Untangled (The Monroe Family Book 7)

by Nicole Dykes

  Her eyes nervously meet mine, but then her head dips down avoiding contact. What the hell is going on?

  Brooke smiles, and seems just as nervous as Hannah. She looks at Cass. “But she will be there for the wedding.”

  Cassie laughs. “She better be. She’s in the wedding party.”

  I momentarily wonder if the thing Van has to do is Chris. It’s a little suspicious that neither one of them is here.

  It doesn’t matter though. I’m here with Dani. I’m happy with Dani.

  My hand finds hers on my thigh, and I give it a little squeeze before the conversation turns to all things wedding and we eat in peace.

  After dinner, Dani grabs my hand and leads me to the backyard. Her lips find mine in a chaste kiss, and I wrap my arms around her waist, pulling her to me.

  Her lips are resting against mine when she says, “This is nice, but I just wanted to tell you that Cass and I are heading to the hotel.”

  I nod my head, my forehead brushing against hers. Dylan and Brooke sprung for a nice hotel suite for Cassie and Dani to stay in tonight. They rented one for Hunt too, but he’s staying alone. “That should be fun.”

  “Yeah, well Cass has all kinds of girly shit planned, but whatever, it’s her weekend. I guess I can endure the pink fluffiness. “

  I chuckle and kiss her lips again. “You’re a good friend.”

  She laughs. “What about you and Hunt? Gonna change into your jammies and have pillow fights all night long?” she teases.

  “Now that’s a powerful image,” I joke right back. “Sadly no. I’m staying at my place. Dudes don’t do sleepovers.”

  She laughs and we both turn toward the door as Cass yells, “Will you hurry up? If I’ve already said goodbye to my fiancé, you surely can part ways with Cam for the night.”

  “Untwist your panties, bridezilla. I’ll be there in a second,” Dani hollers back.

  I laugh, “You better go.”

  “Yeah. I’ll see ya tomorrow.”

  “Absolutely.” I kiss her again and then she leaves.

  I don’t stay long after that and drive back home.

  When I go inside. I instantly see a light coming from down the normally dark hallway, and I freeze.

  Van?

  I should probably just walk quickly back to my room and close the door behind me, but I’m an idiot and I slowly creep by.

  When I get to her door, I see her. She’s sitting on her bed with a box and two duffle bags.

  She’s packing all her shit. That’s what she had to do tonight.

  Her eyes meet mine, and she anxiously looks at the clock and then back at me. “Cam, you’re home early.”

  I told my arms over my chest. “Am I?”

  She tucks a loose strand behind her ear. “Maybe not. I lost track of time.”

  I look at the full bags. “You moving into Hannah’s?”

  She stands up, pushing something she was holding into the bag and zipping it. Her head shakes. Why does she look so fucking nervous? “No.” She takes a deep breath and then says, “I’m moving back to Manhattan.”

  I take two quick steps inside of her room. “What? When?”

  “The day after the wedding.”

  I stare at her, stunned. “Van, don’t do this because of me. You can stay with Hannah and Luke, or fuck I’ll move in with them and you can stay here. You have an internship.”

  “I’ve talked to Brooke, she’s marking it as completed. I need to get away, Cam.”

  “From me?”

  She nods. “Yes. I meant what I said. I want you to be happy, but I just can’t be a witness to it either.”

  “So, that’s it. You’re just running away?”

  She looks hurt by that. “I’m not running. You’re happy. You’re with Dani. The choice has been made, and now we need to move on.”

  I take another step in her direction. “Hold on. What fucking choice. As far as we were concerned, I didn’t have a fucking choice. You chose for me,” I say harshly. Pissed the fuck off by her words.

  “It doesn’t matter anymore, Cam,” she sighs, defeated.

  Fuck this. I can’t take anymore of the mind games and bullshit. I start to take off, but then my stupid fucking brain makes me stop and turn back around when I reach the door frame.

  “I really like Dani. You’re right. I’m happy.”

  She nods her head and gives me the fakest fucking smile I’ve ever seen on her pretty face. “That’s great, Cam.”

