Anger is bubbling and fizzing to the top. Fat ugly tears rolling down my face, I look him in the eye. How could he have lied so horribly to me? Had anything been real?
“I KNOW! You don’t think I know that!” Mike roars. “Shit baby all of this was my fucking fault! I was the one who called Patrick that morning. I rode his ass about getting into the office! I was the one who made him get in a fucking car to make a seven hour drive!” Mike yells, his deep voice raw and laced with so much pain all I can do is stand still. My anger starts to dissolve just as quickly as it had risen as I stand and watch Mike’s pain and guilt seep out.
“If I hadn’t been such a fucking asshole who was pissed as shit, at things that had nothing to do with Patrick and him being at that fucking meeting, there never would have been a damn accident! I was so fucking involved with my own fucking shit I didn’t even notice him slurring his words!” he roars and I flinch. His eyes are red with unshed tears and my anger is down to a slow simmer.
“Want to know what I was being such a dick about? Huh? I was pissed Holly moved the wedding date… for the third time. I was pissed my mom was up my ass about a wedding I was pretty fucking sure would never fucking happen, and if it did I knew the marriage would be a huge mistake. I was so completely self involved I didn’t even notice him slurring at eight in the GODDAMN MORNING!” he roars and I want to go to him but he just keeps talking.
“I had to make sure you were okay! You lost Sean, the kids lost their fucking dad all because of my fucking temper!” he yells louder and I stand still as his words wash over me.
He thought he was guilty for Sean dying that day. My heart ached for him, even with all the lies that had been told, my heart still hurt for him. This whole time he had been carrying that guilt. A guilt that was so easy to wallow in. So many similar thoughts had invaded my mind that first year. What if I had asked him to stay home that day? What if he had called off? But playing the what if game was completely and utterly useless and a waste of time.
I wipe the tears from my face as I stare at him. The bewildered look on his face makes me realize that this was more than I had initially thought. He hadn’t been playing games with me at all. He had cared about me. That was why he had kept saying I deserved better.
“Mike…” I whisper as I start to walk to him, but he just shakes his head. He wants me to stay away from him. I know why that is. I have the same effect that he has on me.
“Playing the what if game doesn’t seem your style,” I say sternly looking him straight in his eyes. His pale blues are sad and look so utterly tired.
“What?” he asks looking a little irritated at me.
“I did that for the first year. What if I would have asked him to stay that morning, or what if his partner had not taken that particular call or drove down the wrong street, or what if I had called him and asked him to come home or go pick something up. But at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter. What happened happened, and it sucked. Bad. Life just keeps going though. No matter how bad you just want to throw a blanket over your head and hide in a corner, life just keeps going. Then suddenly you find yourself in a routine, you go through the fucking motions. Carpools, dance recitals, baseball games, storytimes, work and then one day in front of a Starbucks…
“What Sabrina? What happened that day? Hmm? Let me tell you, what happened. That file… your eyes fucking haunted me. I wanted to meet you and I did. I went and bumped into you on purpose and kept lying to you all these months!” he yells at me still holding my gaze, yet I don’t back off.
“You did. You lied. HUGE!” I yell, but then take a deep breath. “Was it all in my head Mike? Everything thats been going on between us? Because if it was all a game I swear you had me freaking fooled.
“No. It wasn’t. I …” he starts to say, but I cut him off.
“Were you even going to tell me?” My voice is soft now, as all of it comes crashing down. I am emotionally torn about how I should feel about the man in front of me, and how I actually feel.
“There have been so many times I have wanted to tell you baby,” he says walking closer to me.
Closing the distance between us, his body in front of mine, his hands come to my face. Wiping away the tears on my face with his thumbs, I sniffle as I look up at him. I know I look like I mess, but something about his touch and the way he is looking at me, makes it hard to stay angry. I should keep some distance between us, but I can’t. I want him close to me. His body heat to warm me because I feel so cold.
“So many times I almost told you. We were either interrupted or I just chickened out,” he says cupping my face. I want to lean into him so badly, yet I can’t. I take a step back and his eyes show the sadness of me stepping away from his touch.
“Why Mike? Why would you chicken out?” I ask calmly.
“I got scared,” he answers plainly.
“Of?”
“Of losing you, of losing what we had growing between us. Just last night I was planning on talking to you after Nick came to me…” My head snaps up to him. I take steps back away from him. I close my eyes taking in what he just said.
“Nick knew?” I ask standing straight.
Freaking Nick! My best friend knew and yet he hadn’t come to me. Last night Mike had been surly and anxious. “Did he threaten you with it?” I feel horrible at the idea of my best friend trying to threaten Mike with this. Why hadn’t Nick just come and told me about it?
“Sabrina…”
“Mike… “
“He wanted me to come clean with you. I told him I would. But last night, everything was so great. Cooking dinner with the kids, holding you while we watched TV and you falling asleep in my arms…”
“You didn’t want to mess it up,” I finish his sentence. Nick will definitely be getting a piece of my mind.
