by Jillian Dodd
“Did Kylie say what happened?”
“No. Just that he was hurt pretty badly.”
Could she be a little vaguer?
“Was it a car accident?”
“I don’t know. But he’s been here for the past two days, so it must be bad.” We get on the elevator, and she pushes the button for his floor. “Zack’s been here since he found out.”
I can barely keep myself from jumping out of my skin as we ride up to Kellen’s floor. Here I was, blaming him for not getting in touch with me, while he was lying in a hospital bed.
I’m glad now that Hayley reached out to her sister even though I’d begged her not to.
Kylie is waiting in the hallway, sitting on what looks like a pretty uncomfortable plastic chair. “Hey,” she whispers, hugging both of us. “It’ll be okay. He woke up a little while ago.”
“He was unconscious all this time?” I can hardly breathe. Hayley has to put an arm around me for support.
Kylie nods. Her eyes are red-rimmed. “He was unconscious when he was brought in and then they found internal bleeding so they took him into surgery and were able to stop the bleeding. He’s been in and out since he woke from the surgery. They banged him up pretty badly.”
They.
They?
Who’s they?
I look to Hayley, who clearly picked up on her sister’s choice of words, just like I did.
“They banged him up? What are we talking about here?”
“I imagined it was a car accident or something,” I add.
Kylie’s bronzed skin goes white. “Oh. Right.” She runs her hands through her hair, either distracted or nervous. I’d bet on the latter.
“What happened to him?” I whisper even though I’m not sure I want to know now. Not when the little bit of information I’ve been given makes me sick to my stomach. How much worse will it be when I find out the rest of it?
She looks from me to Hayley and back again. I can tell she doesn’t want to say, which only drives me half-crazy with the need to know more.
Hayley’s legal mind is already turning. “Will it incriminate him in something if he admits what happened? Will it put either of us in jeopardy?”
Kylie frowns, shaking her head. “I don’t think so.”
“Wait.” Now, I’m thoroughly confused, like I walked into a movie halfway through. “What would he be involved in that could be so serious?”
And why didn’t Kylie act stunned when Hayley said that?
Instead, she took the questions in stride and answered as best she could.
Poor Kylie.
She glances in the direction of Kellen’s room, chewing her lip. “It’s more like I don’t think he wants it blabbed about. He’s ashamed. I know he wouldn’t want you to think badly of him. He couldn’t stop talking about you to Zack the morning after the wedding. He was looking forward to seeing you again. This is going to crush him.”
Crush him? What about me?
One look at Hayley tells me she’s no more aware of the ins and outs than I am, though she’s concerned. “If he wanted to continue seeing Kitty, this is something she would’ve found out about eventually. What is he hiding?”
Kylie rubs her temples. “Okay. You’re right. You would’ve found out anyway—I mean, I would’ve seen to it. As it was, I had my reservations, but I figured I wouldn’t say anything about it until I knew the two of you were going to continue seeing each other. No sense in bringing it up if you’d left things back at the resort. And, really, if it wasn’t for him and Zack being so close, I might’ve said something anyway. But Zack is super protective of him.”
“Protective of what exactly?” I’m ready to explode at this point. I just might unless I get answers.
She takes a deep breath and lowers her voice even further. “Briggs is a compulsive gambler. It’s an addiction. It started back in college.”
It hits me with the force of a bomb going off in my face.
Yet my first reaction isn’t one of surprise. Or dismay.
It’s incredulity.
“No. That’s not right. He told me …” I can’t go on.
“What did he tell you?”
Now, I don’t know whether or not I should say, but with the two of them looking at me the way they are, it seems like the time to keep my mouth shut has passed. “He told me Zack was the one with a problem.”
Her brow lowers. “Oh, he said that, did he? Well, he lied. Yes, I knew that Zack had bet on games in college, but he stopped very quickly once he saw how deeply Briggs had fallen into it. Apparently, there was some trouble with loan sharks—Zack would never go into detail—but things got bad when Briggs’s family found out. He supposedly cleaned up his act after that—at least, that’s what he told Zack whenever he checked on him.”
The world is spinning around me.
Kellen created an entire story—no, actually, that isn’t true. He just flipped the truth, making himself look like the good friend and Zach the gambler, when in truth, he’s a really shitty friend. I suppose addiction will do that to you.
“Here. Sit.” Hayley nudges me toward one of the chairs positioned against the wall. I have no choice but to lower myself into it.
She turns to her sister, still holding my hand. “What you’re saying is, Briggs owed people money, and they beat him up when he didn’t have it.”
“In a nutshell, yes.” Kylie touches my shoulder. “I know it must be hard to hear. I’m sorry. We really did hope he had himself back on track.”
My head bobs up and down without my meaning to move it. “I understand. And I feel like I owe you both an apology, too. I went round and round with myself wondering if I should say something about it to you or Hayley.”
“Don’t feel guilty,” Kylie says. “I understand why you wouldn’t want to bring it up at my wedding. I should have told Hayley not to push you two together and why.”
