by Rachel Del
Christina looked at me with wet eyes. “And do you understand now?”
I smiled sadly. “I do.”
But I still found myself begging the universe – and anyone that would listen – for the one answer I so desperately needed.
“It will get easier, Lil,” Christina said. “Each day you’ll wake up feeling a little bit better until one morning it feels as though this is how things have always been. You’ll forget what it even felt like to be married.”
“I don’t want to forget everything, Chris. There were parts of our marriage that were good and right, and without him I wouldn’t have Ben.”
“Thank God for that,” she said, smiling as she tousled the brown curls on Ben’s head as he squirmed in her lap.
Will I ever smile again? I wondered.
**
At first I did all the things that I couldn’t do while I was with Thomas. I painted the master bedroom walls bright red. I filled the fridge with all kinds of cheese that he never let me purchase, tossing the seemingly endless half-empty bottles of sauces that Thomas seemed to collect, but not consume. I began to take yoga again, slowly trying to fill the hours of alone time I suddenly had. I saw more of Christine. I stayed later at work, pouring over manuscripts, and sending edits back weeks earlier than expected. But I did all of this knowing that I was hopeful that they would distract me from truly recognizing the mess that I had made of my life.
And that’s the other thing no one tells you...how often you will second guess your decisions. Your choices. All the things you said and didn’t say. All that you didn’t say but wish you had.
But the truth was that there wasn’t anything left to say to Thomas. We had become different people; people who took each other for granted, who stayed at the office later than we should have, who talked about little of consequence. He had become the man he spent his entire life trying not to be. And I would always be that woman who would accept nothing less than true, real love.
End.
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An Excerpt from Finding Lily,
the next book in the Second Chances Series
Prologue
They weren’t always this way. In fact, Lily and Thomas Gardner used to be happy. The kind of happy that made most people envious, sick to their stomachs, or likely some combination of the two. Thomas was the first man Lily had ever deemed worthy to let all the way in to her life. Before him she had known only liars and cheats, boyfriends who worked too much or too little and didn’t know a healthy relationship from a hole in the wall.
The intensity in which Thomas pursued her in the beginning made her weak in the knees. All the flowers, the expensive dinners, the opening and closing of car doors, the intense eye contact, and texts throughout the day all culminated in one thing: her absolute undoing.
With Thomas never being one to do anything halfway, their relationship progressed quickly. The texts became more serious, the expensive dinners ending with long, passionate kisses in front of her doorway. Soon he was spending the night.
She was nervous about all of the time he spent at her place. He had grown up with money and was used to being surrounded by beautiful things and plenty of space. Lily’s nine hundred square foot apartment was furnished mostly with a mish mash of IKEA and hand me down furniture. She was so embarrassed by a gorgeous, albeit old armchair she had found out on the street one morning that she tossed a throw blanket over it the first night Thomas stayed over. It hadn’t been removed since. She was certain that his politeness and discretion about the state of her home was due solely to how much he cared for her.
Still, a mere month after they began dating, after countless nights spent at her place and breakfast at her round and slightly chipped table for two, Lily was ecstatic when he suggested they head to his place for the night.
When it came to his worth, Lily knew only the snippets that Thomas had told her here and there over meals, but pulling up to his home in The Ridges she realized that she had been grossly unaware of his status.
“I feel like I’m underdressed,” Lily said as she climbed out of the car door Thomas held for her.
“To see my house?” Thomas asked, incredulously.
“Definitely underdressed.”
“Remind me to warn you ahead of time before taking you to my place in Malibu.”
Lily whipped her head around and stared at him. “Are you serious?”
“You’ll just have to wait and see,” he answered noncommittally, reaching out for her hand.
Thomas guided her around the house from room to room, each more spectacular than the other. Lily noticed how beautifully decorated the spaces were, and how unlikely it seemed that he could have done this on his own.
“Not that I could ever afford it, but you’ll have to pass on your decorator’s information to me,” Lily said, studying a beautiful pristine white lamp next to her.
Thomas cleared his throat quietly and took more than a moment to respond. “That would my ex, Clare.”
Lily tried not to react, but it was the first time that he had mentioned anyone else. Up to that point he had remained excruciatingly mute on the subject. Because of her past track record with men she found it hard not knowing anything about Thomas’ past relationships, and she was always on the lookout for red flags: for anything that could tell her that Thomas could potentially be anything like the mistakes in her past.
So far, she had come up empty.
“So she lived here with you?” she asked.
“For a short while, yes.”
“What happened?”
Thomas sighed. “Is this something you really want to hear?”
Yes, absolutely, she thought, but instead she said: “maybe some other time.”
