“Wow, Dave really told you everything, didn’t he?”
He furrowed his brow in confusion. “Dave didn’t tell me any of this.”
“Then how did you know about the youth center and my job?” I wasn’t dumb enough to think Tiffany had said anything about it.
“Ty called me after you left.”
While I should’ve been bothered by that, I wasn’t, because I knew that Ty’s intentions were genuine and came from a good place. “I’ll never understand how my sister managed to get such good men in her life. I mean, Ty knew what kind of person she was, yet he stuck around. And I know you said that she was different with you, but I still don’t know how she pulled that off.”
“She fooled me into believing that she was someone else. Actually, she fooled me into believing that she was you.” He must’ve found my wide eyes and dropped jaw comical, because he laughed beneath his breath through smiling lips. “Yeah, I think my reaction wasn’t too different from yours when all the puzzle pieces started coming together for me.”
“Back up…how did she make you think she was me? I don’t understand.”
“Did you ever have a neighbor named Lexi when you were a kid?”
That was a name I hadn’t heard in a while. “Her mom lived across the street from me when I was in high school; she was really little, though. What does she have to do with this?”
“Did you teach her how to read?”
Even though I was still confused, I decided to follow him down the rabbit trail anyway. “Uh, yeah. Her mom, Betsy, was dyslexic and worried that Lexi would struggle in school because she couldn’t teach her how to read. So I’d go over there a few times a week during the summer before she started kindergarten and helped her learn.”
“Tiff told me that story…except in her version, she was the one who spent time across the street helping that little girl. I have no idea how many other stories she’s told me that were actually you, but I’d bet that nothing of what she told me about her childhood was true. I have a feeling that she took all the credit for your good deeds to make me think she was different than what everyone had said about her.”
I couldn’t speak. All this time, Tiffany had accused me of wanting to be her, of being jealous of her, yet she was the one pretending to be me all along. She must’ve known that Adam never would’ve given her the time of day if he knew who she really was, so she had to lie, and the best way to lie is to tell slight variations of the truth.
“Anyway, I really wanted to give you this…” He pulled a black ring box out of his pocket.
The second he opened it and held it out in front of me, my heart nearly jumped out of my chest. Nestled inside the box was a massive diamond ring. It was familiar, considering I’d worn one identical to it for a month and a half, but the way this one sparked despite the gloomy skies above proved that this was not the fake one. This was the real deal.
“Th-that’s, uh…that’s really sweet of you, Adam, but, um…” I shook my head, hoping it would knock my words back into place. “You’re a great guy, but… I mean, I know that Tiff made you fall in love with a version of me disguised as herself, but that doesn’t mean anything. You know that, right?”
The more I talked, the broader his smile grew. “I’m not proposing to you, Tasha.”
He knew that I had misread the situation and assumed that he was asking me to marry him, yet he let me continue to make a fool of myself. I had a feeling that had we met under different circumstances, we could’ve been great friends.
“I am giving it to you to do with it as you please. Sell it, pawn it, save it, I don’t care. Get whatever you can from it. I hate what your sister has done to you—as well as everyone else who has been hurt by her. I’ll be fine; the woman whose husband was sleeping with Tiff, she’ll be fine, too. We both still have jobs and money in the bank. You deserve to have that kind of security as well. So please, accept this as compensation for all the hell your sister has put you through over your entire life.”
“I have a feeling that this ring would more than pay off her debts to me. It’s too much, Adam.” It felt weird to accept Tiff’s engagement ring from her ex-fiancé.
“Well, if you won’t take it, then it’s just going to sit in a drawer and collect dust.”
“Why don’t you get your money back?”
“I don’t need it. Trust me. I want you to have it.”
Well, I certainly wasn’t about to turn him down a second time. “Thank you. Honestly, I can’t express how grateful I am for everything you’ve done.”
With a smile full of secrets, he said, “I think you’ll find a way.” And then he walked away, crossing the parking lot toward his car.
Everything felt like a dream, like I was living in a cloud and nothing was real. The haze followed me all the way home, and by the time I stepped out of my car to head inside the apartment, my chest was heavy, as if something was pressing against my ribcage. It didn’t feel like anxiety, though I wasn’t sure what else it could’ve been.
It wasn’t until I stuck my key into the door that I understood what it was.
“Tasha…”
22
Jacoby
I’d never been more nervous in my entire life.
“Tasha.” I’d meant to say her name louder, stronger, possibly with more confidence, except that wasn’t how it came out. Instead, it was almost a whisper, as if her name was a prayer in the wind.
However, it succeeded at catching her attention.
She stilled and slowly turned toward me, but I couldn’t tell how she felt about seeing me in front of her. Her expression was too difficult to read. Her knitted brows expressed disbelief; her parted lips alluded to possible longing, and the dramatic way her chest heaved with her every breath conveyed fear—as if she were scared that I wasn’t real. But I was. I was really here, right in front of her, coming to make things right.
I should’ve never let her go.
