by Chloe Walsh
“Are you sure you’re ready for this?” I asked. “The commitment and dedication?”
“Well,” he chuckled. “I’ve been committed and dedicated to your family for long enough. I figure it’s time to focus on my own family.”
“Good for you, man,” I whispered.
“Yeah,” Derek sighed, patting me on the back. “I’m gonna hit the sack. You guys should, too.”
I waited for the basement door to close before I joined Lee in the lounge. “Hey princess,” I said gently, sinking down on the couch beside her and pulling her onto my lap. “You feeling okay?”
“I’m all right, Kyle,” Lee whispered as she snuggled against my chest. “I’m just a little overwhelmed.”
I don’t blame you . . .”I need to tell you something,” I confessed. “You need to know this, but I don’t want you to worry, okay?”
“What is it?” Lee asked in a gentle tone.
“Do you think you would be together if we had met in other circumstances?” I asked in a gruff tone, continuing before she had a chance to respond. “Do you think you could have loved me if I had nothing?”
“Are you . . . how can you . . .” She shook her head in confusion.
“I’m broke, Lee,” I confessed, my voice strained. “I didn’t just sign the hotels over to David, I signed over everything. Every fucking thing I own with the exception of Thirteenth Street.”
Clenching my eyes shut I exhaled a ragged breath. “It’s all gone, princess.”
“I love you,” she replied simply. “Not your wallet.”
“I know you do, baby,” he muttered. “But there’s Hope and you’re pregnant again, and I want you to have everything.” I shook my head in disgust. “We both know what it’s like to grow up with jack shit. I don’t want that for our children, and I sure as hell don’t want that for you.” My whole body shuddered. “I don’t have a plan, Lee,” I admitted gruffly.
“Well I do,” she whispered as she leaned forward and grabbed a letter from the coffee table before thrusting it into my hands.
Holy fucking shit balls.
“Well aren’t you are full of fucking surprises?” I chuckled as I stared down at the bank statement of Lee’s personal account showing she had one hundred thousand dollars in savings. “I’d totally forgotten about this.”
“I kept it,” she said proudly. “Every penny.” She covered my hand with hers. “Take it. I trust you.”
Twisting in my arms, she cupped my face in her small hands and whispered, “I would follow you to the ends of the earth.” Leaning in, she kissed me softly before pulling back. “Let’s make the next place we go an adventure.”
“We’re going to have to start from the ground up, baby,” I told her. “It’s not gonna be easy.”
“You’ve never been afraid of work, Kyle, and neither have I,” she countered steadily. “We can do this. We’re a team.”
“I love you, Lee,” I whispered.
“I love you, too, Kyle,” she replied softly. “We’ll survive,” she added. “We always do.”
Standing in front of the mirror, I forced my eyes to meet my reflection. I didn’t recognize the woman staring back at me, but in a way, I took peace from that knowledge.
Raising my hand to my cheek, I ran my finger down the rigid, angry looking scar that trailed from my cheekbone to my jaw.
My fingers shadowed over the small scabs that were littered over my forehead.
Removing the soft silken scarf from my hair, I let it slip through my fingers and inhaled deeply before studying my new image.
I wasn’t exactly bald, it was more like Karen’s pixie crop, but the patches where my hair had burnt completely away had left dark rusty colored scabs and scales.
My hands lowered, settling over my stomach and I smiled. The life that pumped from my heart to the heart in my womb gave me strength. It gave me courage. The courage to embrace the new path my life had taken. It gave me clarity.
He didn’t win.
Inhaling deeply, I relished the taste of air in my lungs. I savored the feeling my heart pump blood around my body. I took an abnormal amount of pleasure in the feel of the soft carpet beneath my feet, the movement of pulse against my fingers and the ability to wiggle my toes.
Swaying side to side, I sighed in bittersweet contentment as I basked in the heat against my back as the sun shone through our bedroom window, bringing with it a new day. Another day on this earth. In this lifetime I was here. I’d made it. My demons were defeated. My body had taken the brunt force of their attack, but my mind had survived and I would forever look on the bright side.
