Incomplete

by Eliza Park

  I felt the scowl move across my features and reacted instantly, grabbing the wrist holding the gun and shoving it hard to the side, bringing a knee sharply to his groin. He bent forward in pain and I used the leverage to shove him back, my hold on his wrist tightening as he twisted away from it. The gun clattered to the floor and I kicked it away as Eli fell, landing angrily on his ass.

  He had the nerve to look completely astonished, which pissed me off even more. I let my knees fall onto his arms, heard the air escape his lungs with a grunt, and pulled my fist back, letting it hit his cheek with a loud crack. I hit him again. And again. And again. Stopping only when his eyes were glazed, and blood was dripping from his nose and mouth. Then I stood, staring down at him, breathing heavily with the exertion of what I’d just done. Eli wasn’t moving, but I knew I hadn’t killed him, just knocked him unconscious.

  “Celeste?” The voice came from behind me, and I whirled. Maverick was standing there, blue eyes wide with shock, his keys in his hand. “What the fu-- is that Eli?” He came to stand beside me, looking down at the body of our former classmate, then he turned to me, concern etched across his handsome features, “Are you alright?”

  I nodded, “He didn't have a chance to touch me, actually.” I shook out my hands, grimacing. My knuckles were bloodied and would be bruising soon. My heart was still pounding, my legs shaking, adrenaline coursing through my veins. “He said you broke his ankle and shattered his kneecaps?”

  Mav looked over at me, his mouth open, “Yeah,” He ran a hand through his hair, processing, “The Swiss government wasn’t going to press charges,” he said slowly.

  “So, you beat the shit out of him?” Eli’s crumpled form lay at my feet.

  He reached into his pocket, pulling out his phone, seeming to come to his senses. “Yeah. Although it looks like you don’t need me to fight your battles for you.” He held the phone up to his ear again and made the call to the police.

  They showed up a while later as we stood in the kitchen silently, watching Eli’s body, waiting in case he woke up. He called his dad soon after, reiterating to me some legal instructions about what to say and not say. While we waited, I washed my hands and wrapped them up in gauze, the heartbreak still too recent for me to watch my ex-boyfriend stalk the crumpled body of my other ex-boyfriend.

  As soon as the police stepped in the door, Eli stirred and was unhappily met with handcuffs. I detailed what happened, was as brief but direct as possible as per Mr. Lockwood, and they hauled him and his cheap gun away, into a police car and down into a city jail.

  Mav told his part of the story, claiming innocence when Eli started yelling about how he’d ruined his soccer career. It was dark by the time they were gone, and we were alone, he moved towards me and then stopped, sticking his hands in the pocket of his coat.

  “I feel like I could have lost you today. Twice.” He said quietly.

  “It wasn’t me he was after, Mav, it was you. And I can take care of myself.”

  “Where did you learn to take down a guy twice your size, anyway?”

  I looked down at my wrapped wrists, thinking of the punching bag in the guest room, “I had a few amazing older cousins who taught me some stuff. And then I may have taken some professional classes.”

  “You’ve come a long way.” His jaw clenched, eyebrows knitting together, and his blue eyes looked sad, “Everything I’ve done, I’ve done because I love you.”

  I said nothing.

  “It’s going to get worse. I have a lot to explain.”

  I sat down on the gray couch in my living room and motioned for him to sit in the chair next to it.

  His expression was grave, and he ran his hands through his hair before leaning forward, his elbows on his knees.

  Chapter 46

  Maverick

  And here it was. Everything that had transpired over the last two years that I’d kept from her. All my secrets, and some of hers.

  I started with the least bad thing first, hoping that at the end of this we could walk away and at least still be friends, but knowing that with each word I said, she would drift further and further away from me.

  I told her about Dr. Rosenburg and how she was no longer allowed to practice medicine or psychiatry in the United States. We’d had her license revoked, her reputation destroyed, and ensured she’d have a hell of a time finding a position even as a teacher in any state in the country.

