All the Lies We Tell

by M. Skye

  Chapter Nineteen

  She was looking at him, but she wasn’t seeing him. Her eyes were vacant, and he needed the emotion to return. She looked empty, and Tyree had to admit he would do anything to get it back. He knew today was hard for her and he was partially to blame for that. He had given her so much stress about Jake, and when he actually needed someone, she felt like she couldn’t be there for him.

  He wasn’t thrilled about Mia being the only one who could comfort Jake, but he knew what it was like to feel alone. No matter what his feelings were, he wouldn’t make her be heartless and turn her back on him. He was a friend to her during a time she needed it, and he understood, even though he hated it. Jake was the one who helped her through the whole suicide attempt, and in a way, maybe he owed him for taking care of her. It would never sit well, but it was their reality. To truly be happy with her, he had to accept the good and the bad.

  She had been quiet ever since returning from the hotel. She had a bottle of wine resting next to her feet as she sat on the couch. He was all for giving her space, but he was worried about her. Instead of letting their son stay home and feel the discomfort, he sent him to be with Karen and Rock. Kyan was more than happy to go, but Tyree could sense he wanted to stay with his mother. Ever since Jude passed, he had been glued to her and had even spent a few nights in their room. It didn’t bother Tyree, but he was glad to have their bed back. They hadn’t made love in a while, and he was missing her.

  He thought things had improved since their talk, and they had, but he felt like they were walking on eggshells around each other. They were both afraid to say or do something that upset the other, and he wanted to change that. He didn’t want to fight, but he wanted her to know it was okay if they did. He knew that in any relationship there were fights, and he needed it to be okay. He needed back the confidence they once had.

  Standing across the room, he watched as she downed a glass of wine. He saw how uncomfortable she was. He had to admit the discomfort wasn’t all her fault. He had been on edge with Whitney in their house. Nothing had happened, but he felt uneasy around her. The things Terence said to him had been taking over his thoughts when he was around her, and it was hard to act like it wasn’t affecting him. She had been like a shell of herself since Jude died, but he found himself staying his distance. If she did feel different about him, he didn’t want to give her the wrong idea. That wouldn’t be good.

  Tyree watched Mia as she poured another glass of wine, and he knew he had to do something. She was on her third glass, and he knew, as much as she would deny it, she was a lightweight. Walking over and placing his hand on the glass, he was surprised when she let him take it. Looking into her deep brown eyes, he pushed her hair back and swiped his thumb over her cheek.

  “Talk to me, sweetheart.” He felt his emotions bubbling in his throat. “I need you to know whatever it is will be okay.”

  Blinking, she shook her head, pushing his hand away. “It’s all my fault. I made so many decisions that are messing up our lives. I’m sorry.”

  She sniffled, and he ran his hand through her hair, pulling her head to his chest. “I don’t know what you think you did, but you can tell me. I’m scared we won’t make it if you don’t talk to me. I haven’t made it easy for you to tell me things, but it’s okay. I promise.”

  “Stop. Don’t promise it’s okay. You don’t know what I did. You won’t forgive me. I don’t forgive me.”

  She was breaking. He looked into her eyes and saw the pain and grew terrified. He needed her to tell him to rip the Band-Aid off, and then hopefully they could rebuild. Parting ways wasn’t an option. “Baby, talk to me.” He held her close to his heart for fear that if he let her go, she would be gone forever. Kissing the top of her head, he ran his hand up and down her back. He could feel the tears soaking his shirt, and he pulled her back, placing a kiss on her lips. When she pushed back, he was confused. “Why—”

  “Ty, I’m the reason we don’t have a baby. I messed up, and I can’t fix it.”

  “Maybe it’s not meant for us. But it’s okay. We can adopt—”

  “Stop, dammit!” She jumped from the couch, and he fell back. “Stop telling me it’s okay. Stop being so fucking understanding. Can’t you see I want to feel bad? I want to feel like shit.”

