True Love Way
Page 21
Stolen feathers and staying awake all night long.
Penelope pushes me onto my back, climbing on top and dropping herself slowly onto my length. She moves her hips back and forth, head tipped back. I touch her legs, her stomach, her chest.
“You took it down?”
I look up at my sister and nod, not interested in talking about it.
Risa sits next to me. “Penelope seems happy about it.”
Taking a chance, I look up from my book and out the window, over to Penelope’s. I haven’t had the balls to look yet, too afraid to see what I would find, ashamed that I put it up in the first place.
But there she is, with a small smile and an even smaller wave, she closes her curtains and walks away.
I sit up, wrapping one arm around Penelope’s back, placing my other hand on her hip. She moves back and forth with closed eyes and raised skin. I touch her, feel her … remembering everything.
How it felt to see her with Joshua Dark at that party. How it felt even worse to fight him and lose, again. Living every day in a haze and staying away, despite wanting nothing more than to go to her.
I will always regret not going to her sooner, but I’ll never regret the lesson learned.
I run my hand along her face, lips touching and tongues gliding. I grip into her skin and rock back and forth as she comes. Penelope holds on to my shoulders, confessions of love and forever exchange until tears leave her eyes and our bodies collapse.
Penelope smiles, hooded eyes and flushed cheeks. She runs her hands though my sweaty hair and locks her legs around mine so I can’t pull out.
“Happy Wedding Day, Dillon,” she whispers.
“Happy Birthday, Penelope.”
I drop my keys onto the counter, blow out a candle Penelope left lit, and sift through some of the mail that was left for me to see. “I’m home, Pen.”
Bills, junk, and congratulation cards are still coming in from this weekend’s no-shows.
“I’m back here!” she yells over splashing water and loud reality television.
I take off my jacket and empty my pockets before heading toward our bedroom. The TV is on, blasting so Penelope can hear it in the bathroom. When I turn it off, Pen says, “Hey!”
I turn the radio on instead, and she shuts up.
I lean in the doorway of the muggy bathroom. Penelope sits in the bathtub, bubbles up to her neck and candles lit on every surface.
I laugh, unbuttoning my shirt. “I’ve been telling you since we were fourteen about these candles, Penelope.”
My wife looks up at me, lifting her knees so I have room to get in. “Oh, I know. I just love them so much.”
I drop my shirt to the floor, step out of my shoes, and get into the water. Bubbles overflow, and water spills onto the floor. Penelope laughs loudly while she sticks her feet on my lap and lies back, not caring that I just got in with my pants still on.
She sighs, lifting her hair and tying it into a knot. “You’re silly.”
I don’t stay on my side of the tub for long; I’m up on my knees, between her legs and over her belly. I kiss her lips, then her cheek, her chin, her chest … our growing miracle.
I rub my hand back and forth over our baby girl. “How are you doin’ today?”
“Tired, hungry, and a little bit moody.” Penelope closes her eyes. “I thought of a name, though.”
“You did?” I stand and take off my pants so that I can sit behind Penelope. With her back pressed against my chest, my knees up on each side of her body, both of our hands lie on top of her swollen belly.
“Layla,” she says, playing in the bubbles.
“Like the song?”
“Yeah, like the song.”
I kiss the top of her shoulder, watching as goose bumps spread along her skin. “It’s beautiful.”
“I went through the rest of the gifts from the baby shower.” She smiles. “Your sister got the baby one of those pacifiers with crystals all over it. It’s so, so pretty.”
I kiss her neck and the spot right below her ear. “That’s nice.”
The bathroom is dark, candles being our only light. Pen goes on and on about the baby shower she had last weekend. We got almost everything we need, with the exception of a few small things. I tell her about the cards that came in the mail.
After she tells me about cribs that need assembling and about so much pink she wants to puke, we fall into a comfortable silence.
Penelope looks back, and I smirk. “I mean, just because she is a girl doesn’t mean she has to wear pink all the time, right?”
“Right,” I assure her.
“I said no pink on the invitations, and still, it’s all we got.” She giggles, rambles, and laughs.
I smile, already knowing her reaction. “I like pink. It’s gentle.”
Penelope scoffs. “Gentle?”
“And soft.”
“And cute.” Penelope sighs, defeated.
The bath starts to cool; Penelope uses her big toe to turn the hot water back on. We fill the tub until it’s spilling over the side. The bubbles are long gone, and our skin is pruned.
I could fall asleep.
“Dillon?”
I clear my throat and open my eyes. “Yeah?”
“I’m afraid.”
I nod, knowing already that she is. It’s a conversation we have had over and over since Penelope found out she was pregnant.