Thomas looked relieved as he tugged her in the direction of a large set of floor to ceiling glass doors. “Come and see the best part of this place,” he said, reaching out and grabbing hold of one of the long, silver door handles. “This is why I bought the house.”
They stepped outside into the late spring Las Vegas heat, Thomas beaming as he stood beside her, looking out over the city.
“It’s beautiful,” Lily stated. And it was.
The sun had just begun to set and was casting a pale orange glow across the well-manicured backyard, beyond which was a spectacular view of the strip.
Lily took it all in, embracing the long silence between the two of them.
“Are you thinking about your mom?” he asked, long after the sun had set.
It may have been dark, but Thomas could make out the shape of her body beside him; the way her shoulders were slumped and her eyes cast downwards.
She smiled sadly. “I was, yeah.”
Thomas reached for her hands, linking his fingers with his. His watch brushed the inside of her wrist, sending shivers up her arm. “I wish I could have met her,” he said.
“She would have liked you. Actually, she would have been fascinated with you.”
“Oh yeah? Why’s that?” he asked.
Lily released a puff of air, smiling. “She was fascinated with everyone she met.”
Thomas held her hand tighter and pulled her towards the set of wicker chairs in front of them, urging her to sit.
“I want to ask you something, and I don’t want you to get scared.”
When Lily turned to him, the distant look on her face had faded and Thomas could tell she was back there with him… in the present.
He didn’t wait for her response. “I want you to move in w
ith me.”
Lily’s brow furrowed for a moment. “Don’t you think it’s a little too soon for that? I mean, we barely know each other.”
Thomas pinched his bottom lip between his teeth and smiled. “I know all I need to know, Lil. You’re the one.”
And that was all it took.
Thomas staring into her eyes so intently, so sincerely, asking her to begin her life with him, was enough for her. She knew that from that moment on, he would always be enough for her. She had finally found a man worthy of her heart, a man who could help heal her from the inside out.
She was his.
“Okay.”
“Okay? You’ll move in?”
“Okay,” she repeated and when Thomas enveloped her in his arms she squeezed her eyes shut, whispering a prayer to whomever was listening.
Please let my life always feel like this.
And it had… in the beginning.
But now, eight years later, Lily felt herself coming undone once again, only this time it was her marriage and family that was falling apart.
Chapter One
“How are things going with Thomas these days?”
Lily stopped slicing tomatoes and looked up at her friend from across the kitchen island.
“I didn’t tell you? We had a mediation meeting the other day. He was pretty nasty.”
“I hate that you have to go through this.”
“I wouldn’t wish it upon my worst enemy.” She sighed heavily and returned her attention to her dinner preparations. “We did come to some agreements though, so hopefully we can sign the papers in the next few months and I can move on with my life.”
“At least you’re making progress, right?”
“I suppose so, though it never really feels like we’re moving forward.”
Christina Meyers stopped picking at her long fingernails and looked up at Lily. It was obvious by the bags under her eyes and the paleness of her skin that the past four months had been rough on her friend.
“It will get easier. Each day you’ll wake up feeling a little better, until one morning it feels as though this is how things have always been. You’ll forget what it even felt like to be married.”
“I don’t want to forget everything, Chris. There were parts of our marriage that were good and right, and without him I wouldn’t have Ben.”
“Thank god for that,” Christina responded, smiling as she ruffled the brown curls on the head of the squirmy toddler sitting in her lap.
It was true that their marriage hadn’t been all bad. In the same way that Thomas had once been intensely committed to her, Lily had lived and breathed by the rise and fall of his chest at night, or the way his brow furrowed as he read in bed, his thick, black-rimmed glasses making him look the epitome of sexy and smart. Their marriage had once been the envy of all her friends.
Though there had been blips along the way, she still to this day could not pinpoint where it all went wrong. Countless sleepless nights and unfocused days had proved that.
“I can’t help but feel like I should be focusing on myself right now, on getting my life back on track. I hate how I look and feel.”
“Well Lil, you’re in the middle of a divorce. I’m pretty sure that any woman in your position would be feeling the same way.”
“You think so?”
“It’s time to gain back some of what Thomas stole from you. Your happiness and how you feel about yourself are no longer tied to him and what he thinks or says.”
“You make me sound like a puppet.”
Christina lifted her hands into the air, palms facing forward in surrender. “Not what I was trying to say, Lil.”
Lily let out a puff of air. “I know, I know. I’m just so damn touchy these days.”
Her eyes shot up to her son’s face and into the light brown eyes he shared with his father, seeing if he had registered her language, but his eyes betrayed nothing.
“You’re dealing with things a lot better than I would be,” Christina said, a hint of laughter in her voice.