Biting down on my bottom lip, I allowed myself to feel without fear . . .
Two arms came around my middle, resting on my hands over my stomach, and the feeling of happiness inside of me elated into a state of euphoria. Leaning my back against his chest, I concentrated on the feel of his strong heartbeat, on his warm skin, on the sheer volume of love that enveloped us.
My hero.
My lifeline.
Just as he’d always been.
Opening my eyes, my eyes locked on his blue eyes. Our reflections were intertwined, just like our hearts—our lives. The dimple in his cheek. The smell of him . . .
“Gorgeous,” he whispered. I watched as his eyes roamed over my body. There was no horror or revulsion in his eyes, just a deep look of hunger.
A look of love.
“What time is Kyle supposed to be picking us up?” Karen asked as she battled my old duvet into submission before squeezing it into a black bin bag.
“About an hour ago,” I said with a smirk. “Which means Lee’s with him, and he’ll probably be another three.” I made a car squeaking noise, which caused Karen’s eyes to bulge.
“In broad daylight?” She raised a quizzical brow, her tone skeptical. “They wouldn’t dare.”
“Karen,” I chuckled. “Believe me when I tell you, broad daylight has never bothered those two.”
“Spoken like a man who’s had to endure a spectacle or two,” she teased.
“More like four or five,” I muttered, mentally blocking out the image of Kyle’s naked ass banging into Lee from my mind. “The perks of living with newlyweds . . .” I paused and scratched my head. “Scratch the newlywed’s statement. They’ve been like this since they met.”
“They really love each other, don’t they?” she asked with a dreamy expression on her face.
“Yeah, sweetheart, they really do,” I replied as I grabbed the side of my mattress and lifted it off my bed. “I honestly don’t think his heart can beat without hers . . . and the same goes for her.” I shook my head and shuddered. “It’s like a death sentence.”
“It’s rare,” Karen corrected me as she folded an old pair of jeans and stuffed them into the bag with my duvet. “What they’ve been through and survived? What they’ve done to protect each other . . . their love is extreme. Intense, emotive and incredibly humbling. They have the kind of love you read about in storybooks.”
“Or see in horror movies,” I countered, not agreeing with Karen’s theory one bit. Her mind was up in the clouds if she truly believed Kyle and Lee’s life was a fairytale.
“True,” she conceded with a small grin. “But they give me hope.”
I hauled the mattress off the bed and propped it against my bedroom wall. “Hope for what?”
“For you,” she replied simply and my whole body shivered in excitement. “For us.”
“Karen, I . . .” I choked on the words she wanted to hear. “I . . . I . . . they give me hope, too,” I added lamely, feeling like a dick because I couldn’t get the words out. “I . . .” I tried again, but the stupid damn word got stuck in my throat.
“I know how you feel about me, Derek,” she whispered softly. “You’ve shown me. The words will come with time.”
I exhaled harshly and forced myself to vocalize how I felt. She deserved the words. She was the words. S
he’d given me the best month of my life and I couldn’t fucking wait to move in with her and Jordan. “I loved you when you were a scrawny sixteen-year-old,” I choked out. “And I love you now.”
The weight I’d been carrying around for a month lifted from my shoulders and it felt like the final piece of my puzzle had fallen into place.
“Finally,” she shrieked as she jumped over the pile of crap separating us and threw herself into my arms. “I love you, too, Derek Porter,” she told me, stroking my cheek with her hand. Reaching up on her toes, she placed a soft kiss to my lips before pulling back and admitting, “I never stopped.”
Grinning sheepishly, I ran a hand through my hair. “I’m gonna give you a storybook love that beats the hell out of Lee’s . . .” I paused and gestured around at the mess. “Just as soon as you help me tidy my room.”
“Nice,” she chuckled as she patted my chest. “Let me grab some more bags.”
