When I see the smoke coming toward me I fall to my knees and crawl as fast as I can, but I can’t escape my hell. I try. I fight like a prize winner boxer. I’m tired. I don’t know if I will ever be successful in escaping him. I shower to get rid of the smoke only to realize my soap smells like exhaust too.
I put one foot in front of the other and pretend just like I always have.
“I miss you when I don’t see you,” I say softly into Adrian’s ear.
“I’m sorry baby girl, I’ve been busy.”
“Busy doing what?” I pull my shirt back over my head and look at my watch.
“You got a date?” Adrian jokes and kisses me. I feel love and it sets fireworks off in my brain.
“I love you,” I say. I mean it. I haven’t meant those words, with the exception of Bash, in a very long time.
“Baby girl, we’re in a horrible situation. I don’t even understand my love for you, but it is everything. I want it to be different, but it’s not. You and me deal in reality. Right, baby girl?”
“Right,” I agree and my head bounces up and down.
“Sebastian has cancer,” I blurt.
His mouth curves in a smile.
“I saw an email of his results from a Dr. Durajai. Sebastian was unhappy and wanted references to another oncologist.”
“I’m sorry Rebecca.” Adrian pulls me into a hug and I relish in it, I drown in it.
“Could your brother look at the results? I emailed it to myself. Sebastian hasn’t even bothered telling me yet.”
“You’ve mirrored his phone like I told you?”
“Of course.” I do everything he tells me. I pull out my phone and send the email to Adrian.
“I’ll see if Ben will look at it.”
CHAPTER SEVENTY
Controlled by What We Hide
One Year After
“How are you?”
“Do you know how monotonous that fucking question is?” I tuck my hair behind my ear with a sour expression on my face. Samantha and I are drinking beers on a patio overlooking a marina.
She brushes her newly purple hair out of her eyes. “I mean, I guess…”
Samantha talked me into meeting her at Folly Beach after work, the humidity of June permeates the air and sweat falls down my back. Honestly, it feels foreign to be anywhere off the island where I have to interact with people. I’ve been hiding for the past year. Sebastian did well in the private high school I enrolled him in this year, he fit in nicely. Samantha’s daughter helped the transition and they formed a strong friendship. It bothers me in the back of my mind, the part that I don’t acknowledge.
I need that from him, for him to show me that he can be normal. That he isn’t like his father that I must’ve created that similarity in my mind. I’m the first to admit my mind isn’t the most reliable. The scary part is I think he knows that. There is an unease in the back of my mind about him, what I’ve done to him and what I’ve forced him to become.
We all make mistakes. One of the things I love so much about Samantha is that she is the opposite of me. She’s transparent. I’m opaque. You can’t see what I’m hiding.
“So?” She runs a hand through her silky bright hair.
“So what?”
“Oh my Gawd…” she drawls in frustration.
“I’m nervous.”
She cocks her head to the side.
“I’m scared of everything, I’m trying to figure out how I got this way, but I’m not sure I really want to know.”
“A lot of self discovery, huh?”
“Why did I fall for the act?”
“Becs…”
“I mean, really. Was I such an easy target?”
“You were so naïve and focused on getting over Seaver, I think he just said all the right things…did all the rights things?” Her eyes are hidden behind huge sunglasses, but I know they are full of sympathy. She’s been trying to get me to talk to her for months.
“Maybe,” I hedge.
“He made you feel what you needed to feel, whatever that was.” Samantha takes a bite of her baked fish.
“How did he know that?”
She shrugs. “That I don’t know. He must’ve been super perceptive.”
“Sam, I needed his love so much and he was incapable of giving it. He only did what he knew I wanted until he got me and then he turned the tables on me completely.” I’ve been working on this with my therapist. I will probably never stop therapy, every time I go I realize a little more about how fucked up I am.
“But why didn’t you leave after Jessica?” I recently told Samantha about seeing Jessica fucking Sebastian at my wedding in the bathroom. I only told her so she’d stop bugging me about hanging out together.
Crack, chip. She was eroding my delusion, my fantasy that I was trying to give up, but it was against the way I’d lived when I was entangled in Sebastian. I’d burned Rebecca Pryor when I left Portland, cutting out anything that reminded me of who I was when I was with him, including Christy. Change is difficult no matter how much better for you it is.
“I…”
“I mean, I would have left after the wedding, like ‘peace out assholes.’” She takes a huge gulp of her beer.
“I’ve asked myself that a million times, maybe more.” This is the truth. I promise.
“And…” Samantha waves at a man walking to the bar.
“I think I felt like I needed someone to love me more than I needed to be respected.” She stares at me in disbelief. “I know it makes no fucking sense to you, that you have to respect someone to love them, but look at the two people I’ve loved in my life, they both disrespected me. Maybe that is just how I’m seen. That there is some sort of glowing sign on my face that I will put up with this sort of thing…”
“Those are totally different situations,” Sam says dismissively.
“If Seaver wouldn’t have totally betrayed me, I’m not sure I would have fallen for Sebastian’s dog and pony show.”
“But, you could have left.”
