The Wrong Kind of Love

by Lexi Ryan

  “When did you get sick? Why didn’t you call?”

  “I’ve been sick for a long while, Ethan.” She lifts her eyes to mine and shakes her head. “I was wrong. Nic was right. I shouldn’t have left.”

  I tense at the mention of Nic’s name. “What does Nic have to do with any of this? What’s going on?”

  She puts her hand behind Lilly’s head and brings her forehead to her for a kiss. Lilly snuggles into her chest, and my mom strokes her back. “I’ve missed my grandbaby.”

  “I missed you too, Nana.”

  “Did you draw me those pictures?”

  Lilly pulls back and nods enthusiastically. “I did!”

  “Will you go get them for me?”

  She jumps off her nana’s lap and rushes from the living room, her little feet moving as fast as they can up the stairs.

  “I wasn’t exploring Europe,” Mom says. “I was in Germany getting cancer treatments.”

  “Cancer?” My heart sinks to the floor, and it feels like I’m on one of those rides at the fair that throws you into the air far too quickly. And just like on those rides, I’m sure I’m going to crash to the ground at any moment. My dad had cancer. And then, after he fought for months, cancer had him. I never let myself imagine my mother falling to the same fate. “Why didn’t you tell us? Why did you leave?”

  “Because I didn’t want my family to watch me die. I didn’t want my children to say goodbye to their mother again and again like they did with their father. I didn’t want you to see me slipping away one day at a time like you did with Elena.”

  I feel like someone’s squeezing my throat, and the grip goes tighter with each word.

  “I was trying to be noble,” she says. “I wanted to spare everyone that, but especially you and Lilly.”

  “If you’re sick, you should be at home.”

  She nods. “Yes. Nic convinced me of that. Eventually.”

  “Nic knew?” Anger shoots through my blood, and I welcome it. Anger is so much easier to cope with than this fucking awful helplessness. “You told her?”

  “Out of necessity, yes. I did.”

  “What else was she keeping from me? Did she lie about everything?” I tear my hands through my hair and pace the living room. I’ve already had my guts ripped out today and now this.

  “Don’t be so dramatic, Ethan.”

  “She’s not who we think, Mom.”

  “I know very well that Nic isn’t Veronica,” she says. “But she only lied because I asked her to.” She shakes her head. “I begged her, actually. She didn’t want to pretend to be her sister, but a sick old lady asked her a favor, and she couldn’t refuse.”

  I shake my head, but she doesn’t take back the words, and my denial does nothing to ease the clawing panic in my throat. What the hell is happening? “You asked her to lie? Why would you do that? Why would you lie to me?”

  “Her sister didn’t show—too busy running off with Nic’s fiancé. I did what I thought I had to do at the time.”

  “That’s ridiculous.” The whole day’s been too much. The letters from prospective employers, the bombshell from Kyrstie, meeting Nic’s twin, and now Mom’s cancer? This has to be some sort of nightmare. “You should have told us the truth. And Nic should have too.”

  When Mom brings her eyes to mine, they’re hard. “We all do what we think we need to in order to protect those we love more than ourselves. Like you with Lilly and the story you tell everyone about Elena’s heart attack. Lies aren’t always evil. Sometimes they’re necessary.”

  I stare at her, my eyes cloudy with tears as I try to process everything. My mother is dying. Nic only lied because she had to. My mother knows Elena committed suicide.

  “I’ve got them, Nana!” Lilly shouts, racing back down the stairs.

  Mom gives me one last pointed look before she pastes on a smile for Lilly. “I want to look at them one at a time, and I want you to tell me everything I missed.”

  Nicole

  I do as he asked and wait until after Lilly’s bedtime before going to the house, but when I go to the front door, I’m not sure if I’m supposed to knock or use my key. Ethan pulls it open before I can decide.

  I step inside. My duffel bag is sitting in the foyer, bursting at the seams, and Ethan is walking away from me.

  I follow him into his office, where he’s going through a stack of papers. Résumés for my replacement?

