Letters to Lily (Letters to... #1)

by Christine M. Butler

“He deserved that ass kicking.”

  “No one is going to argue that,” I huffed out on a laugh. Then I sobered up as I screwed up the courage to ask the questions I needed to ask. “Have you seen her since she was released from the hospital?”

  Brad nodded his head. “She's doing fine, just processing.”

  “Yeah, that's what you said, processing.” I shook my head then. “Man, when I realized who she was that day at the diner, all I've thought about since is getting back to her. She ran and now she's processing. I don't know what to do with that.” I knew my voice was coming off with frustrated indignation, but I couldn't hold it back. I was beginning to resent the time supposedly needed to process when I was sitting here wanting nothing more than to get to her.

  “Seriously?” Brad asked, incredulity dripping from the one word question.

  It shocked me enough that I snapped my head up to look at him. “Seriously what?”

  “You can't wrap your head around it?” I shook my head, completely at a loss as to why he suddenly sounded a bit angry. “Think back to that day jackass. Only instead of seeing it from your point of view, see it through her eyes. You told me you read her journal, so you were privy to the last entry right?” I nodded my head still failing to see where he was going with this. Her last entry had been about hoping I would be there, for the baby if not her, so I still didn't understand why she would be avoiding me. I was trying to be there for both of them.

  “Okay, now imagine her sitting in that diner, writing those particular words in her journal…” he paused as I nodded my understanding so far. “Now, when the bell sounds over the diner door and she looks up from writing those words, what does she see?”

  “How the hell should I know what she…” Then it hit me. “Jenn.”

  “Now, he's getting it.” Brad huffs out while shaking his head. “She looked up and watched you, the guy she's described as her soul mate, walking in with your arms around that girl, smiling and joking around. Her exact words to me when she talked to me about it were, 'he looked so happy. They looked so happy.' Then she asked me how you could possibly claim to care so much when she wouldn't - not couldn't - move on from you, but it was so easy for you to do.”

  “Easy?” I choked out on a throat full of thick emotion.

  “Calm down, I explained to her how long it took for you to even agree to anything more than friendship with that girl, and even then I thought you were only half ass trying in an attempt to move on from someone you thought cheated on you and blocked you from her life.” Tears were building in my eyes as my brother looked at me again. “She gets it. She understands the whole big mess that occurred and that some things would have happened differently, or not at all, had everything not fallen into place the way it did. That doesn't take away the fact that seeing you with Jenn…” He sighed then. “It was a blow to her that she's trying to deal with.

  “I'm not with Jenn though!”

  “No, not now, but even so it doesn't take the images from her mind of seeing you looking happy with someone else. Even if the whole scene was taken out of context. It doesn't matter, because what Sasha saw that day was her worst fears coming true. Her having your baby while you were off living the good life and loving someone else.”

  “FUCK!” I cried out, allowing the tears to fall where they may. “Do you know how many times I told myself I couldn't date Jenn? Do you know how many god damn times I felt like I was the worlds biggest asshole for attempting it? How much guilt I felt when we went out, when she tried to kiss me, when I got drunk and she took advantage of that situation? I fucking hurt, made myself sick, and literally cried over that shit. Hell, I wouldn't even consider taking her out on a date until that day Andy confirmed what Jason had told me that Sasha was seeing someone, and then he told me she was pregnant by the guy.

  Hell, they had been talking about you, because you were always around her. The only reason I tried to move on was because I thought she was having another dude's kid!” The frustration I felt made my throat tight. “I can't keep moving in these fucked up circles of miscommunication, because it keeps screwing everything up. And while I know the lack of communication is a problem you keep coming here and telling me she needs time to wrap her head around shit. I can't even tell her my side of things, because I can't fucking talk to her.” He said nothing, just continued to look off in the distance.

  “Does she know that's why I started dating? I doubt it, because I never admitted it to anyone until now. Would it make a difference to know that the heartache she felt at seeing me with someone else was on fucking par, maybe, with me hearing she was having another dude's kid?”

