by Ava Alise
Get your shit together.
I'm in a haze watching as she moves around my apartment. Hanging her coat, walking to the kitchen, pouring a glass of water, and now… staring at me oddly.
“What's wrong?” she says as she sits at the counter. Her eyes fall on the bucket of soap and scrub brushes I left in the sink. “Have you been cleaning?”
I blow out a large breath. “Yes… I have.” I say, looking around the kitchen.
“Since when?” She chuckles, bringing the glass to her lips.
“I'm not that bad, am I?” I smirk.
“No… you're not that bad.” She smiles. “I've just never known you to scrub anything.”
I nod, looking down at the floor. “I clean when I'm nervous.” I peer up at her.
“Nervous?”
“Yeah.”
Get your shit together.
She looks away from me and takes a long drink from her glass “Is this about Tara?”
My muscles tighten.
How in the fuck would she know that?
The question must be written all over my face because she speaks again before I can.
“I saw you two go into the steakhouse. The way she looked at me… it just seemed like.” She sighs. “I don't know.”
My heart rate picks up with every step I take toward her. She doesn't have to say it, I can tell. She thinks I'm sleeping with Tara
“Wait. You don't think I—”
“You guys have known each other for a while,” she says, cutting me off. “You and I were supposed to be a fun thing. I get it.” She looks away, using her finger to circle the rim of her glass. “Now it seems like you may have… bigger priorities.”
My chest tightens. She knows. She fucking knows. What did Tara do now?
“Baby. What do you think is going on with me and Tara?” My brows furrow as I grab her hands, turning her stool toward me. She's hesitant to look me in the eyes, but, when she does, I only see one thing. Pain.
“There's clearly something going on. The look she gave me was that of a woman who had won, as if we were in competition. Then I started putting the pieces together. The night she came over… the doctor’s appointment.”
She swallows hard as she holds my gaze.
“You've got it wrong. I'm not fucking her. We aren't sneaking around, everything I told you about her being a close friend of the family is one hundred percent true.”
“And the baby?” she asks.
My words… all of them, they leave me and I hold her gaze trying to figure out how to start. She waits a beat for me to speak as her eyes plead for the answer we both wish was true. Slowly, her hands slide from mine and she begins to turn away.
“I thought so,” she whispers.
“It was just one time,” I say, regret dripping from each word. “A drunken mistake we made months before you and I even had our first kiss. Kelsa, you've got to believe that.” She stares over the counter into the room, but I know she's not really seeing any of it. “She's not sure if the baby is mine or her ex boyfriend’s. We went to the doctor today to see if they would do a paternity test… but they wouldn't. We won't find out anything until the kid is born.”
My heart is still hammering in my chest. Every second that goes by and she doesn't speak, I have to fight the panic. I wish I knew what she was thinking. If she doesn't want me because she doesn't want to deal with a guy with a baby I'll have to respect that, but if it's Tara…
“Oh,” she eventually says. I have no fucking idea what to do with that, so I press her.
“What do you think of all this? Is this something you can deal with?”
She slowly drags her gaze to mine. “I don't know,” she whispers. “It's hard enough trying to imagine what it would be like to be with you fully with everything that happened with William.”
“I know,” I say.
Her brows crease and she frowns. “There's too much guilt, too much pain.” Her watery gaze finds mine. “I'm just not strong enough.”
“You are! We are strong enough to beat the stacks, all of them.”
“Stacks?” She's crying now.
“The baby, our job, the past… the stacks of shit piling on us, but none of that is worth walking away from this.”
“I don't know if I can do it, Drex. It's all too much.”
We are quiet for a beat as I digest her words. She continues to look at me with an expression that guts me, one of sadness and yearning.
“What do you mean ‘too much guilt’?” I finally ask. “You know it isn't your fault that Liam shot himself. You know that, right?”
She doesn't speak and the tears continue to fall from her lids and slide down her face.
“It's not just about William.” She looks away.
“Is it the baby you're having an issue with, or is it Tara? What exactly happened with you two?” I say, turning her to face me. “Explain exactly what the issue is with her so we can figure out how to fix it, Kels.”
With a clenched jaw, she looks away again, shaking her head.
“Tell me.”
“You know the story and she has every right to hate me.”
Now I'm really confused. “You went to break things off with Liam and he shot himself. She doesn't know about how he tormented you, so no, she has no right to hate you for wanting to leave him.”
The look in her eyes changes from hurt to shock as if the realization of something so painful and heartbreaking slams into her.
“I need to go,” she says, shooting to her feet.
“Baby.” I'm on her heels as she walks over and grabs her coat. My eyes are locked on her as she ignores my questions. “Seriously? What the fuck happened?”
She stalks toward the door without saying another word. She's hurt, still crying, but I can tell she's choking back a sob. I follow her to the door.
“Whatever it is. It can't be that bad. It can't be worth losing this. Fuck what Tara thinks, you are not to blame.”
She's halfway out the door but stops suddenly at my last words.
“But I am, Drex! I am to blame for what happened to William. That's why I can't be around her.”
Her words stun me and, before I can move, she's out the door and disappearing down the hall.
