Blue Lines (Five for Fighting #2)

by Amber Lynn

  “What happened an hour ago?”

  “That’s a good question, because for me it felt like my world was actually collapsing around me. That’s a feeling I don’t wish on anyone.”

  Nelson wasn’t going to explain how his chest felt like someone had reached in and ripped out his heart, or the fact that dizziness and lightheadedness had about knocked him to the ground. It was something that he never wanted to feel again.

  “And that response didn’t answer the question. If Doug didn’t tell you anything, how did you know?”

  “Because something got into me today and I thought buying you flowers would be a nice gesture.” There was a quick flash of relief in Annie’s eyes, but Nelson was sure his next words would erase it. “I’m guessing you got the ones I sent to your work. I figured you wouldn’t bring them home, because that would only draw attention to you, which we both know you hate.”

  Annie nodded, following along with his story. Most of the women Nelson knew would’ve been thrilled to let everyone know they’d gotten flowers and who sent them, but not Annie. That was why he didn’t even bother signing his name to the ones for her work, and had the lady at the counter write the note.

  “So, I decided to get another dozen that you could have at home. I should’ve just kept them here and given them to you now, but I decided it would be fun to surprise you by having them waiting on your kitchen counter. Imagine my surprise when I walked into your apartment and the first thing I smelled was Doug’s cologne. For a second I thought I hadn’t washed it all off, but after some testing, I found out the truth.”

  “It’s not what you think, Nels,” Annie said, interrupting his story. There were a few other things he’d been going to say, but her words changed the direction of the conversation.

  “It’s not? Because you didn’t deny he was the one you’ve been hiding from me when I asked how long you’ve been dating, and I can’t think of another reason he’d be in your apartment.”

  From how potent the cologne was, Nelson had decided Doug spent a lot of time there. He knew from personal experience the smell was hard to wash away, but opening and closing the door or windows a few times should’ve aired the room out.

  “No, it’s not.” Annie looked down to where their hands were still connected. “This is hard for me to say, but there never was a boyfriend. I made him up because I thought you were sacrificing the life you could have with someone else because you thought marrying me was the right thing to do.”

  Nelson wasn’t sure what to make of that. He played the words over a couple of times in his head, and he realized no matter how many time he did, he wasn’t going to understand what she was getting at.

  “Now you’ve got me confused. You and Doug are dating.” It wasn’t a question. He hadn’t gone back and asked Doug about it, but it was a logical conclusion and she hadn’t denied it immediately.

  “No, we aren’t. After he heard about the baby, he came over last night to tell me the jig was up. We were never really dating. I asked him to pretend to be my boyfriend, so I could have experience in dating if you asked me about what me and my fake boyfriend were doing together.”

  “You asked one of my teammates to help you lie to me?” It hurt more that she’d lied to him than Doug, but the fact that she’d brought in someone from the team to help with the deceit was something he never expected from her.

  “I didn’t want to lie to you. It was just the first thing that popped in my head as an excuse to say no to us getting married. Doug was the only person close by that I had in my phonebook, so I called him.”

  “How far did you go trying to make sure you had enough experience to make your lies convincing?”

  Nelson had expected they were going to sit down and talk about if she really thought there was something between her and Doug, and whether he was going to sit by and let things go where they led. He never thought the whole situation was nothing more than a fib she came up with so she didn’t have to marry him.

  “You are still the only man I have ever kissed, Nels, and as far as I’m concerned that isn’t going to change.”

  Her eyes, which had remained drifted away from him, darted up to meet his. She seemed to try to convey that what she said was the truth, but it was hard to believe her when the word lie had been used about a dozen times in their conversation.

  “That’s nice to hear, but it’s not exactly what I was getting at. Whether Doug was telling me some story or not, I got the sentiment he had feelings tied up with the girl in his story. What I’m wondering is whether or not you feel anything for him.”

  “No.” The answer was out of Annie’s mouth before he’d even finished his sentence. “You can ask him. I was adamant from the beginning there wasn’t going to be anything between us, and there never was. He told me I cringed every time he touched me. That alone should tell you I felt absolutely nothing.”

  That made Nelson feel better, but he didn’t want to think about Doug touching Annie. He already found his teeth were grinding together, so he refrained from asking what she meant by touching.

  “Was getting married to me really so horrible that you lied to me? You could’ve just said no. I was actually expecting it, so I don’t know why you had to come up with an excuse.”

  She could say she was trying to save him from a future he would hate all she wanted, but there had to be a big part of her that didn’t want to be married to him to go through with the charade. It didn’t make sense.

  “You don’t understand, and I don’t think anything I can tell you would make you see how things are for me.” Annie was pleading with her eyes for him to understand, but Nelson had no clue what he was missing.

  “Try me.”

  Nelson was seeing a lot of things in a new light, so there was a chance he could surprise her. Plus, after all the assumptions he’d made, he wanted some honest truth to reveal whatever he wasn’t understanding. He just didn’t know if he could trust what Annie was going to say as the honest truth.