“No kidding.” Hayley snorts.
“It’s not your fault,” I remind her, looking up. “I don’t hate Kellen. I feel sorry that he got into this mess. He’s a nice person. I like him so much.”
Kylie sits next to me. “I know it would mean a lot for him to hear you say that, though nobody would ever force you to go and talk to him. I don’t know if he’d even want to face you right now. Not only because he’s banged up. He’s also embarrassed.”
“I can understand that.”
Zack steps out of the room, looking surprised to find us there. He stares at his wife, who shrugs.
“They were worried. Hayley asked me if I knew what was going on with him. I couldn’t pretend not to know.”
He looks from Hayley to me. “It doesn’t matter now, I guess. This isn’t something you can hide from people you care about. I keep trying to tell him that, but … well, it’s too late now. You were bound to find out.”
“I’m just glad she found out when she did.” Hayley’s touch is protective, just like the fierceness in her voice.
I know her heart’s in the right place. Truly, I do.
That doesn’t stop me from feeling slightly irritated. “I’m okay, we didn’t make each other any promises. It doesn’t matter. Not for my sake. I feel sorry for him. Not for me.”
“I’m always going to worry more about you than I do about anybody else. That’s just how it is.” She shrugs.
Looking at Zack, I feel guilty for ever having believed the story Kellen told me about him. But I still wonder why he lied about it all.
I don’t know what hurts more, honestly. I never gave him any reason to make up a story. I never asked anything from him.
Except for him to be truthful with me.
Sure, I never came right out and spoke those words aloud, but did I need to? Isn’t it sort of implied?
Zack ducks back into Kellen’s room, and I hear murmuring coming from inside. I know what Zack’s doing. What I don’t know is whether or not I want to see Kellen. Especially if he’s banged up badly. I’m not sure if I can handle it.
He doesn’t owe me anything. I don’t owe him anything.
Actually, that’s not quite right. He owes me an explanation.
But I’m not so sure I need them right this very minute. The man’s in a hospital bed and just got through surgery. The last thing he needs to do is explain himself.
Clearly, he feels otherwise since, when Zack sticks his head out the door and into the hall, he murmurs, “Briggs wants to see you.”
“You don’t have to,” Hayley whispers. “You really don’t.”
“I know.” But I stand just the same and throw my shoulders back.
If nothing else, he needs a friend right now. I can do that much.
I think.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The first thing I notice when entering the room is the number of machines all around. That’s not such a surprise. I saw them when I was here with Grandmother.
The second is the mass of swollen flesh that used to be Kellen’s face.
I mean, it’s still Kellen’s face. But now, it has stitches in it. A swollen eye. A split lip.
I can barely breathe. I wish I hadn’t come in here. I wish I hadn’t come to the hospital.
I wish I could’ve let this entire thing go—from Kellen and his promises to everything that happened at the resort.
But of course, that’s not how life works. We can’t go back, and there’s no way of knowing how things will turn out. All we can do is the best we can do.
His good eye opens. “Hey.” His voice is weak. I guess that’s understandable.
“Hey,” I say, taking a seat next to him.
“You’re still as pretty as you were back there.” He tries to smile, but it’s not easy with his face the way it is. I see pain in his eye, the way he winces. “I wish I could say the same for myself.”
“You don’t look that bad.”
“You’re a terrible liar.”
“You would know. You’re better at it than I am.”
He slowly blows out a long sigh. “I deserve that.”
Whether or not he thinks he deserved it, I feel like garbage for saying it. “I’m sorry. It was uncalled for.”
“No, it was called for. And more than that. But maybe you can have a little sympathy for a guy after he had his insides opened up today.”
I touch his hand. “Kellen, I’m so sorry.”
“No more than me.” He looks away, up at the ceiling. “I knew I wasn’t good enough for you the whole time. I should’ve discouraged you. I should’ve acted like an asshole and driven you away. I was wrong. I was weak, the way I’ve always been.”
“Don’t say that. You aren’t weak.”
“You don’t have to be nice. You don’t owe me anything.”
My fingers close over his anyway. “What I don’t understand is why you made up that story about Zack. Why go out of your way to lie like that?”
“Don’t you get it?” He snorts. “No, I guess not. I wanted to see how you’d react. What you would say. You don’t know what it’s like to have something like this inside you. Carrying it around all the time. Knowing people wouldn’t think about you the same way if they knew the truth.”
“So, you pretended the situation was reversed and Zack was the one with the problem in order to test me?”
“Don’t put it that way, please.”
“But you were. I guess I must’ve passed, huh?”
Another sigh. “You’re tough.”
“You already knew that.” I won’t apologize this time.
“I can only ask you to forgive me. Don’t hate me too much.”
“I don’t hate you. I’m sad for you, more than anything.”
“Shit, that’s worse.”
I know he’s trying to joke, but I hear the truth underneath just the same. Nobody wants to be pitied, especially somebody with a lot of pride. “Sorry. That sounded bad.”