“I did leave.” I squint at the boat coming toward the dock.
“You went back?” The surprise in her voice is why I can’t talk to anyone about this. No one understands.
I nod.
“Why?”
“I’m tired of talking about this. He’s been dead for a year. I want to have a beer with my friend and talk about how my entire jewelry line sold out last week.”
“It did?” Samantha smiles.
“It did,” I confirm, taking a sip of my beer.
“You’re a rock star. Not only do people want to follow your life after Sebastian, you’ve parlayed it into a successful career. Fucking brilliant.” She tilts her beer at me in a cheers and I clink my glass with hers.
I wink at her. “Sometimes.”
“I don’t understand.” I’m pacing the very short length of my work room I’ve rented for twelve years. It took me a year after Bash was born to get the nerve and to figure out how to get the money.
“Baby girl, it’s all worked out. It’s done.” Adrian is sitting on a turned over bucket in the corner, watching me pace.
“Why would he do that?” My blonde hair is stick straight. I came directly here from my hair appointment before my meeting with the PTA committee. My cashmere sweater is what J. Crew calls Baltic and I’m wearing grey shorts with wedge heels. I can tell from his expression he doesn’t like my look today. He’s used to me in yoga pants and t-shirts, hair in a messy bun.
“Because I told him to.”
That’s all he says and it says everything. He’s saving me. He’s committing a crime. He’s solving my problems.
I tumble toward him, sitting on that bucket. I grab him like he’s the life raft he is and I shake my head.
“No.”
His face is in my belly and he grabs me around the waist. “I’m afraid so. You’ll owe me forever.”
“No, it’s crazy and you’ll both get in trouble.”
“Who will kno
w?”
“He’s a doctor. He’s taken an oath.” I rebut.
“He took an oath when I gave him the money to go to medical school as well.” He pulls back and looks at me.
“Don’t, I can’t…I wouldn’t even know how to thank you.”
“You’ll live. That’s payment enough. I love you Rebecca and that means if you can escape him by whatever means and I can help you…” His eyes glisten with emotion. “You’ll know how much I love you.”
Time stands still and words fly through the air and I’m trying to arrange them in a way that would make sense.
“Sebastian has an appointment next week.”
I lean down and kiss him, this man that is willing to do anything for me. This man that no one even knows is in my life is saving me and asking nothing in return.
“I love you.”
“Of course you do, baby girl.” Memories bubble to the surface of my mind of the past decade of him. Snippets of us laughing, eating, making love and planning pop up and burst just as quick. I’ll never get to see him again. That’s the rub.
“But, I need you.” I do need him. He’s the only one who knows me.
“I want you to not need anyone, me included.”
CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE
When you Love Someone, You Lie
Two Years After
Bash and I are paddle boarding as the sun is emerging from beneath the ocean. We’re both wearing wetsuits and the chill in the air fills my lungs. I feel alive. I feel good. It’s hard to explain how this manifests itself in me, but it’s just putting my feet in motion. My sales are insane and I’ve had to hire people to help with my company.
“How’d it go?” Bash asks over the waves.
“Great. I’ve paid off the loan and it’s free and clear from here on out.” I just flew back from my trip to San Francisco to meet with Megan and Laura so I could pay them the last payment on my loan.
“Sounds great Mom,” he says. His smile is Sebastian’s and it takes all of the strategies I’ve learned in therapy to get over that one fact. I’m doing it though. I smile back at him.
“We should celebrate. What do you want to do?”
He paddles away from me and I begin to chase him. His back and arms straining with his strokes. All of a sudden I stop and watch the sleepy, bleeding sun and think this is a brand new day and I’m alive. I don’t chase Bash, but go my own direction at my own pace in utter bliss.
“I know you are going to do amazing things.”
“How do you know that?” I ask.
“Because you are you,” Adrian answers as his thumb rubs over my temples. His touch calms me, but his words cause a storm I’m not sure I’ll survive. I’m not sure I want to survive without Adrian in my life.
“I don’t know…”
“You know I love you, right?”
I’ve never been more sure of actual love in my life. Adrian is risking his life for me, his brother’s life.
“I want you to be happy. I know you can be happy. You can’t be happy here and I can’t leave with you.”
“Can we ever see each other again?” I plead.
His eyes examine me in a way that makes me look at the wall where there is a picture I’d bought on the street that reminded me of home. The painting was black and white of an oak tree burdened with Spanish moss and a girl huddled underneath. I’ve been that girl. Adrian wants me to go back there and be that girl, when I would give anything to stay in this apartment and be with him. He knows that’s not my reality.
“Eventually, we can see each other. We’ll have to be careful.” He lies. He fucking lies.
I blink at him.
He knows I know.
I kiss him because he loves me enough to lie about this one thing. We don’t lie to each other, but sometimes when you love someone you lie. Right?
CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO
I Gave the Wrong Person My Soul
Three Years After
“Mom, I’m going to Kenzy’s,” Bash calls from the kitchen.
I ignore him.
