Hesitate

by Brooks, Anna

  “Jesus Christ, Made—”

  “Can you even imagine, just a little bit, what it feels like to finally, freaking finally find the man of your dreams, only to wake up to the nightmare that he was the worst one of all because he might not have fucked your body, but he raped your goddamned soul.” I let the tears fall, and he opens his mouth, but I shake my head. “I honestly do not give a shit what she has to do with you or why. All I know is I have never hated another human being as much as I hate you, and I haven’t spoken to my mother in almost a decade, so that should give you some indication of how deeply I loathe her. It’s time for you to go, Q, and by that, I mean, you need to vanish from my life because I never want to see you again, not only for as long as I live, but I pray to God I never see your face even after I’m dead.”

  Chapter 11

  Q

  I lie in my bed in the apartment next to hers and stare at the dark ceiling in an even darker room with one arm thrown across my eyes that admittedly are burning like they never have before. The color surrounding me is the same shade I left on my soul when I walked out of Madeline’s this morning.

  I didn’t want to leave. I wanted to explain it to her. I needed her to hear me out. But I also want to give her what she wants. I want her to be happy. And me being there was killing her, so I left. I knew she’d be mad, and I knew she’d throw a shit ton of sass my way, but I wasn’t expecting what I ended up getting, which was a verbal beatdown the likes of nothing I’ve ever experienced before.

  Never in my life has one person physically transferred their pain to me, but I felt every single thing she was feeling when she was standing mere feet from me with tears silently rolling down her face as she eviscerated me.

  I wish she’d have let me explain. If she had, then she would understand why her mother was there this morning and that the only reason I was speaking to Roxy was to tell her to stay the fuck away from her daughter. Madeline would know that I absolutely one thousand and ten percent only want her because of who she is and nothing more. If she’d have let me explain, I would have told her that I was in love with her, too.

  But she needs time, and I get it. I understand why, so that’s what I’m going to do. I’ll give her a little bit of time, but not too much, because I don’t know how long I can be without her.

  * * *

  The next day, Brodie comes over and takes my place. He and I talked at length yesterday and decided that we’d allow Roxy to have a single conversation with Madeline, and then we’d thwart any other attempt at contact. I don’t feel as if Madeline is in any physical danger at the moment, but I still want someone close in case something were to happen. Since I have so much to do at the office, I go into work. I need to get away from her; otherwise, I’ll be too tempted to go to her. Once there, I knock on the opened door, sticking my head into Erik’s office, hiding the fact that I feel like a love-sick fool. “Can I come in?”

  “Of course, what’s up?” he asks as he sets a file down and then takes a seat in the leather chair behind his desk. He’s hard to read, but I know he recognizes the despondence pouring off me when a muscle in his jaw clenches.

  “I’m done with fieldwork. Forever.”

  His brows shoot up. “Why?”

  “I fucked up.”

  “Maddy?”

  Just her name makes me vulnerable, and it pisses me off that he’s asking when he knows already. “Yeah.”

  “I don’t know how you think you fucked up. Your client is safe, and the threat is eliminated.”

  “I crossed a line I shouldn’t have, and I won’t risk it again.” Not that there would ever be anybody other than Madeline, but because I would never give a shit about somebody else enough to risk my life for them. And when you’re a bodyguard, it’s part of the job.

  I see the confusion on his face because the last time we talked about this, I denied that I had any feelings for her. And I’ll continue to do so with him. “She was safe, just not from me.”

  He leans back in his chair and crosses his arms. “Exactly. Your client’s safe and sound, a picture-perfect assignment.”

  “I let her get too close. I got too close. I hurt her when I was supposed to be protecting her.”

  “How did you do that?”

  I run my hands over my face. “You know what happened without me saying the words, Erik.”

  “Yeah… I do. But that’s not excuse enough to pull you from the field, and if you’ll remember, you were the one who wanted to do this. I never assigned you to her.”

  “I know, but it’s reason enough that I don’t trust myself anymore.”

  His head tilts to the side and I know he’s going to agree, even though I wasn’t leaving his office without him doing so in the first place. “Fine.” Then he leans forward and rests his elbows on his desk. “I think you’re making a huge mistake, but I can’t compromise our clients or your safety if your head isn’t all the way in it. I told you when this was over that we would talk, but in all honesty, I was hoping you’d change your mind. You’re too much of an asset to lose, so if you want to be pulled indefinitely, then fine.”

  I nod. “Thanks.”

  “Oh no, don’t thank me. I’m pissed about this, but I’m a man of my word, and if this is what you’re telling me you need, then I’ll oblige it. Begrudgingly.”

  “Works for me.”

  “Good. ’Cause the only other choice was for you to quit, and let’s be honest, that wasn’t ever going to be an option.”

  I gnaw the inside of my cheek to prevent from saying something I shouldn’t and simply nod at him. “That vacation time I have saved up?” He raises a brow. “I want to use a couple of weeks of it now. I need to get my shit together.”

  His chair squeaks when he leans forward. “Don’t bullshit me.”

  I should have known he’d see right through me. “What I do on my time is my business.”

