by Monica James
I say nothing at all.
“I thought so,” she whispers brokenly after a minute of silence.
Her beautiful green eyes reveal nothing but betrayal as she yanks open the door. “Goodbye, Dr. Mathews. Thank you for being the biggest regret of my life,” she sobs, her voice stuck in her throat.
I want to say so many things, but I don’t. I simply stand numbly and watch the best thing in my life walk out on me. And for once, I do the right thing.
I let her go.
ACT III
Now ...
24
Thump, Thump…Thump
DIXON
I fucked up.
I’ve just made the biggest mistake of my life…I trusted Juliet.
But who am I kidding? The biggest mistake was the day I met Juliet Harte.
She fucked me. And she fucked me hard. I should have smelled a rat, seeing as I literally smelled one when she sent me to this shithole dump. I should have known it was too good to be true because Juliet would never let me off that easily, but I wanted to believe that this was finally over. Now I know it has only just begun.
I stand dumbfounded, not understanding why Madison was here instead of Juliet. It takes me all of two seconds to realize I was fucking set up. And like an idiot, I walked into this totally blind.
Juliet never had any intention of me signing any papers. She fabricated that lie so I’d meet her here. But in her place she sent Maddy instead. God only knows the lies she’s told her. Or worse still—what if she’s told her the truth?
I have to make this right.
I run out the door, not caring who or what stands in my way. I charge down the stairs two at a time, almost tripping over a tricycle sitting at the bottom of the staircase. As I frantically search the poorly lit courtyard, I hope there’s only one exit. There is. And Maddy just walked out of it.
I take off at a dead sprint, running faster than I ever have before. Nothing or no one else matters except getting to Maddy and telling her the truth. “Madison!” I roar, my desperation sounding off the washed-out walls.
But she doesn’t stop.
The rusted gate whines as I yank it open so hard I almost rip it off its hinges. “Sir, there is no running on the premises,” says someone from behind me as I bolt past reception, but the warning falls on deaf ears.
“Madison! Please! Stop!” I shout from across the parking lot as I see her run toward her Fiesta. Panic hits me hard because I know that once she gets into that car, she’ll never turn back.
The gravel crunches underneath my shoes as I weave between the parked cars to reach her in seconds. I get to her just as she sounds the alarm on her car.
“Madison! Stop.” I lunge out to stop her from getting into her car, but she jumps back three feet, not wanting me to touch her.
“No, Dixon! Leave me a-alone,” she stutters, choking on her torrent of tears.
“Please let me explain,” I beg.
“I think you being here is pretty self-explanatory.” She angrily wipes at her eyes, but the tears continue to fall.
“I know what it looks like but I need to know what Juliet told you.”
“Why? So you can lie?” Her question is filled with anger, but mostly pain.
Her accusations stab at me deeply. “No. I’m done lying to you.”
“So you admit that you’ve been lying to me this entire time?”
My heavy sigh speaks volumes. “I never lied about my feelings for you. It was because of my feelings for you that I lied.”
She scoffs, turning her face away from me.
“Please.” I step forward, my hands raised in front of me, pleading with her to let me explain. “Hear me out.”
Thankfully, she turns back to face me. “You have one minute.”
I better make it good.
I don’t know what Juliet has told her, so I decide to divulge it all. “What I told you, about meeting Juliet at work, is true. She came to me seeking help. And I did refer her over to another doctor, as I knew she was interested in more than just a professional relationship.”
“But?” She folds her arms across her chest.
“But then I slipped up,” I confess, making sure to keep eye contact with her.
“What does that mean?”
“It means I was a fucking idiot and made the biggest mistake of my life. The morning we bumped into one another in the foyer of your apartment—I was coming from Juliet’s apartment. It was the first time we had sex.”
She wraps her arms around her waist, hugging herself tight. “So she’s the reason you just disappeared? You chose her over me? Is that it?”
I violently shake my head. “It’s not that clear-cut.”
“Then what is it?” she shouts.
“I was in a bad place, Maddy, and Juliet was who I thought I needed. But I was wrong. I didn’t want to lead you astray because I knew from the minute I met you, you deserved better than me. You still do,” I sincerely reveal, knowing that although it’s the truth, it sounds like just an excuse. “I swear it; I never knew who she was until the night of her engagement.” The night this entire disaster started.
She blinks back her tears. “You could have told me then. There were so many opportunities for you to tell me, Dixon!”
“I could have. But I’m a coward, Maddy. I’m not a good man.” I hang my head in shame.
“You’re not a good man? What else have you done?” she wisely says. “Beth wasn’t your patient when you were dating her.”
“We were never dating,” I miserably amend.
“So what then? She was your…fuck buddy?”
I don’t reply.
She inhales a sharp intake of breath.
I’m surprised Juliet hasn’t revealed all the sins of my past. But of course she hasn’t. She wanted to leave the honors to me.
Her gasp reveals she’s worked it out. “But it wouldn’t matter if she were, right? I mean, that didn’t stop you in the past? Did it?”
Running a hand through my hair, I pull at the strands as I raise my eyes to look at her. “No.”