  “Mia, whatever you did, we can get through it.” He saw her pacing, and when she finally faced him, he felt like he had been hit with a brick when he heard what she uttered quietly. “Wha . . . what did you say?”

  “I had an abortion, and that’s why I can’t get pregnant again. We will never have another child because of what I did.”

  His breathing stopped momentarily. He felt sick. He felt like he was going to vomit. He did. Luckily there was a plant beside him, and he got to it just in time. He was standing over the plant, heaving as he listened to the sound of her sobbing. He tried to regain his senses, but before he could stop himself, he heard his own voice yelling. “You killed my baby? You hated me that much that you would kill my child? What the hell is wrong with you?”

  “No. No, I wouldn’t. You have to believe me. I would never kill something we created. I love you.”

  “You don’t. You couldn’t. To do this, you would have to hate me. You hate me that much?” His voice had gone up an octave, and he could hear it cracking. He was trying to understand, but nothing made this okay. Nothing helped the ache he felt in his chest.

  “It wasn’t your baby.”

  Hearing her admission, he stopped short. He searched her eyes for the joke he knew she had to be playing, but he saw nothing. Instead of speaking, she just stood there weeping with her arms outstretched.

  “Well, who . . .” He closed his eyes, and then they flew open as he realized he already knew the answer. “I’ll kill that bastard. You were having his baby, and you never thought that I should know?” He was back to yelling, and he saw her shake with each word. “Talk!”

  “No! I couldn’t tell you because I knew you would only blame yourself, and it hurt. It hurt so bad. I just wanted to forget it. I took those pills to forget, but it wouldn’t go away.”

  He was hysterical. He felt his hands trembling. As upset as she was, he wanted to comfort her, but his nerves were shot. Swinging out, he connected with the wall, and she started crying even harder. “I knew there was something, but I never thought it was this. I never thought you could make me feel this way again, but I was wrong. I loved you, and I thought that if I just loved you harder, it would be okay.” He was rambling when she walked up, touching his shoulder.

  “It wasn’t his baby.” His head shot up, and he stared her down. “After you left, I was in bad shape. I needed a minute to breathe, I needed to unwind, so I went for a walk. It was dark.” Her hands started to tremble, and he saw the pain wash over her. Looking at her, it all hit him, and he began to shake his head vehemently.

  “No, stop. I can’t hear this. I won’t hear this.”

  “I need to, Ty. Let me talk.” She was going through the story so fast, he could hardly believe it. “I never wanted it to happen, I didn’t. He pulled me into an alley and held a knife to my throat and told me to be a good little fuck and I could live. He was rough, it hurt, and all I could think of was how much I wanted to be anywhere but there. He hit me in the head, hard, and I was disoriented. I don’t even remember getting home. I just woke up the next morning feeling so dirty. He made me feel so cheap, Ty.”

  “Don’t tell me this. I don’t want to think about . . .” He looked at her with tears in his eyes. “Oh, baby, who did this to you?”

  “I don’t know. It was dark, and I should have paid more attention, but I was scared. My head was throbbing and nothing made sense to me. I know I messed up by getting rid of the baby. It could have helped them catch him, but I couldn’t have a part of him growing inside me. I never wanted any of this. I wanted you. I needed you.”

  Suddenly it all made sense, why she reacted the way she did the last time they had sex. He had made her feel lik
e she had that night. He hated himself. He felt like an ass. “Dammit!” He pushed a vase from the table and dropped to his knees. He hadn’t cried like this in years, and he couldn’t stop the tears. It was all hitting him so hard.

  He felt her stroking his head. When he looked up, he saw the redness and puffiness of her eyes, and he pushed her head into his chest. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, baby. Oh, God, I’m sorry.”

  “I never wanted you to worry. I’d rather swallow it than let you feel like it was your fault.”

  “I should have been there, Mia. You needed me. Dammit, I should have been there.”

