"That's not the end of it?"
She sighed. "I wish." Aerie spent a moment trying to compose herself. "I didn't go to the hotel at all that week. I was so pissed, I just couldn't even think straight. Tate knew something was off with me, but I wouldn't talk about it, even with her. So, for a full week I stayed away."
I groaned. "You went back to him?" I asked. "Not judging, just...curious."
She smiled sadly at me. "I was hooked, Cane. It wasn't just that I wanted--needed, maybe--the sex. I also needed to confront him about it, and that hotel was the only way I knew how to get hold of him. So...I went. Two p.m. on a Monday afternoon, in November. It was a cold, windy day. About two weeks before Thanksgiving. I, um...I went to the hotel, used the keycard to let myself in, waited an hour, and...and he never showed up. I went back the next day, waited for an hour, and he didn't show up again. So the next day, I went to the coffee shop, our coffee shop. No show. Figures he'd ghost on me, right?"
She snatched a tissue from the box, holding it in one hand while trying to breathe through the tears. A tear slid down her cheek, and then another, and she dabbed them away as they fell.
"Aerie, honey, you don't have to--"
She sounded so shaky as she spoke over me, her voice trembling. "So, um. A full month passed from the time I saw him and his wife at the party. Then six weeks had passed. I cried, and tried to tell myself it was for the best. And that was--that was when I realized some--something. I--I'd missed my period."
The blood drained out of my face, and my heart skipped several beats. "Aerie, no. Seriously...no."
She nodded, tears flooding down her face. "Seriously, yes. I waited another week to be sure, but it was undeniable at that point. I'd started to feel sick in the mornings, and my emotions were all out of whack."
"Shit. You were pregnant?"
"Yep. I took a test, and it came up positive, and I promptly threw up into the sink." She dabbed at her nose with the tissue, sniffling, sucking in a shuddery breath. "I didn't tell anyone. I didn't sleep for three days, didn't eat, and forced myself to drink water. I thought about finding him, telling him, demanding he help me...I wasn't sure what I wanted him to do."
"So...what happened? I mean..." I struggled with how to phrase my question, and came up empty.
"What happened?" She drew her knees up onto the couch, wrapping her arms around them, cocooned in the blanket. "I hunted him down. Found out where he was shooting, talked my way past security, found his trailer, and snuck in. Waited for him. All damn day, I sat in that trailer. He had good snacks in there and a fridge full of Perrier, so I helped myself. Finally, around eight that night, he came in. But...um. He--he wasn't alone."
"No shit. Seriously?"
"Seriously. Amy Thompson-Frasier was there, the actress who plays the lead opposite him. And they, um. They didn't see me at first, because they were too busy getting it on. She had his pants open and she was yanking him and he had her skirt up around her hips before they even made it into the trailer. Turns out Detective Ellen Rooney doesn't wear underwear beneath those pencil skirts."
"You have got to be kidding me."
"Wish I was, Canaan, I wish I was." She was still crying, fighting sobs. "I was on the couch with a bag of pretzels and a bottle of Perrier, and I guess that couch was where they were planning on fucking. So, yeah. They saw me. Amy screamed, Lex shouted 'what the fuck, Aerie?' and I just sat there, eating pretzels. Weirdly, I was amazingly calm. I asked for a few minutes alone with Lex, and Amy got her clothes back in order and left. I didn't know what to say, or how to start the conversation. Lex just stood there, his pants open, staring at me like I was an alien. Finally, I just said it; 'I'm pregnant.'"
"How did the cheating dickbag take that?"
She closed her eyes for a moment. "He was silent for, like, a full minute. And then he--he just looked at me, cold as ice, and said, 'so get an abortion.'"
"He didn't."
"He did. Just like that." Aerie bit her lip, eyes closed again, tears dripping off her chin. "Um. So. I left. I didn't say a word. I just left. With his bag of pretzels, actually."
I could only stare, trying to absorb this. "Aerie, you...you..."
"I Googled clinics from my phone, called one, asked how much it would be, went to a bank and withdrew cash to pay for it, and then went to the clinic that same day, within an hour of seeing him." She shuddered, sucking in a shaky breath. "I had the abortion on November twentieth. Completely alone. I took a cab home, pretended to be sick for three days. I never told Tate, never told Mom, never told anyone. I couldn't. I was...I was..."
