Vote Then Read: Volume III

by Aleatha Romig

  “Move it or lose it.”

  “Holly, please, can we talk?”

  “Now? Of all times, now you want to talk! It’s been six months!”

  “Six months, twelve hours, thirty-two minutes and … forty-six seconds. Please, Holls.”

  He did not just pull one of the most romantic movie, male lead, get-of-out-of-the-doghouse cards. While I’m thinking of what to do next, he slides inside and closes the door behind him.

  “Dammit, Declan! Why are you doing this to me? You ended us, that was your choice. I didn’t ask to be dumped and left behind like an unwanted toy.”

  “Holly, I didn’t leave you behind. I was trying to honor you and give you space for all the things you wanted.”

  “Honor? Please! You assumed I wanted those things! I never asked for any of it. The only thing I ever wanted was you, Dec.”

  He sighs and runs his fingers through his overly long hair. His frustration is evident, but it’s his own fault. If I give in now, he’ll just break my heart all over again.

  “I made the biggest mistake of my life letting you go, Holls, and I want to make it right.”

  My anger fizzles with the sadness he wears on his face. I’ve cared about this man almost half my life. Even if we can’t be together anymore, I don’t want to hurt him.

  “Maybe you do, but I’m not there yet, and I don’t know if I ever will be. It’s been six months and I still don’t know how to cook for one person. How hard can that be, right? Well, let me tell you … it’s really fucking difficult. Whenever I do laundry, I’m constantly checking to see if you need anything washed, and then I remember you’re not here anymore because you left me. Then, there’s chocolate chip cookies. If I want some, I have to buy them because the smell of them baking reminds me of you. Or how about when I’m running late after work and the first person I go to call is you, but then I remember you’re not here worrying about my safety anymore.”

  “I’ll always worry about your safety,” he interrupts, eyes brimming with tears. I don’t doubt his sincerity, but I can’t let him pull me back into his vortex.

  “Maybe, but you know what I mean. You’ve been my person for ten years, Dec. The one I called when something amazing happened, or the one whose shoulder I cried on when something bad shook me to my core. Except this last time, when the person who shook me to my core was you. Perhaps it’s what I deserve for allowing my best friend and my boyfriend to be the same person.”

  He looks at me quizzically. “Sage has been your best friend forever.”

  Sadness overwhelms me hearing those words fall from his lips. “Not like you were. Your friendship has always come first to me. Yes, she’s my best girl friend but you quickly became my overall best friend. How could you not know that?”

  The little voice in the back of my mind nags at me, calling me a liar. If he were my best friend, I would have told him my secret. Sage knows, Ken knows … hell, even Heather knows to some extent. Why couldn’t I find the courage to tell Declan?

  Because I was ashamed and I still am.

  “You’re my best friend, too. I miss you, Holls, so fucking much.” He moves closer to me, but I back away slowly.

  “You miss your friend Holly, not your girlfriend. Not the woman you were supposed to one day marry. You’re too busy now getting laid by anything with a twat to want to settle down.”

  “That’s a low blow.”

  I shrug. “If the shoe fits.”

  “You were my first …”

  “You’re still my only! But that doesn’t matter, does it?”

  “Of course it matters! If I had known how wrong I was when I heard what you said, I would’ve never left. We could have talked it out, but I didn’t know … I didn’t realize … I thought you were being truthful because you’d been drinking.”

  “It would have helped if you hadn’t missed half the conversation. I wasn’t the only drunk one that night, Dec.”

  “I know,” he concedes.

  Walking toward me until I’m backed up against the wall, he cups my cheek in his hand. A content sigh falls from my lips before I can stop it. I miss his touch. He lowers his mouth to mine, but before our lips have a chance to meet, I shove my hand between us. I can’t do this, not with him.

  Leaning his forehead against mine, he pleads, “Let me in, Holly. It will be better this time, I promise.”