  “I couldn’t have his baby. I just couldn’t. I just wanted to end the pain. When it was over, I was scared, I was angry, and after a while, I blamed you. I know how wrong I was, but I blamed you for not being there.”

  There was nothing he could say. Nothing made sense. The thought of her hurting that way made him come unglued. He could hardly speak, so he just held her, rocking her back and forth, promising to never let go, and she kept her head laid over his heart. When she finally stopped crying, she reached up and made him look at her. Gazing into her eyes, he swore he would never let anyone hurt her again, and she shook her head. He only hoped she believed him, because he meant it with every fiber of his being.

  That night, he watched her sleep. He felt like he had been doing that a lot lately. She stirred so many times, and he watched her toss and turn, but mostly he just stayed awake looking at his angel. She had been through so much, and she was still able to love him and their son unconditionally. Before he picked her up and carried her to bed, they talked. Well, he mostly listened.

  For once, he just sat and let her talk. He let her tell him everything she was feeling. Though he hated it, he realized why she and Jake were so connected and why she felt the need to salvage their friendship. He had seen her through the pain of being violated, and he held her hand after the abortion. He had really stepped up. She told him about how when they first met there was only a friendship, and he believed her. When they moved to Paris, he was just a friend, and it developed into more a year later.

  Finally, he had gotten to the bottom of the whole relationship between her and Jake, and as much as he hated to admit it, he had grown to respect him as a person. He would never like him, but the respect would always be there for how well he had taken care of Mia. At the end of the conversation, he told her that if she wanted to be friends with Jake, he wouldn’t stand in her way. She was hesitant, but he assured her he meant it wholeheartedly.

  They talked for hours, and after it all, she fell asleep in his arms. He had never felt more content in their relationship. Now that they had all the problems out of the way and all the cards were on the table, they could get back to being everything to each other. It was finally the way it should have always been, and now he loved her more than he could ever put into words.

  Chapter Twenty

  “Whitney, sweetheart, can you come here for a minute? I need to talk to you.” Mia had been trying, she really had, but nothing she did seemed to break Whitney out of the funk she was in. She had been going to work and staying out until late in the night, and Mia had no clue where she was going. Where she seemed to worry, Tyree kept her at arm’s length. It was confusing, but she just went with it.

  Watching Whitney come over and join her at the table, she felt her heart breaking for the young girl. True, she had been separated from her son and Tyree before, but no matter how bad things got, she knew in the back of her mind they would be together again. She never realized it until a few days ago that she had never truly given up hope. She’d just tried to dull the pain. Now that things were back on track with them, she needed to do what she could to fix her niece, although there was nothing she could do to make up for the loss.

  “What can I help you with?”

  “Honey, I need you to help me figure out what I can do to make this better. I know we have a lot to make up for and I know I haven’t always been there, but I’m here now, and I want to fix it.”

  With hesitation, Whitney looked into her eyes. “Can we? Can we fix something that’s been broken for so long?”

  Mia was confused. Up until that moment, she thought she was reaching out about Jude. She thought he was the main reason for the pain in her niece’s eyes. “Broken?”

  “For years, this is all I wanted. The chance to sit down with you and have you see me. Not as your twenty-five-year-old, kid niece, but as a person, as a woman. I needed that. I needed you all to take me seriously, to love me.”

  “We love you, we do. You just have to understand that your mom and dad were so afraid for you. They saw what happened to Mom and Janelle and wanted so much more for you.”

  “And all I wanted was to be home with my family.”

  Although it felt like they had done the right thing by shipping her off, Mia saw what it had done to Whitney’s trust in them. “You know, your mom was the reason I initially went to Paris.” Whitney wore a look of confusion, and Mia nodded. “After everything that happened, she saw that I needed a break from here. She suggested that I take a trip and then return home with a clear head. Once I got there, I took the coward’s way out and ran from my problems even though everyone begged me to come home.”

  “Do you regret it?

