Luis left in handcuffs the same way Jayne had.
Jayne was innocent. She would be released.
So why did I still feel sick? Why was there a vice grip squeezing my insides trying to suffocate me?
Why? Why? WHY?
Why would he do this to me?
Luis was never ‘like a father to me’ but he was still my stepdad, and my manager and I’d trusted him. Despite his ambitions and misguided attempts to guide my career, I’d believed underneath it all, he had my best interests at heart, that he cared, if for no other reason than he had loved my mother. And she had loved him. In a way we were all each other had left of her.
So how could he do this to me?
I asked myself that over and over for two days, until James sat down beside me on the couch in my house and told me Luis had finally confessed.
“He used Warren’s obsession with you to his advantage. It was all for the movie. One big publicity stunt. Real life mirroring art. Your life would become the movie. He sent him to Seattle, and all over the country to create a story, and the big climactic ending was supposed to be the kidnapping at your birthday. He set it all up and Warren was just the puppet and the fall guy, along with Jayne who he knew would be blamed. Turns out Luis had a tracker put in this.” He fingered the necklace at my throat. “He was going to be the big hero. Once everyone realized you were missing from the party, he could send the cavalry because he’d know exactly where you were, and he gave Warren the gun knowing, Warren would go down in a shootout with the cops before giving you up. When it didn’t go down as planned at the party, they improvised at the hospital.”
I turned to stare out the window, feeling everything inside of me harden.
“Riley,” James said softly, but I didn’t want to look into his eyes and have him make me promises or assurances about being okay or being strong enough to get through this. I didn’t want to look at him at all. I continued to stare out the window at nothing. I could feel him watching me, and the weight of it was too much. I couldn’t bear whatever it is he wanted from me. I felt like everything had been carved out of me and there was nothing left. I had nothing to give him.
I had nothing to give anyone. Luis and Warren took it all.
Riley James was a pretty doll in a pretty dollhouse, that was really just a pretty cage, who believed all the pretty lies in her pretty world that wasn’t really pretty at all.
It was ugly and now that I could see the pretty cage for what it was, how could it ever be pretty again?
How could the things that mattered before ever matter again?
What was the point of any of it?
Luis had everything, and it was never going to be enough. He was always going to want more, expect more, take more.
I thought I knew. I thought living in Hollywood I’d learned what people were capable of, the levels they would sink to in order to get what they wanted.
But this . . .
At what point did Luis cross that first line that led him down the road to here? There had to be a choice, a decision, or a series of decisions that made him think what he was doing was okay.
And not just Luis.
Where were the lines in this world anymore?
For the right price you could be anyone, buy anyone. A new face, a new body, the right opportunity or favors. The only question was how much of your soul were you willing to trade?
How much of mine had I already traded playing the game?
The more I thought about it, the more my thoughts spiraled down the rabbit hole and the sicker I felt.
“This isn’t healthy, Riley.” My dad found me in that same spot two days later. Because that’s what I did. I sat in my chair and stared out at the window, thinking that it was fitting to stare out at the world, because that’s how I felt, like the world was out there and I was stuck in my head.
“You’re hardly eating. You’re hardly sleeping. You hardly speak to anyone. You’ve been wearing the same pair of pajamas for three days.”
I looked down at them. Had I? I guess so.
“You’re like a ghost just sitting in that chair all day long.”
I suppose I was. The ghost of me.
“Riley, say something.”
“I don’t know what you want me to say.” My voice was weak, and cracked from lack of use
“Anything, just talk to me. Talk to Jayne, talk to James, I don’t care but talk to someone. You’re killing me, baby girl. It hurts to see you like this, like you’re not even there.”
“It always hurts, Dad. It hurts so much I can’t bear it,” I whispered.
“I know it hurts right now. I know it doesn’t make sense. Hell, I’ve spent the last several days asking myself what drives a person to do something like that. Is it just the money? Is it power, and control? Is it arrogance and pride? And I don’t have any answers for you, Aves. I don’t know if you’re ever going to get the answers you want.”
“I don’t know what to do?” I looked at him helplessly through the tears pooling in my eyes. “I don’t know if I can be me anymore, and if I can’t, if I’m not me anymore, then what’s left?”
“Ava, you listen to me. Who you are is not something that can ever be taken away from you. It’s so much more than a name or a job. You’ve got to figure out what’s underneath all that. When everything else gets stripped away, what’s left is you, baby girl.” He placed a hand on my knee and squeezed. “I can’t tell you who that is. No one can. It’s something you have to figure out for yourself.” He lifted his hand and stood. “But you might start with a shower.” He winked, and I couldn’t help but crack the tiniest bit of a smile.
“Ah, see, my girl’s still in there.”
Was she?
I took his advice about the shower, and let it wash all of my tears down the drain while I held myself up against the shower wall as they fell.
I wished it was as easy as a pep talk from dad and crying a few tears, or a thousand tears, but it did nothing for the hollow pit inside my stomach.
I wasn’t sure what was going to make it feel better.
