by Nikki Chase
“Yeah.”
“And even though it took you a couple of weeks to do that without your mom watching, you would’ve been able to reach me, except my dad also took away my phone and email access.”
Aiden’s arm around my shoulders tense, and his eyes seem stormy when I turn to look at him. “I know where you’re going with this. To be honest, I’ve been thinking about that too.” Aiden pauses and runs his fingers through his hair. Staring at the ocean in the distance he says, “It’s possible they agreed to do it together.”
“You think so too?” I ask, surprised.
“It’s the logical conclusion. We would’ve been able to find each other again if they hadn’t done what they did at the exact same time. It was too much of a coincidence.”
I breathe a sigh of relief. “I was worried you weren’t going to take it well.”
“How did you think I was going to react?”
“I don’t know. You’re so close to your mom. Maybe you wouldn't believe she could do something like that, and maybe I’d offend you by suggesting that she could.”
“No,” Aiden shakes his head. “My mom’s a good mom, but she’s only human. And things got pretty desperate for a while after my dad died because my mom hadn’t worked for years. She didn’t have much savings. We had the insurance money, but I could see how she’d cave if she was given an offer . . .”
“. . . from someone like my dad,” I finish Aiden’s sentence for him. “Yeah. I don’t doubt for a minute that he’d be capable of doing something like that.”
“Fuck,” Aiden curses. “I really wanted to forget everything that happened in the past, you know? I wanted to start afresh, start on a blank page.”
“We can still do that,” I say.
“No, we’re not done dealing with the past, princess. At least, I’m not.” Aiden looks off into the distance, his eyes bluer than usual as they reflect the color of the ocean.
“I don’t have to ask my dad to know that he did it,” I say.
“Yeah. I need to hear it from my mom. I want to know what happened.” Aiden tightens his hold around my shoulders, his muscles flexing under his clothes. “I want to make sure it never happens again.”
I melt into his arms. It feels so safe and warm here. I feel like nothing can touch me with Aiden’s strength forming a protective barrier around me.
“I can’t let anything tear us apart again.” Aiden pulls me close and plants a kiss on my temple. “I’ll have to confront my mom. I know what time she comes home tonight. I’ll talk to her then.”
Aiden
“Hey, Mom,” I say from the sofa.
She jerks in shock and only relaxes when her gaze lands on me. “I didn’t see you in there.”
“Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you.” I take a deep, calming breath.
I put my cell phone aside—I’ve been playing with it absently while thinking about what to say to my mom.
I still can’t quite believe my own logical conclusion, but there’s no other possibility. Even Aubrey agrees.
I wanted to bring it up earlier, but I thought it would upset Aubrey when she was already too worried about other things. And it wasn’t like we had much time to discuss anything important during lunch.
“How was work?” Mom asks as she takes off her jacket. The bags under her eyes show just how exhausted she is. She takes a seat on the sofa next to me.
“I had the day off, Mom.”
“Oh? What did you do today?” she asks.
“I went skydiving . . . with my girlfriend.”
“You have a girlfriend? Since when?” Mom asks with a smile. Even in her fifties, after all the hardship she’s gone through, she still looks beautiful. “You should bring her home one of these days.”
I should just cut to the chase. This small talk is painful. “Mom, you remember my girlfriend from when we were still living in Vegas, the one who was at the wedding?”
Her whole body tenses. Her eyes widen with horror.
That only confirms my suspicions. She knows I know she’s done something she shouldn’t have done.
“Please don’t tell me she’s your girlfriend,” Mom says slowly when she recovers from her shock.
“She is,” I say. “I hope you don’t have a problem with that, because I intend to keep her in my life for a long time.”
“I can’t believe this. I told you to stay away from her, and you just started dating her instead?” Mom asks, getting straight on the offense.
“I didn’t just start dating her. I was already dating her when I was sixteen, until you made me break up with her.”
“We both cut contact with everyone in the city. I did it, too, remember? It wasn’t just you, and it wasn't just her. I told you, Vegas brought us bad luck and we had to get rid of every little trace of it.”
“And I guess it was just a coincidence that Aubrey’s dad also made her cut contact with me at the same time?” I ask.
Mom pauses. In a soft voice, she says, “I don't know anything about that. I was just following my palm reader’s advice.”
I repeat my question. “So you’re saying it was just a coincidence that Aubrey’s dad also made her cut contact with me at the same time?”
“You told me he never liked you. That’s just the kind of thing that overprotective dads do when their daughters date guys they don’t like.” Her eyes twitch, the way they used to when I was a little boy and she told me she was eating raisins even though I smelled chocolate on her breath.
“Mom, please don’t lie to me,” I say, exhausted from having already spent so much mental energy thinking about this all day.
“Does her dad know you’re dating her again?” Mom asks, a little too urgently.
“Why do you ask that? What does it matter?”
“Well, he’s a powerful man. There are many things he can do if he doesn’t like you seeing his daughter.” She tries to act like she’s only making a casual observation, but I can sense the fear in her trembling voice.
“Like what, Mom?” I ask, looking directly into her eyes, trying to find the truth. “What did he threaten you with?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve never even met your girlfriend’s dad.” She glances away, avoiding eye contact.