  She didn’t seem mad about that and actually gave me a smile when I finished.

  Okay, cool, maybe this wouldn’t be so bad.

  I moved on to Mia, scratching my chin at how I could get through this unscathed. “The reason I was so mad before the dance was because of Mia.”

  She didn’t say anything, waiting for me to explain.

  “There’s no way for me to look like the good guy here, so I’ll just get it over with.” I took a deep breath, “After we had sex the first time, Mia claimed to be pregnant with my kid, I didn’t believe her obviously, and she took me through all of this bullshit. I confronted her when she handed me some fake medical documents. Then she supposedly lost the baby.”

  “Why didn’t you just tell me?” She looked incredulous.

  “I didn’t know what to do, I didn’t want to be a dad, especially not with Mia.”

  “Jesus, Mav, what if you had gotten me pregnant?” She muttered.

  I tried not to smile, “That’s a different story, Ace. You’re...you.”

  She shook her head again, “You should have just been honest with me.”

  “I know. I wanted to be sure it was real, which, it wasn’t.”

  “Next.” She said, crossing her arms over her chest.

  I inhaled, “Well you already know that Logan, Brody, Noah and I went to Switzerland before the Embassy got to him and I beat the shit out of Ramirez with a baseball bat.”

  Her jaw tightened, mouth twitching a little like she maybe wanted to smile.

  “I’m not going to apologize for that.”

  She was quiet for a moment, “I don’t know what to say. On the one hand I’m glad his career was destroyed since he wasn’t going to get convicted for what he did to me. On the other, that was horrifically violent. If you hadn’t done it, he probably wouldn’t have come here. So, thank you, I guess?”

  I grinned.

  She frowned, “Move on, Mav.”

  “Right, well, I may have almost had his parents exported back to Puerto Rico. They fled the country, I don’t know where to...which is probably also why Ramirez was after me.”

  Celeste closed her eyes, covering her hand with her face, “Oh my god.”

  “Yeah.” I knew that one was going to be bad.

  “They were innocent in all of that.” She said quietly.

  “I know that now, but I was really angry back then and I did a lot of stupid things.”

  “Can you find them and bring them back?” She asked, raising her head to look at me.

  I kept myself from scoffing, “Why the fuck would I do that?”

  Her mouth fell open, incredulous, “Maverick. They were innocent.”

  “Still illegal immigrants…” I mumbled.

  “Maverick!”

  I offered up my hands in agreement, “Okay, yes. I will look into it.”

  “You promise?”

  “Yes, I promise. You’re right, I’ll do what I can.” I hesitated, “Although now that their son is actually in the hands of the law...I don’t kno--.”

  “Maverick.” She warned.

  “I will look into it.”

  “You haven’t gotten to the package you sent me.”

  This was my least favorite part of our story. There was a chance it had a happy ending, but I wasn’t looking forward to how it would get there.

  So, I ended with the package and everything attached to it, wondering if using that as the biggest truth bomb would help distract from everything else. I outlined how Bohanan had set off my investigation, my dad had stoked the fire, and I’d discovere
d most of the information about her mother. Then I told her about being asked to keep it secret for legal reasons by my dad, and insisted on the regret I still felt for that decision despite the outcome. I briefly mentioned asking her Uncle not to contact her to try to form a relationship for those same legal reasons. She looked at me for part of the explanation, sitting back into the couch with her hands crossed in her lap. When I got to the part about her father demanding the information stay buried, she covered her face with her hands.

  “You have to understand, my dad asked me not to say anything to you until your 18th birthday. If your dad had found out that Professor Bohanan knew who you were, he could have destroyed him, and you never would have discovered the truth. I know you don’t care about the money, but you needed your trust and your freedom from your parents to recover.”

  “There’s something else, Celeste.” I said quietly. She looked up at me, her face lined with weariness. “There’s a possibility that your mother is still alive.”

  Her jaw fell, disbelief clouding her features. “There’s no way. She would have found me.”

