The Perception

by Adriana Locke

  Cane shrugged. “I agree.”

  “All of this—is something that I can’t give him.”

  “What do you mean? Of course you can.”

  I took a deep breath. “When I was a little girl . . .” The words caught in my throat. I took a deep breath and started again, summoning the courage to hear the words out loud. “When I was a little girl, I had an operation. It wasn’t anything serious, really, but there were a few complications. One of them was excessive scar tissue.”

  Cane watched me intently, his blue eyes tender.

  “I had to have another surgery when I was a teenager. Alice stayed with me in the hospital because Dad didn’t know what to do,” I laughed sadly. “Anyway, to make a long story short and to avoid telling my brother-in-law details I’m not comfortable sharing about my anatomy, I was told that I most likely wouldn’t be able to have kids.”

  The realization shone in Cane’s eyes and he put his head in his hands briefly. He pulled his head up and his eyes back to me. “Fuck, Kari. I’m sorry. I had no idea.”

  “Of course you didn’t. How could you have? But here’s the thing—I got pregnant by a miracle a few years ago and I lost the baby.”

  Tears welled hot in my eyes and I didn’t even fight them. They spilled down my cheeks and onto the blanket.

  “There’s a good chance that if I did want to try having a baby, I couldn’t carry it. And feeling that pain of losing a child . . .” I hiccupped through the tears, trying to keep my voice down so I didn’t wake Jada. “I can’t do it again, Cane. I can’t. It’s the most painful thing in the entire world. It’s enough that I don’t even want to try.”

  I pressed my face into the blanket and tried to get control of myself. Cane sat next to me and pulled me into his chest. He rocked me back and forth and just held me. I cried enough tears to fill a hole, but not one as deep as the crater in my heart.

  Finally, I pulled away and wiped the hair stuck to my face out of my eyes. “I’m sorry,” I sniffled. “I’m just not used to talking about this.”

  “Why?”

  I shook my head. “I’ve never admitted this out loud to anyone except Max the other night—not even Jada. So please, don’t say anything. I’ll tell her, but not until later. Until she’s feeling better. It won’t do any good now, anyway.”

  “Why didn’t you tell anyone?”

  “I don’t want to sort through all of that, okay?”

  He released a breath. “I’m glad you told Max.”

  “Yeah, thanks to Sam. She somehow started dating my ex and brought him to dinner a couple of nights ago.”

  Cane stood and walked back in front of the fireplace, his jaw working back and forth. “Do you think that’s a coincidence?”

  “How could it not be?” I asked, dumbfounded.

  “It’s Samantha. I put nothing past her. Where’s Max now?”

  “Home, I guess.”

  We watched the flames dance in the fireplace for a while. “If Jada told me she couldn’t have a baby, it wouldn’t matter to me.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Really?”

  He shoved his hands in his pockets and turned to look at me. “I love your sister. And yeah, the fact that we are having a baby—a human half me and half her—is beyond unbelievable. But really it’s just icing on the cake. Because with or without a baby, it’s Jada that I want to spend my life with. I can’t live without her.”

  “I’m so glad you found each other.”

  “Yeah, me, too,” he laughed. “But the point is this, this . . . condition of yours, or whatever you want to call it, it isn’t a deal breaker. I see why you would feel like you are holding Max back. I get it. But looking at it from his perspective, it’s his call, Kari. And I know Max better than Max knows Max and he doesn’t give a shit.”

  “You think?” My breath caught in my throat at the tiny bit of hope creeping into my chest.

  “I know. I’m always right, you know,” he winked.

  “Sure you are.” I leaned back against the couch, mulling over Cane’s words. “You really think I’m not being selfish by being involved with him, knowing what you know now?”

  Cane gave me the smile that, if he could, he should patent. It was cocky and thoughtful, juvenile, yet wise beyond his years. It was just Cane. “It would be selfish for you to keep your love from him. He needs it, Kari. He needs you.”

  “I need him, too. That’s the problem. I need him so much that if he ever left me like Blaine . . .”