“Mom, come on. You’ve always been a bad liar. I can see right through you.”
She goes quiet.
I always try to be kind to my mom, even when she's being difficult. It wasn't easy for her to live with my alcoholic dad, who also happened to have gambling addiction issues.
Growing up, I had to go to my friends’ houses to play with their newest toys, even though my dad had a decent job. And those weren't the only things I had to either borrow or go without. There were books and sports gear, too.
Those things seemed so important when I was younger and even though they don't anymore, I can't help feeling some anger over the fact that I could've had a decent childhood, had my dad not been such a piece of shit.
I’ll admit it did force me to develop good social skills. Having to depend on other people will do that to you. I learned to get people to like me so they’d give me a hand when I needed it.
It's a skill that's given me an edge in all kinds of situations, like when I had to convince a cop to let me go without a speeding ticket, or when I aced the interview and got a medical internship position at Oak Crest Hospital.
So I guess in a way, I owe my success to both my parents—my dad for neglecting me to the point where I had no choice but to toughen the fuck up, and my mom for keeping me alive.
I’ve always been grateful for the kindness my mom shows me. Because even though she's the woman who gave birth to me, no one put a gun to her head and made her love me.
Hell, my own dad was never anything but a mean asshole to me. Luckily for me, my mom’s the complete opposite. She was the first person to have shown me there’s love and beauty in the world, and they’re worth living for.
My mom has sacrificed so m
uch for me, and I’d never dream of disrespecting her, but Aubrey was the second person after her who showed me love and beauty worth living for.
And right now, it fucking hurts to know that my own mom has gone behind my back to keep me apart from the girl I love. It tastes like betrayal.
“Mom, since you’re not talking, let me try to guess what happened, okay?” I say, finally, breaking the silence. “I think you were worried about money after Dad’s accident, even though we were going to get money from the insurance company.”
Mom stares vacantly at the clock on the wall, her facial expression flat and unreadable.
“Then,” I continue, “Dr. Lane, Aubrey’s dad, convinced you to take me away, far away from his daughter, in exchange for money.”
She remains still except for her fidgeting fingers and the rapid rise and fall of her chest as her breathing gets frantic. She’s definitely getting nervous.
“I’m right, aren’t I?” I ask.
My mom slowly turns her head to look at me. Tears have sprung to her eyes, suspended by her lower eyelashes, but she says nothing.
“How could you, Mom?”
I felt like dying when I couldn’t get in touch with Aubrey. I thought she’d finally seen how unworthy I was of her, and how much she could do better.
My mom saw my suffering, and she could’ve put a stop to it, but instead, she made up an elaborate lie about how Vegas was bad luck.
I can understand her motive—she needed the money and she thought I was just a teenager who was probably going to find another girl immediately anyway.
But what bothers me is the deception. It feels like such a slap in the face that she’d kept the lie going for an entire decade. Wasn’t I entitled to the truth at some point? But instead of talking to me like an adult, she’s been trying to fool me with stories about bad luck and palm readers.
Anger simmers within me as I watch my mom closely. I don’t want to miss this confession.
“There was no insurance money,” she says softly. She blinks, and tears roll down her cheeks. “When your dad died, we had nothing in the bank. Zero. The car was a wreck. The house we lived in was a rental. I hadn’t worked in years.
“I should’ve worked. I know that now. I just thought… Well, I thought your dad had a good job, so even though we didn’t have savings, we were going to be fine.”
“Mom, you’re rambling,” I say, rubbing her arm to soothe her. She seems so upset I’m starting to feel bad for putting her through this. “So you invented the insurance money thing?” I ask.
“Yes. I was desperate,” my mom says, her voice shaky. “I didn’t even know how we were going to keep paying the rent. I was sure that we were going to lose the house and end up on the streets.”
“And then Dr. Lane offered you a solution for your problem,” I say, without judgment this time. I had no idea things were that bad. I guess I was just a clueless kid after all, no matter how grown-up I felt at the time.
“Yes. He gave me money and made me promise to keep you away from his daughter. He said he was going to destroy you if you ever got close to his daughter again.” Mom pleads with her eyes. “That’s why you need to break up with her, A. Find another girl. Please. Plenty of girls would love to be with a handsome young doctor like you.”
“Mom, don’t be ridiculous,” I say as gently as I can, seeing as she’s so fragile right now. “I’m not breaking up with Aubrey just because of some deal you made with her dad ten years ago.”
“You don’t understand,” Mom says. “He said I had to pay him back the money if you ever get in touch with his daughter again.”
“So I’ll pay him the money,” I say with defiance. “Tons of people have debts. I can pay him back if he really wants that money.”
“No, A, it was…” Mom pauses and hesitates.
“It was what?”
“He gave me two-hundred thousand dollars,” Mom says in a small voice.
“Two-hundred thousand dollars?” I ask, a little louder than I intended.
“Yes.”
“Jesus. How much of it do we have left?” I scan the modest living room in our two-bedroom apartment, filled with cheap particleboard furniture. “We couldn’t have spent much of that.”