  “Ethan,” I say softly.

  His gaze flicks up to mine before dropping back to the stack of papers. “I know this is the part where we’re supposed to have the big blowout fight, but I think I’ll pass.” He keeps his head down. “Just take your bag and go. But try to do it quietly. Mom’s home and she’s sleeping in the living room.”

  My heart lifts and I actually smile—something I would have believed impossible seconds ago. “Your mom’s home?”

  “She returned tonight.” His nostrils flare. “She’s very sick, but apparently you already know that.”

  His anger feels like a knife in the gut. “Ethan, I couldn’t tell you. I’m sorry. It was her secret.”

  His gaze snaps to mine. “And what about your name? What was keeping you from telling me that?”

  “I—”

  He holds up a hand and shakes his head. “Don’t. Please. Forget I asked.”

  All this time, I’ve been clinging to the idea of him understanding my lie if he just knew why I did it. But he knows and he’s still so angry.

  “If you can still do afternoons with Lilly, that would be great. She would—” He swallows, and his jaw hardens. “It would make this transition easier for her.”

  “Of course I will. Anything for her.”

  He nods sharply. “Great. Shay’s agreed to move in temporarily to do overnights and mornings until I figure out a long-term solution. Obviously, Mom can’t do it.”

  “Ethan, I’m sorry. I didn’t want to lie, but . . .”

  “But you did.” He doesn’t lift his head to meet my eyes. “You lied about who you are, and you lied about why you were here. And when you knew I might never see my own mother again, you lied and pretended she was traveling Europe.”

  His words feel like the cruelest insult, and I’m disgusted with myself because they’re nothing but the truth.

  He drops the stack of papers onto his desk and turns to me. He looks so damn tired. Back are the sad eyes of the stranger I met at the bar. I did that.

  “I’m not sorry that I lied to you,” I say, “because without that lie, you wouldn’t have let me in the door. Living here and loving you and Lilly has been the best month of my life. I’m only sorry I didn’t tell you the truth sooner.” I reach out and press my palm to his chest, half expecting him to sweep it away. When he doesn’t, I close my eyes and take a moment to memorize the feel of his pounding heart under my hand. “And I’m sorry Elena hurt you so badly that you don’t believe love is worth fighting for.”

  “That’s just it, Nic. She did hurt me. She hurt me every fucking day that she pretended our marriage was great just to hide from the fact that it wasn’t, and she hurt me every fucking day that she hated me for accepting that lie. I’ve lived a life of half-truths before. I can’t go there again. I can’t let my house be a prison again. I’ve fought for honesty and believed love could overcome anything.”

  I squeeze my eyes shut, as if not looking at him could make this hurt less. “I still believe it can.”

  “Did love overcome when your sister fucked a guy you were supposed to marry?”

  My eyes fly open. I’m ready to defend myself. To lash out and fight for this.

  But there’s no fight in his eyes. Only sadness and defeat, and I know it’s over. It doesn’t matter how much I love him or how much I want to make this work. He thinks I’m a stranger now.

  “You weren’t going to tell him. You’re too afraid to be alone to really be yourself.”

  Veronica’s words stung, because she spoke my biggest fear. Because I’m terrified she’s r
ight. Every single relationship, I’ve tried to be someone I’m not. I didn’t think Nicole was enough. I told myself this time was different, but was it? I could have told him the truth that first day or a million times after, and I didn’t. I was afraid he’d push me away. I wasn’t afraid of the lie but of the truth. I was afraid that I wasn’t enough. I never have been before.

  “Goodbye, Ethan.”

  He looks away. “Goodbye, Nicole.”

  Ethan

  “You’re the biggest idiot I ever met,” my loving sister tells me.

  I take a sip of my bourbon, but I’m so low that even the idea of drowning my misery doesn’t appeal to me.

  Nic took her things and walked out of my house two days ago. I thought I’d feel better when she was gone. I thought the burden of her lies would be lifted and I could start moving on. Instead, I feel worse. Instead, I feel like I made the biggest fucking mistake of my life.

