I nodded. “Yeah, Dad, stomach is just feeling a little funny.”
I hated it when they fought. I would do anything to keep them from being upset with each other. Everything was easier that way. He looked down the steps to my mother, who appeared very regal from where I was standing. It didn’t take long before he was back down the steps and the argument had started. I didn’t want to listen in but it was so hard to ignore them as they started to shout at each other. My father didn’t understand that I was sick. It was too hard for him to come to terms with.
“They help her!” she screamed.
The glass fell to the ground, and I jumped as my father yelled, “They are making her worse! Anyone can see that! If I didn’t know any better, I would say you wanted her to be sick!”
“How dare you?” she hissed. “I have done everything I can to keep her healthy! You were the one who was sickly as a child, not me!”
“I won’t have you giving her any more of your crazy concoctions, do you understand me?”
He spun around and went for the door, slamming it behind him. She stormed up the steps and grabbed ahold of my arm. “I told you to get in your room. Do you like to see your father hurt? Is that what you want?”
She shoved me through and I heard the door’s bolt close. It didn’t matter, though. I was too weak to move to try and get out. “You can come out when you’ve decided to be a joyful member of this family!”
I started to shake, but something felt different inside me. Fear was still there, but I wanted to fight her off. Something inside me was resisting the bullshit that she was feeding me.
Mustering the last of my strength, I screamed, “You will not hurt me anymore!”
“Julia!” Came a familiar but distant voice. “Come back to me, Julia!”
The shaking continued as I was pulled away from the dream by Aaron. I was covered in sweat, our naked bodies sizzling from the tropical night. Aaron gazed down at me, the concern still evident on his face. All I could do was smile up at him. He’d taken all the worry away from me as soon as I realized that he was with me and I wasn’t back in my mother’s house. I curled up in his arms, unwilling and afraid to let go of the moment. Aaron had become the rock that I didn’t know I needed in my life.
Even now, I thought about losing him. If he knew what I really was, how I had let my mother get away with so much, he wouldn’t love me as unconditionally as he did. It was a scary thought to try and process, but I knew the time was coming when it would need to be done. The only card I had left up my sleeve was to try honesty. Then, at the very least, I would know that I had tried to win him back despite my jaded past.
“You scared me there for a minute. I thought I wasn’t going to be able to wake you up.”
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
“Don’t be sorry, honey. I was just worried. This isn’t the first dream you’ve had like this either.”
“It’s not?” I asked.
Aaron shook his head. “No, it’s happened a few times now. I hate seeing you like this. Do you want to talk about it?”
“I don’t want to, but I know if I don’t, it will never get any better. There is so much you don’t know about the past few years. The secrets I kept will haunt me for the rest of my life.”
“There is nothing that you could say that would make me think any less of you. I know you’ve talked a little bit about what happened, but I would love to know the whole story.”
I shuddered. “No one wants to know about that. I was such a fool, thinking that she was a decent person.”
“Shh,” he cooed as he held me tightly. “You’ve always seen the good in people. It’s one of the first things that made me fall in love with you. Just because something bad happened this time, it doesn’t mean that you should change who you are.”
“That’s easy for you to say. You have a golden record in life. You love your daughter, you work hard, and you protect your mother. You’re too good for me. I don’t deserve someone as kind as you.”
“Well,” he said quickly, “I guess it’s a good thing you don’t pick who I love then. My feelings aren’t going to change, and I’m not going anywhere. Do you understand that?”
“I do,” I whispered softly. “Can we just stay like this forever?”
“I wish we could, but I think a certain little girl would have a big problem with parents who never left the bed.”
“Yeah,” I replied. “She really is an amazing kid. I can’t wait to be a part of her life again.”
“Does this mean you’re coming back?” he asked.
“I don’t think that I was ever wondering about that. I just don’t know if I’ll be going back with you.”
“Right,” he muttered. “Because you don’t think I’ll want you after you tell me about your life? How is that fair at all, to me or to Amy? Should we have a say in that decision?”
“I don’t know,” I muttered.
“Well, I do, and we’re a family. I don’t want to lose you again because you think that you don’t belong, because you do. You have always been a part of our family, and you always will be.”
“How did I get so lucky?” I whispered to him as I pressed my body against his.
He chuckled softly. “You can’t keep distracting me with sex, you know that? Eventually, you’re going to need to talk to someone, and I hope that’s me.”
I pulled away from him a little. “I just don’t want to ruin the time that we have together.”
“Jesus, Julie.” He huffed in frustration. “I can’t keep playing this game with you! I know that I told you I would be patient, but it’s just too hard. One second, you’re climbing all over me, holding my hand, and whispering about how much you care, and the next, you’re pushing me away! I need a straight answer from you.”
“About what?” I shot back. “You want to know if I can just move back home with you and pretend like the last five years haven’t happened? Do you know what kind of question that is for a person to answer?”
“You had no problem leaving!” he yelled.
I jumped out of bed and glared at him. “There it is! I knew that it was coming! You still resent me for leaving, just like you always have.”
