by Lucy Rinaldi
“Alright, Cal!” I almost yell.
“Does she have a name? Am I going to meet her?”
Good question, Mother.
I rub my hand across the back of my neck. How do I tell her that I'm married to her best friends only daughter? I'm not sure my mother won't kill me.
“Kory?”
“You've already met her. You all have.” Each and every one of them is looking at me so goddamn confused it's almost comical. “You see her every day. Well, most of you. She lives here in town.”
“Bullshit,” I raise my eyebrows at Callie. “If your wife lived here in town we'd all know about your marriage. You can't have been married to anyone in town for six years without her slipping up!”
“She does as she's told!” Dammit, now they're all looking at me like I'm a fucking monster who forced his wife to lie for him.
You are a monster who forces his wife to lie for him, Kory. A monster who takes what he wants from her and then drops her like she's nothing again and again!
“Who is she, Kory?!”
“Aimee.” Good, it's out there.
“Aimee?” My mother asks. “Aimee Lynch? As in my best friend's daughter?!” She's practically screaming at me. “Tell me that's not who you married, Kory!”
I push my hands into the pockets of my jeans, roll my shoulders and look her in the eyes. “That's who I married. Six years ago this August. Roya's birthday, in fact.”
“You got married on my birthday?” Roya smiles excitedly at me.
“Now isn't the time, Roya.” Callie admonishes like some damn school teacher.
“Sorry.”
I wink at my youngest sister, my beautiful little sister. She smiles at me. The bond between us was never broken, it could never be. She meant everything to me when I was a young boy, she still does. Yes, I have three other sisters who mean the world to me, but it was always different with Abigail – Roya.
I married Aimee on Roya's birthday because yes, I loved Aimee more than anything, but it was a way for me to keep Abi in my heart. A special day that could never be taken from me. I never thought I'd see my sister again and I just wanted something to help remember her by.
The fact Aimee was in Seattle with me around that time just proved to me that it was meant to be. That was the day God wanted me to marry the woman I love. So I did.
“How could you do this to me? How could she keep this from Jenny? Oh my god, what is Jenny going to say?”
Why on this earth is she being so dramatic?
“Mother, this is what it is. We got married, we didn't tell you. The damn world isn't about to end because of it!”
“There's no need to snap at her, Kory.” Roya's right, there is no need for me to snap at her, but she's so over the top sometimes that I can't help my temper from flaring.
“Why did you keep it from us, Kory?”
“I told you why!”
No, you didn't, Kory. Not the real truth, at least.
So here goes... “And it was a mistake, Mother.” It was in no way a mistake, but I can't tell her the real reason why I kept it to myself, why I made Aimee keep it to herself.
“Then why not divorce?”
“Because I didn't want to divorce her. She's my wife. Mine. And I am here for her and I am not leaving without her! Now, you can all slam me all you like. I really don't give a damn. But you now know the truth and that's all I came here to tell you.”
With that, I walk out of there without another word, without waiting to hear them say one more word. I told them what I had to tell them, that should be enough for them. Or maybe it's not, but I don't really give a shit. I have a wife to find before my mother does.
Three
Aimee
I'm having lunch with my mom at her house when she takes a call from Sidney, Kory's mom. It's not unusual they are best friends. She took the call in the other room, leaving me at the dining table picking at my food. I have no appetite today, none at all.
Of course, the feeling of needing to vomit comes to a head when my mother comes barging into the dining room demanding I tell her that what Sidney told her isn't true. Because she knows her daughter would never get married behind her back and then wait six years before telling her parents.
My heart is still by my feet. He actually told his mother about us, about our marriage. Why didn't he give me warning? I could have broken the news to my mother. Maybe then she wouldn't be standing in front of me screaming her head off.
I know he said last night that he'd tell her, but I didn't actually believe him! I mean, why would I, it's not like he's kept any of his promises over the years.
My mother grabs my upper arms and shakes me like I'm a naughty little girl. I'm twenty-seven years old! “Mom, you're hurting me.”
“Kory Harper!? What the hell were you thinking?”
“That he's got a massive cock, and that maybe I'd like to feel it inside of me every day for the rest of my life?” Okay, that was totally vile of me to say, but when is she going to get the picture that I'm not a child anymore?
I love my mother more than anything in this world, but she still treats me like a child. It doesn't bother me half the time, but right now is not the time for her to act like this. I know I've done wrong, but Christ!
And I have done wrong by keeping my marriage from her. But what else was I supposed to do? Maybe grow a backbone and just tell my parents, what the hell could Kory have done about it if I had?
I really am just a silly girl, one who lets her husband dictate her life because she's truthfully too scared to lose him. Too scared that he really will walk away for good.
Thought that's what you wanted, Aimee?
So did I.
I do.
Yes, I do, dammit.
My mother let's go of my arms and takes a step or two back from me. Putting some much-needed distance between us. “Get out.”
“What? Mom, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be so crude. And I'm sorry you had to find out about Kory and me like this. I wanted to tell for so long now.”