  I nod my head. “It is. So, since our relationship is dead anyway, tell me why. I think you owe me that.”

  Her eyes widen in horror. I don’t think she was expecting that. “Let it go, Cam. It doesn’t matter anymore. Like you said, our relationship is dead, and you’re happy.”

  I walk back in her room and stand directly in front of her. “It matters to me. I have to know. Please. Give me that,” I beg.

  I sound pathetic, and I couldn’t care less.

  I have to know what broke us.

  Chapter 39

  Vanessa

  My chest tightens, and I think I might actually pass out. Cam is not backing down. His intense eyes are boring into my soul. He’s pulling on every heart string I have.

  He may be right. I probably do owe him that much.

  Why the hell did I let myself get lost in memories, staring at a stupid picture of Cam and I when we were first dating.

  If I would have just packed my shit and left, I wouldn’t be in the position I am now.

  “Why does it even matter, Cam? It’s over. It won’t change anything.”

  “For my fucking sanity Vanessa. I’ve racked my brain for two years, trying to figure out why. I’ve went over every single scenario trying to uncover why you didn’t trust me. Why, when that bitch told you I slept with her, you didn’t talk to me. You just totally shut down.”

  He has every reason to wonder.

  “It still won’t change anything to know.”

  “Fine, so it doesn’t change anything. That’s not the point. All of our friends believed me. But you didn’t.”

  “I couldn’t,” I say meekly.

  “Why? They all knew my past too, but they believed me. They knew how fucking much I loved you. And then you just shut me out. We crashed and burned, and now I’m with Dani, and you'll probably fuck Chris after the wedding tomorrow.” I want to argue that, but he just continues. “So, no, you telling me this won’t change anything, but I still need to know. Call it morbid curiosity or whatever the fuck you want, but I need to hear it.”

  I’m breathing too heavily, my chest is heaving, but so is his. We are both worked up.

  “Okay, Cam,” I say, giving in. “I guess we might as well put it to bed. I’m broken. I’m unbelievably messed up, and it all goes back to my family. I’ll tell you about them, although I don’t really think it’ll justify anything or give you any peace. You’re a good man, Cam. I know that now.”

  He sits on the edge of my bed, and I join him. “I’m listening, Van.”

  I can’t look into those eyes while I talk about this so I look straight ahead. “It all goes back to my mom. She was born into complete poverty. I mean, being raised in a two-bedroom trailer with eight siblings crammed inside. Her parents were junkies, always looking for the next fix and couldn’t be bothered to take care of their kids. They were taken away several times, but kept ending back with them.”

  “Is that why you went into social work?” Cam asks.

  I nod. “Probably. My mom fell through the cracks of a broken system. I don’t know my dad. She told me about him one night though, when she was going through yet another breakup and drowning herself in cheap wine.”

  Cam is listening intently. I can feel his gaze on me, but I don’t turn to look at him.

  “Apparently when my mom was fifteen she wanted a way out of her parent’s care, desperately.”

  “Can’t blame her,” Cam says.

  “Right. So, she ended up having an affair with this eighteen-year-old
college student she met at a party she never should have been at. Obviously, it was illegal, but she convinced herself it was true love. Anyway, she got pregnant with me and was ecstatic. She bounced over to his college dorm and told him, I think expecting a proposal. Instead she got heartache. He threw some cash at her and told her to get an abortion.”

  “Fuck.”

  We aren’t even close to the truly fucked up part yet. “She didn’t obviously. She was broken though. She dropped out of school and got a job while staying with her parents. Planned to get emancipated. I was born, and she had managed to save up a decent little nest egg to move out with me.”

  I turn and catch Cam’s eyes that are glued to me. Tears are bubbling up as I recount my mother's story. I almost feel sorry for her saying it out loud for only the second time in my life.

  “Right before she could, I think I was maybe a week old, her father was jonsing really bad for a hit. He caught her at exactly the wrong time as she was putting her money into her hiding place. He beat her up pretty badly and took all of her money.”

