“Not Bar Louie,” I blurted out. Julie’s knowing eyes took me in for a second, but then I pointed out an empty parking spot, which was hard to find any day, let alone on a Saturday. “Quick. Grab that spot.”
Julie whipped the Volkswagen into the parking space with ease, then turned to me, but I busied myself with gathering my phone and purse and hopped out.
“A burger and endless fries sound good to me,” I offered. “How ’bout you?”
“Sounds good,” she agreed, but I knew the inquisition was coming soon. Of course, I could just say I went there New Year’s Eve and that would be enough to stop the inevitable interrogation, but really it wasn’t about Nathan at all. It was the fact that it had been my last night with Brock.
He’d been so funny with the waiter. Had been so playful with me all night. We’d been inches away from making love.
Julie scooted to the back of a booth and I sat across from her. We ordered two burgers, and Julie opted for a soda while I stuck with water. Two-fifty for a soda was way too much, especially when I could get an entire twelve pack for that much. Well, when Publix had them on BOGO, I could. I’d learned to shop wisely.
“Soooo …” Julie leaned over the booth, twisting one of her locks around her finger. I couldn’t understand why she always went on about my looks. To me, Julie looked like a young Nicole Kidman with her long strawberry-blond curls and soft peach skin. The pale beige freckles over the bridge of her nose gave her a sweet girlish look, even though she was tough as nails. “You gonna make me drag it out of you?”
“It was my last date with Brock,” I choked out. Not sure why I couldn’t find my voice. Then I realized, I hadn’t said his name aloud in a few weeks. It hurt.
Julie reached across the table and squeezed my hand. “I’m sorry, Char.”
“It’s my fault. I’m the one who told him not to contact me. I think, though …” I shook my head as I tried to think through my sorrow. “I don’t think I ever expected him to actually listen to me.”
“But look at you now,” Julie said. “You’ve made a lot of changes in three weeks. Imagine where you’ll be in a year.”
I nodded weakly. “Yeah. Imagine,” I said under my breath. I couldn’t imagine. I had no idea where I’d be in a year. Hopefully halfway to an associate’s degree. Only, I still had no idea what I wanted to do after that. Julie had told me that her sister had changed her major three times before she’d graduated, and that all I needed to worry about now was knocking out my core classes.
My phone buzzed, and I peeked at it, immediately frowning when I saw the name on the screen. Morgan. Grrr … The nerve. Out of sheer morbid curiosity, I picked up my phone and tapped on the message. I should have told you before, but I didn’t know how. I’m so, so sorry. For everything. Please forgive me.
Not sure why, but I snatched up my purse and jumped out of the booth. Then I remembered Julie had driven. I dug into my purse and pulled out a ten-dollar bill. “I need your keys. I have to leave right now!”
Julie’s eyes were wide and round behind her glasses. “What happened?”
“No time to explain. Quick! I need your keys. I need to go now!”
Julie dug in her purse, pulled out a ten and a few ones, tossed them on the table next to my payment, then darted out of the booth. “Let’s go!” We nearly barreled into the waiter as he came around the corner. “Money’s on the table!” Julie shouted. “Box up our food. We’ll be back to pick it up later.”
I hoped I wasn’t overreacting, but I’d under-reacted once and was determined not to ever make that mistake again.
Chapter 25 – Brock
The movie Caitlyn had chosen was a chick flick. Naturally. Not that I minded watching chick flicks … I actually liked many of them. But I rarely forked out ten bucks a ticket to see one. I saved going to the movies for action-packed blockbusters. If I did opt for a chick flick, it was because my companion was a woman I was romantically involved with — or at least wanted to be.
“Wasn’t that romantic?” Caitlyn cooed, wrapping her hands around my biceps. “Their story reminded me so much of how we used to be together.”
Used to be before you screwed around on me, I wanted to say, but I held my tongue. Rehashing the past wasn’t going to change what had happened, so why bother?
Caitlyn tugged on my arm, then pointed to the end of the corridor. “I’m starving. Then again, I feel like I’m always starving anymore. Let’s get something to eat. You paid for the movie, so I’ll buy us dinner.”