Kelsa
He doesn't know.
Damnit.
I swallow back my sob when I really want to scream… to run.
How could I be so stupid?
It all makes total sense now. It's exactly why he's probably the only one in his family who doesn't hate me. I was praying that somehow he forgave me once he learned how horrible William was toward the end. Now, though, once he learns the rest of the story, I doubt he'll be so forgiving right away.
God, I can't do this.
After that night with William, it took six months of antidepressants and thirteen months of therapy to start feeling like myself again. Not only would digging up all that shit really hurt, but imagining Drex looking at me with the hate that Tara does will gut me. I'll be ruined.
No. I fucking can't.
I won't.
My tears stop long enough for me to flag down a taxi once I hit the street. Drex isn't far behind me, but he's too late. I make eye contact with him just as the car door closes. His expression is unreadable and he holds my gaze as he stands in the doorway of his apartment building.
I'm sorry.
My heart breaks as I ride away, and it takes me a second to tell the driver my address. Drex calls me a total of three times before I make it to my front door. I don't answer. I don't know what to say. The sound of Renee’s laughter bleeds through from the other side of the door and I do my best to straighten myself before I walk in.
“Hey Kels,” Renee says. She's sitting at the counter watching something on her phone. The delicious smell of baked apples and sugar is thick in the air and I notice two apple pies cooling on a cookie sheet. Christmas garland, bulbs, and a large wad of tangled holiday lights lay at her feet and spill out of a large tote. Our ar
tificial Christmas tree, naked and only half assembled, is not too far from where she sits.
“Sorry, I started without you,” she says, not looking up. “I can't believe Christmas is only a few days away and we haven't even gotten the tree up.”
“Yeah, we are behind this year.”
She nods and laughs again. “You have got to check out this YouTube channel, it's all about ruining classic songs in the most hilarious ways.” She smiles and holds up her phone. I move closer and watch as two people reinvent “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town” in a way that would undoubtedly get them on the naughty list.
“Funny.” I force a chuckle.
Renee's brows crease as she notices my lack of enthusiasm. “What's wrong?”
I sigh as I flop down in the seat next to her. “Drex might be having a baby,” I start. Her eyes widen and the look of surprise turns to utter shock when I tell her Tara is the mother.
“Oh no,” she says. “So he lied to you? He's really seeing her?”
“No, apparently it was a one night thing months ago. Too many drinks… whatever.” A heaviness creeps into my chest.
“Damn. I'm sorry, honey” she says.
“Oh and to make matters worse…” I watch pain appear so plainly on her face when I tell her that Drex has no idea what happened that night with me and Tara. Pain she feels for me.
She takes a deep breath, and with the patented Renee optimism, says, “Well, maybe he'll see it differently, more clear headed since some time has passed.” But the frown on her face tells me the truth.
“It's ok,” I say. “He's going to hate me.” I swallow hard as my heart sinks further.
“He's not…” Renee starts
“He is and there's no way around it.”
“Babe. He'll hear you out. Even if it's not right away, I know he’ll want to hear your side,” she says. The best response I can give right now is a nod as I clench my jaw and fight my tears.
“Maybe that's why you should just tell him.”
“No.”
“It's better to hear it from you than to hear it from her, right?”
I stare at her with a blank expression and don't respond. I'm too tired, too disappointed. Maybe she's right though. If Tara tells him, and I'm surprised she hasn't yet, it would be a warped version. But if I tell him, maybe I can get ahead of it. Just maybe he won't hate me for what happened. I look into Renee's brown eyes and wish I could believe that. With my luck, he’ll probably freak out once he hears the truth, and I'll be front and center for the moment I become the worst person in the world to him.
“No,” I say, softer this time. “Maybe…” she watches me with bated breath. “Look. I can't think about this right now. Let's talk about something else… anything else.”
Renee doesn't hesitate, allowing me to dodge the subject, for once. Maybe it's because she knows it's a losing battle.
“So, I'm going out with Mitchell tonight.” She grins.
“Really?” My eyebrows rise. The night he met us for drinks went well. I expected Renee to be awkward, still healing from Tom and all, but she was surprisingly at ease around him. I actually ended up being the awkward one because of how much they clicked. I quickly turned into the third wheel.
“Yeah, and I finally went to see Tom,” she says, and I cringe. “I told him I wasn't interested in starting over and he seemed pretty wrecked.”
“Really? But he was the one who cheated.” I purse my lips. “He doesn’t deserve any sympathy.”
“You’re right. He kept telling me how sorry he was and how much he still loved me.” She shakes her head. “I told him if that was true then he needed to evaluate his definition of love because true love wouldn’t have allowed him to do something so cruel and hurtful.”
I nod, agreeing with her totally. “He fumbled over his words a bit after that and apologized like fifty more times, but… I’m ok. I’m healed from it, and who knows, maybe I dodged a bullet,” she says.
“Yeah.” I nod again. “Well, I’m happy you found your closure.”
“Me too,” she says.
“So is this an official date?” I ask. “With Mitchell?”
“I don't know.” She blushes. “Maybe.”
“He's so nice.” I smile. “Y'all would make the perfect little couple.”