  “Fuck, Van,” Cam says, the shock on his face makes me insecure so I look away again.

  “She left anyway. We bounced around from shelter to shelter for a while until she met her first husband. He liked to beat her up too, apparently, but he had a trailer of his own and a roof over our head, and that was too much for her to pass up, til he kicked her out. Then we went right back to the streets. I actually remember hubby number two. I was five. He was okay. Fat and lazy, but again, roof over our heads. She left him after three years for a good-looking asshole.”

  Cam is silent now, and I continue with my background story.

  “He liked to hit her and share her with his rich friends. He was pretty well off, and I remember his house was huge. That was mom’s first taste of the good life. Too bad he made her sign a prenup and got bored with her when I was around thirteen.” I nearly shudder, “When I was fourteen, that’s when she met the man she’s still married to, as far as I know. Richer and better looking than all of her prior husbands combined. He lived in a big-ass mansion with actual staff on hand.”

  I can feel Cam stiffen. “Did he hurt you?”

  I turn to look into his stormy eyes, his fists are clenched at his side, and I shake my head. “No. He was indifferent to me. I stayed out of his way, and everything was fine. My mom was pathetic though. She was always rushing around, bound and determined to keep him happy in every way. She was so fucking terrified that he was going to leave her.”

  “What happened, Van?” he asks, his voice a harsh uneasy whisper.

  “That summer I had just turned fifteen, and that’s when I found out my stepfather had a son, who was a year older than me. When we were introduced, I hated him instantly, I’m not even sure why. But he spent most of his time at boarding school with the exception of three weeks in the summer.”

  Cam studies me, trying to guess where I’m going with this. I feel sick, but make myself go on.

  “Those three weeks were hell. He tortured me by relentlessly teasing me and trapping me, not letting me pass in the hallway. He would untie my bikini string when we’d go swimming and generally made me constantly uncomfortable. I had actually made friends at school that year, and they all thought I was crazy. They all thought he was so hot.” I have to stop, my expression goes dark, and I feel Cams arms slip around my shoulder.

  “Please tell me.”

  I close my eyes and breath deep before talking again. “The night before he left to go back to school that year, he cornered me in the hallway when I was on my way to my room. I don’t know what the hell he was thinking, but he kissed me. His hands groped at me and I shoved him away from me, hard. He got pissed and said he was tired of the games and that he would have me. I ran into my room and locked my door.”

  Cam looks pissed beyond belief. “Did he leave you alone?”

  “That night, yes. I woke up the next day and he was gone, so I put it out of my mind. I managed a normal life. And then the next summer he came back.” I swallow back bile. “I hid in my room as much as I could when he got back, but I had to come out to eat. I almost made it without seeing him once, but two nights before he was scheduled to go back I left my room to go out to get pizza with my friends, and when I got back he was there, waiting for me on my bed.”

  Cam jumps up and paces the room. “Please tell me, you kneed him in the fucking balls and got the fuck out of there.”

  “I tried. He had almost a hundred pounds on me, and when I tried to run out of the room he beat me to the door.”

  I’m frozen in my spot on my bed as I look up at Cam, I make myself go numb. “It was over quick. He told me he knew I wanted it, and then he left.”

  “Fuck!” Cam says, running his hands through his hair wildly. His expression downright homicidal.

  “That wasn’t the worst part though.” Cam looks at me with a pained expression and I wipe the tears I just realized are falling down my cheeks. “The next day, I gathered up the courage to tell my mom. I knew he still had two more days there, and I was not going to let him do it again. So, I told her.”

  Cam sits down next to me again, his chest heaving in sheer anger. “What did she do?”

  I bite my lip nervously and look at him, my voice cracks when I say. “Nothing.” I try to clear my throat and quietly say, “I’ll never forget her words, ‘Don’t ruin this for me Vanessa. Don’t make a big deal out of nothing.’” I quote my mother, the pain of her betrayal flooding back into my mind. “She said sometimes women have to pay a price to live comfortably, and that I was being selfish.”

