All The Ways You Saved Me

by Jamie Howard

  Chapter 35: Bianca

  Google mocked me. The blank white screen stared up at me, the cursor with its endless blink-blink-blink. So far, the most I’d managed to type had been “Ia” before promptly deleting it. I wasn’t ready to break another one of my rules for Ian. I’d already broken too many, and look where it’d gotten me.

  I’d been back in Texas for almost a week and everything was all wrong. The house was the same, my bedroom forever unchanging with its lavender walls and stark white trim. Everything was familiar, but not comfortable. Identical, yet different. It’d taken me awhile to realize that it wasn’t anything else that was the problem, it was me.

  I didn’t fit anymore.

  Pushing a hand through my hair, I flopped down onto the bed, and the clean scent of laundry detergent wafted up to greet me. The experience of stepping back into my old life was almost surreal. Here, I was sleeping in the same bed, walking the same halls. I remembered the girl who used to do those things. The one who knew the fourth step down squeaked if you stepped on the right side, and that the light switch in the living room wasn’t actually connected to anything. I was still her, but I wasn’t. It was like I was trying to fit into clothes that were a half-size too small—it almost worked, but not quite.

  I reached out a hand, my fingers fumbling over the comforter until they connected with my phone. Holding it up in front of my face, I swiped through the screens until the phone was dialing.

  “Well, it’s about damn time,” Harper snapped. “Do you know how annoying it’s been trying to give you space? To be clear, you had about another day or two before I broke radio silence myself.”

  “I did text you.”

  “Right. ‘Made it home safely. Will call soon.’ Thanks for that.”

  I took a deep breath. “I need a favor.”

  “Does it involve me booking you a flight back to New York?” On her end, I heard a fingernail tapping against something hard, a table maybe.

  I picked at the edge of my pillowcase with a fingernail. “I want you to look up Ian for me.”

  “Don’t you have the internet in Texas?”

  “I just . . . can’t.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Harper.”

  “Bianca.” Her words snapped back at me like a rubber band. She groaned. “Fine, fine, I’ll do it. Although, for the record, I don’t really understand why you’re too chickenshit to do it yourself. Now what, in particular, am I trying to dig up on Mr. Mathis?”

  “Everything. I’m not even sure how much of the real him I know anymore. I know something happened in the past that was bad, but I never asked and he never said. And . . . I want to know about the woman he was with at the wedding.”

  Harper sighed. “He hasn’t called?”

  “No.”

  “Texted?”

  “Nope.” I rubbed a hand across my forehead, trying to smooth out the wrinkles. I hadn’t honestly expected to hear from him, so I don’t know why I was so surprised that my phone had been abysmally silent. I guess a small part of me hoped that the girl who’d gone and fallen in love, that’s right I said love, with Ian hadn’t been so pathetically naive to imagine the whole thing was reciprocated. That she wasn’t about to rearrange her entire future for a guy who’d been lying to her for months and playing her as skillfully as he played his guitar. “I just need to satisfy my curiosity, find out the truth, and then I can move on.”

  Harper snorted. “You think so? You think you can just search out the answers and then put it behind you?”

  “I have to. That’s the way it has to be.”

  “I’m gonna call bullshit on you one more time.” She let out something that sounded like a cross between a growl and a sigh. “That isn’t the only option and you know it. Things fell through with Ian. So what? Just because he turned out to be the epic ass of the century rather than the love of your life doesn’t mean you need to go full steam ahead with your parents’ plan. You still have me, and you still have you. Bianca, the person that I’m talking to on the phone right now isn’t the same person I met at the beginning of the summer. If you want stay in Texas and whatever, and that’s what’s going to make you happy, then fine. But don’t use Ian as an excuse to take the easy way out.”

  In the silence that stretched out, I could hear someone running a vacuum downstairs, and harsh, heeled footsteps down the hall. “You’ll look?”

  “Yes.” The words came out on an exhale. “Give me an hour or two. I’ll see what I can find and I’ll call you back.”

  “Thank you.”

