by Aly Martinez
"It’s fine. I swear. Come on. My treat."
"Yeah, okay." She smiles weakly and looks up at me.
My only answer is to give her a wink and squeeze her tight into my side. But that’s all it takes with Sarah. She lets out a sigh and her tense posture disappears from the simple gesture.
The bartender places a round in front of Caleb, who passes them out. Lastly, he hands a wine glass to Sarah and smiles pridefully.
"Pinot Grigio, if I recall correctly."
"Chardonnay, actually. But this will work," she laughs, taking the glass from his hands.
Emma and Sarah do a ridiculous toast, and Caleb and I clink beer bottles while simultaneously rolling our eyes at them.
A few minutes later, I hear a familiar voice from the door. "This place is cute!"
I spin to find Erica walking in, dragging Slate behind her.
"Hi," she says, waddling her way over to us.
I haven’t seen her in weeks, and her stomach has definitely grown quite a bit over that time. Erica is a very small woman, so maybe getting pregnant with Slate’s sure-to-be huge son wasn’t her smartest decision. The smile on her face says otherwise though.
"Hey, babe." I pull her into a one-armed hug, never releasing Sarah. Then I turn my attention to Slate and give him a quick nod. "What’s up, man?"
"Sorry we’re late. We had to make a quick stop to look at a crib. However, that turned into looking at baby bedding, which turned into looking at car seats, which turned into buying half the baby store. Which is currently about to turn into me chugging half a gallon of beer."
"Oh shut up! You loved it," Erica laughs.
"Wow. I am terribly happy I missed that," I say sarcastically.
"You shut it, too," she mumbles, looking over at Slate, who is silently laughing.
"Hi," I hear Sarah greet Erica.
"Oh, sorry. Mom, Dad, this is my girlfriend, Sarah Erickson, and her parents, Emma and Caleb Jones."
"Stop." Sarah slaps my chest.
"Why? This is exactly that awkward step in every relationship where your parents meet the future in-laws," I joke before I really think it through.
Sarah’s big, blue eye bounce to mine, and she looks almost embarrassed for a second as her cheeks heat to pink. She swallows before glancing over at Emma, who might as well be glowing.
I didn’t mean to insinuate marriage, love, or even a future to Sarah. Although I’m not sorry I said it. I mean, who the hell knows if this will end up working out, but I’ve dared to dream that it will.
I’ve had many conversations in my head where I tell Sarah that I know about her past. Some days, in my alternate universe, she’s relieved that I know, and others, she gets pissed—but only slightly. She’s always rational and talks everything through then cuddles up next to me and listens to me explain my past as well. She’s more than just accepting—she’s unfazed. Then we get to be together without the secrets shrouding us and guilty consciences weighing us down.
So maybe I’ve done more than just dare to dream. Maybe I’ve plotted it out completely and, in a sense, set myself up for nothing but heartbreak. It’s hard not to, though, when I’m this happy. I’ve figured out over the years that, for me, happiness isn’t centered on another person. It’s molded and shaped around moments and experiences that leave you breathless. However, suddenly and without warning, my happiness begins and ends with Sarah. It’s exhilarating and distressing all at the same time.
I stand casually at the bar of the small restaurant with Sarah tucked under my arm and everything feels right—even all the way down to a very fundamental level. I know it’s not perfect, but for the first time in over four years, I can actually hope that it will be eventually. Erica, Sarah, and Emma are huddled together, chatting about pregnancy and babies, and Caleb and Slate are lost in conversation about boxing and some of the up-and-comers from the gym in Indianapolis. I pull a sip off my beer and revel in the peace and quiet inside my own head.
"You okay?" Sarah looks up at me with a warm smile.
"I’m perfect, mi cielo."
"Mi cielo? That’s new." Her smile grows.
"Heaven," I answer on a whisper, tucking a stray hair behind her ear. "Cuando la verdad salga, no se donde esto nos dejara. Pero aqui contigo es como yo imagino deber ser el cielo." (I don’t know where this is going to leave us when the truth comes out. But here with you will always be what I envision heaven to be.)