  “I hired a private investigator, my dad’s recommendation, and a woman matching your mother’s description showed up at a hospital in Colchester with severe hypothermia just days after the attempted kidnapping.”

  She shook her head, “No, she would have come for me or written to me or something.”

  I swallowed, “The woman has retrograde amnesia. She doesn’t remember anything, ironically, past the age of 5.” I tried to gage her expression, but it was carefully masked. “She’s working at a community center outside of Hartford. And someone covered her expenses until she was stable enough to get a job.”

  “No,” she said, standing and pacing the floor, “No, there’s no way. No.” She stopped, staring at the clock above the fireplace. “He wouldn’t do that to me after everything else,” she said quietly.

  I had a feeling she was talking about her dad. I stood, walking over to her. She backed away from me, a look of pure contempt on her beautiful face. She was always so pretty when she was mad. Somehow the anger accentuated her most beautiful features. The high cheekbones, the bright green eyes, the full pouting lips. “Don’t touch me, Maverick. Not now, not ever again.”

  Her words threw a sharp knife into my heart and the air escaped my lungs. “Celeste,” I breathed, “Please don’t do this.”

  She shook her head, walking away from me, “Text me the information for the home and then delete my number.” She moved to stand by the door, and I could see the beginnings of that emotional flood she kept back so well. “A couple of the things on that list I could have handled, Mav, but not all of them.” Her voice quieted, “I need you to leave.”

  “Everything I did, I did for you, for us,” I said. My stomach was full of acid, my chest aching with a hurt I’d felt before, although this time it was so much worse.

  “Eight wrongs don’t make a right. Moving here to be with you was a mistake. I thought you were a different person. I thought I could trust you.” Her voice quivered with the last sentence and I wanted so badly to reach out and touch her. She opened the door and stood back, out of my reach. “Leave, Maverick.”

  The pit of acid in my stomach grew to immeasurable heights. Just like the last time she’d broken up with me, I stood in the doorway, looking back at her. “I'm sorry for everything I did, and I hope one day you’ll believe that my intentions were honest, even if my actions weren’t. I’ll wait for you, I’ll always be there when you need me.” Her eyes met mine for a moment, “I love you, Ace.” I whispered, “Always have, always will.”

  I left, standing in the hallway as the door closed behind me, the finality of the sound shattering what was left of my resolve. I wiped the tears from my eyes as I took the stairwell down to the busy streets of New York City. I was not a crier. I did not cry. Instead of texting my driver I turned right and headed for nowhere in particular, trying not to think about everything I’d just been forced to walk out on.

  Celeste was irrefutable in her decision. I was getting what I deserved, but the hurt that followed was inconceivable. I knew it would be a while before she decided to let me back into her life, if ever. My mind raced through all the possibilities. I could storm back there, demand to be heard, demand she remain in my life. I could finish out my last year at NYU, walk her to her classes, bother her incessantly with my irresistible charm until she caved. I shoved my hands into the pockets of my coat, pausing on the sidewalk when my fingers found the small wrapped blue box from Tiffany’s. I kept walking, my fingers touching the ribbon.

  I’d keep it. Forever if I had to. I’d keep it until there was absolutely no way in hell she was ever coming back to me. And even then, I would still probably keep it.

  Chapter 48

  Celeste

  I cried. The second he walked out the door I went into my room and cried. For the second time in my very young life my heart was tearing apart at the seams because I’d put my trust into a man I shouldn’t have. I ached for the time before when I was still in the dark, when everything was so remarkably perfect. I longed for his strong arms embracing me while I let out horribly ugly sobs, drenching my pillow grotesquely with an intense sadness I had never known. I yearned to hear his gentle voice, that low husky chuckle, see his bright blue eyes watch me with adoration and I wept knowing I’d given all of it up.