“Is that why… why things would never you know go further than they have?” I ask feeling my cheeks get hot.
***
Mike
What the hell just happened? She knows the truth now, and I’m about to lose her. The way she is looking at me kills me. She is so completely guarded and weary of everything I am telling her. She’s only a couple feet away from me, but it feels like we are miles apart.
“I wanted you Sabrina. I wanted you like I have never wanted anything in my life,” I tell her honestly. I want to hold her as tightly as I possibly can and beg her not to throw me out, to beg her to forgive me, but its like I’m nailed down to the fucking floor.
“I couldn’t go there. I wanted you to know me. Who I was as a man, not only who I was related to. You needed to know about my actions that day. I didn’t think you would want me anywhere near you or the kids if you knew the truth. I couldn’t let myself cross that line no matter how much I wanted you. I didn’t want you to find out and feel like I had tricked you. I didn’t want to chance you regretting us going there,” I blurt out honestly and it feels like my heart is exposed. Her eyes are wide as she processes what I have just said.
“But you thought making me fall for you would be okay?” she asks sounding a little irritated, and I look at her. Her eyes are dark and obvious hurt. Pain I have put there by lying to her; having kept this shit go for as long as it had., I knew I had made the pain she is feeling right now. I’m not ready to lose her. I can’t lose her. I have to figure out how to not let her give up on me.
“Yeah I did,” I walk towards her trying to close the space between us again.
I hold her hand and look at her. Her eyes go wide. Her nose is red from crying and fuck if she is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.
“I was okay with it, because I was falling for you.”
I can’t believe I am being as honest as I am with her. I know I don’t want to lose her, so I know its time to let it all out.
“Was? Like past tense?” she asks softly her eyes a little worried, but I shake my head giving her a small smile.
“You know that isn’t true. Sweetheart… these last couple of months…”
“Mike…”
“No baby, you have to hear me out. These last couple of months, getting to know you, having you get to know me, it’s meant so much to me. When I tell you my life has been upside down since that day at Starbucks, that’s a huge understatement. I wish I would have told you about everything, instead of how you found out… but I can’t change it now…”
“I get why you did it,” she says cutting me off. She has this look on her face that tells me she is trying to get the right words together. Then she says the words I would have never thought I would hear once she found out the truth.
“I don’t blame you about Sean, you need to know that. He wouldn’t have blamed you either.”
“I don’t know about that…” I laugh sarcastically, even though my heart is racing. How is it that she does this to me? How is it that she has such a huge effect on me? How can she forgive me so easily? Shit she never even blamed me from the start!
“I do,” she says confidently, her eyes wide open and completely honest. She really believes the words she is saying, and by doing this she is giving me hope.
“Mike I know you have these huge shoulders and you want to carry everything, but this isn’t yours to carry,” she says still holding my hand, her eyes going soft and warm. I want to just pull her in close, smell her scent, and beg her to forgive me for lying… for not telling her who my brother was.
“Sean was in the wrong place at the wrong time. What I just don’t understand is the lying,” she says and my sliver of hope diminishes.”I hate that you lied to me. That whatever we have here was all built on lies.” She looks tired and sad, and my heart fucking hurts. Shit had hit the fan, and if I was being honest it had been my fault. I’m just not ready to give up hope.
“If I would have told you the truth, would you have taken a chance on me? If I had told you the truth from the start? That day at Starbucks, if I would have told you who I was related to, would you have given me the same chance you did?” she closes her eyes and looks down, huge tears rolling down her face. Slowly she shakes her head. The reality that she wouldn’t have taken a chance on me if she would have known who I was related to, hit hard.
“If I would have known the connection between Edwards Automotive and Patrick, I probably wouldn’t have even bid on the charity events,” she says softly and honestly letting go of my hand, wrapping herself in her own arms.
“I don’t know what to do here Mike,” she sniffles out honestly. Her voice, her actions, fuck her eyes are so completely honest; always had been.
My girl never playing games always tells me how it is. I want to fall to my knees and beg her to give me another chance, to prove to her I can be who she needs me to be. But she needs her space and time to think this out. Even if its the last thing I want to do, I have to give her that space and time.
I look at her, trying to engrave what she looks like in my mind. I notice her take a deep breath and her eyes meet mine.
“I…I don’t know what you want. I have no idea why you would do all this? Lie to me like this?” she says, her eyes red and face splotchy.
“Because the day we bumped into one another and I held you in my arms so you wouldn’t fall, I felt something. Something I had never felt before. Then every time we would talk, I would tell myself it’d be the last time, but I couldn’t stay away. As for what I want, baby I just want you. I want to be with you. Like we have been but with you knowing the truth…”
***
Sabrina
I should be happy. The words I have been dying to hear from him are now out. I just want you. I want to be with you. But instead I feel confused and torn.
“What do you want baby…” he asks as he wraps me in his arms.