  “Obviously she doesn't know that, but she…”

  “Don't you think she should?” I yelled at him then. “Seriously, when do I get the chance to make any of this right? And how the hell do I do that if she won't fucking let me?”

  “You're right.” The voice of an angel spoke up then, nearly knocking me down with the force of its presence. I turned to see Sasha standing there at the front door with my mom by her side. My mom was looking guilty, but Sasha, she looked perfect. It's a sad fucking thing though that I didn't know if I should just keep standing there looking shocked or run and throw my arms around her. I didn't know how she would react to me touching her. To be honest, the fact that I had to hold myself back out of fear pissed me off.

  Instead of doing or saying anything I just stood there in a momentous limbo that seemed to hold the entire room captive briefly. “Obviously, we need to talk,” she offered softly, shifting on her feet with nervousness as she did. Great. Now, she wasn't sure if I wanted her to be there. I might not have been around Sasha for months, but I could still read her body language like a book.

  “Yeah, we do.” I turned back to Brad then, “you need to go.” The look he lobbed on me then was priceless. My brother was going to have to get over the fact that Sasha and I had a longer history than he and I did, or than they did for that matter.

  “Sasha,” he asked as he moved his eyes from me to her. “What do you need to happen here?” WHAT IN THE FUCK? I was about to kill my brother.

  “I need to talk to Kade, and we need to do that privately,” she said. There was a part of me that was jumping up and down gloating inside. That part really wanted to get out and yell, 'in your face' to my brother. Okay, I'm lying to myself; there wasn't a single part of me that didn't want to do that in this moment. I couldn't believe that prick ignored me, and thought he'd get a different reaction from Sasha.

  He paled a little, but to his credit he stood and nodded before leaving my mom's house. My mom stood her ground though. “I feel like I need to be here to say some things to the both of you first,” she started.

  “No!” I spat out.

  “Ms. Miller, I really need to talk to Kade alone first. I promise, when we're done, we'll call you so you can come back and say what you need to.” Sasha was ever the diplomat. That always made her a better person than I was. Of course my attitude wasn't helped by the fact that I was still having trouble putting my mom's stupid decisions behind me. The decisions that landed us all in this position to begin with.

  I watched as my mom's lip wobbled and she ducked her head before going back out the front door. Brad was still there, and he pulled her into a side hug, and ushered her away to his truck. I was thankful he was at least looking out for my mom while I finally got the chance to talk to Sasha. “You better close the door, throw the lock, and step away before someone else decides they need to be here for this.” My words were half joke, half bitter reality.

  She passed me a weak smile as she followed the simple directions and then came to sit down on the couch. Her trying to drop herself into a seat on the low cushions shouldn't have been funny, but I found myself chuckling at her expense anyway. “What exactly are you laughing at?” She sighed out through her plump, full lips that I suddenly couldn't take my eyes off of. As I watched, speechless, she did this odd bend at the knee with her back tipped like she was ab
out to attempt a back bend, burgeoning belly pushed out into the air before her. Finally she threw a hand out behind her, reaching for the backside of the couch to help lever herself down without plopping.

  “Sorry,” I moved quickly then and reached out to help guide her down more smoothly.

  “Thanks,” her smile warmed my heart as she said it. Her wavy dark brown hair fell to either side of her, framing the face I had been dreaming about for months.

  “No problem. I guess that couch sucks for pregnant women, huh? A little too low to the ground.”

  “Yeah, that seems to happen a lot. Normally, I'd just kind of plop down and not worry about looking like a slob or whatever, but my ass still hurts from falling down the stairs, so…”

  The reminder of her fall and hospital stay hit me in like a punch to the gut. “Is everything… I mean are you doing okay after that? I tried to come see you, but…”

  “But you were too busy beating the shit out of Jason and getting arrested? Believe me, if I could have had a celebratory drink after hearing that I would have. It was a much better present than visitors in the hospital.” It was said in a joking tone, her caramel eyes twinkling as she spoke, but it hurt to hear her refer to me as just a potential visitor. “Everything is fine though. The baby is good, and I'm just a little sore and uncomfortable at times, not unlike every other day of the pregnancy. At least now I can't blame all the pain and discomfort on Lily.”

