Remember Me

by Roxanne Tully

  Copyright © 2019 Roxanne Tully.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Names and Characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual person’s living or dead, events or locals, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover Design: www.mayflowerstudio.com

  Editor: Shana Grogan; The Editor’s Lexicon

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 1

  MATT

  Matt Owen stroked his wife’s long dark hair away from her face as they stood in the bedroom of the beach house, her head leaning against his bare chest.

  “How can you trust me with your body the way you just did and still be keeping things from me?” he asked, pulling her back and holding her shoulders.

  Matt stared into his wife’s eyes, searching and waiting for her to give him something.

  Liz Owen wasn’t known for having a way with words, but sometimes, if you looked closely, you could tell exactly what she was thinking.

  Nothing but the cold wall behind her, she pulled away from his hold, reaching for his plaid button-down shirt. With displeasure, he helped her into it. She gave him a glance of appreciation for his tenderness and turned away to sit on the bed. She glared at the lit candle on the nightstand, with no sign of answering his question.

  Frustrated, Matt walked to the window and stared at the dark, starless night beyond. After a long silent moment, he turned to face her. “What were we talking about before we…?” he kept his voice low, conscious of the others sleeping in the house.

  His wife’s eyes wandered down and to her left. A sign of remembering. He guessed she was replaying the recent events in her head. He had stormed off the day before, disappearing for the entire day after his wife and his brother, Ben, confessed to an intimate night they’d spent together three years ago. It was the summer before Liz and Matt were married. Their brief break up, for reasons that Matt couldn’t even remember, somehow led his brother consoling his then ex-girlfriend, and they’d wound up talking and drinking all night, only to wake up naked together.

  Maybe those weren’t the words they’d used, but that’s how Matt pictured it. Fresh chills went up his spine for the tenth time that day, followed by heat rising into his neck. In the past twenty-four hours, he’d been fighting with himself. Trying not to picture all the things that his brother had done with her. Where he touched her. If he’d been looking into her eyes while…no. He drew a fist to his mouth.

  Like he said, fighting with himself.

  Now, three years later, Matt had been blindsided by the truth. At no better time than at his parents’ beach house in the Hamptons, in Long Island. During the heated argument out on the back porch, Ben had insisted it was his idea not to tell Matt, and Liz agreed.

  Her pleas and reasons didn’t matter to him. It was all bullshit if you asked him.

  There’s no way of knowing he would have forgiven them if the truth had come out back then. But he would have liked to be given the choice. Instead, his wife had chosen to start their marriage based on this lie.

  Still, something about their confession seemed off, which brought him back here tonight. He needed to be alone with his wife. The woman for whom his love had only grown over the few years they’d been together.

  “You came back in here,” her voice cracked through his thoughts. “And…I told you that Ben lied. It was my decision to keep this from you.” This time she met his eyes without hesitation. She took a deep, shaky breath. Even in the dimly lit room, he could see her eyes were still red.

  “And I had asked you why,” he continued for her. That was when he’d remembered her response to what he thought was a simple question.

  Nothing. She shut down and looked away from him. He’d lost her. And it was killing him. That was when he’d decided to take a different approach. He asked her to close her eyes. She had without question. He’d turned off the lights and lit the few candles in the room, while she waited. He knew she trusted him completely and hoped this would make her feel safe.

  It seemed to be working. He felt them reconnect after they had sex, right there against the faded ivory wall, between the guest bed and the only window. Until they were done and he’d started questioning her again.

  “And I’ve already heard your reasoning on severing my relationship with my brother yesterday.” He waited for her response. “I think there’s more.” There was a distinct edge in his voice and he’d hoped she heard it.

  “You remember why we broke up that summer, Matt?”

  Now it was his turn to look away. “Yes.”

  “You knew it was hard for me to trust you again. To trust that you wouldn’t take off again with every doubt you had. And when time passed and you asked me to marry you,” she paused. “Then we had that talk a week before our wedding.”

  Matt remembered that talk. It was on the floor of his old apartment. They sat against the couch drinking wine and fantasizing about their future. More than anything, Matt remembered proclaiming to never leave her side again.

  “I told that you that we would be together forever. That you were the one and only in my life,” he swallowed hard. “And that there was nothing that our love couldn’t overcome.”

  She let a few tears fall. “I wanted to tell you right there but all I could do is picture you walking away from me,” she sobbed.

  “Why was I walking away?” His voice was soft.

  She laughed bitterly at herself. “Oh, there were a number of scenarios,” she started. “You couldn’t be with someone who would come between you and your brother; being with me now would be too complicated and weird;” she took a breath. “Or that you would have been disgusted by the whole thing and…therefore, me.”