  Her letting go of his hand and walking over to his balcony door wasn’t the best way for her to start things off. If she wanted to make him believe her, it was the worst thing she could’ve done, because it only reminded him of the day she’d turned down his marriage proposal.

  “You’re not going to believe me; I’ve messed that all up for us. But, what I’m going to tell you is the truth, Nelson.”

  “I’m hoping you have some kind of proof that you can back it up with, because words may not be enough anymore.” Nelson wanted to get that out there in the open. It seemed like she already knew it, but he wasn’t counting on it.

  She laughed, a sad short hum more than a full laugh. Hearing it, Nelson knew whatever truth she was going to share wouldn’t be any easier for him to hear than it was going to be for her to say.

  “I have physical proof, but I don’t think that will be good enough for you. The truth is that I have loved you as more than a friend for over a decade. I know I shouldn’t have let that cloud my judgement that night, but it did, and even though you don’t feel the same way about me, the proof of my love rests in my stomach.”

  Annie didn’t turn around during her statement. Nelson wanted her to, for no other reason than he wanted to see her face as she spoke.

  “What do you mean you shouldn’t have let it cloud your judgement?” Nelson wasn’t sure what to make of the claim of love. He’d seen Annie every day for part of those years she claimed to love him, and he was fairly certain he would’ve known.

  Annie turned back around, and Nelson could tell that the hard part of the conversation wasn’t anywhere near over. The tears weren’t coming down her face yet, but there was a sadness in her eyes that said it was only a matter of time. Nelson wanted to keep those tears from falling. He needed to know the full story before he could decide what to do next, though, so the tears were likely going to fall.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Annie knew that no matter how bad things had gone, there was a good chance they
were going to get even worse. Nelson wanted the full truth, but it was doubtful he knew what he was asking for. She’d tried to get by with only telling parts of the story before. Time had come to tell him just how messed up she was.

  It would’ve been easy if she stayed at her post looking outside, but the cheerfulness of a fall day coming to an end didn’t match her mood. She could faintly hear a bird calling out to her from a distance, and she wished she could be out there with it.

  She left the bird and blue sky behind and made her way back over to the couch. They’d been sitting close together, but Annie wanted Nelson to try to see the truth of her words, so she sat back down with one leg bent on the couch, facing him.

  “You’ve asked what happened that night so many times, and I told you enough to make sure you knew you didn’t do anything wrong. And you didn’t. If anyone did, it was me. Things started before then, though.”

  Nelson raised an eyebrow, and Annie realized her words made it sound like she’d done something to him before that night. That wasn’t quite the truth, so she was quick to explain.

  “I moved here because I was going to ask you to provide the genetic material to have a baby. I didn’t plan on it to be done the old-fashioned way. I just wanted a baby, and I was planning to try artificial insemination.”

  “What?” The facial reaction that went with the word was exactly the reason Annie had hesitated asking him. She hated the look of utter disbelief.

  “Yeah, that’s about how I imagined you’d react once I got here and asked for your help. So, I chickened out and decided to just get on with my life and put that dream on the back burner.”

  “I don’t understand why that was a dream to begin with. Why in the world would you want to do that? And why would you pick me to be involved?”

  He obviously didn’t believe the part about her being in love with him if he was asking those questions. She hadn’t expected him to trust it on face value, but she had hoped in vain he would.

  “Because I’m getting older, Nels. That’s probably the best answer I can give you for the whys.”

  He was quick to interrupt before she could continue. “You’re twenty-five, Annie. I think people usually wait until after thirty before they start even going down the path of counting the years.”

  Annie nodded. Being a woman herself, she had to disagree, but she could understand why he’d say that, so she gestured in agreement.

  “That is probably true, but they don’t have to take into account the person they want to be the father of their child falling in love with someone else and taking the opportunity away. It’s only a matter of time before you find someone, and I was hoping to have a piece of you I could hold on to before then.”

  It was hard to retain eye contact when you just admitted you were a psycho, but Annie didn’t flinch away from the hard truth. No one else knew about her plans to try the artificial insemination. It was a pipe dream of hers that fizzled when she moved and knew there was no way she could ask Nelson face-to-face to help out.

  “So instead of going with plan A, you found a plan B?” The hurt settling in Nelson’s eyes was agonizing.

  “I’d decided my love was blinding me, and that as much as I wanted to have your baby, I didn’t have the right to ask you.”

  “Again, so you went with plan B.”

  “No, there was no plan B. My original plan was so horrible that I just wanted to forget about it. You came home drunk that night. I could tell you’d taken things a little further than you usually did, but you were walking and talking just fine. Okay, maybe not just fine on the talking part, because you were slurring words a little, but I’d seen you in worse shape. You came over and sat down on the couch, and before I knew it, you scooped me up onto your lap.”

  Annie had replayed the night over and over in her head so many times that she lost count. Almost every time she closed her eyes, she was transported back to that moment.

