Sliding (The Stone Series)

by Kitty Berry

  Up until that moment I thought the sweetest sound in the world was hearing Tate say he loved me but I was wrong. The best sound in the world happened right then when I heard Zach cry and breathe his first breath.

  “It’s our boy” says Dr. Baxter “and he looks perfect.

  Tate kisses me and says, “I love you baby. Now come on, give me my daughter. One more big push.”

  Zoe takes about five more pushes and by the time I finally hear her scream I am done for. I hear Dr. Baxter say, “Welcome to the party Zoe” but after that everything goes black.

  I want to go to my babies but I can’t leave Brook who has just collapsed in my arms. At first I thought it was just exhaustion from the hours of labor and then the pushing but now I realize something is seriously wrong. I have never been a religious man and I have no idea who I am making this bargain with, maybe my father but I promise to be a better man if she’s okay. I promise to be the best father to my babies, I promise I will never drink or look to drugs to solve my problems, anything as long as I can have Brook, as long as I can have my wife.

  As they are rushing her out of the room leaving me on my knees in a pool of her blood screaming out her name our life flashes before my eyes. I see us as middle school students dancing that first night in the gym. She’s wearing that half shirt with the hearts on it and swaying back and forth with me even though I know she’s the best dancer at school. I see us in high school the night of my sixteenth birthday when we lost our virginity to each other. The way she looked so surprised at the felling when I was inside her for the first time. I see the locket that she still wears around her neck “First, Last, Only”. I see us in college at a dance club laughing and dancing with each other like two people who were hooking up for a one night stand instead of a couple who had been together since they were thirteen. I hear “Now and Forever” playing and I see myself on my knee holding a ring box up to her.

  “Brooklynn Adams, I have been in love with you and only you my entire life. Would you please make me the happiest man alive and agree to be my wife, Brooklynn Taylor? My first, my last and my only?”

  We are both crying and she rushes to me saying, “Yes, my first, my last and my only. Yes I will be your wife. Yes, I will marry you, Tate Taylor”

  I see us at Taylor Studios before that name meant anything to anyone but me. I see her dancing on stage after stage and with me at our wedding. I see her accepting awards and cheering for me as I win mine.

  This woman is all I have ever needed, all I have ever wanted. She should be holding our babies and I should be the one crashing on a table in an operating room not her. If I could change spots with her right now I would gladly lie down my life to save hers.

  I close my eyes and I see her again in her cheerleading uniforms, the one she wore before we were even dating, her high school uniform, her college uniform. I picture her in my mind in every costume she’s ever worn on stage and in shows. I even see her in what she had on that night at Pussy Cats. I see her in her wedding gown and in her maternity clothes.

  I picture what she must have looked like sitting home alone all those nights I was out getting drunk and high, the night she had her miscarriage. I picture her sitting home alone for those six months that I left her in Connecticut.

  ************

  When images start to reappear I see myself at my college graduation. Tate is there and after we sneak away from my family to make love in my apartment one last time before we pack my things up. Then I’m at Tate’s graduation and then in his empty apartment. He already packed and his parent’s have left for home. Tate, Bobby and I will drive home together after they say good-bye to their other roommates. When I hear “Now and Forever” I turn around to find Tate on his knee holding a ring box up to me. “Brooklynn Adams, I have been in love with you and only you my entire life. Would you please make me the happiest man alive and agree to be my wife, Brooklynn Taylor? My first, my last and my only?” Tate asks while tears stream down both of our faces. I rush to him and pull him to his feet, throw my arms around him; jump on him with my legs encircling him. I grab his face and kiss him while I say, “Yes, my first, my last and my only. Yes I will be your wife. Yes, I will marry you, Tate Taylor.”

  I see our wedding day and our first apartment in New York. I see Tate and I on our first day in our New York offices. Then I am working on a music video set choreographing for a Pop Princess. But then I hear voices that don’t belong with the images. Voices saying things about blood lose and people shouting orders. I hear Tate screaming. But as quickly as those sounds start they disappear and Suddenly I flash to the Super Bowl Half Time show I won an award for then I’m on stage accepting that award, thanking my family and my perfect husband and business partner. Other award shows flash before me, dancing on stage, accepting awards, cheering for Tate as he wins an award. The voices resurface and I hear them yelling, “She’s crashing, get him out of here!” My mind takes me back to my time working on Broadway then working with my dancers at the workshops I hold, training the dancers of the future. A voice says, “Clear” before I feel a sharp pain in my chest. The next thing I hear is, “Get her in the OR she’s going to bleed out. We need to do a hysterectomy now.”

  I feel like a ghost floating above my life when I see Tate at Jeff and David’s funeral then his father’s funeral, the look on Michael’s face when my parent’s refuse to accept his homosexuality. I see Katrina crying when her first marriage breaks up and then her second. The voice calls, “Clear” again and I brace myself for that pain in my chest. I see myself laying in bed in a pool of blood after my miscarriage. I see a faceless baby wrapped in a blanket. I feel a heavy pain in my chest then I see Asia in her cheerleading uniform. I see Missy, Annie, Asia and I dancing around my bedroom. I see Tate in his black shirt and black jeans at that first school dance with Bobby, David and Jeff.