“That’s only because you’ve already perfected drinking your feelings.”
Christina set down the glass of red wine that she had just brought to her lips and shrugged. “Everyone needs an outlet for their frustrations, right?”
The skillet hissed and sizzled as Lily tossed the vegetables into the hot oil. “You’re right. Pour me a glass.”
__
Lily stuffed a blue elephant into the already over flowing backpack, zipped it up and handed it to Thomas.
“Please make sure that comes back with him on Sunday night or he won’t go to sleep,” she said, careful to keep her tone calm.
“Jesus Lil, you act like he hasn’t been my kid for the past two years.”
Lily’s shoulders drooped and she couldn’t help but wonder if they would ever be able to have a civil conversation again. Everything that came out of Thomas’ mouth these days seemed to be laced with a deprecating undertone.
Instead of working herself up, she knelt down and took Ben’s hand, pulling his small body against hers, inhaling his little boy scent.
“Be good for daddy, Ben,” she said, placing a kiss on the top of his head. “Mommy loves you so much.”
“Bye Mama,” he whispered.
She watched the two of them stride towards the car, tears prickling in her eyes the way they did every time she had to watch them walk away without her. Would she ever get used to that?
This isn’t natural. It’s just not the way that stories are meant to end.
When Thomas’ black Audi disappeared from sight, Lily spun on her heels slowly to face their house. Her house, but for how long? With everything so up in the air Lily didn’t know what was going to happen. It had been a miracle that Thomas had even agreed to be the one to leave four months ago, but the argument that they should try to keep things as normal as possible for Ben had won out.
It was a large house of a little over five thousand square feet. She never did understand why Thomas had needed such a big house as a bachelor. It had even been too large for their family of three and certainly too large when Lily was home alone. Now, the silent hallways and empty rooms only reminded her of what was wrong with her life.
Maybe it would have been better for her to leave.
Lily took off in a slow jog towards the front door, the tears now beginning to fall from her tired eyes. The last thing she needed was to give her nosey neighbors a show. They were already coming around the house more, offering food or their services if Lily was ever in need of someone to watch Ben. If she hadn’t known them for the six years she had lived in the house she could have mistaken their actions for real concern, but she knew better now. She knew how the rumor mill worked, and she wanted no part of it all.
What was she to do now, with forty-eight lonely hours ahead of her? Usually she would head right for the kitchen, throwing all of her sad and nervous feelings into baking chocolate chip muffins or apple crisp, or cooking up a lasagna big enough to feed her and Ben for a whole week. It was all just enough of a distraction that her tears would dry up and she could forget – if only for a few hours – how incredibly lonely she was.
Under normal circumstances she would already be cooking or baking by now. Instead, Lily retrieved an open bottle of red wine from the fridge and trudged upstairs to pour herself a hot bath complete with lavender bath soap, stealing sips from the mouth of the bottle as she moved along.
As she slid down under the layer of bubbles she couldn’t help but wish that what Christina had told her was true: that she could wake up each morning feeling better than the last, and that one day it could feel like it had always been this way.
She didn’t want to forget that she had been married, she simply wished for the fact that she had been to stop hurting so damn much.
And she wanted to stop feeling so alone.
__
“You know what you need to do, right?”
“If you’re going to say what I think you�
��re going to say then you can stop right there,” Lily responded.
Leah Foster laughed into the phone. “Don’t tell me that after all these years you suddenly believe in all that twin psychic connection crap.”
“It’s nothing to do with being twins, it has to do with me knowing you.”
“Well in that case, you tell me what I was going to say.”
“I’d say something along the lines of that in order to get over Thomas I have to get under someone else.”
“That’s exactly what I was going to say. I’m talking verbatim.”
“I told you I know you,” Lily said. “And that’s ridiculous. Thomas and I have only been separated for four months and we’re up to our noses in lawyers.”
“You’ve been separated for four months, but come on, your marriage has been a mess for a while.”
“Thanks for the reminder.”
“Sorry, but you know what I’m saying.”
“How else do you expect to move on?”
“Time, Leah. Time.”
“Time is for ugly chicks with mommy bodies, a camp in which you mostly certainly do not fit.”
“Well thank you for that, but my body is not the issue here.”
“Then what is?”
“You’re seriously still going to push this?”
“Yes! Because you know I’m right.”
“You’re really encouraging me to go out and have a one night stand right now?”
Leah transferred the phone to her other ear. “Absolutely I am.”
“You’re insane.”
But she pressed on. “What about that Nathan guy you’re always talking about?”
“From work? Oh that’s just a silly crush. I think he’s cute is all.”
“You do talk about him an awful lot.”