She stepped out of my arms and I watched in weightless contentment as she skipped out of my room, humming softly—but not so much to herself. When I recognized the tune as the wedding march I snorted and called out, “Is that a hint?”
“Is that a proposal?” I heard her shout back.
Shaking my head, I laughed to myself, my laugh dying off when my eyes landed on the plain white envelope lying on top of my bed. What the hell? I didn’t remember stashing any cash under there.
Tearing open the plain white envelope, I removed the paper inside before crumpling the envelope into a ball and tossing it on the floor. I sank down on the bed, my legs giving away, my heart thundering in my chest, when I realized whose handwriting was sprawled on the paper . . .
28th June 2013 <–(I’m dating this letter because god only knows when you’ll flip your mattress again! PS: please flip it after reading this. It stinks.)
Derek,
There are so many things I want to say to you. So many things I need to explain, but as you’ve guessed, I’m being a coward and writing everything down instead of telling you to your face, because if I had to face you, right at this moment, I’d probably cry and beg you to forgive me and that wouldn’t be fair on either of us. I want you to forgive me . . . of course I want your forgiveness, but not until you know the truth . . . not until I give you the answers you deserve.
You were right when you said I wasn’t myself back in January, babe, and you were right about something else, too. I didn’t fall in love with Mike. I am not in love with Mike and I didn’t choose him over you. I guess this makes no sense, and I’m probably ruining everything by telling you this now, but I can’t lie to myself anymore babe, and you deserve the truth.
I have so many secrets, Derek. They’re destroying me and you need to know . . . Oh god, I can’t believe I’m writing this down . . . I guess I better start at the beginning:
Do you remember when we first met? I answered the advert you and Kyle had put on the student notice board in C.U.
WANTED: Female roommate with smoking bod, to share house with two male freshmen. Preferably single, smoker, and NO DRAMA. Call Derek 555–38474
I remember phoning you just to see if you were as big a douchebag as your advert implied, and it turned out that you were. I fell in love with your sense of humor on the phone that day. And when I moved in I didn’t see Kyle, or any other guy. My heart stopped in my chest when I first saw you.
Your eyes!
Derek, you need to know that you have the most mesmerizing green eyes I have ever seen. I was eighteen years old and when you looked at me, your eyes alone burned a hole clean through my heart. And when you smiled at me in the hallway . . . Oh, Derek, when you smiled at me, I was yours. I never told you that because I didn’t think about it much at the time, but the truth is I’ve been yours since freshman year.
You became my best-friend, Derek. You were the first man I’d met who treated me like an actual person, not just a model. You wanted me, the real me on the inside, and you made sure I knew it. You challenged me daily. You treated me as your equal, made me feel like I was the only girl in the world, made my sides hurt from laughing at your jokes, made me gain four pounds with your cooking, and then you delivered the knockout punch to my heart when you lost that stupid bet the night of my birthday. Ha, you were always terrible at poker. I still can’t believe you went through with it . . . I loved the fact that when you asked me why I chose a penguin, you didn’t laugh at my response. You didn’t even protest. I was so impressed. I remember what you told me, when I explained my choice of animal. You told me . . . you said it was okay that I got to brand your ass—that you didn’t mind because you were going to brand my belly with your babies one day . . . And then you went outside, jumped over the garden wall, and stole a pebble from the neighbor’s yard.
I still have it.
It’s in my pocket as I write this. I guess that statement brings me to my confession . . .
I’ve learned a lot in these past few months. I’ve learned that time doesn’t heal. It just keeps the wound open. Truth heals. So here is my truth . . .
Do you remember when we ate those dodgy lamb kebabs on our way home from Louisiana? We were both barfing for two days straight . . . I freaking told you that place looked nasty, but you didn’t listen to me . . . sorry, I’m rambling . . . the food poisoning must have messed with my pill. I was pregnant in January, Derek, and as you can guess I’m not now.
I had a termination, Derek.
I terminated our child and I can’t take it back. I can’t fix what I did. I would if I could, but shit doesn’t work like that. Please don’t stop reading. I know you’re mad, but please, I’m begging you to finish this letter.