  “Whoa, back up. He left you when he found out you were pregnant? You’re joking right?”

  I shook my head, a little wary at Cane’s tone.

  “And he’s in the Valley?”

  “Stop it,” I warned him.

  He laughed angrily. “Who the fuck does that? Did he know about your medical issues?”

  “Yeah and that’s another problem with Max. He doesn’t get why I told Blaine and I didn’t tell him.”

  Cane turned and faced me, his face solemn. “So, why didn’t you?”

  I blew out a breath, trying to find the words to explain it. “It’s a lot easier to tell someone when they don’t want kids and you’re both kids yourself. The weight of ‘family’ and ‘children’ isn’t the same.” I played with the tassels on the edge of the blanket. “And I didn’t love him like I love Max,” I said softly. “Max is a man. He means so much to me. I didn’t want him looking at me like I was diseased or flawed or half the woman that other women are.”

  “You’re serious right now?”

  “Of course I am.”

  He stroked his chin. “I guess I see your point. If I couldn’t have kids, I don’t know how that would feel, as a man. But I can tell you how it feels from this side of the coin—it doesn’t fucking matter.”

  “Maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t. But now that he knows the truth, I want to give him the chance to walk if he’s going to. If you’re wrong and this is a deal breaker for him, I want to give him the opportunity to walk away now before things get messier. That’s why I left tonight. We were having a disagreement anyway. It gives him a chance to walk scot free.”

  “He won’t walk. Mark my words.”

  MAX

  “Can you walk?” Sam asked me after opening the passenger side door.

  “Yeah,” I said, stumbling out of my truck. I fumbled for my keys in my pocket and handed them to her. “I’m sure you know which one since you came in here once already,” I slurred.

  “Oh, hush, Max.” She wrapped one arm around my waist and let me lean onto her. We stumbled to the door. I leaned against the doorway and nodded off while she unlocked it. She elbowed me in the ribs. “Wakey, wakey.”

  I pulled my eyelids up and stumbled through the doorway and headed straight for the couch. Sam flipped a light on, the brightness giving me a headache. I half lay, half fell onto the sofa.

  I heard a set of keys clamor onto a table and Sam’s heels click across the tile floor. I dozed off again, but woke up to her laugh.

  “What are we gonna do with ya, Maxie?”

  “What?” I shook my head and sat up, my stomach feeling the weight of the Crown.

  Why is Sam here? Where’s my Kari?

  My brain was a complete fog. Nothing made sense.

  “Where’s Kari?” I asked, trying to focus my eyesight enough to look around the room.

  She shrugged. “How would I know? How much Crown did you drink? Your tab was almost $150.”

  “Yeah,” I slurred. “I drank a lot.” I rubbed my eyes with my knuckles.

  “You smell like a bar,” she laughed. “Want me to help you up to bed?”

  I tried to shake my head, but I couldn’t tell if I actually did or if the room moved or if I was imagining it.

  I heard her sigh and then her heels click across the tile into the kitchen. I drifted off to sleep to the sound of her voice, my mind trying to tell me to remember something. But I couldn’t remember anything. Everything was so warm, so relaxed.

  I awoke t
o my boots being removed.

  “What ‘cha doin’? Why are you here?” I asked. “Pretty sure you shouldn’t be touchin’ me.” I tried to laugh but it was just a garbled chuckle.

  “Damn it, Max. You went and got yourself drunk and I came and got you. Remember? Now let’s get you comfortable before you totally pass out.”

  “Where’s Kari?”

  “I don’t know. I told you that.” She stood up and put her hands on her hips. “I’m guessing you got into a fight about Blaine.”

  “Blaine . . .” I tried to make my brain work.

  Come on. Think! Blaine. What happened?

  I remembered Blaine’s face and Kari’s sad face. And then I remembered Kari telling me the things she told Blaine. I remembered her leaving the house and so did I. And the Crown.

  Kari left me.

  My stomach rolled, the Crown sloshing as panic started to set in.

  Of course she didn’t. I wouldn’t have let her.