  “You’re right. But tell me this. Are you going to stay at that apartment and keep your eyes on her because you think she’s still in danger, or because you want her?”

  “I don’t think she’s in danger, per se, but I also don’t think Roxy is done. I just want to be close in case I need to intervene. But speaking of, I forgot to thank you for going head to head with the production company.”

  He waves that off. “Not a big deal. Brodie briefed me on your conversation with Roxy yesterday. You really don’t think she’s gonna back off?”

  I grab a chair in front of his desk and plop down. “You guys shot down her hope of using her production company for filming, and I verbalized my displeasure with her lying to me about why she wanted me to find her daughter.

  “She broke down, giving me some sob story about how she has no money, and she used the last of it to pay us and a bunch of other shit I don’t care about. Now, we all know she’s a shit actress, so I’m pretty sure she was genuine when she said she never wanted to hurt Madeline, but I do know yesterday won’t be the only attempt she makes to talk to her. I think she needs to hear it from Madeline’s mouth that she doesn’t want to do porn, which is ridiculous. So physically, no, I don’t think she’d be dumb enough to try to hurt her, but mentally, yeah, she’ll fuck her up some more.”

  “She thinks to offer her daughter money in exchange for fucking someone on camera isn’t hurting her?” he asks incredulously.

  “Yup. ’Cause you know how much the studio was offering her… Roxy alone would be getting a hundred grand just for recruiting Madeline. And depending on how far she was willing to go, they were prepared to pay each of them upward of a half a million dollars.”

  He shakes his head in disgust. “What a fuckin’ bitch.”

  “Yeah, no shit. And Madeline doesn’t even know any of this yet because she was too busy screaming at me to let me get a word in edgewise. I need to give her some time to calm down before I approach her again to give her a heads-up, unless Roxy gets there before me, which in all honesty might be better anyway.”

  “She gonna let you
approach?”

  “She won’t have a choice.”

  He nods, and I do the same, signifying the end of our conversation. Heading to my car, I avoid talking to anyone else on the way there. All of us are in constant communication one way or another, so everyone knows what’s happening, and I appreciate them not getting in my face about it. I avoid thinking about anything on the drive. And when I finally get to the apartment, Brodie leaves without a word, and I avoid looking at myself in the mirror.

  What I don’t avoid is thinking about how much I fucked up. And not just what’s on the surface. My past has ruined me, and then when I finally allowed myself to have feelings for another woman—although allow is a stretch, more like I couldn’t even try to deny them—I once again left us both broken.

  I know that she’ll never forgive me, but I need her to know. And in doing that, I’ll also know that no matter what, whether the real me or the me I pretended to be, I’ll never be good enough for her. And that shit stings.

  Madeline

  One week later

  “Have a good weekend, kids. See you Monday!” I wave to my class as they run out of the room, their joyous expressions reminding me why I love my job so much. Seeing the excitement and eagerness to learn and watching them discover something or accomplish a task on their own for the first time is nothing short of amazing.

  I often have flashbacks of my childhood and the things I was doing when I was their age. I remember being happy, having fun, living my best life, and actually loving my mother. At least, I thought I did back then because I didn’t know any better. But when I got older, when I figured out who my mom really was, everything changed. And then it got worse.

  My life of rainbows and flitting butterflies turned to darkness and caged birds.

  But that’s the past. And no matter how much I try not to think about those things, I can’t not. For as many times as I’ve thought about it, I’ve tried to forget to no avail. And it’s frustrating. Especially because now, I’m trying to block out my time with Q, which is nearly impossible.

  It’s only been a week since I saw my whore of a mother with her hands on the love of my life, and I know the pain is fresh, but I don’t see it ever going away. How can it?

  The only way for me to be able to move on is to pretend Q never existed, no matter how impossible it’ll be. For now, though, I have to forget about him because I have someone who needs my help, and I can’t let my own emotions get in the way of anything else.

  As soon as the last child is gone, I gather my things and head down to the office, my ballet flats almost silent on the hideous tan and brown tiled floor. Mary smiles when I reach her desk just outside the principal’s office. “Hi.”

  “Hey, is he in there?”

  “Yeah, go on in.” Her tight blond curls spring when she nods.

  “Thanks.” I still knock as I enter, and Paul looks up from his computer.

  He motions for me to come in. “Hey, Maddy. What brings you by?”

  “I, um… I have reason to believe one of my students is being abused at home.”

  He drops his head and shakes it. “Who?”

  “Connor White.”

  “Fuck.” He slams his hands on the desk, and I jerk at his reaction. “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay, don’t apologize. I’m upset about it, too. I just wanted to let you know because I’m going to call and file a complaint when I get home.”

  He stands from his desk and looks out his window at the children still lingering who haven’t gotten on a bus or been picked up yet. “I just don’t understand how someone can hurt a defenseless child. I wanted to be an educator to help kids learn, to teach them that they can do anything they put their mind to. Christ.” He runs his fingers over his head, scraping the top of his receding hairline. “I never thought I’d see this much goddammed abuse. It’s sickening.”

  “I know.”

  He turns around and sighs. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t—”

  “No, you should. It isn’t something that should be taken lightly, and it’s good to know that you have the other teacher’s and my backs for this sort of thing.”