“Oh my God,” she cries, her lower lip quivering. “Dixon, how could you?”
“I don’t know!” I yell, spreading my arms out wide. “It sickens me. If I could take it back, I would.”
She will never understand how sorry I am for what I’ve done.
“How many?” she unexpectedly questions.
My lip curls in confusion. “How many what?”
“How many women, how many patients did you fuck?” She suddenly dives forward and shoves me in the chest. She shoves me over and over and over again.
But I stand my ground and happily take her beatings, as I deserve them. “Eleven. Maybe twelve,” I confess, turning my head to the side as she continues pounding on my chest.
“Maybe twelve?” she hysterically asks. “You don’t even know?”
I shake my head. “No, I don’t.”
“You asshole! You f-fucking p-pig! How c-could you d-do this to m-me?” She’s sobbing uncontrollably, her tiny thumps getting softer and softer as her snivels begin to rob her of breath.
I reach out and gently secure her wrists, but she violently pulls out of my hold. “Don’t touch me!” She jerks backwards and wipes her nose with the back of her hand.
Raising my palms in surrender, I expose, “There’s more.”
She already hates me. I may as well unveil it all.
“More women?” she asks, her red-rimmed eyes widening.
“No. More to the story.”
She blinks back her tears. “More?”
“The baby Juliet is carrying, well…it may be mine.” I swallow down my revulsion.
“Oh my God,” she wheezes, placing a hand over her mouth.
I resist the urge to comfort her because I need to get this all out into the open before I chicken out. “I don’t know what she told you about why I was meeting her here, but it was because she tricked me into thinking I was meeting her to sign over
all parental rights.”
Her face suddenly contorts in fury. “To who? To Juliet and my brother?”
“Yes,” I reply. “She doesn’t want Dylan—” I’m unable to finish my sentence because my teeth rattle in my mouth when Madison smacks me so hard across the cheek I almost fall backward with the force.
I stare, stunned, moving my jaw from side to side. Why the hell is she slapping me over that? If anything, I thought she’d be happy I didn’t want anything to do with Juliet and her child.
“Have you forgotten what he did to me?” she screams. “He is the last person who should ever be a parent! I would never wish my childhood upon anyone. And now you’re signing all rights over to two unfit parents?”
“It might not even be mine,” I pathetically counter as I rub my stinging cheek.
“Either way, until you’re sure, you have to take responsibility for your actions. That child is innocent, and it deserves the best chance at life. If it’s around my brother, it’ll never get that.”
She’s right.
I know there is a small crowd forming around us and frankly, I’m surprised they haven’t called the cops. But the masses don’t deter Maddy in the slightest.
“How did you keep this a secret for so long?”
And this is where the plot thickens.
“The night of her engagement,” I confess, closing my eyes briefly. “She gave me an ultimatum,” I conclude, watching her face drop.
“What was it?”
“If I slept with her, she’d keep all my secrets safe.”
She bites her bottom lip. “And did you?”
I pull back, disgusted. “Of course I didn’t!”
Her shoulders drop. “Then what did you do?”
“I fucked with her,” I reveal.
She scrunches up her nose. “What? I don’t understand what that means.”
“I manipulated her. I made her believe what she wanted to believe. And when she did, I tricked her into signing an NDA so she couldn’t tell anyone about us. But that wasn’t enough. I wanted her to pay for what she did to you. So I made her my puppet.”
She looks as horrified as I now feel. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why go to all this trouble?”
I sigh, revealing why I decided to venture down this sinful, depraved path. “Because she was blackmailing me with the only person she knew I’d do anything for.”
“Who?” she whispers.
It’s eerily silent, so silent that when I speak, it sounds like my answer echoes loudly in the still night. “You.”
“I don’t understand,” she says, shaking her head slowly.
Taking a small brave step toward her, I declare, “If I was to play by her rules, she’d keep your…brother away from you.”
She pales.
“Don’t you see, I had no other choice. I play her game, and you’d be safe,” I say, almost pleading with her to believe me.
But she doesn’t.
“Lying to me was keeping me safe?”
“It was a small price to pay. I’ll do anything to protect you.” When she shakes her head in incredulity, I press, “I did it to protect you.”
“No, Dixon,” she refutes, saddened. “You did it to protect yourself.”
“I—” But I suddenly pause. Is she right? I thought I was doing the right thing but deep down, I knew it was wrong. I always knew there was another way, but I was too chicken shit to face it.
“If you had just told me the truth, I may have been able to forgive you…”
Her words cement what I know, what I always knew to be true. “And now?”
“I just…I can’t,” she cries, a tear spilling down her cheek. “How can I ever trust you? You know how hard it was for me to open up.”
“I know.” I step forward, but she recoils. Her repulsion is like a dagger to my heart.
“Maddy, please.”
“No,” she says. “I don’t know who you are.”
“I’m me,” I plead, placing a hand over my heart.
With nothing but sorrow in her tone, she confesses, “I don’t even know who that is anymore.”
I stand speechless, trying to figure out how to fix this.
“Were you seeing her behind my back?”