  “That’s the most fucked up thing I’ve ever heard. What a fucking bitch,” he says, clearly not able to fathom a mother saying that to her daughter.

  I wish I didn’t know that kind of evil existed.

  Chapter 40

  Cam

  I stare at Van, trying like hell to process everything that she just told me. In all of the scenarios I came up with, none of them came close to that fucked-up reality.

  I thought, at most, she had an asshole ex-boyfriend, but the amount of trauma and betrayal she has suffered in her life is beyond my comprehension.

  “Please say something,” I hear Van say, her voice full of vulnerability.

  “Van. Why didn’t you tell me before? That kind of fucking betrayal from your own mother, the person you should have been able to trust the most. Fuck, of course, you have a hard time trusting anyone. Why wouldn’t you?”

  “After she said that to me, I knew I was completely alone in the world. I wasn’t going to stay there and be his victim, so I called one of my mom’s sisters. I had met a couple of my aunts and uncles over the years, none of them were great, but my Aunt Bobbi was the lesser of all evils. I begged her to let me stay with her in Chicago, and she finally gave in. She had two kids and they lived paycheck to paycheck, so her one condition was I had to get a job.”

  I listen to her, afraid there’s more, but wanting to hear every bit of her past.

  “Anyway, I told my mom I was leaving and Cam, she looked almost relieved. She was just so paranoid I was going to mess it all up for her.”

  God, I hate this woman. I’ve never met her, but I fucking hate her.

  I want to hold Van, wrap her up in my arms and swear to her that I will keep her safe, but I keep a respectable distance.

  “I left and lived with my aunt. I didn’t make any friends. I just fully threw myself into school and volleyball. Everything I did was to get a full scholarship to college, so I could get an education and never have to rely on anyone again.”

  “Wow, Van,” I say truly in awe of this woman before me.

  “I got a full scholarship and thanked my aunt on the way out, haven’t seen or talked to her since. When I got to K-State, I had the same philosophy. No friends, just get through college. I occasionally hung out with my roommate, but never let myself get close to her. And then I met you.”

  She turns, and for a second there is a bre
ak in the darkness and she smiles at me. I remember the day I met Van. She was so fucking beautiful and was reading a book in the hallway of the athletic dorm. I had seen her around before, but that day I finally went for it and invited her to Luke and Hunt's dorm to hang out.

  “You and your sexy smirk, that somehow wasn’t predatory. For the first time in my life, I wanted to get to know someone. Then you introduced me to Luke, Hannah, and Hunt and everything changed. Everything. Somehow you all gave me strength to be me. I felt instantly comfortable, and you all became my family.”

  She fit in with our group right away. She was fun and outgoing, I can’t believe all that time she was living with this painful secret. “Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask quietly, knowing she didn’t owe me anything.

  “I decided I didn’t want to be a victim. You just saw me, and I didn’t want it to change. I loved the way you looked at me, and I thought I had it under control. I felt so safe and protected with you, Cam, like you would never hurt me. But then Krista told me you slept with her, and everything just came back. I felt like an idiot, like I had let my guard down and you were like everyone else in my life.”

  I can’t blame her. “I would never hurt you.” Fuck. I have hurt her. I look at her, my eyes wide, a feeling of disgust deep inside of me. “Oh shit. I’m such a fucking asshole. I did hurt you.”

  She shakes her head. “Don’t do that. That right there is what I was afraid of. Don’t coddle me. We both hurt each other. I’m still Van.”

  I get what she’s saying, but I still feel like a prick. “I’m so sorry, Vanessa. Nothing’s changed. You are still Van to me. I’ve always been in awe of you, but I am even more so now.”

  She smiles, large tears falling out of her eyes. “I’m sorry too. Deep down I knew you didn’t cheat. I just let crippling fear get the better of me.”

  Fuck, I hate this. I hug her small body to mine, wishing I could take away all her pain. “If I ever run into your stepbrother I’ll fucking kill him.”

  I seethe as I hold her. She looks up at me, but stays pressed against my body. “Actually, karma took care of that already.”