  “And I just want you to know that I deleted all of the Downfall’s songs off my iPod. I realize it’s more of a symbolic gesture since I technically already bought the album, but it was the closest I could get to smashing a CD.”

  A smile crept across my face. “Have I mentioned lately that you’re the best?”

  “It wouldn’t hurt to hear you say it again.”

  The house was awake with the clamor of people—chairs scraping against the floor, mutterings drifting up the staircase, and the vacuum, still tirelessly running. By the end of the day, not a single dust mote would have survived.

  I swept a clear coat of gloss across my lips, blotting them against a tissue to dull the shine. Smoothing a hand down my red dress, I poked through my jewelry box until I unearthed my pearl studs. There. Once again I was the perfectly respectable senator’s daughter, ready for our holiday photo. I gave myself a practiced smile in the mirror, pleased that my face gave away none of my inner turmoil.

  When my phone rang from the other end of my dresser, I nearly threw myself across the room to get it. “Hello?”

  Harper jumped right in without any small talk. “There’s a metric shit-ton of stuff about Ian plastered all over the internet, so it took me longer than I expected to sift through it all.”

  “I’ve got about ten minutes before I need to be downstairs. Can you squeeze it in, or do I need to call you back later?” I crossed my fingers. I wasn’t sure I could stand any more waiting.

  “All right, the quick and dirty version. I can do that. Fair warning—you’re not going to like any of this, but just remember, when I get to the part that makes you feel absolutely wretched, give me another minute and you’ll change your mind.” Papers rustled across the line, and Harper cleared her throat. “I’m gonna assume you already know the basic details, so I’ll skim there. Ian Xavier Mathis, younger brother to Alaric Benjamin Mathis. Went to Syracuse University, where he joined up with his brother’s band as the lead guitarist and occasional songwriter. In the middle of his freshman year, the band got serious interest. They signed with a label, and blasted onto the charts shortly thereafter.”

  “All right.” I paced the room from one end to the other, making a track from my door to where my gauzy curtains hung limply around my window. “That’s nothing bad.”

  “Here’s where it goes downhill. Right around the same time his band hit it big, he also married his high school sweetheart.”

  My feet rooted themselves to the floor. “He’s married?” I blurted.

  “Hold up. You’re gonna have to let me get through this without interrupting.”

  “Fine.”

  “Fine. So, as I was saying, Ian married his high school sweetheart, Maggie Wright. They were the real deal from what I can tell. No whispers about him cheating on her, nothing about him being seen with other women. Nothing. Some of these pictures of the two of them . . . well, I’m glad I was the one seeing them and not you.” Harper heaved out a sigh. “Bianca, Ian’s not married. Maggie died.”

  When Harper dropped that bombshell, I swear the floor shook. Realistically, it probably wasn’t the floor but my legs that were shaking. “How?”

  “She was at the mall doing some Christmas shopping, but when she was crossing the parking lot, she and a friend were struck by a car. The friend made it out with scrapes and bruises, the driver was in diabetic shock and didn’t even make it to the hospital. From the articles I found,
Maggie was in bad shape and ended up in critical condition, but stabilized. Things were pretty quiet for the next couple of weeks, and then shit really hit the fan.”

  My mind tried to conjure up ways that situation could’ve possible gotten worse, but it couldn’t do justice to the reality of what happened. “Details get a little scarce here, privacy and all that, but whatever happened, he ended up having to remove her from life support. And if that’s not bad enough, shortly after that, there was this really awful, scathing interview that came out from her parents. They practically accused him of killing their daughter, and, well, just promise me you’ll never go looking for that fantastic piece of journalism.”

  “Trust me, I have no desire to ever read that.” I inhaled a deep breath through my nose and furiously blinked my eyes. I didn’t have time to fix my makeup, and I was seconds away from bawling. “All right, Harper, I’ve reached that point you were talking about. Are you going to make this better, or do I need to find some tissues?”