“Get out, Aimee. I can't deal with this right now. I need you to go. I need to talk to your father.”
“Don't you think I should be the one to tell dad?”
Her eyes bore into me so hard I can feel the fire of it burning my soul to ash. “I said, Get out!” I flinch. She's never spoken to me that way before. I understand she's upset with me, hell, anybody would be. But I didn't expect this kind of reaction.
“Should I come back later?”
“No. Just get out and don't come back.”
“Mom?” I'm not totally sure what she's saying.
She grabs my arm and drags me to her front door. Opening it, she pushes me out. She grabs my purse from the coat hook and throws them at me. “Don't you dare come back. Do you understand me?”
“Mom, you can't be serious? You can't just throw me out of your life because of this.” She says nothing more before slamming her front door.
I know she doesn't mean this, she's just upset at what's been kept from her. And for that, I am truly sorry. But reacting this badly to it all is ridiculously over the top!
Maybe now would be a good time for me to take a much-needed vacation. Kory has reeked havoc on my life all in his bid to drag me back into his sick world.
Well, thanks a lot, Kory Harper, you've well and truly fucked my life up, you bastard!
* * *
After waking in a daze for over an hour, and fully ignoring my phone, I end up at my boutique. I have nowhere else to go right now. Going home means I'll just wallow in self-pity, and I'm not that kind of girl. No, I need to keep busy. I have orders to get out, so that's what I'll do.
What I didn't expect was to walk into my boutique to all four Harper sisters waiting for me. I should have realized, I've known them my whole life, well, three of them. And I know exactly what they're like when they have a bee in the bonnets.
I really could do without this right now. Each one of them is looking at me like I've k
illed their husband. Roya is leaning against the sales counter while her sisters are all sitting on the leather chairs near the dressing rooms.
“What's all this?” I ask while removing my jacket and hanging it on the coat hook next to the counter.
“Were you ever going to tell us?” Callie asks.
I breathe deeply. I don't even know what to say to them. I know they feel like I've lied to them, and in a way I have, I've lied to everyone. But I honestly don't think I could take my friends hating me as well as my parents. And from the text I received from my father just before I got here, telling me he thinks it's best if I stay away from the house for a few days in order to give him and my mother time to calm down, and that he's so very disappointed in me, that he feels me to be a liar who manipulated her family, and that maybe I should consider moving to Seattle with my husband. I know I've lost my parents.
It has killed me inside.
Why couldn't he have called me to say all of that instead of texting me like a coward? I have to tell myself that my parents are just angry right now, that they'll come around in a couple of days. I also wonder if Sidney and Keller had the same reaction with Kory. Or are they supportive of him?
“We would have understood, you know?” I chew on the inside of my lower lip as I listen to Lora.
Lora and I went to school together, best friends from little girls. I'm half a year older, but that meant nothing to us. And right now, she's angry with me. She might not be yelling, her voice may even be calm, but she's angry.
“All these years you've been our sister-in-law and we didn't even know. Why the hell didn't you say anything?!” Okay, now she's yelling.
“Kory told me not to.”
“And you do everything Kory tells you to, right?” Callie snaps at me. And I don't even know what to tell them. They have every right to be angry about this, they feel like they've been lied to. Right now, I just want the ground to swallow me up. “I don't understand any of this, Aimee. Why on earth would you keep this a secret?”
“Alright, Cal. Can't you see she's upset.”
I am, my heart is breaking, and I'm fighting the urge to cry.
“I don't care how upset she is, Della! This whole thing is ridiculous!”
“I understand how angry you all are with me. You have no idea how sorry I am. I never wanted to keep it a secret from anyone, but Kory wouldn't let me tell anybody.”
“Why not?”
“I don't know, Roya. I've asked him the same thing over and over again.”
“So, wait,” I sigh and fold my arms around myself. I suddenly feel very cold. Callie is the eldest of the Harper girls and the most opinionated. “How does this marriage of yours even work? He lives in Seattle. You live here. He only comes home once or twice a year.”
I stand next to Roya telling them everything about my marriage to their brother. Everything from how it happened that one drunken night, to him walking out on me two weeks later. Then about how he's refused more than ten times to give me the divorce I want. And even how each time he comes to town, he has me falling at his feet with his demands that I belong to him because I'm his wife and he has every right to expect me to fulfill my wifely duties.
The girls are all looking at me wide-eyed, mouths hanging open. I know this has shocked them, and I have no right to expect anything else, but I just want someone to understand why I did what Kory wanted. But how can I expect that when I don't even know myself?
Love really does hurt in so many ways. I always thought I'd fall in love with a man who believed me to be his everything. Of course, I had a crush on Kory when I was a teenager, who wouldn't, he's efin gorgeous. But I never saw him as anything more than a fantasy that I could get lost in while in bed at night.
So when he sat with me one night a couple of weeks before my twenty-first birthday on the waterfront, and he touched my face and told me how beautiful he thought I was. How he loved the way I dyed my hair all sorts of strange colors in order to get away from my natural dull light brown, and then he kissed me. It took me aback, but I melted into it.