I inhale the salt air deep into my lungs and it eats away a little of the old me. Every day I sit on my back porch and try to be better, try to make Bash better. I think of all of my mistakes that cannot be undone and it sets me back in my mind. It’s been three years since we moved to the east coast where Bash has flourished and I have been clearer. Not exactly clear, but clearer.
I hear the glass door slide open with a thump, but my eyes don’t move from the waves beating the sand with punch after punch.
“I’m going to Kenzy’s.” He throws my keys up and catches them dramatically.
Kenzy is not important, but she is one in a long line of girls that have been falling off Bash’s tongue as of late, including my best friend’s daughter. It reminds me of his father and his long line of girls before and after me. It reminds me that no matter what I do I can’t fix him. I can’t fix me. I am worthless in my pursuit of anything.
My life consists of me living off the money I make with my jewelry business, which has taken a turn for the whimsical with my move to the coast. Every day for three years I have had to stop myself from calling Adrian. When I was unsuccessful I was met with the fact that his phone was disconnected. I listen to the one message from him I saved and let my mind wander to his kind eyes, his hands on me and his heart. I wonder what he’s doing, if he thinks of me. My life is one of those songs that you cry over, but I stopped crying a couple of years ago. I put all the money from the life insurance in a trust for Sebastian when he turns twenty-five or if anything ever happens to me.
“Who is Kenzy?”
“What?” He blinks at me.
“Who is Kenzy? What will you be doing?” These are all questions a mother asks a son who just started driving and wants to go somewhere.
A smile flits over his features and his eyes narrow. “Kenzy is a friend. I’m not sure you want to know what we’ll be doing.”
Fear seizes my insides. “Well, I’d like for you to realize you have to ask my permission to take my SUV anywhere, not just tell me.”
“Mom, can I go to Kenzy’s?” His voice is devoid of any taunting or sarcasm.
I take a sip of coffee.
I inhale salt air again so deeply I feel it in my toes. I turn my gaze on my son. “Please be careful.” The meaning behind this is so much more than a mom warning her son to use caution when going out. His forehead dips in a nod and he darts back inside.
I pick my phone up and listen to the voicemail for the millionth time. His baritone voice makes my insides warm. I stare for so long the ocean bleeds into the sky.
“Babe, this piece is crazy,” Adrian compliments as he runs his fingertips over a new necklace I made that was inspired by the waves I no longer see with my eyes, only my heart.
“Crazy psycho?” I do worry my crazy shows even though I’ve had plenty of practice hiding it from everyone, even myself.
His coffee colored eyes hold mine for so long I feel my barriers crumble and my need for him simmers just below my skin.
“You look at me like that you better start taking those clothes off,” he jokes.
I immediately pull my shirt over my head.
“Let’s go somewhere,” he says taking the shirt from my hands and putting it back on me. His hands gentle.
“Where?” I pout, I’d much rather spend my time with him without any clothes today.
“I gotta place I want to show you,” he answers.
I grab my coat and bag and follow him. I think I’d follow him anywhere. I can almost pretend I’m my old self around him, it comforts me in a way I thought I’d lost.
He holds my hand. My eyes cling to my hand in his and I try to tell myself it’s not more than what it is, but I’m falling for him in a real way, more real than my life has allowed since I married Sebastian seven years ago.
We walk to a black SUV, he opens the passenger door for me and I slide in. When he gets into the driver’s seat, he pulls my hand onto
his thigh.
“Where are we going?”
“I have a surprise for you,” he doesn’t answer.
Jay-Z is on the radio, my hand is on Adrian’s thigh and I’m riding through the suburbs of Portland. When he pulls into a gated apartment complex, I turn my gaze to him. He is trying not to smile then he runs his left hand over his cropped black hair. His cream gauzy sweater skims his muscles in a way that makes me clench my thighs together. I can lose myself in him. I think this is part of my problem in general, I lose myself too often.
He pulls the SUV into a garage under the end of a row of apartments. For a few seconds we just sit there then he turns to me and pulls my face to him, his hands gently cradling my chin and jaw. His lips promise me that I’ll be okay. His tongue pledges to show me ecstasy. I break my mouth away from his, we’re both panting.
“Why are we here?” I’m breathless and his chest is rising and falling in the same rhythm.
He opens the door and gets out without a word. My eyes follow him as he walks in front of the vehicle and stops to look at me, I can feel the lust rolling off his body. Opening my door he holds my hand and helps me out, then he pushes me roughly against the side of the SUV. His hands cradling my ass, my legs wrap around his waist.
“Rebecca,” his voice warms my ear.
“Where are we?”
“We…” he kisses my neck “…are at our place.” His gaze is so intense now and he said “our place” and my legs squeeze his waist. Adrian starts walking to the door, but I’m kissing him relentlessly. I feel loved. It’s a feeling I don’t remember feeling. I remember a feeling of thinking I was loved, but it was mixed with me convincing myself of love, not the actual feeling. It’s a feeling I need. I don’t want to need this feeling, but my veins are buzzing and a cloud has lifted. He stumbles into a kitchen and my legs drop off his waist. I step away from Adrian and look around. It’s beautiful, homey and colorful. It’s perfect for me.
Quiet Lies Page 23