  “Right, moving on.” Harper made some weird clicking noise with her tongue, and I could picture her skimming over haphazard notes written in a messy hand. “After that, he dropped off the grid for a little, and so did the band. Understandable, really. Pretty much during the whole year after that, the only two you heard anything from were Ben and Gavin, and the other two were MIA. Until this summer when word got around that they were recording again, working on a new album. Now, how true that is, I don’t know, but right around the same time, rumor has it that Ian started dating Brie Lancaster. Obviously, I know that you have no idea who she is, but to sum up, she’s famous, an actress, and one of the few people in the spotlight who is actually a decent human being.”

  Leave it to Ian to be dating someone I couldn’t hate just on principle. The sympathy I’d been feeling for him, that’d been misting my eyes and tightening like a noose around my throat, began to lessen. “He dated her all summer?”

  “Still is, as far as I can tell. There’s tons of pictures of them together—out to dinner, at that wedding, out and about on the town.” Harper paused and blew out a breath. “I’m sorry, B. I wish there was something I could do to make this better.”

  I managed to swallow down my tears—the ones that grieved for Ian, the ones who hated him for all the lies, and even the ones for the death of new dreams. “You’re already doing it.” I sniffed, hardening my voice. “I’ve got the truth and now I can move forward. Ian is messed up, I always knew that, but now I finally get why. And as much as my heart is bleeding for him, as much as I can’t even begin to imagine what that must have been like for him, none of that is an excuse for what he did. I can’t believe that he spent months lying to me, and for what? To get laid twice? To have a little fun? I don’t get it.”

  “I dunno. Men are strange creatures. But he’s just a guy, B.”

  “I know, you’re right.” Someone rapped out a harsh knock on my door. “Listen, I’ve gotta run. I’ll talk to you later, okay?”

  “You got it.”

  Hanging up the phone, I placed it on my dresser and took five seconds to collect myself. That’s all it took to slip the mask back on and hide everything I was feeling. It was almost scary how easy it was to fall back into my old role.

  I crossed to the door and opened it. A young woman in a long black cardigan and slim black pants smiled up at me and said, “Miss Easton? They’re ready for you downstairs.”

  “Thank you.” I gave her a quick smile and slipped by her. In the last couple hours, our living room had been transformed. Studio lights lined one side, with camera equipment strewn across the ground. The mantel was decked with garland and ribbon, candles and bows. Nothing too specific to suggest any specific wintertime holiday—no Christmas tree, no menorah, or anything like that.

  Mom snapped closed a compact mirror, her gaze flitting to me as I made my way across the room. “That hair, Bianca. Whatever possessed you to cut it?”

  Self-consciously, my hand drifted up to smooth over it. “I like it.”

  She did that thing where she almost smiled, her lips stretched over her teeth without parting, her eyebrows lifting and nostrils pinching. What that look really meant was, I’m tolerating you but certainly don’t agree with you.

  Dad finally managed to pry his eyes away from his cell phone, shoving it in his pocket. “Are we just about ready to get this done? We’ve got a dinner reservation in forty-five.” He twitched his arm to peek down at the thick silver watch ringing his wrist.

  For a brief moment, his gaze coasted over me, skimming down me like I was a piece of furniture he was examining to ensure it was up to specification. My jaw clenched, and I stepped carefully over cords and wires to stand on his left side.

  Only when the camera lens was pointed in our direction did he lift his arm and rest his hand lightly on my waist, drawing me just a little bit closer. We made for a pretty picture—Mom with her immaculately polished appearance and welcoming smile, Dad with his pressed red tie and dark hair going just ever-so-slightly gray at the temples, and me, the image of the perfect, well-cultured daughter.

  It was over almost as soon as it began, and Mom leaned close to the computer screen, perusing the shots so she could pick the one that was just right. I hovered over her shoulder, pretending to care and offering an opinion when asked.

  Looking at those pictures started a fire somewhere deep inside me. It burned hot, then even hotter as picture after picture blinked across the screen. Each snapshot was just another lie, and I was so sick of all the lies. I hated the girl in the picture—the meek, well-mannered puppet. I was done with her. Done pretending to be her.