  Hearing my daughter's name come from Sasha's lips put a genuine smile on my face for the first time in days. “I um, read your journal.” She flinched, but I didn't want us to slide backwards from the beginning. “Her name, the reason behind it…” I'm man enough to admit that I was tearing up. “Thank you,” I ended up saying.

  She just nodded, and we both sat there quietly for a few minutes. “This is so damn strange,” she finally started. “Never in a million years would I have thought we'd be sitting here like two damn awkward strangers instead of the best friends we always were. To know that it was one giant mix up after another that got us to this point…” she shook her head. “Ugh, it kills me.”

  “Me too,” I agreed before sliding closer to her on the couch. “Sasha, I…”

  “I heard what you were saying to Brad. You know, about how you thought I was pregnant by someone else. I'm sorry you thought that. I don't know how I would feel if I had been told you got someone else pregnant in the time we'd been separated.” She actually looked sick as she said the words, so I think she did know how that would feel. “This whole thing is so hard, because it wasn't either of our faults, and we're still stuck trying to muddle through the crap that got pushed in the way in the meantime.”

  “I actually have a suggestion that may help.” It took a few minutes to get the words out, but the minute I did I knew it would work.

  “What's that?”

  “Let's get all this out right now. The past six months of what we were doing, what we thought, how we coped, whatever questions we have for one another… let's get it all out, and then put it behind us. Honestly, we could spend a lifetime dwelling on all the shitty aspects of our situation, or we could just agree to never let anything like this ever happen again and move on. Let's just try to find our way back to where we were with one another before. Well, I guess I mean to that comfortable existence we had before all this drama. I mean, if that's what you want. And let me make myself absolutely clear, that is exactly what I want to happen.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  ~Sasha~

  Nov. 02 - I nodded my agreement with Kade's plan. Hell, I had come here to basically say the same thing to him, and that was before I found out about why he started dating to begin with. He was right; we had so much crap to wade through because of horrible timing, bad circumstance, and one meddling roommate. We'd all ready lost too much precious time with one another.

  “I agree,” I finally said, and the smile he graced me with was one that I remembered seeing on his face for years. That was what real happiness looked like in Kade's eyes.

  “I do have one question before we start, and it's kind of important, so I hope like hell you'll be completely honest with me.” Well, that didn't sound good. If he asked me if I ever cheated on him, I would probably drop kick him into next week and walk away forgetting all of this for now. “Um, shit, I'm not even sure how to ask this without feeling a little ill, to be honest.” Damn it, he was going to do it, I was preparing myself for my not so swift or graceful departure from the couch. “My brother, Brad, do you…” he sighed. “Are you? Ugh! Is there something there between the two of you?”

  Okay, that was not where I saw him going with the important question. “Brad has been my friend through everything. I would have been so lost without all of his help, and he was there for me to lean on, but as I told him before my heart wasn't mine to give away to anyone, because it all ready had a home with you. Even if you didn't want it anymore.”

  “Shit, Sash, I never stopped wanting, more like needing, your heart. It never left me. This whole thing has been so damn screwed from the beginning, but the one thing that never changed was the fact that I love you. I have loved you for so long I don't know how to not do it.” Just like that, my heart felt broken and whole all at once.

  I wasn't sure where to go from there, but it didn't matter because Kade started. “I guess I need to start from that night.” He took me through the unfortunate chain of events that led us to this moment. Where my story diverged I would tell him what had been happening on my end, and we eventually got each other caught up on the story of us over the past six months. It took the better part of the day, and a whole lot of tissues to get through. There were periods of time where we would give one another a hug, or in my case move away from the uncomfortable words that were coming out of Kade's mouth. Especially when he got to the parts about him and Jenn. Honestly, I could have done without hearing any of that, but I knew he felt that he had to disclose everything in order to be honest.

