by Anna Paige
I lifted an arm to point at Talia, eyes never leaving his face. “You don’t deserve her. You didn’t back then and you damn sure don’t now but it’s not my choice to make. I do have a question for you, though, you little prick. How does it feel to know that even if she spends the next thirty years with you she’ll always compare it to the last thirty days with me? Huh? Good fucking luck trying to live up to the standard I set because you will never, can never love her the way I did.” The way I do my mind corrected, but I ignored it. “Every time she closes her eyes, it will be my face she sees. Every dream, every kiss, every slow blink as she awakens in the morning, she’ll be seeing me... wishing for me, because I was the one who loved her like she deserved.”
I looked at her then, backing away from them both and saying a goodbye meant only for her. “And I’ll be waiting for you there in your memory. That’s all that’s left of the man who loved you, memories. And they’ll be waiting to remind you what real love is. What you threw away.”
She stared somewhere in the vicinity of my chest and whispered, “I’m sorry you wasted your love on me.”
I wanted to say something, yell at the top of my lungs that it didn’t have to be a waste, but watching the two of them there, Derek finally slipping his arm around her shoulders to shield her from the cold, all I could do was swallow hard and square my jaw against the tremble that threatened to betray my angry facade.
Instead, I turned away from her, away from the love of my fucking life, and didn’t look back. I crossed the street to the parking garage, where I sat in the Chevelle for half an hour trying to fight back the barrage of memories and tears that burned like acid in my eyes.
And all the way down my face.
Goddamn it, I missed her already.
SOMETIME LATER, I realized my phone was vibrating in my pocket. The sound was on but it fell on deaf ears. If not for the movement of the device against my thigh, I might not have noticed at all. I’d managed to make it back to the hotel but found myself unable to get out of the car. It hadn’t occurred to me to turn on the heat so I sat shivering and wondering absently how I’d gotten there without incident. I remembered absolutely nothing of the journey.
But I remembered everything else.
Everything.
I remembered her soft voice from that first night as she haltingly confided in me, and how the smell of her hair stuck with me as I drove her to the hospital after her collapse the following day. I remembered laughing with her as she gleefully drove my car at breakneck speed, and sitting quietly together while we sipped our coffee. I remembered the slight widening of her eyes and the sharp inhale that had accompanied the first thrust of my body into hers. The way she slept wrapped around me like a cat, like she couldn’t get close enough no matter how hard she tried.
How could she have faked it all?
It didn’t make sense.
I would have known, wouldn’t I?
I had a fuckload of experience with deceptive women and she’d never struck me as the type. Everything she showed me stood counter-point to everything I’d gone through with Ivey.
Was I so blinded by my affection for her that I let myself be duped again? I just couldn’t wrap my head around that, couldn’t picture her in that role.
My phone started ringing again and I blew out an annoyed breath, pulling it from my pocket. I was already glaring at the damn thing, half expecting it to be her, but it was Brant’s name flashing on the screen. I thumbed the accept button and put it on speaker but couldn’t find my voice through the thick feeling in my throat.
“Spencer?” Brant called out. “Hey, man, you there?”
I cleared my throat as best I could. “Yeah, I’m here. What’s up?” I sounded like I felt. Pathetic.
“You okay?” His voice was laced with concern.
“Yeah, why?”
“Because I’ve been sitting two spaces over from you in this garage for ten minutes and you haven’t made any attempt to get out of your car.”
My head whipped around and I scanned the area, noticing my surroundings for the first time. “Shit.” There he was, sitting in his car and looking over at me like I was an exhibit at the Ripley’s museum. “Sorry. I must have spaced out. Come on, let’s hit the bar while we wait for Clay.”
We both climbed from our cars and I waited for Brant to join me near the rear of the Chevelle, since I was parked closer to the parking garage exit.
Brant watched me thoughtfully as he said, “Clay called, said he tried to call you earlier and you didn’t answer. Anyway, he’s dropping Ali off at Talia’s first—some big ‘girl emergency’—and then he’ll meet us at the hotel.”
My chest squeezed painfully but I ignored the impulse to ask about Talia’s emergency. Probably doing damage control, hoping to get Ali on ‘Team Derek’ before the shit hit the fan.
Whatever.
I wouldn’t kick up a fuss. It wouldn’t be fair to our friends.
If anything, I intended to play it off as no big deal and let them all think it was just a fling. It meant nothing.
Yeah, right. That’s why I felt like I was fucking dying. Like the blood in my veins had turned to acid and was slowly burning me alive.
I shrugged noncommittally and started off in the direction of the hotel. “Well, he better hurry his ass up. I’m ready for a little pre-gaming and I’m not waiting for him.”
I could feel Brant’s eyes on me but I just kept moving, entering the hotel ahead of him and waiting patiently while he booked his room and then procured one for Clay and Ali. We were all on the same floor, which may or may not have been a good thing, depending on how Ali felt about the breakup. I didn’t want her in the middle but I knew she was probably going to back Talia’s decision no matter what, that’s just how their friendship worked. Unconditional loyalty.