My eyes followed her hand, and I shook my head. “No … not there … I don’t like Bar Louie. Too loud.”
Her eyebrows narrowed a fraction. Caitlyn wasn’t usually perceptive of other people’s emotions — perhaps because she cared too much about herself to pay attention to anyone else — so it surprised me that she noticed my lie. Well, not really a lie, since I hated the idea of ever going in there again without Charity.
“Okay,” she hedged. “Red Robin, then?”
I nodded, but then tilted my head as I watched two girls dart across the parking lot. The one looked just like Charity, only her hair was pulled up in a ponytail, and she was wearing tennis shoes. I’d never seen Charity in anything other than two-hundred-dollar flip-flops or eight-hundred-dollar boots. And her hair was always meticulous. Not to mention that I’d never seen her dressed so casually. Charity had been dressed to the nines every time I’d seen her. Even going to the beach, she’d looked as though she were going to a five-star beach resort.
But then, I conjured up Charity on a daily basis. In grocery stores, where I knew she’d never be. On the other side of the college campus, which was highly improbable since her father had the money to send her to an Ivy League college. Flying down the highway …
Once I’d even chased a red BMW for a couple miles, eager to see her face for even a split second, hoping she’d smile and nod for me to pull over on the next street. But it’d been a girl who looked nothing like Charity. The young woman had been pretty with her long reddish-blond hair and glasses, and she’d smiled when I made eye contact, making me believe that if I’d nodded to the next street, she would have certainly met me there. But it was no use. No one interested me even slightly, even Caitlyn, as much as she tried.
The two women hopped into a VW Bug, the girl who’d looked like Charity jumping into the driver’s side, which confirmed my suspicion that I was hallucinating once again.
“Brock …” Caitlyn waved her hand in front of my face. “Is Red Robin okay?”
I gulped down the lump in my throat. “Yeah.”
Caitlyn grabbed my hand and tugged me behind her. Once we reached the host stand, I wriggled my hand free. “I need to take a pit stop. I’ll find you.”
In front of the mirror, I just stared at myself. Despondent was the best word I could come up with as I glowered at my reflection. What if that had been Charity? What if she’d seen me with Caitlyn?
I smashed my hand over the pitiful face that stared back at me from the mirror. “You are never getting back together! Remember, you said you didn’t want to put your heart through that again, so why are you thinking about her?”
Back and forth I scrubbed at my reflection, trying to make it change, but the sullen, dejected expression remained, mocking my attempt to convince myself that I didn’t ever want to risk my heart again.
Then, I must have totally lost my mind, because I was sure my reflection smiled and taunted me by saying, “Keep telling yourself that, Bro. Maybe one day you’ll actually convince both of us.”
Chapter 26 – Charity
Julie handed me the keys and I squealed out of the parking spot and headed toward Morgan’s house. The last time I’d been there was Thanksgiving, the night of the party.
Nathan’s reaction when she’d knelt down in front of us flashed through my head, how he’d cringed away from Morgan, then darted his eyes around her room, then buried his head against my chest. Clearly he’d been thinking about when he’d cheated on m
e with Morgan.
Of all the girls in school who wanted him, why would Nathan have cheated on me with Morgan, someone we’d hung out with on a regular basis? He didn’t even like Morgan, and Jesse had been his friend. Well, Jesse and Nathan hadn’t hung out with each other since junior high, because Jesse had worked so much in high school, but I knew he still considered him a friend. So of all the girls he could have found outside of school, why would he risk cheating on me with Morgan?
I pushed the thoughts out of my head. I was too old for high school drama. And if Morgan was fine, I had every intention of knocking her out for everything she’d put me through. Okay, so maybe that would be a little high-school-like, but I wouldn’t turn nineteen until March, so it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that I’d lapse into childlike behavior every once and a while.
Again, I shook the ridiculous thoughts from my head, wondering if I should call 9-1-1. What if I’m wrong, though? Her house was only a few minutes away.
Julie grabbed onto, as Nathan had always called it, the OSH above her door as I turned left onto Alternate 19. “Umm … are you going to tell me where we’re going?”