She broke into sobs, then, finally unable to hold them back.
"You're the first person I've ever told."
I had no idea what to say.
"I was..." she started, but had to stop and try again. "We'd been together, the day of the party--when I saw him with his wife, I mean. He and I had...after we fucked, he actually stayed in the bed with me for a while, and it...it felt nice. And I had been feeling so much for him, trying to pretend I didn't and just failing miserably. So...uh...we were in the bed together, and I put my head on his chest, and I told him I thought I was falling in love with him."
"Oh god...Aerie..." I reached for her, but she shook her head, holding out a hand to keep away.
"Don't, Canaan. Just don't." She gathered herself yet again. "As soon as I said that, he got up, dressed, and left without a single word to me. Then he showed up at that party with his wife. He knew I'd be there. Up until then he'd always made sure not to be at any party I'd go to while we were sleeping together, so he clearly knew how to make sure our social circles didn't overlap. So him showing up at that party with his wife, and the way he looked at me, making sure I saw them, it was a message. He was making it absolutely clear to me how things were."
"Goddamn, Aerie, that's savage."
"I spent a month of my life trying to get over Lex, trying to convince myself I'd never been in love with him, that it was just infatuation or lust or whatever, and I'd finally started to make some progress at getting over him, when I found out I was pregnant, and he just...he looked right into my eyes and told me to get an abortion--" She broke into a sob, covering her face with both hands.
"Holy shit."
She couldn't talk anymore, and she wouldn't let me near her. She kept holding out a hand to keep me away as she fought through her sobs. She was just...shattered.
And I couldn't do a damn thing about it.
"You got an abortion?" Tate's voice rang out from the stairs behind us.
6
Aerie
* * *
I sobbed all the harder at the sound of Tate's voice, at the betrayal in her tone. Canaan was on the other side of the couch from me, staring at me, probably wishing he'd never met me, probably wishing he'd never touched me. And Tate...god. What a way to find out.
"I'm sorry," I gasped. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry."
"How could you?" Tate asked, rounding the couch to crouch in front of me. She was...so angry. So hurt. "I don't understand, A. Why would you...how could you keep that from me? How could you do that? That was...it was a life! A person!"
"Don't you think I know that?" I screamed. "I've thought about that every single day for the last three years of my life!"
"Why didn't you tell me?" Tate whispered.
"I couldn't. I just...I couldn't." I lifted my eyes to my twin's, saw tears in her eyes, trickling down her face. The hurt, the betrayal, the confusion, the anger...it was too much. "How much did you hear?"
"Enough." Tate stood up, turned away. "Too much."
"I can't tell the whole story again."
"You don't need to." Tate crossed her arms, still facing away from me. "You had a secret affair with Lex Landon, a man twelve years older than you, who was married--a fact you could have looked up on Wikipedia, by the way."
"Right, because you've Googled everyone you've ever fucked."
"That's not the point."
"Then what is the po
int, Tate? That I'm a slut because I had a forbidden, torrid affair with an older man? We could talk about the number of guys you've fucked, which I guarantee is more than anyone else in this room--"
"Watch your mouth, Aerie!" Corin snapped, having just entered the room.
"You stay out of this, Corin!" I snapped back. "This doesn't involve you."
"Guys, that's enough." Canaan stood up, moving between Tate and me. "Tate, why don't you and Corin give us a minute, okay? Everyone's upset, tempers are flaring, and we're not going to help anyone if we're all upset."
"My twin sister had a fucking abortion and didn't tell me! How am I not supposed to be upset about this?" Tate shouted. "Why don't you stay the fuck out of this too, Canaan? This is between Aerie and me."
"It's actually not, Tate," Canaan said with a touch of anger in his voice. "It's between Aerie and me. She was talking to me. You were eavesdropping."
"We came down the stairs and overheard her talking," Corin said, stepping toward his brother. "We weren't eavesdropping."
"Sure as fuck seems like it to me." Canaan crossed his arms over his chest, staring his brother down.
"You have something to say to me, Cane?" Corin demanded.