I snorted softly at the word and Brant looked over at me. We were in the elevator, quietly waiting for it to reach our floor.
“Dude, what the fuck is going on with you? You look kinda like I did the time I got kicked in the nuts by that drunk chick who mistook me for her ex-boyfriend.”
“Please don’t say ex-boyfriend right now. Okay?” I growled, stepping from the elevator and waiting for him to open his door so he could drop his shit off and we could go get drunk.
Brant reached out and grabbed my forearm as I was pushing my hands through my hair for the fifteenth time. “You’re the talker here, so fucking talk. What’s got you so torn up?”
“Talia.” I dropped my hands to my sides and stood there hearing her name repeating on a continuous loop in my mind. One word, laced with equal parts pain and longing.
Shit.
So much for discretion.
I didn’t intend to talk about it, not with anyone, but something in Brant’s expression told me he would understand. It struck me again how much I didn’t know about the guy and that added another layer to my sadness.
He nodded and opened his door, only three down from my own, dropping his duffel inside and jerking it shut as he rejoined me in the empty hall. “Let’s head downstairs to the bar. I’ll send Clay a text to meet us there.”
I gathered from his tone that he anticipated needing much more alcohol than the mini-bars in our rooms could provide.
He was right.
WE FOUND A corner booth at the back of the spacious bar and ordered our first three rounds at once. No need to be timid with the shit, I wasn’t easing into it this time.
Tonight I was diving in head first.
Brant sat across from me without comment while I downed my first two drinks in rapid succession. When I started to feel that all too welcome fuzziness seep into my mind, I sat back and studied him. “Why don’t I know you better? I’m sitting here wondering if you’ve ever been burned like I just was and it occurred to me that I’ve never known you to be in a relationship at all.”
He shrugged and sipped his bourbon. “Just never thought my life story was interesting enough to share, I guess. I’m not
hiding anything, just don’t really have much to say.” He stared down at the amber liquid in his glass. “Have I been burned? Yeah, I guess you could say that.”
“More than once?” I thought back to Ivey and didn’t recall ever feeling this devastated by the loss of my marriage. But one fleeting image of Talia in my mind made me want to double over in pain.
He shook his head and took a long swallow of his drink. “Nope. Once was enough for me.”
I waited for him to elaborate but he just kept his attention on his drink. I nodded to myself and respected his silence on this one. “Well, that means you’re a shitload smarter than me, but we already knew that, didn’t we?” I joked half-heartedly.
“Having a high IQ doesn’t help worth a fuck against love-induced stupidity. We’re all vulnerable to it, I’m afraid.” His expression belied the wry tone in his voice. For a moment, I saw pain in his pinched features that mirrored my own.
Yeah, he’d been burned.
“I always thought that the first heartbreak would be the worst, you know. Like the second time around you’d feel it less because the scars from the first time somehow hardened you,” I observed, fighting to sound detached and failing.
Brant shook his head. “I imagine that could be true for some situations, some people. But then there’s the possibility that—at least for some of us—it’s like a flood, and the amount of erosion depends on the size of the flood. The first might leave a shallow groove and the next might create an abyss. All depends.” He shrugged and looked up at me, eyes full of sympathy. “I got my abyss the first time around. Looks like it took the second flood for you to get yours.”
“You been talking to my sister or something? Because that sounds like something she’d say,” I joked, deflecting.
“The therapist?” He gave me a half smile.
I nodded.
“No, can’t say I have. Had my own shrink, thank you. Shrink, therapist, grief counselor... whatever. It was a long time ago.” His eyes took on a faraway look.
“Back when the abyss was first formed?”
He nodded and drained his glass. “I guess some of the bullshit stuck in my head. He was big on imagery. Thought maybe it would help you more than it helped me. Sorry. Should have known better.” Our waitress stopped by to check in and Brant asked her to bring the bottle, barely noticing her response as he returned his gaze to me. “Clay better tighten the fuck up or he’s gonna miss the party.” Looked like he was getting better at sarcasm these days. I almost smiled.
“Yeah, I’m sure he’d hate to miss this,” I said with a snort. “Then again, he might be getting an earful of his own right now. Talia and Ali are best friends, after all.”
Brant looked at me oddly, sort of squinting and annoyed. “Wait, you don’t think he’s going to jump into the middle of whatever’s going on and side against you or something, do you? Because that really would mean you’re stupid.”
I narrowed my gaze at him, feigning annoyance to hide my relief at his implication that Clay would have my back. “Remind me again why I wanted you to start talking more... because damn if I can remember.”
He laughed and took our bottle of bourbon from the server’s outstretched hand, waiting for her to move away before smiling over at me. “You know what they say... be careful what you wish for, fucker.”
Talia
“ALI, I TOLD you already... I don’t want to go out tonight.” I sniffed noisily and peered at my reflection in the bathroom mirror, arguing with her through the closed door. I looked like shit but the image staring back at me was still a far cry from how horrible I felt. I half -expected to see some terrifying, ghoulish version of myself. That’s how I probably should look, given what I’d just done, but I suppose truly vile people like myself walk around all the time looking just like everyone else, no identifying mark to reveal their true nature to the unfortunate souls in their path.