  He shrugged. “Do any of those sound like me?”

  “No,” she admitted solemnly. “But of course, as time went on, it turned into this lie and secret, and the consequences…amplified, and the likelihood of you forgiving me was…non-existent.”

  Matt narrowed his eyes at her. “How often did you think about this?” He was starting to realize that she had been living with this, battling herself and forcing herself to lie to him every day they’d been together. The realization made him sick. “How did you do it? How were you able to look at me every day and know that you’d either take this to your grave, or would one day have to tell me, all the while believing it to be unforgivable at this point?” He stared at her in d
isbelief, not knowing if he was actually expecting an answer.

  He stood back as if he needed to look at her from a different angle. “How do you not stop and make a decision at some point?” Heart thudding faster as he hoped to wake from this nightmare, he ran his fingers through his hair. Fingers he kept clenching to resist punching a hole in the wall. “Was anything real? Did you need to stop and think before you spoke to me for fear it might slip out in some way? Is this how we’ve been living?” His eyes burned, and he squeezed them shut. He was getting angrier, losing control and he didn’t like it. He hadn’t come back here for this.

  But somehow, knowing now that she had considered the truth and decided against it each time in the past three years, made this non-existent forgiveness spot on.

  “But now you know the truth, Matt. You know and we can try—”

  “Only because I overheard you and my brother out on the porch,” he snapped.

  No one had willingly confessed to anything here. Thursday morning he’d found them on the back porch of the beach house in what, from the opposite side of the window, seemed like a normal conversation. There was nothing alarming about his brother and his wife talking alone. They were always close. Another thought that made him flare with anger and resentment. He pushed it aside. He knew Liz always thought of Ben as a brother. Until he heard Ben’s words; You think you’ll ever tell him about that night?

  Matt immediately pondered another disturbing thought. “Why now? What brought on this conversation now? Do you guys talk about it all the time, or—”

  “Of course not. We haven’t talked about it in years,” she insisted. “He just knows how hard it’s been on me keeping this from you.”

  “I don’t believe that,” he said coldly. “Nothing, nothing ever gave away that you were struggling with a secret. I’d like to think I would have picked up on it.”

  “You would have. And it was so hard to try and act—”

  “Exactly. You were acting. When we were back together, when you were saying our wedding vows, our entire marriage was a lie.”

  She stood and started to cross to him, but then no doubt thought better of it. “No, Matt, no, that’s not true…”

  He fled to the window again. He couldn’t believe the conversation had taken this turn. But it was quickly hitting him that he had no idea who he was married to.

  She must have picked up on this as she approached him in tears. Holding her hands out to his chest.

  “Matt,” she whispered. “I am so sorry.”

  “I heard you perfectly yesterday.” His voice was hoarse, and he was tired.

  “Can you forgive me?”

  He looked down at her, giving her a puzzled but calm expression. “Well that’s a silly question. I thought you already knew the answer to that.” Despite his sarcasm and belittling, she kept her hopeful eyes on his. He was sickened by the fact that she could have imagined after all the deception and her lack of trust in him, that he could have easily forgiven her. He may have years ago, if she had told him off the bat about her and Ben. Keyword; may.

  But not now, not after she’d kept it from him all this time and had made the choices she’d made. Now she was going to live with it.

  He gently took her wrists and pushed her back. “No,” he finally breathed out. He never particularly liked that armchair behind her. But as she absently let herself sink into it, he was grateful it was there to catch her.

  He swallowed hard, forcing himself to ignore the fresh tears filling her eyes so that he could say the rest. “I can’t forgive you for this, Liz. You—” He looked down at her. Her hands were tight on her knees and her glassy eyes were far away. He knelt down to her and put his hands over her cold ones. “Lizzy,” he called softly, as she looked up at him. His throat was tight but the words weren’t hard to say. “Lizzy, I still love you.”

  She looked at him confused. “But you won’t forgive me? So, what—what does this mean?”

  “I don’t know. Liz, this all just happened. I can’t just tell you what’s going to happen.”

  “I can tell you, Matt.” She stood. Her voice was pleading, shaky. “You have to forgive me. It changes everything if you don’t. How can we go on like this, without trust and—”

  “Don’t talk to me about trust, Liz,” he hissed. “You’ve been lying to me for years because you didn’t trust me.” He ran his fingers through his hair again. “What changes? Because the way I see it, there’s still no trust, and we’ll be living with this shadow over us. The only difference is, that I know about it now!” His voice grew angrier with those last few words.

  She stared at him as he took a breath. He needed to calm down. This wasn’t their house. They would need to go home soon. Being that it was after midnight, they were stuck there until morning.