I shot to my feet, putting myself between them. "STOP! Both of you, stop. All of you stop. Everyone just...just...shut the fuck up!" I felt panic rifling through me. "You guys aren't supposed to fight. Neither are we, Tate. We're twins, you guys are twins. What the hell is happening to us?"
Corin let out a ragged sigh, running his hands over his face. "Shit. You're right, A, you're absolutely right. What are we doing, right now?"
I couldn't handle any more. I was still reeling with the renewed agony of having finally told my secret...to Canaan, no less, whom I was beginning to fall in love with. My sister had overheard, and now the secret was really out there, because even Corin knew, now. Everyone knew.
It was all too much. Too fucking much.
"I--I..." I turned to Canaan, clutching at his shirt. "Take me home, please."
He just stared at me. "Home? Where's home, Aerie?"
"I don't know! Fuck, I don't know! I don't have a home. Nowhere is home. This isn't, New York isn't--" I backed away, but he had my arms and wouldn't let go. "I just...I need to be alone. I need--I need..."
"Mom is at Grandma and Grandpa's, so you can't go there," Tate said. "Mom will know something's wrong after one look at you, and I really don't think she could handle this news right now. She'd have an actual heart attack."
Baxter and Evangeline came down the stairs, then, and I burst into tears at the sight of them. I didn't need them to see me like this, and I wondered if they'd heard my story, too, and the thought sent me into an actual panic attack. The kind of panic attack where I was hyperventilating, gasping for breath, heart palpitating, dizzy, and a flood of emotions cascading through me.
I felt soft, warm hands on my face; Evangeline was talking to me, but I couldn't hear her. Canaan was behind her, and Tate, and Corin, and Bax...
I shook my head, tried to pull away, and Eva wrapped an arm around me and guided me...I don't know where. I was disoriented, dizzy, stumbling, faint. Crying. I felt a strong arm supporting me, Canaan's arm. I clutched him, held on to him just to stay upright.
Voices.
A bed underneath me. Faint female perfume.
Silence.
Sweet, blessed silence.
A hand, stroking my hair. Braiding it. Evangeline, sitting on the bed beside me, humming softly.
I couldn't stop crying.
Canaan wasn't here, and I was glad, because I wasn't sure I could handle him right then.
Evangeline just kept fiddling with my hair, kept humming, her presence a soft, calming, soothing balm.
Eventually, my breath steadied and I got a handle on my tears; I blinked through the haze of tears and realized we were in Baxter's room.
I looked up at Evangeline, trying to get myself under control, but I was still shaking and shuddering through the aftershocks of sobs. "Why...why are you here? Why are you doing this?"
"Sometimes we just need a friend. Not a sister, not a man, just...a friend." She finished braiding my hair, and I sat up; she took my hands in hers. "I've never really had anyone I could call a true friend. There's literally no one back East I even miss. No one has called me, or emailed me, or texted me, or asked where I was." She smiled at me. "I need a friend, and so do you. So...here I am."
"Tate and the boys are really the only people I've ever trusted or felt close to, and now things with them are all so tangled up and messy, I just...I don't even know what to do anymore." I glanced at her. "Did you hear what I was saying?"
She shrugged. "I heard some. It's none of my business, though."
"When I was eighteen, I had a secret affair with an older married man, a pretty famous one, too. He got me pregnant, and I had an abortion." It was a little easier to put into words, this time. "I kept the entire thing a secret from everyone, until just now, when I told Canaan...and my sister overheard.
"I'm falling in love with Canaan, but I don't know how to tell him, and I'm scared to be in love...I don't want to be in love--scared isn't the right word, actually...I'm outright terrified. I especially don't want to be in love with him. Canaan and Corin have been my best friends--and really my only friends my whole life, same for Tate. So it's...it's really complicated. But it's already complicated now, because Cane and I have slept together, and Corin and Tate are together and in love, and we almost made things even more complicated a couple months ago by mixing up partners, but we didn't, thank god, and now Tate is pregnant with Corin's baby, and everything is even more fucked up."
"Wow...that's...a lot," Eva replied.
"Bet you bit off more than you can chew, huh, Evangeline?"
