even the smallest details to anyone else. She had taken everything onto her own shoulders, and she was scared she’d let everybody down.
“Layla, you’re wedding will be spectacular,” Bri tried to reassure her friend. “You need to relax, though. You’re stressing yourself out, and that isn’t going to help anything.”
“But Bri, I have so much left to do, and not nearly enough time to do it in. How can I not be stressed? What am I supposed to do?”
The plaintive tone of Layla’s voice twisted Bri’s heart. She loved Layla like a sister, and there wasn’t anything she wouldn’t do for her. Including offering herself up as a sacrificial lamb.
“Tell you what. Let’s meet for breakfast tomorrow, go to the fitting, and then I’ll help you run the rest of your errands. All of them,” Bri cringed. “You can use me as your personal runner, assistant, errand girl, or whatever you need, all week. If we tag team it, I’m sure between the two of us we can get everything done before Friday.”
Layla sniffled over the phone. “You’d do that for me? You’d really help me with all of this?”
“Of course,” Bri smiled. “You’re my girl. I’m not going to leave you on your own. I told you before, I’m here for you, whatever you need, and I mean it.”
“Thank you, Bri,” Layla sobbed. “You don’t know how much this means to me. I seriously don’t know what I’d do without you.”
The stress was definitely getting to Layla. She wasn’t usually the overly emotional type, and she rarely ever broke down like this. Bri’s heart twisted at how such a small thing like offering her time could mean that much to her friend.
“It’s the least I can do.” Bri blinked back her own tears. The two of them blubbering all over the phone wasn’t going to help anything. “So, it’s settled. I’ll see you tomorrow for breakfast, and then we’ll tackle the rest together.”
“Sounds good,” Layla agreed, sniffling. “See you tomorrow. Love you, Bri.”
“Love you too, Lay.”
Bri hung up, suddenly so grateful that she’d found Layla. She shuddered to think what her life would be like without her best friend. And if giving up her free time for a week would help one of the kindest, most caring people she knew, it was worth the sacrifice.
Plus, helping Layla came with an added benefit. If Layla kept Bri busy enough, Bri wouldn’t have time to dwell on the upcoming confrontation that was looming ever nearer.
Chapter 2
Bri pulled herself out of bed the next morning, even though all she really wanted to do was roll over and go back to sleep. But not even the lure of sleeping in could override her excitement to see her best friend. Plus, Layla was counting on her, and Bri refused to let her down.
She pushed open the door to the diner, and immedia
tely spotted Layla sitting at a table by the window. The warm morning sun glinted off Layla’s dark brown hair as she looked up and saw Bri. Layla’s eyes lit up and a huge smile split her face as Bri rushed over and embraced her.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” Layla squeezed.
“Me, too,” Bri replied, her eyes filling with tears. It really sucked living so far away from her friend. But when they did get to see each other, it was like no time had passed at all. They picked up right where they’d left off and took off running.
Finally pulling herself away from Layla, Bri sat down in the red cushioned booth across from her.
“Man,” she looked around the old diner. “This place hasn’t changed a bit.”
“I know,” Layla nodded. “It’s nice to see that some things stay the same.” She leaned back and gave Bri an appraising look. “You’re still sad,” Layla frowned. “I was hoping you might be over that by now.”
The last time Bri had seen Layla, she had fussed and worried over Bri’s lack of energy and enthusiasm. She’d threatened to take Bri to her doctor for some anti-depressants if Bri didn’t pull herself out of her funk. And while Bri ruefully admitted that she was probably depressed, she knew that just popping some pills wasn’t going to cure her. She’d worked on being happier and more energetic, but obviously she wasn’t one hundred percent yet.
“I wish you were happier. I’m worried about you.”
“I know,” she gave Layla a small smile. “I’m working on it, I promise.” As this was so not a conversation she wanted to have, Bri picked up her menu and tried to change the subject. “Mm, everything looks good this this morning. What are you going to have?”
“I still can’t believe you didn’t call and tell me,” Layla shook her head, ignoring the bait. Apparently Layla wasn’t ready to drop the subject of Bri’s less than stellar emotional health, or the cause of it. “I didn’t find out until months later that you two had broken up.”
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