I did know that James’ presence only deepened the ache. Every time I saw him, every time he tried to talk to me, and I couldn’t find the words to say to him, the hole got a little bigger. I feared one day soon it might just swallow me up. Or that this toxic thing inside me might start infecting the people I cared about.
I could see it in the tired lines of their faces already. They worried. They didn’t know what to do with me, how to handle me. I could see their misery in their eyes, and it cut me, because I didn’t know how to be better for them. I didn’t want to feel this way. I didn’t want to feel like the hatred in my stomach was eating me alive. I tried to get rid of it, I did. I went back to the punching bag. I had to do something because after a week of me still “ghosting” around the house, Dad mentioned that I should try talking to a professional.
That was the last thing I wanted.
So I spent hours in that room, hitting and kicking the bag over and over, screaming out every last drop of acidic anger, but it always came back. It was never enough.
The only peace I had was when the world disappeared while I slept. So I went from hardly sleeping at all to sleeping all the time.
“Maybe we should get out of the house, today.” Jayne lay beside me in bed. Some nights, not as many anymore, I still woke up shouting or crying, and on those nights, Jayne would creep in from next door, now that she was staying in that room instead of James. Last night had been the first night in a few days I’d had the nightmare, and Jayne had crawled into bed with me.
“I don’t want to go out. I don’t want to face anyone.”
“You don’t have to. We can find a quiet secluded part of the beach, or just go for a drive.”
“I don’t know,” I mumbled.
“Ri, you can’t hide from the world forever.”
“Just a little longer.”
“Maybe tomorrow.” She smiled like we both didn’t already
know that I wasn’t going to leave tomorrow either.
Thirty-Three
James
“I’m not going to get better here. In this house.”
She was leaving.
“I don’t know if I’m going to get better anywhere, at least not anytime soon, but I think home will be good for me.”
Eric had told me he was going to try to convince her to go back to Montana with him. He couldn’t stay away from the ranch or work any longer. It’d already been almost three weeks. I hadn’t thought he’d be able to talk her into it.
“When are you leaving?”
“Dad booked flights for us tomorrow.”
I didn’t know what to say. I know what I wanted to say. I wanted to tell her I would go with her, but she wasn’t asking me to. I could tell that from the way her eyes would barely meet mine.
She was trying to say goodbye.
Thirty-Four
Riley
How did I say goodbye to him?
How did I tell him thank you for everything? For saving me over and over and over. For never stopping trying to save me. Even now. We were so far away from each other, but James was still trying to reach me.
He couldn’t save me from this though. I wished he could. I wanted him to so badly. I didn’t want to tell him goodbye. I wanted to tell him I needed him to save me again, because if anyone could, it was him.
I wanted to tell him not to give up on me, but I couldn’t find those words either.
I stared at my feet, occasionally flicking my eyes up to his face, both of us waiting for the other one to say something.
“I’m not going to make this easy on you, Riley, you have to tell me what you want here.”
“I don’t know.” That was the problem.
“You want me to come with you?”
“I don’t think you should,” I forced the words out. “You have a life to get back to.”
“That’s not what I asked you.”
“I want a lot of things right now, James,” I sighed. “Mostly, I just want to wake up one morning and feel okay. Until that happens, I can’t give anyone anything. I can’t give you anything, and you coming to Montana with me, and looking at me every day the way you do, is only going to rip me apart more.”
“Like what, Riley? How do I look at you?”
“Like that,” I cried. “Like you’re in love with me and it’s killing you because I can’t be in love with you right now, because I can’t be anything.”
“Riley,” he took a step forward. I backed up and he stopped. “I haven’t asked you for anything, and I won’t until you’re ready, but you can’t ask me not to love you. It’s way too late for that.”
“I don’t know when that’s going to be, James, and I can’t hurt you anymore. I can’t do it, and you being here is hurting both of us. I need to go to Montana and sort out my fucked-up head, and you need to go home and see your family and do your job because there are other people who need you like I needed you.”
“But you don’t need me anymore?”
Of course I did, but I needed him to be happy more, and I wasn’t making him happy.
“I need to go to Montana.”
“Without me. And I’m supposed to just go home and wait?”
Yes! Please wait for me. I swallowed the silent plea. “I can’t ask you to do that.”
He choked out a bitter laugh. “I think you’re right. I do need to go home. I’m not doing you any good here.”
Don’t say that. It’s me who’s not good for you right now. “I’m sorry,” were the only words I could get out.
“I don’t want you to be sorry, Riley. I want you to stop being so sorry. For feeling like you’re disappointing everyone. For trusting Luis. For Warren. For every mistake you’ve ever made. But mostly, stop feeling sorry for yourself.”
Stop feeling sorry for myself!
My mouth fell open. “What?”
“Aren’t you tired of it, Riley? Walking around your house every single day feeling sorry for every damn thing? Are you sorry you’re alive?”
I clamped my mouth.
“Well, are you?”
