Fearless

by Abby Brooks

  Alex

  The last twenty-four hours had been a steady stream of the hardest things I’d ever done. Last night, choosing not to meet Evie had been the hardest thing I’d ever done.

  Until choosing not to text her the second she got home took that title.

  Then, her bedroom light went on, and she yanked open her curtains. I’d stood in my darkened room and peered through the slats in my blinds, watching her look so sad. So fucking sad, and all because of me. I thought I’d hit the ceiling on awful.

  But going to bed without talking to her was hard.

  Working on the manuscript was hard.

  Showing up at her house with flowers for my mom—but not for Evie—was hard. I knew it was a dick move and that was why I did it. It was a slap to her face, and it hit the mark exactly as I intended.

  I hated to see her hurting, but this was for the best. If my life was going to be a whirlwind of work, work, work…of abandoning her to loneliness even though she was with me, I needed to let her go. It would be better for her in the long run.

  The pain I caused her would be temporary.

  She would heal.

  She’d move on.

  She’d blossom.

  Knowing I was saving Evie from becoming my mother meant I could deal with hurting her a little now instead of a lot later, but knowing the final blow would knock the breath from her lungs? I hadn’t come to terms with that, yet.

  I knew Evie well enough to see exactly what I needed to do to make her hate me.

  As much as I loved her, I needed her to hate me.

  Making her leave me was for the best.

  It had to be.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Evie

  If last night sucked, and this morning sucked some more, I should have known there was no hope for the rest of the day. After Alex left, I dutifully sat down at my kitchen table and got to work on his manuscript. It was good. Better than good. Hours passed as I read, enthralled by the twists and turns of the climax. This definitely was his best work yet, and I was so happy for him, right up until I got to scene forty-eight.

  Scene forty-eight did us in.

  It was the nail in the coffin. The flick of a lighter to my fuse. It was the straw, and I was the camel, and my back shattered.

  Before I finished reading the scene, betrayal had me biting my cheeks so hard they bled. I threw my pen across the room. It bounced off the wall and hit the floor, and Larry chased it into a corner. Under normal circumstances, the raise of his hackles and hop, hop, pounce attack would have me giggling, but these weren’t normal circumstances.

  Alex did it.

  The one thing I needed him not to do. The thing I couldn’t recover from. The thing I needed him to know would be a dealbreaker for me…

  My story became the pivot point for his book.

  He’d changed my name. Drew’s too…but just barely. Instead of Drew Stephens, he was Stephen Drews, and I knew, I just knew he’d read this book. He’d see our story, barely camouflaged as fiction, and he’d come rip-roaring back into my life to blow it to smithereens.

  I’d deal with Drew the way I dealt with his first insult. By ignoring it. By being a duck and letting him roll off my back like water. But what Alex did? I couldn’t ignore that. I couldn’t take this betrayal from him.

  I thought he was so much better than this. I thought he understood me. I thought he knew this would kill me and discarded the idea out of respect, or understanding, or even love.

  I scoffed. “Looks like I overestimated him the way I do everyone else.”

  Amelia’s voice whispered in the back of my head, you should have talked to him the day you found the note…

  I pushed it away as I flipped back through the beginning of the manuscript, stopping at all the red ink scratches of my notes. As I re-encountered the story, it became apparent this wasn’t the first time I’d made it into the plot. Bits and pieces of the female lead belonged to me. Her tight smile. Her guarded nature. The more I read, the more I realized that this whole damn book was me, and it didn’t paint me in a great light.

  If this was how Alex saw me…weak…compromised…damaged to the point of uselessness…

  With my heart pounding, I marched across our yards and banged on his door, not even stopping to grab a coat. His door swung open and I pushed through.

  “This isn’t a good time, Evie—”

  I held out the handful of papers. “Is this how you see me?” I gave them a shake. “I can’t believe I didn’t see it before, but is this…am I…who am I to you?”

  Alex’s face hardened. His lips formed a thin line, and he folded his arms over his chest. I’d never seen him look so cold. So detached. Even on that first day in the rain, he’d looked at me like I might be special. “Evie—”

  “I can’t believe you told my story. I just can’t believe it. You know how private I am…” I dropped the manuscript on his coffee table. “Obviously, you know it all too well, if the female lead has anything to say about how you see me.”

  I waited for him to say something, anything, but he simply stared.

  “I saw the note. The bracketed note about using my story. And I was gonna say something about it, but then you snuck into my house and took it out. I thought that meant you’d thought better of the idea, but it looks like you just didn’t want me to get upset before you’d had time to write scene forty-eight.”

  His silence said everything I didn’t want to hear, and I arched an eyebrow. “Damn it, Alex. Aren’t you going to say anything?”

  “I don’t know what you want me to say.” He turned away, his face so hard, my heart splintered against the sharp angles and immovable features.

  “You don’t know what to say? How about ‘I’m sorry?’ Or ‘that’s not how I see you?’ Or ‘I’ll rewrite that scene because I knew it’d bother you the second I had the idea?’”

  “I do see you like that. Your smiles and sweetness are an armor to hide how afraid you are underneath it all.”