"I have no idea what you just said."
"I said you are beautiful and I’m starving."
"Well, that’s not as romantic as it sounded, but I’ll take it." She laughs, giving me a soft kiss that goes straight to my head.
I look up to find Erica and Emma staring at us with their mouths all but hanging open. Slate and Caleb are awkwardly toying with the labels on their beers.
I clear my throat. "Well, okay. Now that we’re all here, I’m going to grab us a table."
"I’m going to the restroom," Sarah announces with Emma and Erica both agreeing to join her.
I watch as the three woman walk away laughing. Then I make a quick trip to the hostess stand before heading back to the guys.
"I’m telling you. I have this kid who is about to break out. I’ve never seen such raw talent before. He’s a good kid too." Slate drains his beer and sets it down on the bar.
"No shit?" Caleb asks while signaling for another round.
"Yep. Till Page, and I swear, within the year, he’s going to explode onto the scene."
"I’ll have to keep an eye out for him." Caleb tilts back his beer.
"Come on. Our table’s ready. I’ll wait for the…" My words are frozen as I see Caleb’s eyes grow impossibly wide and he barely manages to keep from spitting out his beer.
"You asshole. I thought you two were staying in tonight?" I turn to find a tall man smiling and walking over from the front door. A tiny brunette is holding his hand with a kind grin.
"Yeah..." Caleb responds slowly and takes a few quick steps toward them.
His behavior immediately puts me on alert, and I glance around for Johnson, who seems to have also read Caleb’s body language and has already started heading our direction.
"What’s wrong with you?" the tall guy asks before recognizing Slate. "Oh shit." His eyes flash to me with a huge grin.
This guy doesn’t look even the slightest bit menacing, so Caleb’s reaction has me puzzled. I have a horrible feeling in my gut, but I can’t for the life of me figure out why. Unwilling to be left in the dark any longer, I take a step forward.
"Hey, how’s it going? I’m Leo James" I extend a hand and Caleb groans as the tall guy quickly takes it in a friendly shake.
"Nice to meet you. Brett Sharp."
Fucking hell. The pieces snap into place. The ex-husband.
"You need to leave." Caleb tells Brett before focusing on the brunette.
He says something else, but my attention is drawn away when I hear Sarah laugh as she returns from the bathroom. I stride away from Brett and Caleb and head toward her. I need to warn her at the very least. But as she rounds the corner, her laughter is abruptly silenced. I can actually see the color seep from her face as she stumbles backward.
"SON OF a bitch," I hear Brett cuss as he pushes Jesse behind him.
I can’t blame him for having that reaction, but when I see it firsthand, the pain still consumes me.
"Brett, stop," Jesse responds, offering me an uncomfortable smile.
With a flash of understanding and two quick steps, Leo closes the distance between us and wraps me in his arms.
Time suddenly freezes and the world tilts on its axis. With just one glance of Brett’s green eyes, I’m transported to a different time.
A different life.
A different Sarah.
Two years earlier….
I PULL up to Brett’s apartment knowing he’s at work by now. Years ago, he gave me this key with some ridiculous hope that I would one day use it. I held on to it despite my desire t
o throw it in the garbage. There’s nothing in this apartment that I want. Including him.
He sold our old house within months of my moving into my new apartment, and it left a searing pain in my already shattered heart. If I’d thought there was any way I could have convinced him to leave, I would have stayed there for all eternity. I had memories in that house. Memories with Manda. I could care less about the rest of them.
Manda and I did everything together. She used to bring her clothes over and get ready at my house almost every weekend. It worked out for everyone. Brett would go over to Caleb’s and they’d watch sports for a few hours while we talked and got ready for whatever we had planned for that evening. There were physical reminders in that house too—like the black spot on our bedroom carpet. If I close my eyes tight, I can still hear Manda’s laughter when she spilled that nail polish. If she were here, she would say that I slapped it out of her hand in mid-stroke. She also would be right. Friends don’t let friends paint their nails black in August. She tried to make me clean it up so Brett wouldn’t get mad, but we were both laughing so hard that it had almost dried by the time I pulled myself up off the floor.