Will her depression be passed on to our baby? Does it really even matter?
Our girl will be here in three months, and our fears will become real life. Fears we’ve always had, fears that keep Penelope from being able to sleep or eat, but fears we cannot allow to run away the happiness of the larger importance—Penelope and I are going to have a baby.
A healthy and happy baby girl.
Layla.
“Everything will be okay.”
“Promise?” she asks, voice small.
Regardless, everything will be okay. “I promise.”
With my hand on her belly and Penelope’s head on my chest, I close my eyes again. I drift in and out of sleep while Penelope sings along with the radio and the water cools. One by one the candles go out, being lit for too long.
In the dark and in a tub full of cold water, Layla starts to kick.
Penelope holds my hand on her kicking tummy. “Did you feel that?”
With closed eyes, I nod. “Yeah.”
The baby kicks again and again. Proof of life, a life Penelope and I made together. Proof of love and proof that everything will be okay.
No matter what.
He said this would be good for us. For her.
Especially her.
We have to trust everything he says, because he’s never wrong.
I lean my head on the cold glass, looking as we pass under a covering of trees. Sunlight shadows over my face when a break in leaves allows it to shine through. This drive has always been peaceful. We make it on weekends and holidays. Only this time, we aren’t leaving.
Dillon was offered a job at the hospital, and it didn’t take much to convince me it was time to leave Seattle.
He said, “This is what she needs, Penelope.”
And I said, “I know.”
Layla’s ten now. She’s a lot like Risa. It’s probably why they’re so close. She’s also the spitting image of her father. I don’t know when, or why, but Dillon and I silently agreed that Layla would be our only child. Having more kids wasn’t an issue or something we worried about. Layla’s everything we ever wanted.
And feared.
“Tired, baby?” Dillon reaches over and touches my arm. Age has done wonderful things for my husband. Sometimes I think back to when we were kids; he has such a soft face … always strong, but he had the most precious skin. Now, he has laugh lines and a few gray hairs he won’t admit to. His eyes reflect wisdom and understanding. He’s a fantastic provider and caretaker. I’d be lost without him. I always was.
“A little,” I say, brushing my finger
s over his hand.
He looks in the rearview mirror and calls out his daughter’s name, “Layla.”
She doesn’t answer, and I smile.
He calls her again. She blows a bubblegum bubble.
Dillon turns to face her, doing his best to keep his eyes on the road. Our only girl sits in the back with a pair of Hello Kitty sunglasses on her face, earbuds in her ears, and multicolored fingernails tapping in the air to whatever song she’s listening to.
She notices him looking. “What, Dad?”
“Quit kicking my seat,” he says, sitting up straighter, giving our baby dirty looks in the mirror. But he smiles and ruins it. Layla half-smiles before placing her earbuds back into her ears.
“Your daughter is rude,” he mumbles, half-smiling like she does.
It didn’t take long before we saw the signs in her. Like my own case, Layla showed symptoms as young as age four. By kindergarten, Dillon was whispering sweet words into her ear, promising school wasn’t bad. He insisted she’d make friends. Then he handed her a pair of sunglasses and swore that behind her shades, she was untouchable.
It was probably a bad decision, but we didn’t know what else to do.
As she grew older, we realized it wasn’t something she was just going to develop out of. It wasn’t a social anxiety, or nerves about friends, or the dark. I had passed my worst trait down to my daughter.
We’ve done everything we could since. Dillon and I try to make good decisions for Layla; we make sure she eats right, and we don’t allow her to wallow. Sometimes we have to give in and let her sleep, or cry, or scream. She sees a child psychologist regularly, and knows that her parents are here for her.
What else can really be done?
We can move to Castle Rain. And we are.
Our family waits curbside for us. Layla sits up as soon as she sees Risa and starts shaking the seat for her dad to let her out.
“Hold on.” He laughs, taking off his seatbelt. He opens the driver’s side door, and Layla practically jumps out, into the arms of her favorite aunt.
I stay in my seat, smiling at my mom and dad. I wave. They wave back. Kyle smiles, walking around the truck to welcome Dillon.
“Baby…” Dillon ducks back inside the moving truck. “Are you coming?”
I nod, slipping my sunglasses off my face. I shove them into my pocket and say, “Yeah, I’m coming.”
We chose a house on the other side of town from our parents. Dillon and I haven’t lived in Castle Rain in fifteen years, and we like our privacy. Our new home is cozy and typical for our town. We have a few neighbors, but they’re down the road. Dillon’s made sure, once again, that I have plenty of room to be … me.
My dad waits at the back of the moving truck, holding a box with my name on it. I take it, stick my tongue out, and carry it inside. “Penelope, quit daydreaming and grab a box.”