  “Did Kari leave me?” I looked to Sam for answers. A sly smile crossed her face and it only added to the confusion in my brain.

  “Probably. I don’t think she really loves you. I mean, she loved Blaine enough to divulge her deepest, darkest secrets but you found out from him. What’s that say about her?”

  I felt the Crown inch its way up my esophagus. I tried to swallow it down, but the fire had worked too far up. I started gagging and Sam took a step backwards. I coughed and sputtered and finally got it under control. The effort it took wiped me out and I fell back on the couch with a thud.

  “Don’t say that,” I said, squeezing my eyes closed. I couldn’t hear it, couldn’t process what she said.

  Sam began undoing my boots again. I tried to hold my feet in the air to make it easier, but they felt like lead and fell back to the couch.

  “It just really makes me angry at her,” she went on, tossing one boot to the floor and starting on the second. “Why would she lead you on for so long if she didn’t love you?”

  “Stop,” I said, but it was barely audible.

  Sam either didn’t hear me or didn’t care. “And could she really think our family would look at her the same once we knew she had an abortion? That she—”

  “Stop, Sam.” My voice was louder now, laced with irritation through the slur. “She lost the baby.”

  She laughed. “I’m sure that’s what she told you. But that’s not what Blaine told me and that was before he even knew I knew her. He isn’t a liar.”

  “Doesn’t matter to me. Even if she did.” I imagined Kari’s face, the smile that lit up my world. The way her giggle made me feel like everything was right in the world.

  I couldn’t make sense of much. I fought to wake up and out of the self-induced fog, but it was too powerful.

  “Let’s get your shirt off,” she said.

  “Nah.” I felt her hands lightly brush the skin of my abdomen right above the top of my jeans. Her fingertips trailed across my waist, leaving goose bumps in their path. “What ‘cha doin,’ Sam?”

  “I’m taking care of you. I’m doing what Kari should be doing.”

  “I let her leave,” I said, my head spinning like a whirlpool.

  “You should let her leave. She’s a phony. She’s just mind-fucking you. You need to see her for what she is.”

  “Shut up,” I warned her, trying to keep everything straight in my head. Her knuckles sat against my skin as her fingers grasped the hem of my t-shirt.

  She bent down, her lips by my ear, her breasts sitting on my chest. “Rise up,” she whispered, her words soft.

  I lifted up as high as I could, managing to smash our bodies together.

  Sam giggled and licked her lips. Her blues eyes peered into mine. “I can make you forget her,” she whispered, pulling my shirt over my head and tossing it somewhere.

  Her face came in and out of sight as the Crown finally caught up to me en masse. “You need to go,” I slurred, pointing haphazardly towards what I thought was the door. “Get outta here, now!”

  “Why do you always push me away?” She crossed her arms across her chest as I lay back again. “Better yet, why do I always let you manipulate me? You need me—I come to your rescue. You need me to stay on at work, even though I know that if Kari said the word, you’d get rid of me. Still, I stay and you just treat me like something you’ll toss aside when you’re done. Why do I let you do that to me?”

  “Sam. I don’t know what you’re talkin’ ‘bout . . .”

  She snorted and I felt her body rise off from the couch. “I’m sure you don’t. Just like you won’t know what I’m talking about when we discuss your inebriated state in the morning.”

  I heard a click and felt a flash of light. I opened one eye to see her aiming her cell at me.

  “What ya doin’?” I asked, wanting her to go the hell away. I was tired of talking to her. I was tired of trying to make sense of everything. I was just tired. So damn tired.

  She kissed me on the cheek. “Brielle is outside, so I’m gonna go. You going to be alright?”

  “Sam,” I slurred, trying to get out one thing that had been on my mind. The darkness was coming for me, but the harder I tried to speak, the harder it got. “Pictures. I think Blaine sent Kari pictures . . .”

  The darkness took over and everything went black.

  MAX

  “What the—” I woke up to a wet, slobbery face. I opened my eyes and they were looking right into Titus.’ He whined and ran in a circle and then barked. The noise level made my brain feel like it was being impaled by razor-sharp swords.