God, I miss her so much.
But today’s not about Manda. Today is about Brett.
I hate him. On the outside, he’s a really nice guy. I can see how I once fell in love with him. But I’m not the only one who changed after the wreck. Brett’s basically unrecognizable these days. He’s always so needy and harassing me about something.
"Sarah, did you pay your electric bill?"
"Sarah, did you take your medicine?"
"Sarah, did you eat yesterday?"
What the actual fuck is wrong with him? I’m thirty-three years old. I don’t need a babysitter. The whole fucking world treats me like a child and it’s so damn frustrating. He’s just another prick who always talks down to me and refuses to let me live my own God damn life.
But I have to hold on to him.
Brett’s all I have left, and that speaks volumes to how screwed up my life truly is. He’s finally trying to move on with this Jesse chick. I just can’t in good conscience allow that to happen. I don’t love Brett, not even a tiny bit, but I need him to love me. I spend all day every day wanting nothing more than to be alone, but when the sun goes down, the solitude becomes terrifying. My mind races and images of Manda lying dead on the highway invade my every thought. I never actually saw that visual, but that doesn’t mean it’s not branded into the backs of my eyelids. My overactive imagination is a cruel bitch. I have even conjured up a whole scene from the night of the wreck where I get trashed and laugh as I drive directly toward the tree.
Yet, every Thursday night, Brett shows up at my house and the world inside my mind goes quiet for a few hours. I focus on slinging all of my pent-up pain at him. It releases some of the constantly building pressure that threatens to overtake me. I know my words kill him, but it’s better him than me. Each time he visits, he always leaves just like I want him to. Hell, I spend hours trying to force him to leave. But he always comes back. It’s Brett’s biggest flaw and greatest attribute.
I don’t know why I picked today to come over to Brett’s apartment. But I woke up this morning feeling even more on edge than usual. I’ve been hiding out in my room since the seven-layer-dip fiasco a few weeks ago. The sound of his words still rings in my ears.
"There will never be another Brett and Sarah Sharp."
The best part was the look on his face when he said it. I honestly had to fight back a laugh. It was as if that were the very first time he ever admitted it to himself. We haven’t been together in four years, and he is just now catching on to this? And they say I’m the one who suffered a brain injury.
I laugh to myself as I swing open Brett’s front door, quickly locking it behind me. If I’m going to be successful in my plan to break him and Jesse up, I’m going to have to give her doubts that Brett can’t talk himself out of. I’d known that the appearance at the coffee shop probably wouldn’t be enough, but it was just too damn easy. His sisters still have my old e-mail address on their family e-mail distro. They send what feels like a million pictures a day. It was all too easy to print out that picture of Brett’s niece. She looks just freaking like him. It’s definitely not a stretch to believe she could be his child. When I slammed it down on the table that day at Nell’s coffee shop, I thought Jesse’s eyes were going to bulge out of her head.
However, Brett clearly managed to weasel his way out of that one. Now, it’s time to step this up a bit. I reach into my purse, pull out one of my earrings, and toss it under the pillow on the couch. Just so there is no doubt about who it belongs to, I picked the same ones I wore the first time I met Jesse.
Damn it. I really liked that pair too.
I then move to the bathroom and search through the drawers. Just as I hoped, I find a few women’s toiletries. I pull a handwritten note from my purse and begin to search for somewhere to hide it. Just for good measure, I grab the pink toothbrush before shoving them both in the drawer.
I pull the red panties from my purse and make my way to his bedroom. The minute my eyes lock with the wooden picture frame on his nightstand, the breath is stolen from my lungs. My arms fall limply at my sides and I stagger forward. With every step closer, a knife is twisted in my gut. I immediately recognize the picture of Brett holding Jesse, but it’s the frame that causes a sob to rip from my throat.