Inside, Risa and Mom put dishes away in the kitchen and clean out cupboards. They ask me where I want things, and I shrug. After dropping the box off in my new bedroom, I head outside.
What I find is hilarious and awfully familiar.
My ten-year-old daughter, wearing her shades and blowing her pink bubblegum bubbles, stands near the front of the truck holding a box. Her dad, with the sun in his eyes, stands at the opposite end, trying to find his words.
In the street, on a bike, is a boy.
“What are you looking at?” Dillon calls, taking a few steps forward. “Get away from my daughter, boy.”
I laugh.
Layla shrieks, “You’re so embarrassing, Dad!” and “I can’t believe you, Dad!”
The boy, the one on the bike looking at my daughter with puppy-sick eyes, sits up straight. He waves at Layla and spins his bike around to join his friends. My baby girl stomps her way toward the porch, giving her daddy nasty looks the entire way there.
I laugh. “That was ironic.”
“Shut it, Pen,” he says, watching the boy pedal away. “That was bullshit, you know?”
“Why?” I ask, wrapping my arms around him. He hugs me back. “Because it’s so well-known?”
Dillon looks down at me. “It was nothing like that. We were different.”
“It was exactly like that,” I whisper. “Puppy-dog eyes and bad intentions.”
Dillon lifts me, setting me inside the back of the moving truck. He joins me, closing the door. “I’ll show you bad intentions.”
My guy pushes me down onto the bare mattress.
I laugh out loud as Dillon finds me in the dark. He crawls between my legs, kissing my neck. Outside the truck I can hear my dad and daughter wondering where we are.
Dad hears me giggle.
“Boy, you better not have my daughter in there!” he yells.
“Okay.” Dillon sighs. “You’re right. It was exactly like that.”
Mary Elizabeth is an up and coming author who finds words in chaos, writing stories about the skeletons hanging in your closets.
Known as The Realist, Mary was born and raised in Southern California. She is a wife, mother of four beautiful children, and dog tamer to one enthusiastic Pit Bull and a prissy Chihuahua. She’s a hairstylist by day but contemporary fiction, new adult author by night. Mary can often be found finger twirling her hair and chewing on a stick of licorice while writing and rewriting a sentence over and over until it’s perfect. She discovered her talent for tale-telling accidentally, but literature is in her chokehold. And she’s not letting go until every story is told.
“The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure.”
--Jeremiah 17:9
For more Information on Mary’s solo work, follow her on:
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And you can also visit her on her website
My very first thank you has to go to my husband. You make it possible for me to live out this crazy dream of mine and never hold my occasional madness against me. Thank you for always being there to trim my roots when they grow too long.
There’s a whole team of people who helped bring True Love Way to life:
EK Blair—the very first person to read this and tell me it’s real—you were the driving force behind putting these words on paper. Thank you for your support and friendship. You are definitely not salt.
Amber L. Johnson—man-handler of my insecurities and self-loathing—thank you for encouraging me to be the very best writer I can be and for believing that I can do it alone when I didn’t.
Paige Smith—my editor who made crazy beautiful. I look forward to a long working relationship together. Thank you for handling my inconsistencies with grace.
Ari and Hang Le—for making True Love Way legit.
Debbie—my life-giver—thank you for making a bunch of numbers make sense. And just thanks for being my mom.
Kelly V.—my friend and keeper of all things Realist—thank you for getting the word out and keeping me on track. You pick up my slack when I’m busy making up stories, and for that, I’m forever grateful.
Christina, Jennifer, Michele, and Donnae—without your help, none of this would happen. Thank you.
Dee and Silvia—because I’ve never appreciated lists so much in my life.
To the readers—a million times, thank you.
And lastly, to anyone who read this and thought, That’s me. It’s me, too. We’re all a little sad sometimes, but remember life is too beautiful to ever give up.
TRUE LOVE WAY
MARY ELIZABETH
Copyright © Mary Elizabeth Literature
All Rights Reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced in any written, electronic, recording, or photocopying without written permission of the publisher or author. The exception would be in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews and pages where permission is specifically granted by the publisher or author.
Although every precaution has been taken to verify the accuracy of th
e information contained herein, the author and publisher assume no responsibility for any errors or omissions. No liability is assumed for damages that may result from the use of information contained within.
Cover Design: Arijana Karčić, Cover It! Designs
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Editor: Paige Maroney Smith
First Edition
Table of Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Introduction
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Epilogue Part One
Epilogue Part Two
Epilogue Part Three
Epilogue Part Four
Epilogue Part Five
About the Author
Acknowledgements
Copyright Notice