  “We have a pulse” I hear the voices in the background say and I wish they’d be quiet. I am so tired and I just want to sleep. I’m in a hotel room in New York City and Tate and I are kissing. I see Tate and me at the State Championship game, and then when we lost our virginity to each other in his bed on his birthday. I see myself in my University of Kentucky cheer uniform hugging a sweaty Tate in his UNC basketball uniform when we played them. I see my babies crying then being swept off by a nurse and I finally decide to fight through the darkness. I need to hold my babies, feel their breath on my face. The last image I see before I open my eyes is myself looking into the mirror in the bathroom of my Connecticut home knowing that I am faced with my destiny and a choice to make…do I get on the plane and fly to California to be with Tate? I understand that it is the parallel tracking of two possible destinies, essentially the what-if scenario staring me right in the face. I could be entering into the center of two significantly different trajectories.

  As I am contemplating my decision I hear Mac honk the horn at the same time as the house phone starts to ring. Are these my two choices in life…answer the phone and miss my flight, stay in Connecticut possibly losing the only man I have ever known or leave the phone and run like hell to the car? I figure everyone has these little moments in time when they question which decision is right and which is wrong, both can change your life forever, leading you down different avenues. Times like the one staring me in the face that is impossible to go back and change. I see myself make my decision and run like hell leaving the phone to ring.

  I open my eyes to see Tate with Zach in his arms sitting on my bed while Katrina is holding Zoe with her girls look over her shoulders. Taylor Swift’s “Never Grow Up” is playing quietly in the background. Heidi, Dominick and Bobby are on the other side of the room. I notice Bobby is staring at my sister with a baby in her arms and Heidi is on Dominick’s lap. They all look so happy even though they look scared to death. I can’t help but think that I made the right decision getting on that plane, the decision that affected all of these lives here with me in this room.

  Tate notices that I have opened my e
yes but before he can speak I say, “There’s something that’s been driving me crazy. I can’t stop thinking about whom that was that called me when I was leaving for the airport to come to California.”

  Tate kisses me long, deep and hard making me forget everything else.

  As I stand looking into the mirror in the master suite’s bathroom I am faced with my destiny and a choice to make…do I get on the plane and fly to California to be with my husband and save my marriage or …what? We’ve lived apart for six months now and we will not survive living apart another six. It’s the parallel tracking of two possible destinies, essentially the what-if scenario staring me right in the face. I could be entering into the center of two significantly different trajectories.

  As I am contemplating my decision I hear Mac honk the horn at the same time as the house phone starts to ring. Are these my two choices in life…answer the phone and miss my flight, stay in Connecticut possibly losing the only man I have ever known or leave the phone and run like hell to the car? I figure everyone has these little moments in time when they question which decision is right and which is wrong, both can change your life forever, leading you down different avenues. Times like the one staring me in the face that is impossible to go back and change. Well, I guess this is what awaits me behind…

  Door #2

  Chapter 9: The Betrayal

  I take one last glance at myself in the mirror, not too bad. I have somehow managed to be a size two, so it’s not the size zero of my youth but I’m still firm and young looking. Botox, daily doses of yoga, Pilates, jogging, and weight training sessions with my trainer help. Being a seasoned borderline anorexic helps a little too. I am wearing Tate’s favorite dress. It’s short and black and it looks great on me, if I do say so myself. The highest heeled shoes that I own each with a little pink bow on them make the dress look even naughtier. I grab my shades and over sized bag to complete my look and head for the door taking one last look back at the phone ringing on the bedside table. Who the hell can that be and why aren’t they calling me on my cell? The suspense is too overwhelming and I lunge to grab the phone at the last minute.

  “Hello?” I answer expecting a telemarketer.

  “Brooklynn, its Ted. You need to sit down, we have to talk.”

  It’s my best friend, Asia’s husband. I try to tell him that I’m on my way out the door but he interrupts me with his news.

  “Asia and Tate have been having an affair. They started fucking each other about a year ago and it kept up until Tate left Connecticut six months ago. They were hooking up in some hotel room where they went after getting drunk and coked up together.”

  Silence fills the air and the phone lines as I try to comprehend what I am hearing. My body begins to grow cold and I feel a shiver run through my blood. I grasp onto my bed to support myself. My legs have gone to jelly and I am going to collapse.

  “Before you go and think I’m out of my mind, I’ve had them followed and I have pictures and other forms of evidence to prove I’m right. Is Mac there with you? He’s my private investigator, he knows everything…”

  I hang up on him and somehow manage to stagger to the front door. I open the door and find Mac standing in my driveway. Mac has my luggage packed in the trunk of our silver Porsche Cayenne and he smiles when I step outside saying, “Hello Mrs. Taylor”.

  Mac only started working for us shortly before Tate left for California. In that short time he has been a very loyal employee but now I find out he’s been working for Ted and spying on Tate and I the whole time. Apparently he’s been working for Ted much longer than us? I thought Mac was an ex-Marine who worked Special Ops but now I have no idea who or what he is or if I should trust him.