  “What the hell happened, boy?” I asked as I sat up as best as I could and tried to get my bearings. My stomach felt like a pit of acid; I could taste the alcohol from the night before. “How much did I drink?”

  Titus tilted his head and barked again.

  “Quiet down.” I scrubbed my hands down my face and tried to get my head together.

  Why am I on the couch?

  My shoes and socks were under the coffee table and my shirt folded neatly on top of it.

  What the fuck? Where’s Kari?

  I looked around the room and spotted a note on the table. I reached over and picked it up.

  It all came crashing back to me like a tidal wave. Kari leaving, me not going after her but heading to Casaar’s instead. The Crown.

  Sam being here.

  I stood up, hesitantly at first, and then realized I felt better than I expected. I pulled on my shirt and wadded up the note. I let Titus out into the back yard and found my phone on the table by the door and looked for messages from Kari.

  Nothing.

  Damn it!

  I went to the kitchen and downed a couple glasses of water, trying to get the fog out of my head. Everything slowly came back to me in detail.

  I scrolled through my contacts and dialed Cane.

  “Hello?” he asked.

  “Hey. Is Kari around? She went to your place last night, right?”

  The sound was muffled for a minute. “Yeah, but Jada said Kari got called into work.”

  “So she went to the hospital today?”

  “Yeah.” I heard a door open and close. Wind whipping across the speaker made it a little harder to hear. “Look, Max. Kari told me everything last night. She was a mess.”

  I swallowed hard, guilt and uncertainty settling over me. I didn’t know how to fix this mess but I knew I had to get some resolution one way or the other. “Yeah.”

  “Well, I’m pretty sure I saved your ass. Just so you know.”

  “How do ya figure that?”

  “She’s worried that she’s being selfish by loving you and not being able to have kids. She thinks she’s cheating you outta life or something. So I explained to her that she’s wrong. That you love HER, not her ovaries.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh. “You’re right.”

  “I always am, my friend. I always am. But I think she believed me, which is the important part. So now you need to do your part a
nd go to her. Reinforce what I said.”

  “The irony of you doling out relationship advice is not lost on me.”

  “I’m turning into the wise one. I always said you’d need me one day. Last night was your day. You’re welcome.”

  I felt my spirits lift a little. “So she didn’t leave because she still loves Blaine?”

  “I think she’d like to de-nut Blaine, if she could.” He snorted. “I’ve always liked Kari. But it’s you, my friend, she loves. She left last night because she loves you. Just like I think you let her leave because you love her.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh as his words rang through my head. “Oh, how roles change . . .”

  He laughed heartily into the phone. “Go get your girl. I’m running in to talk to my attorneys now.”

  KARI

  I refilled my coffee in the cafeteria. I needed the caffeine to keep me going. Thankfully, it was a slow day in the ER.

  I hadn’t slept much the night before, replaying everything in my mind. I hoped to heavens Cane was right, but I couldn’t go to Max and ask him. I needed him to come to me.

  It was the only way I’d know for sure that he was truly okay with everything.

  My phone buzzed as I reached my table and I grabbed it. “Hello?”

  “I’m surprised you answered.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I’m surprised you called me back, Blaine, after I told you to never call me anymore.”

  “I’ve never done what I was supposed to,” he said softly. “Let me make that up to you.”

  His words caused me to choke on the coffee I had just sipped. “Really? You think you can ever make it up to me that you left me while I was pregnant? You’re dumber than I thought.”

  “We had something, Kari. I was young and dumb and I know I was wrong. But it’s weighed on my conscience ever since and . . . just give me the opportunity to make it right. I loved you and I know you loved me. Now, when I look at you, I see that girl I once knew. Let’s just see if there’s anything there.”

  I thought about what he said. I thought I had loved Blaine and I never thought I would get over that. I thought he had ruined me.

  My phone beeped with an incoming call and when I looked at the screen, Max’s handsome smile was looking at me. A rush of butterflies tore through my stomach and my heart swelled.