  “I can’t. Maybe I could get past it if you hadn’t screwed everything with two legs the past six months. The assumptions I could forgive, the stupidity even, but the thought of you with someone else, your hands on her body … your head between her legs. I’m sorry, Dec, but I’ll never get over that.”

  He opens his mouth and closes it repeatedly. There’s an argument he wants to make, but he knows I’m going to shut it down. His eyes locked on mine, he nods with reluctance.

  “I’ll go, but I’m not giving up. I’ll never give up. I can’t take back what I’ve done, but you know my heart, Holly, and you know my apology is sincere.”

  A strong knock on my door signals what I’ve been dreading since he showed up.

  Dammit.

  He backs away slowly and looks me up and down with a heated gaze. “You’re going out.”

  That’s Declan for you. He’s laser-focused and so hellbent on getting his way, he doesn’t even notice half the shit right in front of his face. Some things never change.

  “Just a second,” I call out, and give my attention back to him. “I have a date. My first date since our first date.”

  His expression falls, and I hate feeling like I just kicked his puppy or something. This is all on him. “Holly, please don’t do this.”

  With everything I have, I want to fall into his arms and tell him how much I love and miss him. But I can’t. Now that he’s been with other women, I know if there’s ever a possibility for us to make our way back to each other I have to date other men. I have to be sure Declan James is the only man who could ever own my heart.

  “This is why you left me. Why you broke my heart. I have to see what else is out there. Otherwise, what is the point of all the heartbreak?” Turning from him, I open the door to Luke’s smiling face. When he catches sight of Declan over my shoulder, he tenses.

  “Declan was just leaving.”

  With one last pleading look, Declan brushes past Luke with an intense warning. “If you fuck with her or hurt her in any way, you’ll have to answer to me.” He pauses and turns around to catch my eye. “I hope you have a nice night, Holly.”

  I’m stunned at his words as he rushes off before I have the chance to say anything. “Should we do this another time?” Luke asks with a furrowed brow.

  “No, I’m ready to go. Sorry about Declan, he can be a little overprotective.”

  Luke seems to relax. “Oh, is he your brother or something?”

  “Ex-boyfriend and ex-best friend.” He frowns, and it makes me even more pissed at Dec. “Don’t worry, he’s nothing to worry about. It’s been over for a while. So where are we going?”

  “Dinner and a movie? Maybe dessert afterward?”

  Declan would hate this, which makes it perfect.

  “Sounds good. How was your day?”

  Luke follows me out of the apartment, and I lock the door behind us. When we step out into the parking lot, Declan is leaning up against his car talking to Baxter. Baxter waves, but I ignore him as I get into Luke’s car.

  “Do you know him, too?”

  “He’s an old friend. He got Declan in the divorce so I try not to engage.”

  Frozen in fear, Luke stops what he’s doing. “You guys were married?”

  Oh Lord, he doesn’t know sarcasm. This is going to be a long night.

  “No, it’s an expression. You remember my friend Sage?”

  “The girl who sits next to you in English?”

  “Yes, the two of us grew up with the two of them. I got Sage in the split and he got Baxter.”

  Finally, he’s relaxed enough to start the car. I’m begi
nning to wish I’d stayed home. If Declan weren’t right there I might have faked a headache. Damn him again.

  “I’m not sure I understand why there was a splitting of friends in the first place.”

  “Me, either. If I ever figure it out, I’ll let you know.”

  seventeen

  Declan

  Just when I thought the two of us were going to finally reconnect in the most primal way, Holly drops the bomb on me. It’s not as if I haven’t been dying to know what her secret is, but I can’t believe she’s doing it now.

  I’ve poured us some wine and started the fire. I’ve got a second bottle on standby because I know she needs liquid courage to get going. I almost offered her some tequila, but considering that’s what got us in this mess in the first place, I refrained.

  We’re seated next to each other on the couch, and when she puts her wineglass onto the table, she leans over and gives me a peck on the cheek.