  “You said something about the fact that we’d never kissed, which made me a little sad, but a second later your lips were on mine. I admit I probably lost all sense of anything in that moment. It was like someone put a branding iron on my lips and then ran an ice cube across them. In a way, every single one of my dreams were wrapped up in that one kiss.”

  Annie stopped her story to wipe the tears from her eyes. She’d tried to keep them in, but the fight was too great.

  “When you pulled away, I could see even drunk you registered some instant regret in what you’d done. I guess it was then that I knew you would never be mine. I wasn’t enough for you when you were drunk, so there was little chance I’d ever be anything more than a friend to you sober. The second kiss was my doing, and it helped move things along to the point that I woke up in bed with you the next morning. I don’t think I need to go into all the rest of the details. I honestly didn’t expect the baby.”

  Annie had prayed his seed would find a home within her after it happened, but she hadn’t timed things out with her cycle or anything else that could be considered premeditated. When she first thought her prayers had been answered, she peed on five different pregnancy tests to make sure she wasn’t imagining things.

  “But for you it was an added bonus.” There was no emotion in Nelson’s words.

  “There’s not a woman on this planet who will love your child more than I will, Nels.” She tried to reach out to hold his hand, but he moved his away.

  It was a bit like a nail in the coffin. She knew when everything was out in the open, things would never be the same. She’d thought keeping the inner workings of her heart a secret was the safest plan, but a part of her knew she’d have to tell him eventually. There were times she thought it would be the day he got married, like one of those romantic comedies where the best friend realized they were in love with the one getting married, and all sorts of chaos ensued before the two got together. Annie had some pretty crazy dreams.

  “I’m not questioning that. I’m questioning everything I thought I knew about you. Why wouldn’t you just come out and tell me your feelings had changed?”

  The tops of Annie’s lips curved up slightly, but with the gloom she knew reflected in her eyes, it wasn’t exactly a smile. It was nice to hear that Nelson might accept her word that she did love him, but as he said, he was seeing her in a new light.

  She’d told him that it had been at least a decade, which would’ve put them about the age that most girls developed a crush on someone. He probably thought it was just a feeling she’d never grown out of. Technically, it probably was, but to her it felt like a lot more than just a crush.

  “The day I knew I loved you was the day you went to Claxon’s Meadow and caught me a butterfly because Hugh Denton took mine and ripped its wings off.”

  It had taken Annie three days to capture the butterfly in a jar. When she started out her crusade, she was sure it’d be easy. Without a proper net, it was a tedious task, at least for a thirteen-year-old.

  She was planning on releasing it after she showed off her accomplishment, but Hugh had seen her sharing the catch with a group of kids at a park and had caused her to cry when he took the jar and killed the butterfly.

  “That kid had problems, but I don’t understand what would’ve changed that day? We were only kids back then. I remember beating the crap out of him, even though he was two grades above us, but I don’t remember anything changing between us.”

  Of course he didn’t. Boys were impervious to the minds of girls. They didn’t understand that females were years ahead of them when it came to matters of the heart.

  “You were always sticking up for me, but that was the first time you really tried to make everything all better. I didn’t see you out there in the meadow, so I can’t say I saw your frustration. I did hear about it later, after you brought me the butterfly you caught, and I knew what it took to catch one since I’d done it once already.”

  Annie had been so surprised when he showed up and handed her a canning jar with holes poked in the lid.
Lifting it up and seeing the blue and black butterfly inside had almost brought her to tears. Then a couple of days later she heard a few girls giggling about him running back and forth with his fishing net in the meadow trying to capture one of the winged creatures.

  “That was the first time teaching the kid a lesson with my fists didn’t make you feel better. You were so sad that I had to do something.”

  “And in doing so you won my heart from that day forward. Like you said, we were just kids. It wasn’t like I could tell you what it meant to me. You still ate mud pies if someone dared you.”

  The sad truth of that was that she’d been the one who dared him more than anyone else. It was a way she’d come up with to hide her feelings.

  “In twelve years you couldn’t come up with a way to tell me? I thought the lies about you dating someone were bad, but this is worse, Annie. We’ve been there for each other through thick and thin, and that whole time you’ve been lying to me.”

  “You had your first girlfriend a few months later, and it was clear long before then that I was just another one of the guys to you. I didn’t want to lose you. Can you say I wouldn’t have if I’d told you the truth?”

  She’d been afraid he’d actually laugh at her. Taking it as a joke instead of a declaration of how she really felt.

  Nelson didn’t have an immediate response. Since Annie had gotten the hard part out of the way, she glanced down at the space between them. His hand had moved back to the spot it was before she’d tried to grab it. She wanted to touch him, but facing him rejecting her again was too painful.

  “I don’t think we’ll ever know the answer to that. Is there anything else I need to know? I just said recently you weren’t someone who liked drama, but that clearly shows how little I actually know you.”

  “Just because I hid the fact I love you, doesn’t change who I am. You know better than that, Nels.”

  “I don’t know about that, Annabelle. I think I’ve got a few things to think about before we continue this discussion.”