“Don’t,” I clipped. “Don’t pretend to know what I’m feeling. You have no clue. No clue.”
“I don’t? You don’t think I’ve seen some ugly shit? Truly awful shit? Done awful things? Felt like it was all out of my control?”
My hands balled into fists at my side. “It’s different. I’m not like you!”
He took another stride toward me. “You never answered my question, are you sorry you’re still alive?”
“No,” I ground out.
“You sure? You don’t sound sure.”
“Yes!” I yelled.
“Good. Yell, scream, cry, get mad. Get pissed. You have to let yourself feel it all, even the bad shit. That’s what reminds you you’re still alive and as long as you’re alive, you have to keep fighting, with every breath and beat of your heart.”
I turned, giving him my back, cutting him off from my face, because I didn’t want him to see a damn thing. I heard his heavy exhale.
“Riley,” I felt him come up behind me. He was right at my back. He lowered his voice to just barely above a whisper. “You are still here. But if you don’t decide to fight, then you’re doing exactly what Luis wanted. You’re just rolling over and taking it, letting someone else decide your life for you. He took enough. Don’t give him that too. Decide life is still worth it, that people are still worth it, and you can get it all back. Everything he robbed from you. You just have to want it.” There was a challenge in his voice, but also a plea.
Whatever he expected from me, I couldn’t give it to him. On the inside, I was doing all those things. Yelling, crying, begging him not to give up, but it’s like there was a disconnect between my brain and my body and the signals weren’t being sent that would allow me to display any of the things I was feeling.
He pulled away and I heard him leave the kitchen. Gripping the counter tightly, I hunched over the sink and sucked in a breath. I squeezed my eyes shut, refusing to cry. I would not. I would not.
His footsteps returned and paused right behind me. I hung my head lower, unable to turn and look at him. Shame filled me that I wasn’t as strong as he thought I was. I was being such a coward, because I did want it. I wanted him, and I wanted to take my life back, and be the person he believed in.
His footsteps moved toward the door, and I couldn’t breathe as panic clawed its way up my throat, strangling me. One word, that’s all it would take to stop him, but the only sound that followed was the click of the door as he closed it behind him. I let out a ragged breath I’d been holding and sank to the floor against the cupboard, knowing I’d just made an irrevocable mistake.
Jayne appeared above me a moment later. I looked up at her helplessly, but the sympathy I expected to see on her face wasn’t there.
“Get up,” she demanded.
“He left,” I muttered, unmoving.
“I know. Now get your ass up, Riley.”
I frowned at her. Was everyone going to attack me today?
“No more kid gloves, Ri. Time for tough love.” She reached out and grabbed my hand, dragging me up to my feet, and steering me over to the breakfast counter, where she pretty much shoved me onto a stool. Then she rounded the counter so she was facing me, looked me hard in the eyes, and said, “Listen up. I heard what he said, and he was right. You’re still alive, but you’re not living. You’re choosing not to live, Riley. You’re letting that asshole win!”
“It’s okay Jayne, Riley made the right choice.” My dad appeared in the doorway.
“What?” we both blurted.
Dad walked over to us and leaned his hip against the counter, folding his arms matter-of-factly across his chest, and said, “She had to let him go.”
“She did?”
“I did? I mean, I know, I did.” Then why didn’t I sound sure anymore?
“That’s right, you needed him to leave
you.”
“So I can take time and get better without feeling like I’m hurting him and disrupting his life.” Even to me it sounded like an excuse.
“No, you needed him to walk out that door, so you could wake up and realize what you’re losing. He’s leaving Aves. You sent him away.”
“Because I don’t want to hurt him anymore,” I cried. Wasn’t anyone listening? “I’m no good for him right now. I need to get better first.”
Dad scoffed, “That might be the stupidest thing you’ve ever said Aves.”
My mouth fell open.
“You don’t get better for love. Love is what makes you better.”
“I can’t love him right now. I’m a mess.”
Dad laughed, “I was wrong, second stupidest thing.”
I scowled at him.
“Ava, you love him. There’s no can’t about it. You do. That’s not your problem. Your problem is you don’t want to be loved right now, but I hate to break it to you, baby girl, that’s not really your choice. It’s his. Sending him away doesn’t change what either of you feel, it’s just going to hurt you both more in the long run, because it’s when you feel least lovable that you need to let yourself be loved the most. Love is what will get you through and heal you when nothing else does. All you have to do is let it be.”
“How can it be that easy?”
“Never said it was easy. Love is anything but easy, but it’s simple and I’ll prove it you.”
“How?”
“If you had nothing else, no more career, or fame, or money, or fans—if you had nothing but him, would it be enough?”
His question punched me right in the stomach, but it was my answer that rocked me even more. “Yes.” I didn’t even have to think about it. If he was the only thing I had it would still be everything.
“There you go.”
“What do I do? He left.”
Dad arched his brow at me, “Ava, he only left ten minutes ago. His car couldn’t have even made it to the airport yet, but it will soon.”
A Taste of Pink (Shades Book 4) Page 31