“Haha. I didn't say all that.” She laughs.
“Come on, can't you see it? White picket fence, matching Christmas sweaters, happy and well mannered children… all impeccably dressed, of course.”
“Shut up.” Renee laughs, throwing a piece of red garland at me. “Christmas sweaters, really?”
I’m still laughing as Cam walks in the front door.
“Hey ladies,” he says. We both greet him and Renee watches as he peels out of his winter layers and heads down the hall.
“Shower,” he says, just as the bathroom door closes behind him. She’s still looking down the hall, clearly deep in thought.
“Eww. Why are you staring at him like that?” My brow furrows. “You don’t… you’re not interested in him are you?”
“No!” She chuckles. “God, no. He’s so… Cam.” She shrugs.
“Good.” I shudder at the thought of my best friend and my brother being anything more than friends. Cam is definitely not the nice guy type that Renee usually goes for. There’s no secret to how much he adores Renee. He always flirts with her, but Cam flirts with everybody. Plus, there’s all that “taking control” mess he does with his girls. Renee’s sweet persona would not mesh well at all. They’d break up and ruin our entire dynamic, plus it’s gross. Renee fingers a strand of silver Christmas beads. Her thoughts seem to have gone back in the clouds.
“Well, I guess we should finish up so you can start getting ready for your date.”
She nods and we start sorting through the box of decorations.
The next morning is slow going. I didn't sleep very well. There is so much to feel. Too much worry about this meeting, stress about my career, everything with Drex. The warmth of the shower soothes me as I mentally prepare myself for the day.
Marsh will give us another chance, I know he will. And Drex…
Drex is where my thoughts keep freezing. Everything gets lost in an endless pit of so much fear and excitement that I can’t grasp hold of a decision. A direction. The constant bouncing back and forth is fucking exhausting.
Is it because of love? Am I in love with him?
The pipes creak as I turn the water off and step out of the shower wrapping my hair in a towel. Watching my reflection in the mirror, I try to think through the fear, through the pounding of my heart. I end up feeling more terrified. Jumping in blindly with Drex and thinking past all the emotion was something I was finally comfortable with. But now I know it could end badly, not only because of the past, but also because of how everything played out that night after William pulled the trigger. In love, out of love… no. Him loving me only to end up hating me would be more heartbreaking than forcing myself to stay away from him. Pain dances in my eyes as I dry my face and turn away from the mirror.
The chances you take in life are much like games. Win or lose, it’s up to you to know which games are worth playing. My mother told me that the day I graduated college. I have stuck to that advice wholeheartedly, and I'm not sure if it's worth playing this game.
By the time I make it to the subway, I’m so deep in thought that it takes me a second to acknowledge Ms. Teller.
“Well hello there,” Ms. Teller says.
“Hey. How are you today?”
She rakes a hand over her winter hat that has begun to slide from her head of silky gray hair, securing it in place back over her ears. “I'm ok, sweetheart. How have you been?”
I met Ms. Teller for the first time a few weeks after that night with William. I was still in shock, totally depressed, and just trying to hang on to my sanity. The train was a few minutes early that day, and with everything I had on my mind, I was running later than usual. As I sat on a bench in the
middle of the platform, crying and completely overwhelmed as my train pulled away, Ms. Teller sat next to me and just started talking.
“My rock fell and the world crumbled, but earth has a way of making new rocks and remembering the missed ones… even the trains.”
It was the most random thing I had ever heard. I thought she was crazy. But I learned after talking to her a while that she isn't crazy at all, just a quirky old lady. Her randomness was enough to distract me from my pain that day. Her wisdom and charm made her easy to talk to, and I opened up about my situation and depression as time went on. It helped a lot and she played a large part in the reason I got help.
Ms. Teller smiles as she tells me about her family gathering for the holiday and how she’s looking forward to having a talk with her adult grandkids.
“Maybe one of those knuckleheads can get laid so I can meet at least one great grandchild before I leave this earth.”
“Is that what you're going to tell them?” I laugh.
“I sure am. They have degrees and stable careers. I think it's time to get down to business.”
I'm still laughing as her train arrives. “Well, let me know how it goes.” She nods and waves goodbye as she boards the train. Air whooshes around me as her train moves from the platform, leaving behind the smell of the damp subway and a slight ringing in my ears. I slide onto a bench and check the time, noticing my train is running a few minutes late. Five minutes go by and I’m mulling over what I’m going to say to Drex and Mr. Marsh when a familiar voice reaches my ears.
“Kels,” Drex says, appearing in front of me. The surprise of seeing him causes the words to get caught in my throat at first.
“Dre… Drex.” I stand. “What are you doing here?”
“Taking you to work,” he says. “We need to talk.”
He grabs my hand and begins walking toward the stairs. “But what if I'm not ready to talk about this? What If I need time?” I say, pulling my hand away right as he takes the first step up the staircase.
“We’re talking, Kels. This running off shit won’t fly. We have a lot to figure out and not talking about it won’t get us anywhere.” He huffs. “Marsh is meeting with us in a few hours and this conversation between us needs to happen.” He stares at me sternly as frustration fills my chest.