“Of course I resent you! You won’t tell me why, in God’s name, you left and never came back at all!”
I growled under my breath. It was the same circle I had been running through my mind. There was no way out. “Fine, you want to talk about everything that’s happened? Then we will. Then, when you realize you don’t want the damaged goods, you’re the one who can explain to our daughter why I left.”
“Fine,” he hissed. “I’m the one who did it before, so why should this time be any different?”
I gasped and stumbled backward, his words cutting into me like a burning knife. I didn’t know what to tell him. Even now, I wanted to open up to him, but his words hurt. I couldn’t take any more rejection. I knew that she was insane, but my mother had stopped calling and leaving messages. She was cutting herself off from me, and now the only family I had was getting pushed away.
He closed the distance between us and pulled me into his arms. My body was shaking just like his was. The heated moment was more than we’d fought since I left him before. He was never the type to fight or argue. Aaron didn’t like to raise his voice unless it was the only other option, but now we were getting the fight and the conversation that I’d skipped out on years before.
“We can’t keep doing this, Julia. I know that you need time, but I don’t have any more to give you. Please, just talk to me,” Aaron whispered.
“Okay,” I said.
He pulled away and looked me in the eyes. “You’re ready to tell me everything? To share what happened to you when you went back to your mother’s?”
“I am, but you have to make me a promise,” I said carefully.
“Anything.”
“You have to forgive me,” I said softly.
Aaron
“Come on,” I said, gently taking her han
d.
We snuck out of the suite, knowing my mother wasn’t far away if Amy needed anything. Our balcony had a small hot tub that hadn’t yet been used.
She flushed a deep red. “I didn’t bring my suit.”
I grinned. “I didn’t either. But the door is locked, I have the key, and Amy is fast asleep. Judging from the snoring, she isn’t going to wake up anytime soon.”
Julia still looked unsure but she took off her robe anyway. Her pale skin glistened in the heat as I started to strip. I had no intentions of making a move on her, but I couldn’t stop my shaft from growing. She looked down and grinned.
“And here I thought you brought me out here to talk,” she said playfully.
“I did,” I reassured her. “I can’t help it though. Whenever I see you I get turned on.”
“Wanna do something about it?”
I nodded. “You bet I do. But sometimes, talking is more important than sex.”
“Wow,” she said as she slipped into the warm water. “Can I get that in writing?”
“I’m serious, Julia. What happened to you when you went to live with your mother? You said we would talk about it, and yes, it’s more important than sex to me right now.”
Julia shuddered. “I hope you know how difficult this is for me. I haven’t shared the truth of what happened with anyone.”
“This is what family does, Julia. We take care of each other and help each other through the hard times.”
“I never should have left you,” she said. “It was a terrible mistake. I should have seen that something was wrong with her from the very beginning, but I was being so stubborn. I didn’t want to admit that I was wrong and come crawling back to you. Especially after everything that happened between us.”
“Why do you say that?”
She shook her head. “I went there to take care of her, but she had other plans. As soon as I walked through the door, she started in on me. My skin looked pale, I was depressed and unhappy . . . anything she could say to wear me down, she said. At first, I just thought it was the shock of losing my father, but it didn’t stop.”
“Why didn’t you confront her about it?”
“I don’t know. I think after a while, I just started to believe her. She said you’d never take me back. She . . .” Julia sobbed. “She said my father’s death was my fault. If I hadn’t left, he would still be there with her! I didn’t know what she meant for the longest time. Then, the phone call came that changed everything.”
“I told you that my mother had gone to counseling. At first, it was just as a precaution. A doctor my father knew approached me at the funeral and suggested it. Honestly, it gave me two hours a week without her around, so I didn’t have a problem with it. About a year ago, her doctor called me out of the blue and asked to meet. I thought that he wanted to do some sort of joint therapy at my mother’s request, but when I got there, she wasn’t around.”
“Did he want to meet to talk about your mother?” I asked.
“Yes,” she whispered at the memory. “He wanted to talk to me about her but he couldn’t. It was all very evasive, but he did ask me to do one thing—he wanted me to petition the courts for the power of attorney over my mother. At first I refused, but he kept pressing, telling me that there was something wrong with her but that he couldn’t say anything more because of his oath. Finally, I agreed and signed the paperwork.”
“What did your mom think of that?”
“Nothing. Somehow, her doctor managed to get everything done without her knowing. It was terrifying for weeks. I would check the mail and wait for it to be delivered, perpetually afraid that she would find out what I was doing and kick me to the curb.”
“You had a home here, though, Julia.”
“A home that I thought was gone forever? Don’t forget that we hadn’t spoken in years. The only time we ever communicated was when Amy needed it. How could I know that you would still be here for me?”
I shook my head. I had nothing to say. I was as much at fault as she was. If I had reached out more, maybe things would have been different. “Julia, it wasn’t entirely your fault.”
She vigorously shook her head. “No. I was the one who left. Do you want to know everything or not? Because we could go off on a dozen different tangents right now.”