It’s one of Manda’s frames. Caleb made them for her all the time. His house used to be littered in them before she passed away. She loved to take pictures and he, well…loved to display them. As far as I know, he has never once made a picture frame for anyone else. It was something special he did only for her. Yet here on Brett’s nightstand sits an image of Jesse Addison inside one of them. The pain starts to subside as my blood begins to boil.
Jesse…in Manda’s fucking frame.
Did Brett ask Caleb to make this for him?
No. No! There is no way he would have made this for Brett.
This is Manda’s!
My pulse begins to race and I fight to breathe. Anger rages through my veins, struggling to find it’s way out.
That fucking home-wrecking whore is inside my Manda’s frame.
I snatch it off the nightstand and sling it as hard as I can to the floor. It shatters the glass, but the sturdy frame remains intact. I roughly pull the picture out, purposely ripping it in half as I go.
Why in God’s name would Brett put her picture in Manda’s frame?
"Manda." I gasp her name out loud when just the thought of her isn’t tangible enough. "Fuck!" I scream.
Suddenly, a thought explodes into consciousness. Jesse must have stolen this from Caleb. Oh my God! She isn’t just replacing me—she’s trying to replace Manda as well.
The roaring in my ears becomes almost deafening as the very thought renders my mind unable to process anything else. My vision tunnels, blocking out everything around me except the severed picture in my hands. I purposely rip it again—this time dividing it directly across her face. She can fuck with me, but I will never allow her to make people forget about Manda. I fucking hate that manipulative bitch for even trying.
Then again, if I hadn’t murdered Manda, no one would even have the chance to forget her. Oh God, this is my fault.
"No!" I croak as I begin to hyperventilate. I might be the reason Manda is gone, but I am not going to let the world just move forward without her.
How is it so fucking easy for Brett and Caleb to move on without her?
Why am I the only one stuck?
Why? Fuck! Why?
Time is frozen as I stare at the jagged glass still attached to the inside of the frame. Right about now, it would feel fucking amazing slicing across my skin. And fitting. So. Fucking. Fitting. The silence it would give my mind is so attractive that it makes my mouth water. But I’m sick of playing games. If I’m going to end this once and for all, I’m taking her down with me. She has no right to try to f
ill Manda’s shoes. She can try to take Brett from me, but…she has no right to fill that frame!
I rush to Brett’s closet, praying that the combination on his safe is still set to my birthday. My hands are shaky, but I somehow manage to type in all the correct numbers. With a click, the door swings open, revealing three guns. I tuck one into my purse and head to the front door.
I’m over it. I’m over Brett.
I’m over trying to ruin his life.
I’m over my life as well.
Today, this ends for me…and Jesse too.
I suddenly snap back to the present. It’s been years since I’ve seen Brett Sharp. I saw him briefly the day Emma had the baby, but before that, the last time I laid eyes on him was while holding a gun after firing it at him. My stomach twists, and the guilt in my memories is more than enough to send me on a wild spiral downward. Tears fill my eyes and my legs become unsteady. I brace myself on Leo as the shame spreads like wildfire through my veins.
"I’ve got you, ángel. You’re my Sarah. Nobody else," Leo begins to eerily repeat in my ear. His innate ability to say all the right things has never been more unsettling—or appreciated.
I scour for the truth in his words. I search within myself as the broken bits crumble and I mentally try to piece them together.
"What the fuck?" I hear Brett growl, but Leo’s breath against my ear reels me back in from the approaching breakdown.
I focus on his warm arms, which make me feel safe and cared for—and, if I’m being honest with myself, loved. In some ways, Leo only knows the real Sarah. Then again, maybe it’s Brett who knows me—the terrible woman who put him through absolute hell. If I can’t distinguish the difference, how can I expect anyone else to? My hands begin to tremble and my mind races in circles between my past with Brett and my present with Leo. Seeing Brett isn’t the problem at all. But remembering who I was is searing.
"You’re not that person anymore," Leo whispers.
As much as I want to question how the fuck he is reading my mind, I allow his words to infiltrate my thoughts. I’m not that person anymore. At least I don’t feel like I am, and Leo’s words confirm it. I take a few deep breaths and finally get my emotions under control.