“Not much,” Mom says, casting her gaze down.
“What? Where did the money go?”
“Your dad, he… When he died, he owed a lot of money to some dangerous men. They came after us and threatened our safety. I had to pay them back . . . with interest.”
“Fucking assholes.” I ball my fists in anger.
Aubrey’s dad.The loan sharks. My own dad.
My mom and I have been fucked over by so many men it’s no surprise she’s stayed single this whole time.
“You’ll do the right thing, won’t you, A?” Mom’s voice is full of anguish. Her eyes continuously fill with water, even as tears keep streaming down her face. “You’ll leave her, won’t you?”
Aubrey
“I couldn’t believe what she was asking of me,” Aiden says. “I couldn’t take it. I told her no, but I just didn’t know how to stay in the same apartment with her while she was asking me for the impossible.”
“So you came here.” I reach out over the back of the sofa to touch his hair and caress him. I can’t express how happy I am right now.
I mean, it’s not like I’m thrilled about what’s happening. This whole thing sucks. But Aiden has a problem and he comes straight to my apartment. This is a big step forward for us.
And there’s no denying it, but I’m kind of desensitized to parental deception now. My dad has lied to me so many times and done so many things behind my back that were supposedly for my own good, I’m not surprised that my dad would be capable of being the mastermind of this whole mess.
“I’m sorry, A,” I say. “But you shouldn’t blame your mom. It sounds like she was in a really bad situation.”
“Yeah. It just sucks that she’d been telling me it was bad luck, or it was because she had bad taste in men and she didn’t want to risk getting involved with another alcoholic gambler in Vegas.” Aiden sighs and throws his head back on the sofa. “They were ridiculous, flimsy excuses, but I thought my mom truly believed in the bad luck thing, you know? I didn’t think she was lying to me.”
“My dad’s the one you should blame,” I say.
I hate watching Aiden get this agitated. I hate thinking about whether Aiden’s relationship with his mom will ever be the same again. And I place the blame squarely on my dad’s shoulders.
“Here’s what I think happened: my dad found out about your dad’s accident from the hospital staff and approached your mom to offer the deal, knowing she needed money.”
“Yeah, that sounds about right.” Aiden’s eyes appear troubled. The warm light from my favorite Pottery Barn floor lamp hits his hair and casts shadows on his face as he turns to me. “What are we going to do, princess?”
“You’re not going to leave me like my dad wants you to, are you?” I ask in a playful tone. I don’t think he will and maybe this is just a gentle joke, but maybe I also want to hear him say it, say that he won’t leave me over this.
I’ve faced my dad many times, and I’m still here. I’m still fine. He doesn’t scare me. If Aiden needs me to, I’ll go to battle against my dad for him.
But I can't lose him again, now that I know how perfectly we fit together.
“Of course, I won’t,” Aiden answers quickly, without any hint of hesitation. “I’m not letting you go again.”
I can’t help but smile at the certainty in his voice. “Are you sure about that, A? There are many things in my life that have happened over the past ten years that you don’t know about. Maybe I’m not who you think I am anymore.”
“I don’t care,” he says. He turns to me and caresses my cheek with his thumb. “I don’t know if you want to hear this, but after I finally accepted that you didn’t want to talk to me anymore, I tried filling the void that you left… but I cou
ld never find someone like you. Nobody even came close.”
“Funny, I had the exact same experience.” I smile. “Every once in a while, whenever I got into a new relationship, I’d have a dream about you. By the next morning, I’d compare everything about that guy to you, and he wouldn’t measure up.”
“Yeah. It was like . . . It was like I was looking specifically for you. I tried to find you in those other girls, but it never felt right.” Aiden stares deep into my eyes. “Not like this. This is—”
“—right,” I say, finishing his sentence. I pull him close and nestle into the crook of his neck. “This feels right.”
“Yeah. I can’t explain it,” Aiden says. “But it feels like we're pieces of a puzzle locking together.”
“Or a lock and key clicking open.” I tilt my head up to shoot Aiden a smile.
His blue eyes gaze deep into my soul, full of gentleness. “It really feels like we can just pick up where we left off, doesn’t it?”
“It’s like we never parted at all,” I agree.
“It wouldn’t be a surprise, then, if I tell you . . . I love you?” Aiden smiles.
“Hmm . . . Yeah, it wouldn’t.” I smile as my heart jumps for joy. “But are you? Telling me that?” I ask, giving him a cheeky grin.
“Yeah,” he says, his smile widening into a grin. “After all this while, I still love you, princess. I’ve never stopped.”
“Me neither.”
“Say it,” Aiden says, leaning closer until his forehead rests against mine.
“I’ve never stopped loving you either. I love you, A.”
As raindrops outside hit the windows, Aiden’s lips find mine. All the memories of all the kisses we’ve ever shared flood my mind, blurring the lines between the past and the present.
I knew I was kissing my prince the first time; that’s why I could recognize all the frogs that came after him so easily.
“I don’t know how I ever survived without your lips, princess,” Aiden says, his breath warm on my skin. “I need it like air now.”
I giggle. “Have you always been this smooth?”