“Morgan’s.”
“Morgan Taylor?” she screeched.
I chanced a look at Julie. “Yeah. Why?”
“After all the lies she’d spread about you?”
“What?” It was too late to ask for an explanation, though. I whipped into Morgan’s driveway, noticing her bright yellow Mustang was out front. Good, she was home. I was hoping she wasn’t at the Skyway, taking the way out Nathan had chosen.
Without bothering to shut the car door, I raced to the front door of Morgan’s house and knocked and rang the doorbell, then banged on the brass knocker. Her miniature dogs bounced and yapped behind the door, but I couldn’t see any signs of a person walking to the door.
I tried the knob. Locked.
My hand shielding my eyes, I stared through the window. The lanai. The weather was too nice to have it closed, especially if the dogs were left at home.
Without thinking it through, I charged around the back of the house to the privacy fence. Locked. “Dammit!”
“Char!” Julie came up behind me. “That’s illegal. You can’t —”
I whirled on her, cutting off her words. “Boost me over, Jules.”
She shook her head. “You have every right to hate Morgan, but I can’t help you break into her house. No matter what she’s done.”
“Dammit, Julie. I’m afraid she’s going to commit suicide. Like Nathan. Lift me up!”
Julie ran forward then. She wasn’t as tall as me, but she was stronger. She grabbed me by my calves and boosted me up. “Got it?”
Thankful that I’d opted for jeans and tennies, I propped one leg up on the top edge, then whipped my other leg over the fence and dropped six feet onto soft grass.
I flipped open the metal latch and opened the gate for Julie, who shook her head. “I should keep watch.”
“Fine.” I took off around the house and made a beeline for the screen room. Thankfully, the door was unlocked. “Morgan!” I screamed as I dashed across the tiled lanai, hoping that if anyone was home and they heard me call out her name they wouldn’t shoot me for Breaking and Entering, as Brock had called it.
The glass doors that separated the lanai from the pool area were, as I’d hoped, wide open. I slid as I raced through the dining area toward the stairs that led to Morgan’s room. My heart pounding, I slammed through her bedroom door, but then pulled myself upright as I realized she wasn’t in there.
The bathroom. It always happened in the bathroom. Or off a bridge. Maybe she’d taken her parents’ car. Swallowing hard, I sprinted across the room and crashed through the bathroom door too.
“Morgan!” I screamed, falling down next to her. The tub was filled to the rim, but there was no blood. Thank God. While I’d anticipated seeing her with slashed wrists, I wasn’t sure my stomach would have been able to handle it. “Morgan!” I smacked her face to wake her up, but her eyes slitted slightly, then closed.
“Julie!” I screamed, and thankfully she must have been close, because she came up behind me, pushing me out of the way.
Julie pulled her phone out of the back pocket of her jeans and shoved it at me. “Call 9-1-1!”
I did as she instructed, watching as Julie easily hefted Morgan out of the tub and then bent her head over it, immediately shoving her fingers down Morgan’s throat.
I picked up an orange prescription bottle sitting on the counter as the lady on the other end asked the same question the woman had asked on New Year’s Eve, “9-1-1. Police, fire, or medic?”
“All of them. I think my friend overdosed on,” I read off the drug, “A-l-p-r-a-z-o-l-a-m,” I spelled out. “Xanax!” I screamed, remembering Morgan had offered some to me in school, but I’d never done drugs. Not even prescription drugs.
Realizing I needed to unlock the door, I ran downstairs.
The sound of Morgan retching reached me, and I hoped that was a good sign. In health class, our teacher had told us not to try to make a person throw up, but her reason had been that they might choke. But Julie was a nursing student, and the way she’d held Morgan over the tub, I was confident she knew what she was doing.
At the sound of sirens, I wiped the tears out of my eyes and ran outside, waving down the paramedics, surprised to see a fire truck in the lead.
Dressed in tan with orange stripes, several of the firefighters dropped down from the truck as a smaller truck pulled in behind it.