  “Yes and no,” Mia answered honestly. “It helped in the beginning. It gave me a new outlook, and toward the end, it showed me that everything I ever needed was right at home. Even if I was too stubborn to admit it, your uncle was and still is my soul mate.”

  “But you were with Jake for all that time. Did he mean nothing to you?”

  “He meant a lot to me. He still does.” Whitney’s eyes widened, and Mia shook her head. “Not in a romantic way. He was a friend when I needed one. He was a comfort when I needed to be held. I can’t say that I regret him, because I don’t. I needed to have that someone else to make me realize that Ty was the one I could never be without. Jake made me feel alive when I felt so dead inside, but Ty is the one who put my world back into focus.”

  Before speaking the words just then, Mia had never realized that was what had happened. She always knew that Jake wasn’t the one, even when she was trying to convince herself he was. With him, there was always something that held her back, always a sense of trepidation. She didn’t know it at the time because she was so clouded with hurt and anger, but it was her love for Tyree. She had loved him since she was a child, even when they were just friends. She couldn’t find it in her heart to be with someone else. Tyree had dated other girls and had even messed around a little, but the real experiences he saved for her. They were each other’s firsts, and nothing compared to that.

  They had overcome a lot to be together, and now things between them were stronger than ever. All the doubts he had about her and her loyalty were gone, and he had even given her his blessing to continue a friendship with Jake. Although he still wasn’t too fond of him, Tyree took a step back, allowing her to make a huge gesture on Jake’s behalf. Because Jake had explained to her that he wasn’t ready to go home and face the loneliness that would greet him, he resolved to stay in Atlanta. She offered up their old house in place of a hotel. Jake, of course, protested, but she was persuasive and won out in the end. Jake ended up moving into the house after striking up the compromise that he would at least pay rent for the time he was there.

  With things falling back into place as far as her marriage, she needed to get through to Whitney, or she would never have peace. “How could you leave though? Do you know how bad he took it? Uncle Ty was a mess, and he did some stupid stuff to get over you. You do know he almost killed himself, wrapping his car around a tree, right?”

  Mia saw the resentment in her eyes and took a deep breath. “Not a day goes by that I don’t think about what it did to him, but what I can’t do is keep holding on to it. We have worked through it and agreed to live in the now, not what we used to be.”

  “How do you do that? How do you shut off the pa
in and replace it with love? Is it even possible?”

  Shaking her head, Mia took Whitney’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “No. You try really hard to suppress it until it eats you alive, and then you release it. It’s not easy. It took us five years to come to terms with the things we did. Even with all the love we still had, it took us screaming at each other to finally get to a good place. Before now, we were just going through the motions trying not to shake things up because we were afraid to let go.”

  “And now? Did all of that help?”

  “I love that man with everything I have, and I can honestly say I’ve never been more confident in what we have.”

  “But how could he just get over your betrayal? I swear, as long as I live, I will never understand it. He was so good to you.”

  Mia felt the sting of her words and was taken by surprise. She hadn’t expected this conversation to be extremely pleasant, but she hadn’t expected this. It was like Whitney was blaming her for everything that went wrong instead of seeing the big picture.

  “How can he act like you did nothing wrong?” Whitney asked.

  “He knows what I did just as well as I do. He loves me, and we have forgiven each other for all the hurtful things.” Mia felt her temper and her voice rising, and witnessing the look in Whitney’s eyes, she had to pull back. “What happened between your uncle and me is not what we’re supposed to be discussing. I understand you have questions, but frankly, it’s really no one’s business but ours. What I wanted to do was check on you. You haven’t mentioned Jude once since he died, and I don’t want you keeping it bottled up. You have to talk about it, or you’ll go crazy.”

  “I don’t want to. I don’t want to say his damn name because I’m so angry. How could he leave me? How could he just abandon what we had?” Tears were sliding down her cheeks, and Mia saw her body trembling. “We were getting married. We were supposed to be happy.”