I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m so freaking sorry . . . I know there are no words to make this up to you. I understand that and I’m not looking for sympathy. My actions are irredeemable. You probably never want to see me again and that’s understandable. I understand if you hate me. But you need to know my reasons . . . no, my excuses. That’s the most honest word. I didn’t have reasons. I had excuses.
I found out the day before Christmas, my period was a couple of days late and I took a test the morning of the party. I was going to tell you, I wanted to, but then Lee got sick, Kyle went AWOL, and you were so mad at Kyle for being so, and I quote, fucking irresponsible . . . All I could think at the time was ‘Lee and Kyle are having a baby. At their age. With an unstable relationship.’ I remember you ranting on for hours about how stupid Kyle was to go bareback. You were so disgusted with him for messing his and Lee’s life up, I could hardly shout ‘surprise, I’m pregnant, too.’ Ugh . . . We were on the cusp of graduating. We had an amazing future ahead of us and lamb kebabs and a phone call wiped it all away . . .
The morning after new year’s day, the morning I freaked out on you (I know you remember the morning I’m talking about, because after I threw your phone at your head, I went back into your bedroom and cut the ass out of your best jeans before feeding your shelf of food to Bruno, and burning your philosophy assignment) was the morning I planned to tell you. When I finally worked up the courage to tell you, (I figured telling you while you were showering was best because if you freaked out the water could cool you off) your phone rang. Brace yourself . . .
You have a child, Derek. There’s a girl from your hometown in Idaho who claims you’re the father of her three-year-old son. She’s telling the truth. I know she is. I heard it in her voice. Her words were brutal, torture to hear, but she spoke nothing but the truth. She knows things about you, Der, which makes me wonder just how close the two of you were before you met me. I know she loves you, Derek. She told me as much when I cussed her out. She told me everything. About how you’ve known her your entire life. About how your parents are best-friends and you’re best-friends with her brother. About how she’d made a terrible mistake in keeping the truth from you and how she was prepared to fight for you. That letting you go was her biggest regret. That she was “sorry” if it hurt me, but you d
eserved to choose. Me, or her and your son. Your son . . . I knew I’d lost the moment she mentioned your son. You were lost to me. I lost the will to fight for our relationship. Every doubt, worry and insecurity I have ever felt about myself roared to the surface of my mind and all I could think at the time was: How can I compete with her? How can I keep him? In my mind, there was nothing I could do to top that.
If I had one do-over day in my life, then that day would be it. I shouldn’t have answered your phone. I wish to god I could forget what she said. I wasn’t going to tell you about her because I was so mad at you—I even deleted your call list so you wouldn’t see her number—for ruining our future. For giving her what you had promised was my right to give you. And with her for ruining my happy-ever-after. For stealing it—taking you away from me. Even though you don’t know it yet, that girl took a piece of you away from me that morning. I felt robbed. I feel robbed. She had me beat. She held the trump card and you know how self-centered I am. I could never share you—least of all with a woman who, in her own words, was as deeply in love with you as I was . . .
After I stormed out of the house, and when the anger and shock had faded, I started to worry about what you would think when I told you about the little boy, and that I was pregnant . . .
Would you think I’d done it on purpose, to keep you?
Would you think I was trying to trap you?
Would you hate me for being the second woman to tie you down with a child?
Your mom hates me, she thinks I’m a slut, would this affect your decision?
What if I got sick like Lee and lost our baby, would you run off to Idaho to be with her?
Would I become second best?
And if that happened, could I live with it?
I drove to the hospital and sat and watched Lee sleeping. My best friend who was lying in a hospital bed, fighting for her life, for the life of her child . . . I studied the black circles under her eyes, thought about the unknown future she had ahead of her, all the shit Kyle had put her through, and what being second best had done to her. I couldn’t confide in anyone. My mind obsessed about everything negative, everything bad that could happen, and I went home, made an appointment with the clinic, packed a bag, and left The Hill.