  “You’re probably right,” I mutter.

  “Mom told you that Nic lied as a favor to her, right?” Shay says. She walks across the living room and stands in front of me. She folds her arms and gives me her best teacher glare. “She told you Nic didn’t want to lie?”

  I close my eyes, uninterested in taking in my sister’s judgmental glare or in having this conversation again. “She told me.”

  “And I’m telling you that I asked her to wait until after Christmas before telling you the truth.”

  “I heard you the first three times.”

  “And you’re still not going after her? What the hell is wrong with you?”

  I press my head into the back of the couch and try to figure out how to answer Shay’s question. It shouldn’t be so hard, since it’s the same question I’ve been asking myself for the last forty-eight hours. “It’s not that she lied. It’s that she didn’t admit to the lie.”

  She sinks onto the cushion next to me and takes a deep breath. “I’m trying to be patient, but you’re going to have to explain what the hell that means.”

  “It means that when I found out she wasn’t Veronica, I realized she always planned to leave, and I panicked.” I roll my head to the side to look at my sister. Pity is etched all over her face. “The months after Elena died are just a blur to me. I was always focused on the next thing that needed doing. One foot in front of the other until the hole in my chest wasn’t so raw.”

  “I know, Eth. But you did it. And you can love again. I wasn’t sure you could, but I saw it with my own eyes with Nic. We all saw it.”

  “I don’t think I could survive it again, so I made her leave before she could do it herself.”

  Shay sighs. “Now that’s just dumb.”

  I huff—an empty attempt at humor I don’t feel. “Yeah. I know.”

  “Does your wimpy little heart hurt any less since you did it yourself?”

  I close my eyes. “You’re a bitch.”

  “I know.” She grabs my hand and squeezes it. “You’re an idiot.”

  “I know.”

  Nicole

  I’m sleeping on Teagan’s couch, and wake to a knock on the door.

  “Nic? It’s Ethan. Please open the door.”

  I push aside my blankets and climb off the couch, rubbing my eyes as I head to the door. Through the peephole, I spot Ethan standing in the soft glow of the corridor lights. I pull open the door, but not all the way. “Is everything okay?”

  He rakes his gaze over me, and I wonder what he sees. My puffy eyes? My mismatched pajamas? The wine stain on my shirt? “No,” he whispers. “Nothing’s okay. Can we talk?”

  I shake my head. “I don’t think we should.”

  He winces. “I’m sorry.”

  “For what? For being angry that I lied about who I was?” I fold my arms and fight back a shiver. “I’m pretty sure I deserved that.”

  “No, for pushing you away before you had the chance to explain. I panicked, Nic. I was hurt and scared and I panicked, but I want you to come home.”

  Home. The word makes my eyes prick with tears, but I swallow them back. “Maybe you were doing the right thing then and you’re panicking now.” I shake my head. “Maybe we’re both afraid to be alone.”

  “I’ve never been afraid to be alone before.”

  “Really? Is that why you’ve kept your dead wife in your house for three years?” When he winces, I want to touch him, but I don’t let myself. “Your wife has a book on her bedside table. I opened it my first day there and saw a note scribbled in the margins that said that love born of lies is the wrong kind of love. She was right.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  I stare over his shoulder. It hurts too much to look him in the eye. He sent me away two days ago. I’ve had two days to dwell on my heartache and think about everything that went wrong. I’ve had two days to realize that I’m less afraid to be alone now than I’ve ever been in my life. Jackson Harbor gave me that. Ethan gave me that.

  “Your name has nothing to do with how we feel about each other,” he says.

  “But it had a lot to do with how I felt about myself. If I was Veronica, I had her education, her confidence. Nicole would never have told you off about calling her an easy screw, but Veronica wouldn’t have hesitated. I’ve been in relationship after relationship where I’m not quite myself. I’m pretending to be someone better. Someone who has more to offer. I don’t even know who I am, and I came here looking and fell into another lie.”

  “You don’t need to find yourself. I can see exactly who you are.”