“Sorry,” I said as I gently rubbed her shoulder. “Please keep talking.”
“Once the paperwork went through, I had a few meetings with her doctor. It wasn’t pretty. She’d told him things I never would have imagined. He had the sneaking suspicion that she had been poisoning me for years. That’s why the seizures stopped when I moved away. All I could think about was what she’d said before, that my father’s death was my fault.”
“Oh, no,” I whispered.
“The doctor pressed her about it, but he could never get her to admit to poisoning him. But the question still lingered. My father was sick for weeks before he slipped into that coma and died. The doctors always assumed my medical condition was genetic but unidentifiable.”
“I see now why you didn’t want to come back,” I muttered.
“When I left, the possibility of a murder trial was still very real. How could I drag you into that? If what the doctor thinks is true, and I do believe it is, my mother slowly murdered my father to get me to come back home. I ignored it. I refused to go back there for so long. His death was my fault.”
“Julia,” I whispered.
She pulled away from me. “I told you I was a monster.”
“Are you kidding me? You can’t be held accountable for her actions. That wasn’t you! You’re one of the sweetest people I know. You couldn’t hurt a fly.”
“I could!” she screamed at me. “I did hurt people! I hurt everyone that I cared about, all because of one little lie!”
“Jenny,” I said. “You know that I never did anything with her. She was just a kid!”
“It doesn’t matter now,” she said softly.
“Obviously, it does still matter if you’re bringing it up now,” I hissed. “Of course you left after the way I talked to you. I lied to you, and the size of the lie didn’t matter. I pushed you away and into her house. This is on me.”
“Aaron,” she said. “You understand why I can’t give you an answer now, don’t you?”
“I want to be there for you. I don’t care what that entails. If it means we’re going to trial, so be it.”
“I don’t want you to do that though. I don’t even know if it’s going to reach that point, but if it does, I must leave again. It might just be for a few days, but it could be months.”
“So you would leave us again? Just like last time?”
“I came back when you needed me, didn’t I?” she said softly.
“Yes, you came back to help me carry on a lie that I’ve been holding onto for the last five years. A lie that I wouldn’t have to tell if you would have trusted me the first time.”
Julia rolled her eyes and climbed out of the hot tub. Instantly, I regretted my harsh words. She was so unwilling to accept that things weren’t her fault. After the childhood that she’d had growing up, I could understand the fear, but this was different. She claimed to love me, but still, she pushed me again. It wasn’t protecting me. It was hurting me even more. I didn’t want things to end this way.
“Julia,” I said carefully.
She stopped. “What?”
“I didn’t mean for it to come out that way. You know how much I appreciate your coming down here so my mother wouldn’t find out about the divorce. I don’t know what I thought was going to happen, but the second I saw you, that old feeling of hope popped back up.”
“Aaron,” she said with tears in her eyes. “I am damaged goods. Ones with a terrible past that is going to jump up at any second and show its ugly face. Being with me isn’t a good idea.”
“You didn’t always think that way,” I reminded her. “There was a time when my love was all you needed to feel safe.”
“Lov
e and trust,” she whispered. “That was all I needed until the harsh reality of being an adult showed up. Not everyone gets their happily ever after.”
“Why not? Why should everyone else get to spend their lives with someone they love but you get the short end of the stick? I think that’s bullshit. I think you’re scared to let others in.”
“I did let you in!” she hissed. “And you know what I got? A reporter showing up at work and asking me about my husband and a sixteen-year-old girl.”
“Are you ever going to forgive me for that?” I asked, the anger starting to build up inside me. It was beating a dead horse. I knew that she was tossing Jenny back in my face as a form of self-defense but it was still driving me insane.
“I don’t know if I can forgive you! It was just one silly little lie, yes, but it started so much more.”
I laughed. It was cold and harsh. “So that’s the truth of it then, isn’t it? You don’t blame yourself for what happened. You blame me for getting tangled up with that girl.”
“No,” she said. She straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin. I had never seen her look so stubborn and sure of herself. It was a huge turn-on. “I don’t put all the blame on you. I put it on both of us. Yes, Jenny was the drink that pushed me over the edge, but I went down that path without hesitation too. It’s not the past. It’s the future that has me worried. I don’t know if we can ever go back to who we were before.”
“I don’t want to be those people again. We were young and passionate, yes, but we fought and struggled to get by in our relationship. You’re an amazing woman, and I want to get to know you all over again. I think our daughter deserves that much.”
“She does, and so much more. You need to think about this too, because you’re asking for a life just like before. I can’t promise that I’ll always be around when you need me, and I can never let you into that dark chapter of my life. Is that really a relationship you want?”
I swallowed hard. My instinct was to nod my head and tell her yes, that I wanted everything she had to offer. I didn’t care about the rest of it. We could find a way to make it work. I was madly in love with her and I’d move heaven and earth to keep her with me. I couldn’t open my mouth to say the words though. I needed time to show her just how much I cared. She let out a sigh and held out her hand.
Second Chance Draft: A Second Chance Sports Romance (Pass To Win Book 6) Page 34