  But not necessarily in the same room.

  “So, you tell me what changes, Liz.” His voice now a whisper. “Because we’re no worse off than we were last week.” He took another slow breath. “I didn’t come here to fight, or get angry or break your heart.” He walked halfway across the room. “I came here to talk to you about this alone. But I also didn’t expect to find out the decision to lie to me was yours,” he paused. “And I think the reasoning behind it went further than you trying to protect my relationship with my brother.”

  “It was.” She was able to get out before he shot her a look to let her know that he was done listening to her. She started to cross to him, then stopped when he’d held up his hand.

  “With all the guest rooms full in the house, I’ll sleep in the den tonight.” With one hand on the knob, he willed himself not to look back at her, fearing he wouldn’t be able to walk through it. He hated leaving her like this. It felt odd and unnatural. As if he was the one betraying her.

  No. He was going to ignore the agonizing pain deep within his chest for leaving her in such distress. The one that hurt far more than her lie. He would ignore it if it killed him.

  He opened the door and paused, feeling her eyes burning through the back of his head. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, before closing the door behind him.

  As a single tear formed in his eye, he remembered his wife’s words. All I could do is picture you walking away from me.

  Chapter 2

  LIZ

  Liz turned on the light in the private bathroom and examined herself in the mirror. She knew she hadn’t helped herself by staying up and crying all night, but the tears just kept coming. At one point, she’d become so delirious, she started crying about something completely different. Now, she had to go out there and face a house full of people who probably all knew by now. Her eyes briefly drifted toward the window. They were on the first level. She shook the crazy thought out of her head and turned on the knob for cold water. She tested the temperature and closed her eyes, splashing icy water on her face. In the darkness behind her eyelids, there was her husband’s face again, as it appeared every time she closed them.

  Liz tried to convince herself that she planned on eventually telling Matt the truth about that horrendously stupid night with Ben. She knew the likelihood of it ever coming out was small. But the more time they’d spent together, the more she had to lose. It came down to whether the lie would be a deal-breaker for him. It was a tug of-war-between what hurt him more, the act or the lie. In the end, neither won.

  Another set of tears threatened and she pushed them aside. She wouldn’t do this again. Liz reached for the cover-up in her makeup bag and applied it under her eyes. It was the next best thing from wearing sunglasses in the house. She put on her light blue jeans and her favorite white button blouse and reached for the soap dish, retrieving her wedding ring. She hadn’t stopped to admire it since they were newlyweds. Looking at it now just made her heart ache. She braced herself with a breath as she walked out of the bedroom to face the rest of the house.

  The smell of coffee filled the kitchen and the adjoining family room. Given its location, the Owens kitchen had a very beachy theme to it. Everyth
ing from the kitchen island to the cabinets on the walls, were a neutral taupe. Even the tiled backsplash had a sandy tone with a faux texture. The stools were padded light blue with a pale orange starfish pattern. There were small lanterns lined up along the counter. Not for any real use, but the kind you’d find at a beach party as decorative pieces.

  The adjoining family room had a very different theme. Nothing really matched anymore. Various knit throws covered couch cushion stains. The coffee table held a variety of published entertainment; sports sections, beauty magazines, sci-fi novels, and book two of Liz’s witch-hunt trilogy.

  The family room led to the den with an open frame that once held two French doors. Liz’s heart dropped to her stomach the minute she remembered that Matt had been sleeping there last night. She walked toward the room, heart thudding, even though she knew he’d probably gone out for his morning run.

  She was right.

  The room was empty. The dark blue sofa had been cleared of any evidence that someone had slept on it. She glanced around the rest of the room, picturing her beloved in there the night before. Had he been pacing back and forth? Perhaps too upset to sleep, or considered sweeping back into their bedroom for another passionate round? Her stomach rolled at the thought that she’d never have him that way again.

  Liz walked back toward the kitchen. If she was going to gear up for the day, she would need a fair dose of caffeine. With her fresh cup of black coffee, Liz walked over to the glass doors that led to the back porch. Francis Owen, Matt’s slim, blond, and gracious mother was watering her perfectly tended plants. If it weren’t for her, this house wouldn’t have had the welcoming homey feel it always had, which drew the family together every summer and holiday.

  Liz stepped out onto the deck, watching her mother in law garden. The variety of plants, flowers, and slow-growing vegetables were neatly lined up along the edge of the white planked deck.

  “Morning, sweetie,” Francis said without looking up.

  “Morning.” Liz struggled to meet her cheerful tone, settling into the white cushioned bench.

  Francis continued her task, crouching at one purple-flowered plant. “How’d you sleep?”