  Even with that internal declaration, the words ground to a halt as they tried to find their way out of my mouth. I knew what I wanted to do, knew what I needed to say, but I was afraid. The fear of losing them was real, the possibility that if I defied them, I’d be on my own.

  The photographer was packing up, Eli holding open the door as Mom and Dad slipped on their jackets, by the time I managed to screw up the courage and force out the words I’d been trying to say for the last ten minutes. “I’m considering going back to New York after the holidays.” Well, take out considering, and that was exactly what I meant to say.

  Dad paused with the door cracked open, his eyebrows snapping together until it looked like they were one big, bushy brow. Mom flicked a red-polished fingernail at me. “Don’t be silly, Bianca. This isn’t up for discussion.”

  “What I decide to do with my future isn’t up for discussion? Are you saying that I don’t have a say in what I want to do with my life?” The fire sparked again, curling through me.

  “This is about that boy, isn’t it?” She sneered, her lips turning down at the corners. “You’d risk everything we’ve done on a piece of garbage like him?”

  “I think you mean everything I’ve done.” My hands curled into fists, my fingernails biting into the soft flesh of my palms. “I did it all. Most of the time without any support from either of you.”

  “Bianca, I have a stack full of receipts in my office that is a clear indicator of how much support we’ve given you.” Unlike Mom, whose voice simmered at the edges, Dad’s was cool and calm. No petty disagreement with his daughter could ruffle the senator’s feathers.

  “Well, Senator, I guess that’s the problem then. When I say ‘support,’ I wasn’t referring to money.” Something laid itself on my chest, something that felt a lot like a boulder, or a bowling ball. “Do you even care about me at all?”

  Mom gave me an exaggerated eye roll. “Please, Bianca. We don’t have time for this melodrama right now. We’ve given you everything you could possibly need—”

  “Just so long as I did everything you asked, right? I mean, that is why you had me, isn’t it?” I directed my gaze at my Mom so I was practically staring through her, my entire body vibrating with all of my bottled up emotions. “Why you ruined your body and went through the horror of having a child?”

  Bright red snaked its way
up her neck, blemishing her pale skin and darkening her cheeks. “How dare you. You—” Dad laid a hand on her shoulder, and whatever she had been about to say was abruptly cut off.

  “That’s more than enough, Bianca. Now is neither the time nor the place. Come February, you will be taking your place at Carlisle, Jennings & Drew. End of discussion.” He turned toward the door, like with his say-so the conversation would end just because he wanted it to. Any other time he might have been right, but not this time.

  I wanted to yell at him, I wanted my words to be strong and firm and powerful, but instead I said in a quiet voice, one that was more defeated than soaked in rage, “You’re wrong. I’m not going to take the position, and that is the end of the discussion because it is my choice, not yours. I’m sorry that you disagree with my decision, but I’m not sorry that for the first time in my life I’m doing what I want to do.”

  They stood, poised to leave, coats buttoned, the door farther open now. Eli stood off to the side, his face as expressionless as always. A sliver of the night sky peeked through, blackest of blacks and as thick and solid as a wall. “Don’t mistake me, Bianca,” Dad said. “If you do this, we will cut you off. It will be the end of our tolerance for this childish behavior. It’s that simple.”

  And for once, it finally was simple.

  “I know you never wanted a daughter.” My hands relaxed, fingers uncurling from their bent position. I let my eyes drift shut as I stepped over the edge. “Well, congratulations, you no longer have one.”

  I waited for a response, but the only one I got was the door quietly clicking shut. I guess that was my answer.

  Chapter 36: Ian

  18 Months Earlier

  Two empty, orange prescription bottles sat at the back of the bathroom counter.

  Fourteen oval, light blue pills.

  Eight round, white ones.

  The haunted reflection that stared back at me from the mirror was someone I didn’t recognize. The deep hollows in my cheekbones, the dark patches underneath my eyes, the empty, vacant stare. Guilt ate at me until I could feel nothing else. Every thought, every whisper, every memory was just a reminder—everything was my fault.