However, there was something about the way she regarded me that left me scared. Her steely eyes glistened with what I could only assume was pain. And that terrified me; I never wanted to hurt her. What had happened to me wasn’t her fault, yet what had happened to her was entirely mine. The pain in her eyes practically paralyzed me with the fear that I had lost my chance to right my wrongs.
“W-what are you…” She turned her head to the side, glancing out to the parking lot of the apartment complex, as if waiting for a camera crew to pile out of the back of a minivan. When she seemed satisfied that no one else was here, she met my stare again and asked, “How did you know where to find me?”
Considering I didn’t know which way this would go, I decided to keep my response brief. The last thing I wanted to do was come across as a stalker and completely ruin any chance I might’ve had at fixing things. “Uh, Ty told me?” Somehow, that came out like a question, as if I had no idea if Ty was the one who told me where she lived.
It wasn’t like things could get much worse.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” That sounded very much like a complaint. And if her tone hadn’t suggested that, then the quick stomp of her foot would have. Her entire body language had proven to me that, despite my previous assumption, things could get worse. “I haven’t heard from the guy since I left, not one word, and yet it seems as though everyone else has.”
I wasn’t sure if she was upset that he’d told me where she lived or that I’d heard from him and she hadn’t. I hoped for the latter, even though that would raise so many questions that I didn’t care to get into at the moment. Right now, I wanted to deal with us.
“Why did you come here?” Tasha asked, folding her arms over her chest and leaning against the door. While it might’ve seemed like attitude, I wasn’t convinced of it. If anything, I assumed she was simply being protective, wanting to uncover my motivation before letting down her defenses.
Seeing her this way—as herself—almost felt as though I were looking at someone else. I’d seen her in normal, eve
ryday clothes when she wasn’t portraying her uppity sister, so I didn’t understand why she appeared so different now. Maybe it was the fact that, unlike before, we were on her turf. Whatever the reason, I brushed it aside. This wasn’t the time to be dwelling on her notable differences.
“Would you believe me if I said that Sir Terry missed you?”
I couldn’t possibly regret my answer when it earned me that reaction—a subtle smirk and a hint of pink high on her cheeks. Even the fluttering of her lashes as she rolled her eyes was worth it. It was enough to make me realize that I’d been holding my breath since the night Adam showed up. This was the first time since then that I was able to breathe without the fear of doom sitting on my chest.
She shook her head, the tiniest grin still playing in the corners of her mouth. “Did you really think I’d believe that you came all the way here because your pet lizard missed me?”
I playfully balked at her, blinking dramatically for effect. “Lizard? Oh, you better hope he never finds out that you called him that. It would devastate him.”
“Oh, my apologies. I wouldn’t want to offend him, especially since he’s the only one who seems to miss me.” There it was—Tasha had just cast the first line, fishing for more.
“If I’m being honest, I didn’t really have much of a choice. He forced me to come, but that doesn’t mean he’s the only one who misses you. He was getting really pissy with me because I wasn’t taking care of him like I used to.”
The humor dissipated as concern dotted her brow. “Why weren’t you taking care of him?”
“Because I was too depressed to do much of anything.”
“Oh,” she whispered, just as the pain in her eyes returned.
I suddenly realized that it might not have been pain at all, but rather guilt, as if she felt responsible for how everything went down. If that was the case, then I needed her to know that I didn’t blame her. “I was depressed because you weren’t there.”
“Oh,” she repeated, though this time, hope filled her voice.
“I know that I don’t deserve it, especially after the way I left things last time, but I was hoping that we might be able to talk?” At this point, I didn’t care if I sounded desperate; hell, I was desperate. There was no point in hiding it.
Without saying anything else, she finished turning the key in her door and invited me in.
“Wow, this is quite a difference from your sister’s place, huh?”
Tasha tossed her keys onto the coffee table and shrugged. It wasn’t until she made her way back from the kitchen—I only knew where she went because she returned with two drinks—that she finally responded to my statement. “Yeah, I guess it is a little different. My walls are yellow, hers are grey. Other than that, they’re almost identical.”
I twisted off the cap on the bottle of water she handed me and followed her lead, sitting next to her on the two-person loveseat. This was certainly not how I saw our conversation going, not that I was complaining. In fact, I was very happy that things were proving to be easier than expected.
“Listen, Jacoby…” She turned her whole body to face me until she was sitting sideways on the couch. “I’m really sorry about—”
“There’s nothing to apologize for, Tasha. I’ve already told you that. It wasn’t your fault; neither of us were thinking when we left the hospital together. And honestly, if we were anyone else, no one would’ve thought twice. The only reason it became what it was is because they were clearly trying to catch your sister in a compromising position, and you helping me outside was just enough for the press to take off running with it.”
“Say what you want, but I still feel awful about it. The only thing that matters is that your past never would’ve been brought up if it hadn’t been for me. No matter which way you slice it, the only reason any of this has happened to you is because of me.”
While she wasn’t wrong, I didn’t believe a single word of it. And even though I still battled with the shame left behind by my parents’ actions, easing her worries became the higher priority. It helped to block some of the embarrassment that bubbled to the surface at the unspoken acknowledgment that she knew what my parents had done.