  “For luck,” she whispers.

  “You don’t need luck, love. We’re moving forward, and what’s in the past doesn’t matter now.”

  She picks up her laptop bag and pulls out a book. “You have no idea how much I hope that is true.”

  Holly takes a deep breath, exhales, sucks down the rest of the wine in her glass, and sighs. I refill her glass, topping it off completely before adding more to my own.

  “We don’t have to do this, Holly, it’s okay.”

  “It’s not okay, Declan, and it hasn’t been for a very long time. You should know I’ve been keeping more than one secret. They’re all sort of intertwined, and they snowballed out of control. It’s why I like the truth, I’ve never been good at keeping things hidden.”

  This isn’t what I was expecting her to say at all. She flips the book over and holds it out to me. “Stories of my Mother: An Anthology. All proceeds donated to Angels at Risk. Holly, what is this?”

  “It’s the end of my lie and the beginning of my truth. In order to go back, I have to start with the present.” She takes another gulp of wine as I hold the book. “You can listen to me talk or you can read. I bookmarked the page where my story starts.”

  “Your story? You have a published story in here? Holly, that’s incredible. I’m so proud of you.” Tossing the book aside, I wrap her into a huge hug. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Sniffling, she replies, “I would have had to be ready to come clean, and I wasn’t.”

  “Tell me everything, love. I’m ready, but I don’t want to read it. I want to hear it from you first. But I will eventually read it because there’s no way I’m not going to devour every word of something you’ve written.”

  She pulls her knees to her chest and wraps her arms around them. “About a year ago, Natalie came to me with a project. She’d been approached to contribute a story to this anthology because one of the writers knew she came from an addicted mother. I should preface this with not all the stories are bad. Some of them are beautiful stories of rehabilitation and the reunification of families, healing stories that make your heart happy. There are other stories, stories like mine, that aren’t so happy.”

  The mixture of sadness and fear on her face is enough to break me. I just want her to get through this so I can prove to her we’re all right.

  “Go on.”

  “Right. Well, Natalie talked to them about me, and they invited me to write a sample story and submit it. I hadn’t been writing much and figured I could use it as a cleansing exercise. I never expected anything to come from it, but they loved the story and thought it was a perfect fit. Before I knew it, I was spending my days writing and purging all of this negative energy from my body, and it felt good.”

  Her eyes meet mine and she smiles. “The book arrived the day we made our bet. All I kept thinking was, maybe by getting all of that bad shit out of my soul, you could see it. Or maybe I could see you through the haze for the first time in a long time.”

  “I’ve always seen you, but whatever it was, I’m glad it happened.”

  “Me, too. All those boxes, they were all promotional items and books for the release.”

  “The trips, too?”

  “Yeah. I was dying to tell you, I swear. But with everything going on, I couldn’t risk melting down again if I lost you.”

  “You’re not going to lose me.”

  “That’s what you say now.”

  “Let me prove it to you. Keep talking.”

  With a deep breath, she continues. “In the months before we broke up, a few things happened. You already know my mom started doing drugs again. What you don’t know is she started showing up at the house asking for money when you were at school or running errands. She must have just sat outside waiting for an opportunity to get me alone.”

  That bitch.

  “I had a feeling. I thought I saw her a few times, and there was this one time she came to the door. She played it off that she was looking for you and then told me she forgot her wallet at home and asked if she could borrow twenty bucks for gas. I knew what she was doing, but I gave it to her because you were on your way home and I didn’t want you exposed to that.”

  Her head drops to her knees and her shoulders shake. “I’m so sorry, Declan.” Her lip quivers when her gaze meets mine, and her tears start falling.

  “She’s not your problem. There’s nothing for you to be sorry about.”

  “God, how I wish that were true. I almost wish we hadn’t loved each other so much that we wanted to protect each other from her. It would have been better.”