  “I’ll always have my teacher’s backs. Always.”

  “Thank you, we appreciate that.”

  There isn’t more that needs to be said, so I offer him a smile before I go to my car and head home to my empty apartment, just like I like it.

  After everything that happened with Q, I’ve decided no more men. I’m married to my job anyway. That’s my life. Q isn’t. Not anymore and not ever again.

  At least not in the real world. In my head, he probably won’t ever go away. I can’t look at my couch without remembering him, my bed, the kitchen table… Christ, I smell him everywhere.

  I hate that he’s the only thing I think about, so much that it’s like he’s here. Here. Right in front of my damn face. I berate myself over and over again for being so stupid. For falling for a guy who’s a fucking liar. Even if I wanted to, I could never be with him again and trust him. How could I? All he did was lie the entire time we were together, so I’ll never believe a word that comes out of his mouth.

  “Stop it,” I mumble to myself. I need to stop this, but it’s fucking impossible to get him out of my head.

  When I park in the parking lot, I look around to see if his car is here, but I don’t find it in its normal place or anywhere else. Part of me is relieved, but the other part is kind of hurt that he didn’t even try to come back.

  I was that easy to just give up. I was nothing to him.

  Biting back tears that I absolutely refuse to let fall, I head inside quickly on the off chance that I didn’t see his car, and he really is here, because I don’t want to run into him.

  I’m not even to my kitchen when my phone rings, and since I know who it’s going to be, I don’t even bother to look at the screen before I answer. “Hey, Sadie.”

  “Margaritas or wine? What do you want me to bring over because I need something?”

  “Margaritas.”

  “Okay, I’ll be there in half an hour.”

  While I’m waiting for Sadie to arrive, I change my clothes and pull out our favorite frozen pizza so it’s ready when she gets here. I slam the oven door closed, and my head falls forward, hitting nothing but air, but doing it so fast it pulls the back of my neck painfully.

  Dammit. I squeeze my eyes closed, refusing to cry right now. Not again. I did enough of that over the past week to last a lifetime. I clear my throat, dry my eyes, and then I make the phone call I really don’t want to make and have been debating on making for weeks. But enough is enough. It’s not my job to provide proof; it’s my job to report suspicion. So that’s what I do.

  Just as I’m hanging up with the district’s CPS contact, I hear a knock on my door and go open it. “Hey,” I greet Sadie.

  “Hi.”

  We go to the kitchen, and together, without a lot of talking, we make margaritas and plate up some pizza. It’s after she eats half a slice and slams half a margarita that she starts ranting. “He left her.”

  My eyes bug out of my head, and I’m literally so shocked I can’t speak.

  “When he brought Cassie home last night, he told me he left Carla. She gave him the weekend to get his shit out, and as of this morning, he’s living in a hotel until he finds an apartment… unless of course, I let him move in with me.”

  “No way.”

  “Yes way!” She tosses back the rest of her margarita, which seeing as how she just got here, is a lot. “What am I supposed to do?”

  “I… I honestly don’t know.”

  She rolls her eyes. “Don’t give me that I’ll support you in whatever you choose crap. I want to know what you would do.”

  “Honestly, I want to tell you not to give him a chance, but I think you need to because you’ll always wonder what if. What if he’s really a good guy? What if giving him a chance was the best decision you’ve ever made in your life?”

  Her tongue slides along th
e front of her teeth. “You mean like you ask yourself about Q?” I know she understands because even though what’s happening with her and Kai isn’t the same thing, we’re both messed up because of a man. She has the unfortunate circumstance where she’s forced to see him.

  “I mean, yeah. It eats at me.” It’s a check mark on the list of things that run through my mind on a daily basis.

  She grabs another slice. “So why didn’t you let him explain?”

  I contemplate my answer because it’s all I’ve been doing. Thinking. Analyzing. Wondering. Questioning what things would be like now if I had given Q a chance to explain. Whether I made a mistake. “I’m almost thirty, Sadie.”

  “Me too, girl.”

  “I’m almost thirty, and I’m completely alone.”

  “You have me.”

  I reach over and squeeze her hand, so, so thankful I was chosen at random to be her roommate our freshman year in college. “I know that. And you always have me.” But she also has a daughter, a loving mother, and siblings. I’m just me, all alone. “But I don’t want to talk about me. We’ve done nothing this past week but talk about Q.” I’ve come to absolutely zero conclusions, which makes it even more frustrating. “What are you thinking about with Kai?”

  “How could I ever trust him? Not only that, but what he’s doing now to his wife makes me sick. It’s like he enjoys playing games, and I feel like that’s all I am to him; a prize. Then once he gets me, he’ll just put me on a shelf and walk by me without ever really looking at me again.”

  “Sadie…”

  She swallows thickly, and tears brim her eyes. “No relationship can last if it starts based on lies. So no matter how many times I’ve told myself to give him a chance and see if we could make a family because I’m different to him, I remember the fact that the night our baby was conceived, he was legally bound to another woman. How do you get past that? How can you trust someone who’s a liar?”

  “You don’t.”