Souls like Spencer.
And Derek.
God, what the hell was I thinking dragging him into this shit? Even after what he’d done to me all those years ago, he didn’t deserve to be thrust into my drama again.
“I don’t give a flying shit what you want right now, Talia,” Ali called through the door. I could practically see her clenched jaw and flared nostrils. She was livid, another casualty in the train wreck that my life had become. Her anger at me was not entirely unexpected but damn. This was a level of ticked off that I hadn’t seen in a long time, and never directed at me. “The fact is that I’m in desperate need of a goddamn drink and you’re the reason for that. So guess what, buttercup? You’re going. We’re picking up Gina at the restaurant and we are having our night out and maybe, just maybe, we can find a way to fucking fix the enormous mistake you just made.”
I opened the door and was met with her withering stare, which I ignored as I stepped into my room. “It wasn’t a mistake. It was for the best and you know it.” I made for the closet to change, having soaked my dress with the copious amounts of water I’d splashed on my face while trying to calm down. “I didn’t intend for it to happen the way it did, but it still had to happen.”
“Stop it. Stop lying to yourself.” She raised her voice and walked over, gripping my upper arms and forcing me to meet her gaze. “There is no excuse for what you just did. You decimated that man, you know that, right? And don’t get me started on how you used Derek as some sort of weapon to blindside a man whose only intention was to love you.” She gave me a shake that nearly gave me whiplash. “How could you do something so callous, to both of them? This isn’t you. The Talia I’ve known all my life would never intentionally hurt anyone, ever.” She loosened her grip and let her hands slide down to grip my own, dropping her voice to a pained whisper. “Please, make me understand because I think my heart is breaking just as much as Spencer’s is right now. I so wanted you to be happy again.”
She looked up at me with glossy eyes, her chin quivering ever so slightly.
And the dam broke all over again.
AFTER WE’D CRIED ourselves out, Ali waited in the living room for me to get changed and I pulled myself together, gearing up for the long talk ahead.
We sat on the couch, each sitting with our legs tucked beneath us, our knees nearly touching and sharing the throw blanket that my mother had given me when I left for college. We’d sat just this way more times than I could count, sharing secrets and talking about boys, planning our futures. I tried to hold onto the warm feeling that thought gave me as I began to explain how I’d napalmed my future with Spencer.
She knew what motivated me, so I skipped over that part. I explained the way I’d been gorging on Spencer these last few days, trying to make every last moment count because I knew it would be ending soon. I told her about Derek’s appearance and our conversation, told her about the hug and my attempt to make peace with what he’d done.
When I got to the part where Spencer spotted us she groaned, obviously aware that he’d been cheated on in the past. “Why didn’t you tell him the truth? All you had to do was show him the damn magazine and explain that what he saw was nothing more than you saying goodbye.”
“I know, and that was what I was about to do...”
She leaned forward, motioning for me to continue. “Until...?”
“You know Meagan, who lives on three? The one who just had a baby?”
She nodded, perplexed with the sudden shift in topic.
“Well, she and the baby were leaving right around that time and they stopped so Caleb—that’s the baby’s name—could chatter at Spencer. Just like every baby that ever comes in contact with him. They love him, even the ones who are usually afraid of strangers.” My throat threatened to close at the image of him smiling down into their tiny faces, so many over the last few weeks I’d lost count. “Seeing that again, in that moment, made my decision for me. I had the opportunity to make the break, so I took it. Before Spencer could get close enough to hear, I told Derek that I’d forgive him if he played along with whate
ver I said.”
She shook her head, closing her eyes like she couldn’t bear to look at me just then. “And since that’s the one thing he’s been desperate for, he agreed.”
I nodded, though she still hadn’t opened her eyes. “He didn’t say a word, just stood there supporting me, knowing there was a chance the words coming out of my mouth would end up getting his ass kicked. He never wavered or backed down, didn’t even flinch when Spencer said cruel things to him.”
“Of course not. He was desperate for your forgiveness.” Her eyes slowly opened and she pursed her mouth ruefully. “Despite how much I’ve hated him all these years, I don’t think he deserved what you did to him today.”
“I know.”
She watched me for a moment. “Did you at least explain things to him when it was all over?”
I looked down and fiddled with the covers, ashamed. “Yes.”
“And did he tell you that you were fucking up?”
My heart squeezed painfully when I remembered what he’d said as we sat in the coffee shop on the corner, where he’d dragged me after Spencer walked away and I looked like I might fall to the pavement.
I’d refused to go to the apartment. I owed him an explanation but the idea of having to tell him my motives was daunting enough without choosing to do it in my apartment. It would be wrong to bring him there. The only man who ever belonged there, the only one I ever wanted there, was Spencer.
Ali poked my knee. “What did he say, Talia?”
I looked up and over her shoulder at the city lights glowing through the front window. “He said I was just like him. Punishing myself. Letting it consume me. He told me that at least he’d had a good reason for his self-hatred, unlike me.”
She sat back and nodded, looking impressed. “I’ll be damned. He finally got something right.”