  My body finally gave out sometime after dark and I slept for a long while, waking up to the morning sun with a headache that pressed into my frontal lobe and a mouth full of cotton. I dragged my lifeless body to the kitchen and gulped down a glass of water, my eyelids heavy. I hadn’t craved the numbing release of my old prescription meds in two years, but right then I wanted anything to take the pain away, anything to toss a blanket over the horrible ache in my heart. I put my baby blue kettle on the stove and turned on the heat, a stab of a sweet memory pushing at the edges of my subconscious. I didn’t want to remember right now. I didn’t want to think, but I knew I had to. I would relive all of those pleasant memories over and over and over again until the sting associated finally dissipated, just like I’d learned to deal with trauma.

  Pouring myself a hot cup of tea, I went and sat down on my cozy gray couch, wrapping a blanket around my shoulders, and staring into the steaming mug. I would take the day to wallow over the loss of Maverick, knowing Jenny would advise exactly that, and then tomorrow I would go and find my mother.

  I turned on the TV, switching to something completely mindless that I knew wouldn’t distract me, but would at least pass the time. I jumped when my phone started loudly buzzing on the coffee table in front of me. My heart pounding, I reached for it, hoping it was Maverick but praying that it wasn’t. I sighed with relief and then trepidation, my grandmother’s name flashing across the screen.

  Taking a sip of tea, I answered, clearing my throat, “Hi, Grandma.”

  There was silence on the other line, “Oh, honey, what’s the matter? You sound sicker than a dog.”

  I thought about conceding to the idea, lying about my situation, but I couldn’t do to her what others had done to me, “I had to break up with Maverick.” My voice was barely a whisper.

  “Whatever for, love? Did he hurt ya?”

  “Not like that, just kept a lot of secrets from me.”

  “Oh, love, I’m so sorry to hear that. He seemed like a real nice boy.”

  I picked at the fabric of my blanket, “There’s something you should know, Grandma. Something he told me about last night.”

  “Are you sure you wan’ to tell me, dear? You can wait till you’re not hurting so much anymore.”

  “It’s about my mother.”

  Silence on the other line encouraged me to go on, “Maverick hired a private detective, and he thinks she might be working at a community home in Connecticut.”

  “You mean she’s alive?” Myrna Bohanan’s voice was a whisper of incredulity.

  “It’s possible. I haven’t gone to visit her yet.�
�

  Myrna inhaled sharply and I could sense the tears she was stifling through the phone, “Oh, Celeste, do ya wan’ some company child?”

  “Well, the woman has a very serious case of amnesia, grandma, I don’t know that she’d recognize anyone.”

  “You’re probably right, dear,” she contested, sadness lacing her worn voice, “Listen here, love. You get better, mend that broken heart then see what you can discover. I won’ keep my hopes up and I won’ tell your grandpa, but you be sure to let me know what you find, hear?”

  “I absolutely will, grandma. I promise.”

  “I know ya do, darling. Never met someone in my life so hellbent on keeping their word.”

  “I’m sorry, grandma,” I said then, my eyes welling back up with tears.

  “Wha do you mean, child?”

  I brushed my hand over my cheek, “If it hadn’t been for me, you could ha--.”

  “Now don’t you dare finish that sentence,” Myrna interrupted, scolding. “Don’t you apologize for the misgivings of others. I love ya, Celeste, love ya like I’ve known ya your whole life and I wouldn’t trade meeting you for a thing in the world.” She sniffed and I knew she’d become emotional too, “Now go get yourself right in the heart and we’ll speak again. And Celeste?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Maybe call a friend to take ya out for a coffee or something. No need to be alone after a thing like that.”

  “Yes, Grandma. Thank you, I’ll call you soon.”

  “Love ya, darling.”

  “Love you too.”

  I hung up and took a deep breath, looking down at my call log with an ache in my belly. My last few calls were from Maverick and I could vaguely remember those conversations. Hearing his smiling voice on the other line, the low growl of a groan when our conversations inevitably turned dirty. I exited out quickly and went to my texts, scrolling down to find Gage’s name.