  “I’m not sure that’s true.”

  “Nic?” When I shift my gaze to meet his, he steps forward and brushes his lips over mine. I want to throw myself into his arms, to make the kiss longer, but I don’t allow myself. “The preschool letters . . .” He swallows and draws in a ragged breath. “Are you leaving? Did you find a job?”

  “I haven’t accepted anything.”

  “You don’t have to leave. Tell me what you need from me.”

  I shrug and shake my head. “Space. Time. And then I don’t know.”

  “Okay.” He closes his eyes and leans his forehead against mine. “It’s yours.”

  Then he pulls away and leaves. I have to bite back a sob at the gnawing ache of him taking my heart with him. Like I told Kathleen on the phone when I begged her to come home, when love is real, it hurts to lose.

  I stumble back to the couch and collapse into a heap of tears.

  “What the hell was that?” Veronica asks from the hallway.

  I tense and swipe at my cheeks. The sound of my sister’s voice still makes me angry. We’re both staying at Teagan’s, but I haven’t managed a civil conversation with her. “What was what?”

  She sinks onto the couch beside me and rubs my back. “What was that bullshit about you wanting space? You’re in love with him.”

  I grab a tissue off the end table and wipe away my tears. “You’re the last person I want to talk to about my love life, V.”

  “Because I slept with Marcus?”

  “For starters.”

  “I’m the one you should listen to. You already hate me, so I don’t have anything to lose.”

  I turn to her but I can’t make out her features in the darkness. “I don’t hate you.”

  “Well, you should. What I did was loathsome. I had excuses. So many I made myself sick with them. But none of them matter. They’re all bullshit. I’m so sorry.”

  I close my eyes. I’m so tired of everything. “I’m glad I didn’t marry Marcus. It wasn’t about losing him. It was about losing you.”

  “You didn’t lose me,” she whispers. “You can’t. I love you too much. Nicky and Ronnie against the world, remember?”

  “But you gave me up for him.” The words don’t even sound pained. Just flat and matter-of-fact.

  “I was an idiot. Marcus . . . he told me I made him believe in miracles. He told me I filled a hole he never thought could be filled.”

  I sigh. Marcus used those lines on me too. I could tell Ve
ronica that, but it would only add to her embarrassment. I don’t want to be cruel, and I’m too tired for more drama.

  “You know what’s ridiculous?” When she speaks again, her voice is quieter. “He told me he only went through with the wedding because I didn’t want you to be hurt. He really made me believe he was marrying you for me.”

  “He’s a world-class douchebag, Ronnie.”

  She chuckles. “God. He really is. But Ethan isn’t. He’s the real deal, isn’t he?”

  “I think so.” I grab my blanket and hold it to my chest, releasing a long breath. “I just wish I believed I was enough for him.”

  “You are, you silly, silly girl. You’re more than enough. I’m sorry about what I said when I got here—about you pretending to be me because you were too afraid to be yourself.”

  “Maybe it was true.”

  “I doubt it. That was uncalled for. I know you, though, Nic, and when I saw that you’d thrown yourself into another relationship, I figured it was the same old thing. But I can see it’s different with him. He’s the one.”

  “If that’s true, then why did I just send him away?”

  She leans her head against my shoulder, and my heart swells at the simple contact. I missed my sister. “You sent him away because you don’t need him. You want him. The difference is how I know he’s the one.”

  Ethan

  “I thought Veronica Maddox was your patient.” I glare at the chart in my hand as I hold the phone to my ear. Any day that requires me to call Kyrstie is not what I would consider a good day, but I’m at my office and was just handed a chart for Veronica Maddox and told she’s waiting in room two.

  “She called and requested to be switched to you,” Kyrstie says with an irritated sigh. “Did you want my staff to argue with her?”

  I set my jaw and take a deep breath. “Of course not. Never mind.”

  “Ethan, wait,” she says when I’m about to hang up. “Hear me out for a minute?”

  I lean back in my office chair and close my eyes. “Sure. Why not?”