  The news Ted shared finally gets the best of me and I hit the hard concrete with a thud. I don’t know if I bang the back of my head or what happened but everything went black.

  When I come to I am in Mac’s arms on the ground and he is shaking me back to consciousness. “I assume by this reaction that Ted reached you? I’m so sorry Mrs. Taylor, I can explain but we’ll have to sit down, it’s a long complicated story and I think it would be best to get you inside.”

  “I don’t want to go inside, take me to Asia and Ted’s right now or is your responsibility no longer to me? Was it ever Mac?”

  He looks to me with sadness in his eyes like I’ve branded him somehow. He stands me up. He leads me to the car and opens the back door. When he climbs in the front seat he turns and hands me a folder. ”I’m sorry” is all Mac seems to be able to manage. It’s filled with pictures and receipts. I can barely bring myself to look at them. The pictures are of Tate and Asia at a bar with drinks in front of them. They look like they are sitting close together but nothing unusual; they’ve been friends for close to thirty years. Then there are pictures of them snorting coke off a table clearly in a hotel room. The pictures that are the hardest for me to see are the ones where they are naked and engaged in sex acts. There are tons that depict Asia in different bondage scenarios. She’s blindfolded in many of them and tied up either with rope or handcuffs in almost every one. Tate is clearly spanking her in many and in others he’s using sex toys on her. In all of them Tate has this faraway look on his face. He looks nothing like he does when we have sex.

  “I want to explain things to you in further detail. There are things Ted doesn’t know, that Ted can’t know about” Mac reports as we pull up in front of Ted and Asia’s house. By this time I am sick to my stomach. I no longer feel brave enough to confront my best friend. I know what ever happens this will be the end, the last time I will ever see her.

  I pause before I get out of the car and I remember the first day of kindergarten when we met. She has always had this fire red hair so she was the first kid I spotted when my mom tried to drop me off. I was scared and didn’t want to go. I started crying when the bell rang knowing my mom was going to walk back home with the other mothers and leave me at school alone while my sister and new baby brother got her undivided attention. I cried the whole way in line standing behind Asia and by the time we got into the classroom I had peed my pants and thrown up. All the other kids were laughing at me but not Asia, she was the only one who didn’t laugh. When the teacher asked for a volunteer to bring me to the nurse only Asia offered. We bonded that day in the nurse’s office while I waited for my mother to get the call from the nurse so she could turn back around and come get me. While I waited for my mom Asia told me that her sister’s went to school there and that she’s not afraid of school because they’ve told her all about it. She asks me if I play with dolls and what kind I have. We talk about our Barbie’s and she touches my curly hair. I tell her that I wish I had straight hair like hers and red too. When my mom finally comes to pick me up she asks who my new friend is and says we can have her over to play sometime. Asia and I are inseparable from that day forward.

  I am snapped back to the present when I hear four loud popping sounds and Mac jumps on me tackling me to the ground. He pulls his cell out of his pocket and orders me to use the number one on speed dial and tell them Asia’s address. He takes off towards the house while pulling a pistol from his waist and yelling at me to stay behind the car.

  Tony Macintosh has worked undercover for the government since ending his numerous tours as a Marine in the Special Operations Department. He is well over six feet tall with muscles trained to kill. When he hears gun shots fired his instinct is the opposite of every normal persons, he runs towards them. When he reaches the front door he discovers that it’s still locked. Upon further inspection he discovers that someone has entered the home through a basement window that has been smashed. He surveys the property and enters the home through a back window that is open. After checking the main floor of the premises for the perpetrator he climbs the stairs to the second floor where he finds the home owners in a bedroom. The male has been tied to a chair and gagged facing the bed where his wife has been bound and gagged in a standard bondage hold. They have both been shot twic
e, once in the chest, once in the head. Mac can only speculate what happened before he arrived and every thought that comes to mind turns his stomach. As he is trying to process the scene in front of him he hears the faint sound of a clock ticking. He quickly scans the room for the source and when one is not located he runs out of the room, leaps down the staircase onto the main floor. As he is running out of the front door the bomb detonates and the explosion catapults him onto the front lawn. He quickly gets to his feet and runs to Brooklynn Taylor.

  As Mac is approaching the road he sees the familiar government issued cars pull up. He runs past his colleagues, throws a screaming Brooklynn Taylor over his shoulder without a word and carries her to an Orca Black Metallic Audi Q7 and tosses her into the backseat with an aggressive instruction to buckle up.

  I do as Mac instructs me, I call the number and report the address where Ted and Asia live and I stay hidden behind my car. It feels like hours that I am cowering there when I hear the sound of engines coming from behind me. Just as I am about to turn and look an explosion shakes the ground under me. At least ten black SUVs with government plates pull up and men dressed in black jump out, run past me and take off towards Ted and Asia’s house or where it used to be. When I peek around in the direction of the house all I see is Mac with his cocoa colored skin covered in soot from the explosion. He is a sight for sore eyes and it’s then that I realize for the first time that I am screaming. Mac throws me over his shoulder and carries me to one of the government SUVs. He tosses me into the backseat and commands that I fasten my seatbelt.