“What happened in my past will always be there. With or without you, it was always there. And truth be told, having it brought back up in the media has helped me deal with it in ways I never would’ve been able to without you. It’s released some of the binds that have held me back for so long. If anything, I should be thanking you.”
Confusion and disbelief crossed her face again. “How did that help you?”
Before getting in my car this morning, I’d promised myself that I would give her everything. The entire time we’d spent together, I’d kept so much from her, essentially preventing her from truly knowing parts of me. But I wouldn’t do that anymore.
I’d give her all of me, and she could choose to take me or leave me.
But at least it would be her choice, and she’d have all the facts.
“I don’t know how much of my story that you know, but in a nutshell, my parents were sentenced to fourteen years in prison for a barrage of charges ranging from tax fraud to mail fraud—though they only served eight. At the time, I was twelve and Jessa was fifteen, so we were sent to live with our grandparents. While we were there, we weren’t allowed any contact with either of our parents. They refused to take us to visit them, and any calls from the jail were blocked.”
“Did you want to talk to them?”
This was something I’d asked myself many times. “To begin with, yes, but only because I didn’t understand what was going on. I was young, so it wasn’t like I knew the full story. As I got a little older and had to deal with the rumors and whispers, no, I didn’t want anything to do with them. Jessa and I were both out of the house by the time they were released from prison, so even if they did try to talk to us then, they wouldn’t have known where to find us—our grandmother certainly wasn’t going to tell them where we were.”
“So you haven’t spoken to them at all?”
“Nope, and I realized that part of my fear was that they’d try to talk to us or try to come see us. If our names are back in the media, especially in the context that it was this time, where anyone reading the articles would know where we lived, then they could’ve easily shown up on Jessa’s front doorstep.”
Understanding darkened her eyes as she nodded, taking it all in. “Did they?”
“We were prepared for it, but no…they never showed up. They were never on the other end of a phone call, either. Every day I would wake up thinking, today’s the day I’ll see them again, and I’d go to sleep that night wondering why it bothered me that they didn’t come around. Finally, after a couple of weeks of waiting for nothing, I finally understood what had affected me all these years—guilt. Yeah, I also dealt with suffocating humiliation, but I didn’t feel nearly as embarrassed as I did guilty.”
“Why did you feel like that? What did you do?”
“They had their faults, clearly, but I guess deep down, I felt like I had abandoned them. Now I know that’s simply not the case. They didn’t make any attempt to contact us over the years. I just assumed that our Nan and Pop had kept us from them, but apparently, they didn’t have to do that because our parents weren’t interested in seeing us.”
Her brow furrowed as she narrowed her eyes on me. “Are they still alive?”
“Who, my parents? Yes. Our grandparents died years ago, but yeah, Jim and Lillian Abbott are alive and well. Divorced, obviously, though that should probably be assumed since my dad’s interests in young men became public.”
“Are you okay?” she timidly asked.
For the first time in twenty years, I felt confident in my answer when I said, “Yes. As crummy as all this was, and as embarrassing as it is for people to know what my parents did, there’s no way I would’ve been able to recognize my true feelings about everything if it hadn’t happened. I feel better than okay with it—I feel fr
ee.”
“That makes me really happy to hear.”
“Too bad I didn’t have all this sorted before you left, though. That’s what I feel the worst about. I didn’t know you were going to leave, Tasha, I swear. I thought we had more time to figure it all out.”
She pulled her lips to one side and hesitated for a moment. “You said that it all factored around whether or not they exposed your past. Once that was out there, I didn’t think I stood a chance with you. In my mind, there was no point in contacting you to let you know that I was leaving. You had made it quite clear where the lines in the sand were drawn.”
“You’re absolutely right, and I can’t apologize enough for that. I was mentally in a very dark place, but I wasn’t there long. Once I started to unravel the emotions that I’d kept buried for the last twenty years, it all just kind of fell into place. It was a rather quick revelation.”
She shrugged, not appearing to be as affected by my sordid past. “Well, it’s all over now, and like they say, hindsight is twenty-twenty. Had you known ahead of time that all you had to do was sort through emotions that had been locked away for years—and that it would be a rather fast process—you might not have pushed me away that day. And had I known that you weren’t steadfast in your claim to end things for good if your past came to light, then I might’ve stayed and waited it out. But we can’t go back in time, and thankfully, it seems as though everything has worked out for both of us. So I guess right now, all we have to figure out is where to go from here.”
Her response proved once more what a truly remarkable woman she was.
I remained resolute in my decision to leave the outcome completely up to her, but that didn’t mean that I wouldn’t make my own wants and wishes very clear. Now, I just had to make sure I didn’t mess this up.
“Yellow hearts danced in my eyes the first time I met you, which was a little odd to me, because technically, I thought we had already met. Once I learned the truth, it made sense that I was filled with dozens upon dozens of yellow hearts—because I had a crush on you from the very first moment I saw you.”
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