“Upstairs!” I screeched, charging ahead of the first responders and shooing away the dogs that were yapping. “She’s upstairs. My friend is helping her.”
“Upstairs? Two girls?” one man asked. “Which room?”
“Yes. The first room at the top of the stairs.” I bit down on my lip to stop it from quivering. “Morgan OD’d I think. My friend Julie is with her.”
Three paramedics charged up the stairs, and within seconds, Julie ran down to me and took me into her arms. “Morgan’ll be okay,” she tried to assure me, but I wasn’t sure I believed her.
I wrapped my arms around her wet body, thankful that she’d come with me. I wasn’t strong like Julie. I wasn’t smart. I hadn’t even brought my phone inside. “God, Jules. Why did she text me?”
Julie backed me up as the paramedics came down the stairs. She brushed my hair away from my face and squeezed me to her again. “Because she felt guilty for breaking up you and Nathan.”
Chapter 27 – Brock
I paced back and forth across my living room floor as I watched the local news.
Morgan … Yes, Morgan was the girl who’d gotten pregnant by Charity’s ex-boyfriend and then had aborted the baby, the catalyst that had supposedly made Nathan commit suicide.
The cameraman zoomed in on the house behind the reporter with its extravagant, ornate moldings and multiple balconies that overlooked the inland waterway across the street.
Yep! That was the house Charity had taken me to Thanksgiving night.
Did Charity know? Would she be upset?
“Of course she’ll be upset,” I chastised myself. Regardless of what she’d done, Morgan had to have been a friend, or Charity wouldn’t have wanted to go to her party.
“And you found Morgan Taylor?” the reporter asked as the cameraman shifted the camera away from the house to a woman with her head lowered.
The girl nodded as she lifted her head, but then buried her face into the shoulder of a girl with reddish-blond hair, who had her arms protectively wrapped around her shoulders.
“Charity!” I gasped, pulling on my shoes and snatching up my keys. “Oh, God! Woman, you have the worst luck.” I smashed my hand over my mouth, hoping Caitlyn hadn’t heard me. I’d forgotten that she’d claimed that she was too tired to drive home after the movie and dinner, so she’d decided to take a nap in my bed.
My stomach plunged at the thought of not going to Charity. Would she want to see me, or would I
upset her more? She’d said she loved me, but she hadn’t called me in three weeks. What would Caitlyn do if she knew I went to her? Certainly she wasn’t selfish enough to do something stupid like drink when she was five months along, not when she could now feel the baby moving.
Blood rushed to my brain, pounding so hard that the room seemed to be zooming in and out of focus. I squeezed my eyes shut and rubbed my temples, trying to coax an incoming migraine into submission. Acid roiled in my stomach. If I didn’t have one already, I was certain that an ulcer was forming inside of me. Would I ever not feel such emotional heartache when it came to the women in my life? Maybe I should become a priest.
I couldn’t put up the façade anymore. Caitlyn was a grown woman who needed to take responsibility for the child she carried. If she refused to act like an adult, I’d act like a child too. I’d march right into her father’s office and demand he cut her off. I knew Bill well enough that I was positive he wouldn’t condone her drinking while pregnant. He certainly wouldn’t subsidize her poisoning his grandchild with alcohol.
Heedless of my actions, because I no longer cared about anything but getting to Charity, I stormed into my bedroom. “Come on, Cat. Time to go. I have an emergency.”
She rolled over and wiped her eyes as though she had no idea where she was. “What?”
“Let’s go!”
“Go where? I’m tired.” I yanked the blanket off her and she sat up, trying to snatch it out of my hand. “I thought you said you had to study.”
“I’m finished, and I have something important I have to do. I’ll come to your house this evening.”
Her eyes lit up. “You will?”
“Yep!” And I would. No matter what happened with Charity, I’d figure out how to get back to Caitlyn’s house and break off any interaction with her from now on. When the baby came, we’d make whatever arrangements necessary, but I was done. If Charity didn’t want me, then I’d use the extra time in my life to finish school instead of pandering to Caitlyn.
Love Until It Hurts (Crazy Love Book 2) Page 16