"Call me Eva," she said, "and no, not at all." What are you going to do?"
"I have no idea." I shook my head and shrugged. "I really don't. It's tempting to just stay in here and ignore all three of them for a while." I looked around and said, "You guys need your room, though, huh?"
She shook her head. "I guess you missed part of the earlier conversation. Bax and I are going to look for an apartment in this area, and you and Canaan are taking this room. It just makes more sense."
"But..." I hesitated. "I'm not sure I'm ready to move in with Canaan. I don't even know what we are, or what he feels, or anything."
"That does complicate things."
"Yeah, exactly."
She shifted on the bed, putting her back to the wall, and I moved to sit beside her. "Why don't you want to be in love, and why not with Canaan?"
I sighed. "I want to say it's complicated, but it's not, really. I was in love with the man who got me pregnant, and he was just using me for cheap, easy sex. The moment I admitted I was falling for him, he ghosted, but not before making sure I knew he'd been married the whole time. It was an intentional knife in the back. When I found out I was pregnant, I confronted him with it, and he flat-out told me to get an abortion."
"What a jerk."
"No shit, right?" I sighed. "Maybe I wasn't ever really in love with him. I don't know. It sure as hell felt like it at the time. I've thought about this nonstop, and I realized I couldn't have really been in true love with him because I knew nothing about him. It was just sex. He hid the fact that he was married, that he was cheating on his wife, and that I was the other woman. I've always sort of...shied away from getting emotionally involved with men since then. I've...I've sort of avoided men in general, actually, except when I start to need...you know, sex. I don't know. The whole thing is fucked up. I'm fucked up."
"We're all a little fucked up about something, Aerie. I let my dad control me my whole life. I'm a spoiled brat with zero life skills or work experience of any kind." She giggled and leaned close. "And I'm honestly worried Bax is turning me into an actual sex addict."
I giggled with her. "God, I know the feeling. There's something about these Badd brothers, I think. They have a way
of turning us women into mindless sex addicts."
"You too?"
I nodded, stifling a laugh. "It's so bad. It's part of the problem, honestly. Am I crazy to think it could be love I'm feeling for Canaan? I thought I was in love with Lex Landon, and look where that got me."
Eva stared at me in surprise. "The older married man was Lex Landon?"
I nodded. "Yes. The one and only. Unfortunately, as a real human being, he's a piece of shit." I sighed. "At least, he was to me. I know I should have done more in terms of making sure what we had was legit, but it was young and it was so fun, secretive and forbidden and sexy. That was all part of the attraction, I realize now, looking back. But it was empty, and meaningless, and it was never going to go anywhere, and I should have been wise enough to know that. But I wasn't. And now..." I groaned. "He's a sexual predator, that's what he is. A cheater, a liar, and a total scumbag. I was an impressionable, gullible eighteen-year-old, and he took advantage of that, and then discarded me like so much garbage."
"He's the garbage, not you." Eva shook her head, visibly upset. "You were so young! God--men like that, who take advantage of girls like you were, then, they just...they make me so mad. It's so wrong, that your story is, sadly, all too common. And the fact that you're still hung up on the rejection of it all, and not just the way he victimized you? Even still you're...you're feeling the stigma of that." She shook her head. "No, stigma isn't the right word. I think the rejection hurt you worse than you realize, and you're putting that fear of rejection onto your relationship with Canaan."
I nodded, but I couldn't breathe, because her words were so, so true, and it hurt all over again. "I thought we had something, I thought--I thought maybe...I thought Lex at least cared about me, at least a little bit. I think I knew, deep down, that he didn't love me. But...when he ghosted on me, and then showed up with his wife..." I shrugged, unable to put it into words.
"It cut you to the core. And when he told you to abort the pregnancy, it..." she trailed off, shrugging.
"It broke something inside me, I think," I finished.
"Right, and that's totally understandable. But here's the thing, honey. Talking about this, getting out, so it's not a secret anymore...that's the first and biggest step toward healing. You were victimized by an older man. He's a predator, nothing more, nothing less, and you were the prey. You can't blame yourself for that. He didn't reject you, he used you, and threw you aside when you'd served your purpose for him. That's on him, babe, not you."
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