“When?” I ask.
“This entire time.”
“Not how you think,” I come clean, but it’s not enough.
“Stop talking in riddles!” she shouts, advancing forward angrily.
“After you and I started talking again, yes, I was seeing her. But then I stopped soon after. I knew she wasn’t the right one for me. I wanted you,” I sincerely profess. “I ended it soon after the night we met at Cherry Pop.”
“And in Boston?” she asks, piecing it all together. “Was she supposed to be your plus one?”
“Yes.”
She frowns, shaking her head, appalled. “Oh my God. I’m a fucking fool.”
“But that was before I knew I’d ever see you again,” I expose, knowing this truth has come a little too late.
She exhales slowly. “What about after the engagement? Have you seen her behind my back?”
I wish my response was different. “Yes,” I reply, shame-facedly.
She appears hurt and angered all in the same breath. “I was right. I knew there was something more.”
“No, not like that,” I quickly defend my actions. “I had to play along until I figured out what I wanted to do.”
“Why didn’t you just tell me the truth? There were many times that you could have!”
I nod sadly, because if I had just been honest from the beginning, none of this would have happened. “I know.”
“But instead, you lied, which is so much worse.” She looks at me with nothing but disgust in her eyes, and the sight of that hurts more than I ever thought possible. I need her to see why I did this. I need her to see this was all for her.
“I knew Dylan was your Achilles’ heel. I couldn’t stand him to hurt you ever again. Can’t you see that?”
She nods, but her firm jaw reveals it’s not enough. “I can, but what you’ve done is far worse than what he ever did to me.”
My mouth drops open. Does she really mean that?
“I’m getting stronger, Dixon,” she reveals, her voice filled with conviction. “I could have dealt with it. If only you’d have given me credit and told me the truth, none of this would have happened.”
I can’t…I need a minute to digest this.
“With you by my side, I felt like I could achieve anything.”
Her use of past tense is the beginning of the end. “And now?”
“Now?” She lowers her gaze. “Now I feel sick. You…make me sick. Everything that we once shared is a lie.”
I don’t blame her. I make myself feel sick. As I process everything, I can’t help but wonder what exactly Juliet told Madison. It appears she was blind to the entire sins of my ways. So what did Juliet tell her?
“What did Juliet tell you?”
“She told me that you propositioned her for sex,” she reveals, pulling a sickened face.
“What?” I ask, matching her expression.
“And that you’ve been doing so the entire time we’ve been dating. She also said that you manipulated and preyed on her when she was weak. She confessed to having sex with you—twice.”
I’m left standing speechless at the lies Juliet has told.
And sadly, the story doesn’t end here. “She knows that she’s sick and she’s sorry for not helping me with Dylan. She told me that’s why she came to see you in the first place. To help her deal with her guilt over what she saw. And since then, you’ve been obsessed with her and stalking her. She’s afraid of you, Dixon. And she said that I should be, too.”
“That’s bullshit!” I yell when I can finally find my voice. “I deal in addiction, not canoodling patients’ guilty consciences away!”
That bitch. She set me up. She knew I’d think the worst and believe she had told Madison everything
. Instead, that’s what I did. All she had to do was plant the seed—just like I did with her.
She beat me at my own game. Again.
I can’t just stand here while Juliet is paraded around as the victim. “Maddy, c’mon! This is Juliet you’re talking about. You cannot possibly believe her and this fictional tale?”
She shrugs in defeat. “I don’t want to believe it. But you’re here now, aren’t you?” she questions me. I can see the war raging behind her eyes. She doesn’t want to believe, but I’ve betrayed her in the worst possible way.
I have to make this right. “I told you why.”
“But how can I trust you?” she asks, shaking her head. “After everything you’ve just told me, I don’t even know who you are.”
Her confession breaks me, but I suck in a deep breath and continue to fight. “You know Juliet is no angel. Look at what she did to you!”
Juliet is confessing to this fabricated story so she looks like the victim and comes out of this unscathed. The NDA means jack shit because I believe she now couldn’t care less about ruining my career. She has just gone one better—she’s ruined my life. She would never drag her name through the tabloids because that would ruin the fantasy world she’s worked so hard to build. She told Madison that we only slept together twice for appearance sake’s only. If Dylan were to ever find out about her infidelity, he could certainly forgive her for the two slip-ups, but not for the countless ones she’s in fact made.
And now that she’s got an iota of Madison’s sympathy, she’s going to play on that and use it any way that she can. I look like the deviant, while Juliet wipes her hands clean.
“Madison?” I urgently press.
“I don’t know what to believe!” she shouts, cradling her head and massaging her temples.
“Believe me! Why would I make all this shit up? It most certainly is not in my favor to do so. I’m telling you the truth,” I state, while I hear one of the spectators hum in accord. “Juliet is a lying, manipulative, calculating piece of work. I want nothing to do with her. I haven’t from the moment I ended things with her. She can’t stand that I love you, and not her. She can’t stand that your brother loves—” I quickly stop when she waves a hand out in front of her and covers her mouth to stop herself from being sick.