“Nah. You’re a good person. You only want to do what’s right. That’s one of the things I like best about you.”
I wish he wouldn’t say things like that. It only makes me feel worse. I guess my feelings aren’t all that’s important right now though. Not when he’s practically in pieces.
“Can I ask what happened?” I whisper, holding his hand a little tighter. “As a friend. I’m only asking as a friend.”
“What do you want me to say? I owed them money. I didn’t have it to them in time. If anything, the wedding was a way to get out of town for a little while and breathe easier. I ducked them for a few days, but it wasn’t enough. They were waiting for me when I got back.”
“Wow.”
“And the whole time, I knew you were waiting for me. I got your message, and I wanted more than anything to—”
“You don’t need to explain.”
“I have to though. I need to say it, so you understand. I wanted to get back to you, so you wouldn’t think I was lying.”
“But you were lying.”
“Not about wanting to see you though.” He turns his head enough to look at me. I wish it wasn’t so hard to look back at him. I can hardly do it without wincing. “I didn’t lie about that. About anything I felt for you.”
“You mean, it didn’t matter at all that my grandmother’s rich?”
I regret it the second it’s out of my mouth. It’s a low blow. But darn it, if I don’t at least get confirmation from him, I’ll always wonder.
“God, no. You don’t honestly think that, do you?”
“Honestly? How am I supposed to know? I haven’t had a lot of time to process this. But I can’t help but remember you bringing her up after the reception. It seemed so out of the blue even though I’d told you about her on the bus. I should’ve listened to my instincts then. Something didn’t seem right.”
He moves his hand away from mine and turns his head toward the window. At least I don’t have to look at his banged-up features anymore. I almost hate the way I feel about him now. It makes me small and petty.
I don’t want to be small and petty, but I am. Like I told him, I haven’t had a lot of time to process this.
“I guess I thought more about it than I should have, okay? I admit that much. But I didn’t pretend to like you so much because of that. I swear, I didn’t. I liked—I like—you for who you are. So much.”
He snickers, turning toward me again. “Which is why I didn’t get back to you. I couldn’t risk you being there when they … you know. And now, I see it was the right thing to do. They caught me coming out of my building. I tried to avoid them, but it was pointless. You can’t. Not when they’re good and determined to find you. If you had been with me …”
“I get it.”
“That was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do.”
“You could’ve told me the truth, and I would’ve understood.”
“Right. And run the risk of you cursing me out and never speaking to me again?”
“What was the alternative? Never talking to me again and making me hate you? And myself? Because I did. I hated myself this whole week for believing you. For letting myself get suckered in by you.”
“You weren’t a sucker.”
“I sort of was though,” I whisper. “I believed your story about Zack even though it didn’t make any sense for you to tell me something so personal. And I didn’t listen to my gut when you threw me off with the rich grandmother comment. So, yeah, I let myself get fooled. Though I guess I should thank you in the end. I’ll be more careful next time.”
“Damn it. I asked who in their right mind would hurt you. Now, I know. I should’ve always known.”
I shrug it off as best I can. “It is what it is.”
“No. Don’t become a cynical asshole like me. I mean it,” he insists after I snicker at the memory of our first encounter.
“I need you to know something.” I stand, leaning over him a little so
he can’t avoid looking at me. He needs to see my face. I need him to believe me.
Because he’s not a bad person. He’s a very good person. I believe that with all my heart.
So, he deserves the truth if he ever hopes to be happy a day in his life.
“I would’ve understood if you had told me the truth. I wouldn’t have judged you. I might even have respected you more for being honest. And for trying hard to get through your problems. It’s not because of your problems that I can’t be with you now. It’s because I would never be able to trust you again. I wouldn’t know whether I could believe anything you said. That would be what eventually drove us apart. Not your past, not the struggles you’re going through. The lies.”
His eye narrows. “I wanted to make sure you cared about me before I told you.”
“But don’t you see how much worse that is? You’ve got to have a little faith in people. I understand; I get it. You don’t want to run the risk of scaring somebody off before there’s a chance of anything growing. But … waiting until somebody falls for you is no good either. That only causes more pain in the end.”
“And it’s selfish,” he concludes with a sigh.
“I didn’t want to say it, but, yeah, now that you’ve said it …”
He snorts softly at this. “Thanks for putting it to me straight. Really. I needed to hear it.”
“I hope you remember it later. Once you’re healed up and doing what has to be done to get your life back on track.”
He nods slightly, maybe as much as he can without pain. “I don’t know what that means exactly. Who I’ll have to go to for help.”
“You have people in your life who love you, right?” I remember him telling me about his parents, and the summer house in the Hamptons must mean they’re pretty well off. I can’t imagine how a parent could see him in this condition and not try to help in some way.
“I do.” He doesn’t go any further into it, and I won’t make him.
“Take care of yourself, okay?” I touch his cheek and try not to remember what it was like before. When I didn’t know. When I didn’t have to see him this way, when he wasn’t hurting.
“You too. Try to remember what it was like back there, before this. You said you’d miss that place, remember?”