  “Holly, you’re scaring me. What happened? What could be so bad you’re afraid to tell me?”

  With tears streaming down her cheeks, she says the words that slam into my heart. “I was pregnant.”

  The room spins, and I fall back against the cushions. “I’m sorry … what?”

  “We were going to have a baby. I hadn’t been feeling well and I was run down. I was convinced it was all the gearing up for finals finally catching up to me. I went to the student health center and found out we were expecting.”

  “Why were …? What happened?” Holy shit, I feel like I can’t catch my breath.

  “I called Sage right away. I couldn’t drive and needed to figure things out in my head. As soon as she got me a smoothie, we went to the park and talked. By the time we left there, I was excited. There was no reason we couldn’t have a baby. Sure, we were young, but by the time the baby came we would have both graduated. Plus, your show was taking off and I knew you were going to be a hit.”

  There is so much going on in my head right now, I don’t even know what to say.

  “Declan, are you still with me?”

  “Yes, keep going. Please,” I beg.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I was going to surprise you with the news on our anniversary. It’s why I didn’t want to fly. I hadn’t been feeling great, I was queasy a lot of the time, and I was super emotional.”

  “Is that why you pulled away? Why you were barely kissing me? Why we didn’t have sex as much?”

  She nods. “Between being sick and excited every time I touched you, I wanted to tell you. It took everything in me not to spill the beans before our anniversary. I knew you’d be so excited, even if it was an oops.”

  My stomach is queasy. We don’t have a baby, so this story doesn’t have a good ending. “What changed?”

  “Everything. When Sage and I took Heather home on Sunday, it looked like we’d walked in on world war three. The house was a disaster, Ken wasn’t home, and my mom was inside tearing through drawers and cabinets like a raving lunatic. I’d never seen her so high. She stared right through me and Heather like we weren’t even there.”

  She shudders as if the memory still makes her skin crawl.

  “I told them we should go, and it was like my mom suddenly realized she could get something from me. She asked for money, but between Sage and me we only had forty dollars. It wasn’t good enough, Dec. She got this insane, glazed look and put her sights on
Heather. She was mumbling about keeping her for money and making Ken pay for her. It wasn’t good. In fact, it was like pure evil incarnate.”

  Holly’s hands are trembling against her knees, and I reach over to steady them.

  “I started backing up toward the door slowly and waving my hands behind my back to signal Sage and Heather to get behind me. Dawn picked up on it and lunged for us. Sage managed to get Heather outside and move further down the hall.”

  Holly is full-on sobbing, so I pull her onto my lap and wrap her in my arms. “Shh, it’s okay, love.”

  “I’m so sorry, Declan, I’m just so sorry.”

  As I rock her back and forth and kiss her head, she cries until the sobbing subsides. Time passes slowly, but there’s no happy ending here, and I’m not sure I can stomach the rest right now.

  A little while later, she stands and goes into the kitchen. When she comes back with two bottles of water, I take one gratefully.

  “Holly, you don’t have to keep going. It’s okay.”

  “I need to get this out, I’ve held onto it for too long. I knew when I wrote the story I was going to tell you, and I was prepared as I could be. It’s time for this chapter of my life to close. And to give closure to others as well.”

  “Others?”

  “We’re getting there. Dawn and I started struggling in the hallway and Heather lost her shit. She managed to get away from Sage and tried to get Dawn to stop. We were right by the stairs when Dawn suddenly lunged for Heather. I’ve never felt that kind of fear before. It all happened so fast, but I jumped in to push Heather out of the way and then Dawn … she … she body-checked me, Declan. I went down that flight of stairs full speed ahead.”

  My body stills, my blood runs cold, and I feel nothing but hate for a woman I haven’t seen in over two years.

  “And that’s how …?”

  “I thought for sure when I went down it was the end. I managed to take most of the impact on my back and my ass. I hit hard, but I was airborne for the first few steps. I only hit maybe five or six toward the bottom.”