  My jaw dropped. My heart broke. I blinked in surprise. “I…”

  What he said was true, and it was something I’d been working on. Hell, my entire trip to Wildrose Landing happened because I’d decided to work on becoming fearless. But to hear Alex, someone I thought understood me, point out my flaws so coldly? I wrapped my arms around my stomach like I could fold in on myself and disappear.

  “Look. Evie. I don’t know what to say here. The scene is staying. And if you don’t like the way I’m writing that character, just remember, it’s fiction.”

  But it wasn’t and he’d just said as much. That character was me, in all my vulnerable glory. “What’s gotten into you?”

  “This is just business.”

  “This is not just business. This is us.”

  Alex scoffed. “This is life with me. I’m not always available. I’m not a private person. Everything is open for story inspiration. If you can’t handle it, then maybe you should follow Candace’s lead.”

  I stared for several long minutes, trying to make sense of the man in front of me in context of the man I thought I’d known.

  I couldn’t. I had no idea how to connect the dots between how he’d been with me just a few days ago and how he was acting now. “You know what?” I swiped at the tears wobbling in my eyes. “I’m gonna go. If you want to talk to me later, when you’ve had a chance to think this through, then you know where to find me.”

  “I don’t know what you think we have to talk about.”

  “You can’t publish that!” I jabbed a finger at the manuscript lurking on the table.

  “I can. And I will. If you can’t get good with that, then I don’t think we have much more to say to each other.”

  I retreated toward the door. “Izzy told me you weren’t like your dad. She said you were kind and thoughtful and went out of your way to prove you weren’t him. I wonder what she’d say if she knew how you were acting right now?”

  Pain flashed through Alex’s eyes and
for a second, I saw the man I thought I loved.

  He blinked and the moment was gone. “She’d say I was just like him. And she’d be right.” He ran his hands through his curls and his gaze hardened. “Look, I’ve wasted twenty minutes with you, and that’s seven hundred and fifty words I won’t get back. Are we done here? Or do you have more screeching to do?”

  “Oh, we’re done. We’re so done you don’t even know. Say goodbye to my magic hooha. I hope you got everything you needed out of it because we won’t be seeing you again until you come to your senses.”

  “I think I’m good. Thank you. You’ve been very useful indeed.”

  The words echoed and distorted, ripping open an old wound that had only barely started to heal. I gasped and staggered and the tears I’d tried to valiantly to hold back spilled down my cheeks. With my blood pounding through my ears, I raced out of Alex’s house and slammed the door.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Alex

  “You’ve been very useful indeed.”

  Evie recoiled like I’d punched her in the stomach and I hated myself for everything I’d done. If using her story in my book had been a low blow, hitting her with that line was an unscrupulous abuse of a weakness.

  I wanted to run to her. To pull her into my arms. To plead with her to forgive my unforgivable sin. She deserved to know I didn’t mean a word I’d said. I’d kiss her and hug her and take it all back, smoothing away the pain so she’d smile at me again.

  But soothing her would be selfish.

  Evie was better off without me, the same way Mom would have been better off without my dad. I couldn’t take away Evie’s pain, because I’d only be setting her up to ride this merry go round over and over again. A woman like her deserved so much better than what I had to offer.

  So I was cruel. Intentionally awful. While using Stephens in my draft was the killing blow, calling her useful cauterized the wound, making it perfectly clear she needed to leave and not look back. It was George Henderson’s punch to Harry’s face, and it was the hardest thing I’d ever done.

  Drew’s dedication to Evie had given me the ammunition I needed. I was an asshole for using it, but I could see how much she wanted to stay with me even after she read scene forty-eight. How much she wanted to believe I was just in a bad mood, or caught up in the throes of writing. If I hadn’t hurled that final insult her way, she would have stuck around.

  I had to drop that bomb.

  For her.

  “Fuck, I sound like such an asshole right now.”

  Morgan peered up at me, panting his agreement.

  “What’s done is done and can’t be undone. Evie can move on and I can…finish this manuscript, I guess.” I gathered the papers and flipped to scene forty-eight. A single dot of red ink marked where I’d landed the punch to her gut. Stephen Drews. It was so blatant. So visceral. Using that scene would mean betrayal for her.

  What she didn’t know was that it would never make it into the final book. I would not humiliate her by publishing the worst thing that ever happened to her for millions of people to read. I only included it in the draft to make her leave me.

  Right now, she’s probably calling you the worst thing that ever happened to her.

  “I am such an asshole.”

  With that, I gathered my papers and trudged back up to the office, where I’d finish my life, alone and unable to wreak havoc on the hearts and minds of others.

  “It’s better this way,” I said to the ceiling. “For all of us.”

  At least I’d earned the name Prescott.

  It wasn’t better. Not at all. All the inspiration I found left with Evie. Getting the last few chapters finished in time was a monumental effort. I didn’t shower. Barely ate. Definitely skipped sleep.

  But I finished.

  The last chapters were a mess. My editors would reject them but that was fine. We’d piece it all back together. With their brains propping me up, we’d come to a story that made sense. I expected my mood to shift the moment I submitted the document. I ordered a giant pizza but couldn’t eat it. Skipped the shower I desperately needed in favor of staring at the walls. Laid down for sleep, but it wouldn’t come.