I look at his blue eyes, pale and full of emotion. Fear is one of the clear emotions floating in those pale blue pools of his eyes. It hurts to look at him. I want so badly to just throw caution to the wind and give in, give into him, but I can’t. I need to soak in everything I have just learned. What kind of woman would I be if I just completely let everything he had done go and sweep it under the rug?
“I don’t know,” I say trying to get out of his hold, but he won’t let go of me. Not that he is hurting me, because that is that last thing Mike would ever do. His hands on me are gentle and warm, and damn him for making me feel everything I felt towards him. He made me feel alive in a way I hadn’t in such a long time. Yet he had created a clusterfuck of a situation.
“Everything I told you, everything I felt, it was all real baby. You have to know that. It killed me that I hadn’t told you the truth…” He’s pleading with me, but I can’t shrug it off.
“But you didn’t. Not even at the end,” I blurt out, more damn tears rolling down my face. I know I look like a hot mess, but I can’t seem to hold everything in. How was it possible? I had been the freaking queen of holding shit in, but somehow he changed that.
“I found out by someone else. Even before Patrick came here, I had found those files Mike. You didn’t tell me, I’m not sure if you ever really planned on telling me the truth. I just need to think and being close to you… you know it’s impossible,” I say putting my hands on his hard chest.
I’m breathing hard and looking up at him. His pale blue eyes are full of hurt and his breathing is labored as well. Fear is tingling in my spine at the fact that this might be the last time I will be in his arms. I want to sob and scream at the situation. I don’t want to be away from him. I want to be wrapped up in his arms, but I am so incredibly torn.
Then without thinking I wrap my arms around his neck and hold him close, catching him completely off guard. He squeezes me tightly. I can feel him breathe deep, his face in my neck. Standing on the tips of my toes so that my face is in his neck, I breathe in his scent. I know what I need to tell him, but I also know how much it will hurt. I had a double knot lodged in my throat at the thought of saying goodbye to him. Could I get over his lies? Could we work out, now that the truth is out there? His brother had killed Sean. He had known everything there was to know about me before even having met me, and like an idiot I had completely fallen for him and all his lies. Taking one last deep breath, basking in the sensation of being in his arms, I dig deep in me to let go.
I move my face away from his neck, placing both my hands on his cheeks. I completely soak in what he looks like. His goatee is trimmed and soft, his pale eyes red, holding in tears I know he won’t shed in front of me. I lick my lips as my eyes go to his mouth. I kiss him gently, softly. I’m trying to let him know that I just need some time to think, to soak it up. I hope he will be able to wait for me to figure it out. He doesn’t push the kiss further, only kissing me back sweetly and lovingly. I can feel my tears falling, and his hands going to the sides of my face, wiping the big tears away with his thumbs. I part slightly letting our foreheads touch.
“I just need a moment… to soak it all up Mike…I’m sorry,” I say softly, trying not to break down into sobs. He winces like he is in pain but just nods. He kisses my forehead and without a word he leaves my house, locking the door on his way out. Standing in my empty living room, I feel so alone and cold. I walk to the couch and sit. Without a second thought everything spills out of me. Tears for what I had lost with Sean. Tears for the mess with Mike. Tears for my heart that feels betrayed in a way I wasn’t sure I could let things go.
Sabrina
Night falls and the house becomes dark as I sit on the couch. My head hurts, my eyes are puffy and probably swollen from crying. I hear the door unlock and open.
“Sabrina?” Emmi calls out and I look in her direction and even in the darkness I can see her.
Her thin, tall shadowy figure reminds me I need to go to the gym. At this thought I smile, thankful I can still smile.
“Living room,” I say as all the strength I have been building up starts to diminish.
She turns the light on in my cozy living room and comes over to sit next to me on the couch. Her arm goes around me and I let my h
ead fall on her shoulder.
“What happened?” she asks, her green eyes full of concern.
“The truth came out,” I whisper. “Remember how I told you I felt like he was holding something back?”
“Yeah.”
“Well a guy named Patrick came here, and he’s the one who…” I start to say feeling my eyes start to tear up all over again. “He’s the one who was driving. I guess he came to make amends. Part of his 12 step program. Mike showed up and he was upset; I didn’t know why. It isn’t like Mike to be rude you know? Anyhow…it comes out that the Patrick guy is…”
“Mike’s brother,” she says not looking shocked at all, and I stare at her.
“I didn’t keep my promise about not going to the trial,” she starts to explain and I close my eyes. “I went up to Berkley, stayed in a hotel, and went to court. I watched him and his attorneys. Mike wasn’t there. I didn’t make the connection until later.”
“You didn’t tell me,” I whisper, not sure of what I feel. I know Em; she wouldn’t not tell me something, especially something like this without a reason. She is my best friend, she is like a sister to me.
“No I didn’t. I’m not sorry about it either,” she says, her hand rubbing my shoulder. “We have all tried to help you move on, but nothing worked. For over three years, almost four we have been so worried about you. You were just going through the motions of life, but you weren’t here,” she says, her arms around my shoulder.
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