  It sucked. It absolutely, horribly sucked to have to know those things happened, that he was with someone else for a while. Even though I knew all the things that got him there, it didn't take away from the fact that I never wanted him to be in a position where he was ever with another soul beyond me again.

  By the time we worked our way through our stories back to the present time the sky was darkening and my stomach was growling. We had literally talked ourselves through not having lunch or pretty much any other breaks except when I had to pee, because my pregnancy bladder is the size of a walnut.

  “I can see what my mom has in the kitchen that is convenient for me to make for us,” he suggested as he started to get up off the couch. My stomach grumbled in protest once again and as it did my daughter decided to give me a swift kick in the gut for disturbing her slumber.

  “Ugh,” I groaned out.

  “What's the matter?” Kade dove back onto the couch in a heartbeat and was up against my side, looking me in the eye, panic billowing up just under the surface of his seemingly cool exterior.

  “I'm thinking Lily doesn't like the fact that I let myself get so hungry that my stomach is waking her up with its grumbling.” I shrugged off the kick my daughter gave me with nonchalance because I was used to being battered from the inside out. When I glanced back up at Kade the look of wonder that was on that man's face nearly undid me, and that was before he leaned in and pressed his warm lips to mine.

  As he leaned across my jutting belly, melding his lips to mine in the sweetest damn kiss ever, Lily decided to try for a two-for-one shot and kicked both of us. Kade's eyes widened in shock, and then he was looking down at my belly with the biggest smile on his face I had ever seen.

  He leaned in closer to my belly then, pulling up my shirt, and wrapping both of his large hands around my skin, warming me. “That's right, baby girl, daddy's here now and I'm not ever leaving you guys again.” There were never better words spoken than those words he said to our daughter. Before he could pull away her foot f
licked out again, and stayed there for a minute, pushing into my belly where he could see the outline of her little foot and toes through the stretched skin of my abdomen. I'd seen it once before in the doctor's office, and I was still mesmerized by it. He was speechless, and completely awestruck for a moment. Then he leaned down and pressed a gentle kiss to her tiny little foot through my belly.

  Unfortunately, as ecstatic as that moment made me, my hormones turned it into an ugly cry fest as I broke down into a sobbing mess of mush. Kade just held me through it until I calmed down again. He whispered things to me that I couldn't even make out through the terrible noises I was making. Finally, when I was able to pull myself together I got out one word. “Sorry,” I whispered.

  “Baby,” he called out to me as he kissed the top of my head. “Do not apologize. It's been a hell of a day, and a worse six months. I don't mean to make you keep crying, but I sure as fuck hope that was because what I said made you happy this time.” I nodded my head in acknowledgment. “Then, we're good here, and I meant what I said. Never again, Sash.”

  “I need to show you something,” I finally said into his chest as I shamefully used his shirt to wipe the tears, and probably snot, from my cheeks. It had seriously been an ugly cry.

  “Is it the fact that you just used me as your own personal tissue?” He chuckled.

  I couldn't help but laugh too since I had been busted. “Nope. That was, um, well I'm sure it wasn't the first time you've been my tissue.” I said remembering all the times I'd cried on his shoulder over the years. “Seriously though, could you take us to my house? I can feed you there, but I have things you probably want to see too.”

  “Sure sweet girl.” That endearment hit me right in the heart. He had been calling me that since we were young. Kade stood in front of me and held out his hands for mine. As he took hold of them I expected he would use them to heave me up off the couch. Instead, he crouched down lower, bending at the knees, placed my hands on his shoulders tightly, and then moved his own to my hips. From there, he gently pulled me to standing and for the first time in over six months we were caught up in each other's arms, embracing the way we once used to so casually. Well, with the exception of now having a giant belly coming between us. “That's going to take some getting used to.” He pointed out.