The next thing I knew, we were in a hotel room making love. Okay, he fucked me, hard, and then made love to me before I fell asleep in his arms. It was everything I ever dreamed it would be.
He left the next day for Seattle, but not before he told me he'd call me. I fell for him that night. I honestly felt like I was on top of the world. And then when he called me a few days later just to chat, I was lost to him.
We spoke every few days for months after that. We had so much to talk about. We'd known each other all our lives yet there was so much to learn.
Then he invited me out to Seattle. I jumped at the chance and even told my mother she wouldn't have to worry about my little trip because Kory and Greg would be meeting up with me so I'd be safe. She was fine with that. Of course, she had no idea what would come of that trip.
I was there two days before Kory drunkenly asked me to marry him. Of course, I laughed, I mean, how absurd. But as he pulled me into his arms and kissed me like his life depended on it, something inside of me screamed, Do It. He asked me again and I said yes.
I thought we'd be planning a huge white wedding where our mothers would be able to go crazy over it. And the fact they're best friends and their children were marrying would have meant so much to them.
Little did I know that I wasn't going to have that dream. The very next day, Kory took me to a little chapel in the middle of nowhere and we were married. I protested, of course, but Kory is a good negotiator or manipulator as I've come to realize, and he soon made me see that he loved me, that he couldn't wait to make me his wife, and how we'd be able to have a big party where we'd invite everyone we knew to celebrate with us once we were back in Oak Springs.
Two weeks of perfect happiness followed. Two weeks where I was everything to him and he to me. We made love every chance we got, and nothing was too much for him where I was concerned. I was even considering moving to Seattle permanently to be with him. I just couldn't bear the thought of not being with him all the time, and I knew he wouldn't come home with me.
I woke that last morning with a huge smile on my face. A smile because I couldn't wait to tell him that I'd be moving to Seattle for good. But as I turned my head, I knew instantly something was up. There was a note on his bedside table and it simply said: I'm sorry... His wedding band sat on top and next to it was a one-way ticket home for me.
Of course, I could have waited for him to come home, begged him not to leave me. But what would that have got me? Even more, heartbreak when told me to my face that he'd made a mistake? No, I packed my bags and left.
I said nothing to anyone once I returned home. I didn't want my parents to know what I'd done. I filed for divorce three days later only to get a call a week after that from Kory. I was shocked but he told me in no uncertain terms that a divorce was out of the question, that I belonged to him and soon we'd be together, but that I couldn't tell anybody that we were married until he said so. It was really important that I trust him and just wait for a little while, then we'd be together for the rest of our lives.
I don't know, I guess I was more than just stupid to believe him and go along with it. And I was even more stupid to voice my fears to him more than once. Each time I did, he'd come back into town and draw me into his lies of loving me and just needing a little more time. He'd fuck me for a few days and make me feel like we could finally be together before walking away from me all over again. I let it go on for so long that it just became second nature to me not to say anything. Now, look what's happened?
“Jesus Christ, Aimz.” Callie scrubs her hands over her face. Lora and Della are tight-lipped. And Roya is standing next to me looking straight ahead. My head is now pounding so hard my brain feels like it's being crushed in my skull. “Do your parents know?”
“Your mom called mine. She didn't react very well.” I shrug.
“What happened?” Roya asks.
“She threw me out. She literall
y dragged me out of her house and told me never to come back before slamming the door in my face.”
“She doesn't mean it, Aimz, she's in shock.”
“I know that, Del. I got a text from my dad just before I got here. He told me that he basically doesn't want to see me anymore either. Told me that I should just move to Seattle and live with Kory. He's ashamed of me.” I shrug, “I don't know, I totally messed up.” Messed up is an understatement.
“Don't be so hard on yourself. So you married my brother and kept it a secret for six years,” Callie says as she gets to her feet. “It's not the end of the world. But my question to you is,” She folds her arms around her body, “Do you love him? Even after he's done all of this to you, do you love him?”
I swallow hard before rubbing my forehead with my right hand, trying to relieve some of the pressure building there.
“Yes,” I answer honestly. “I love him. I've loved him for a very long time. But I hate him just as much for what he's done to me. What he keeps on doing to me. And I hate myself for letting him.”
“Do you think you can work things out with him?” I shake my head at Lora. Kory doesn't love me, he loves playing games with me. I deserve more than that. “You know he told us that he loves you, that he wants you back.”
I don't have anything else to say. So he told them he loves me, it's all part of his game. I just wish I knew what his game was this time.
I'm so tired I can hardly see straight.
I turn to Roya. “Do you think you could finish up here today?”
“Sure. Are you okay?”
“I need to go home, I don't feel so good. I'm going to take a couple of days off. You're in charge. There's plenty of work for you to do, but don't take any more orders until those are out of the way.”
She nods with flourished eyebrows. I don't read anything into her expression, it's becoming hard to see.
“You know where we are if you need us.” I don't answer Callie, I just let her hug me, followed one by one by her sisters just as the door opens and Kory walks in.