  Evie’s curtains were tightly closed, but I could still see her silhouette when she came into her bedroom. I picked up my phone more times than I wanted to admit to tell her I’d finished the book.

  That I was sorry.

  That I missed her.

  That I didn’t want to hurt her…

  But I had hurt her. And apologizing now would only make me more like my father. I had to let her go. No matter how hard it got on me, I had to let her go.

  It’d been a week since I aimed my parting blow at Evie. A week since I’d heard her voice. Since I’d seen her smile. A week since I’d willingly blown my life to pieces.

  Snow fell to the ground in hard lines. No soft fluttering. No delicate glistening. Hard diagonal lines blasted my face as I struggled from my porch to hers. I needed to see her. To apologize. To say I didn’t mean any of it and that nothing had been right for me since I said what I did.

  I was a weak man, taking what was best for me instead of giving her the freedom I knew she needed.

  I stood on her front porch. Hand raised, ready to knock, as my mother’s words circled my head. I didn’t know what to do. I wanted Evie back, but I didn’t want to ruin her. I didn’t want to make her another miserable woman tied to a Prescott man.

  Instead of knocking, I leaned my head against her door, imagining her inside, cooking, cleaning, slipping around in those damn socks. Larry was still with her, and the little guy was better off without me, too.

  “I love you,” I murmured. “I could have loved you for the rest of my life, but I would have broken you.”

  With that, I lifted my head from the door and fought my way back to my house. I’d done the right thing. Evie was better off, even if it meant I’d never be happy again.

  Evie

  I actually got so far as pulling on my coat and my shoes. I had Larry in my arms, and planned on using him as my opening salvo. After all, I hadn’t meant to adopt a cat. I’d only taken him for the short time Alex would be busy writing and fully intended on returning him when the manuscript was done.

  I stopped in front of my door.

  Could I do it?

  Could I see him?

  After everything he said to me, could I face him? Just hand him the cat and ask all the questions that had been floating in my head for the last week?

  I didn’t think I could. I leaned my forehead against the door, crying softly as I imagined all the things I thought Alex was.

  He’d used me just like Drew had.

  “At least I got a sweet cat out of the deal,” I murmured, kissing Larry on the head before lowering him to the floor.

  I took off my coat and hung it in the closet. Yanked off my shoes and set them by the door. When I peeked out my window to see the snow, I could have sworn I saw fresh footprints from his door to mine, but no. That was surely my imagination.

  Alex and I were done.

  If we’d ever even started.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Evie

  “I’m thinking I might move back to Amelia’s for a while. Put the house on the market.” I leaned on the counter at Sweet Stuff and barely met Izzy’s eyes.

  She folded her arms and shook her head, the neon lights playing in her hair. “I’m sorry my brother’s such a dick. I really don’t want you to leave, but I completely understand. I couldn’t stand being his neighbor either. I’m not sure I can stand being his sister, after what he did to you.”

  Her brown eyes looked so much like his I had to glance away. “I just don’t know what to do with myself. He sent over my final paycheck and I haven’t seen him since…” I shook my head. I hated thinking about that morning. The cold set to his jaw. The lack of feeling in his eyes. The way he regarded me like a fool when he told me I’d been useful.

  “I don’t understan
d it, Evie. I was so sure he wasn’t like Dad. I guess that was wishful thinking.” She straightened and shook her head again.

  I wanted to ask her about scene forty-eight. I wanted to know if he’d left it in the book because there was still a part of me that utterly rejected what happened. Still a part of me that couldn’t reconcile who I thought Alex was, with who he turned out to be. Surely, Izzy had read the finished manuscript. Surely, she’d know…

  I brushed away the wishful thinking. Fearless Evie didn’t make the same mistake twice. She lived. She learned. She moved on.

  “I started writing,” I said. “A little. Maybe that was the reason Alex came into my life. To show me what it really means to be brave. I can’t let other people’s shittiness keep me from being whole.”

  “I wanted him to come into your life to make you happy. And him happy. And maybe give me a sister.” Izzy offered a sweet smile. “But, helping you move past the Drew ordeal and start writing is a pretty solid consolation prize.”

  “You thought we’d get married?” The words tightened my throat and I swallowed down a lump.

  I would not cry. Not over him. Not anymore.

  “I’d never seen my brother so happy. I gave you guys a year before he popped the question.” She shrugged and slid her hands in her back pockets. “Shows what I know.”

  “Between you and me, I’d definitely practiced signing my first name with his last, and I definitely felt like an idiot for doing it, especially after…you know…everything.” I’d honestly thought Alex loved me. Turned out he was just using me, too.

  “You’ll come visit right? Or at least check in through Greta’s Facebook page?” Izzy came around the counter and wrapped me in a tight hug. “I’ll never forgive my brother for this, you know.”

  “I’ll be around.” I’d miss Izzy. And Jude. And Austin. Hell, I’d even miss Greta Macmillan and her blasted Facebook page.