by K. A. Tucker
A sparkle catches my eye.
The solitaire diamond on Dana’s left hand. On her ring finger.
The gasp catches in my throat.
When did he propose?
Ashton knows I’ve seen it, because he closes his eyes and begins absently fumbling with the leather belt strap around his wrist.
It’s back on his wrist.
Ashton has put that shackle back on his wrist. Which means he’s given up the freedom that I gave him last night.
By the look of dismay on Connor’s face, he’s also seen the ring and now truly realizes the extent of this betrayal. “Tell her, Livie. Tell her what’s going on between you and her future husband, if you think you know him so well.”
I don’t need to say anything. Dana’s face pales. I watch as her eyes take me in from head to toe, then turn to look at the bed, then back to me. Almost recoiling from Ashton’s arm, she stumbles back three steps. “Ash?” Her voice trembles as she turns to look at him.
He bows his head, mumbling almost indecipherably, “I made a mistake. Just let me explain.”
Bursting into tears, she turns and runs out of the room. Ashton doesn’t hesitate for a second. He runs after her as her screams carry through the house.
Turning his back on me. On us. On whatever the hell we were. A mistake.
Connor’s words are quiet but piercing, soft but deadly, honest but so far from the truth. “You helped shatter two hearts today. You must be proud. Goodbye, Livie.” The bedroom door slams behind him.
And I know that there’s no reason for me to be here anymore. Not in this house, not in this school. Not in this life that is not my life.
I have to let go of everything.
And so I walk away.
I walk away from the voices, the shouts, the disappointment.
I walk away from my deceptions, my mistakes, my regrets.
I walk away from all that I am supposed to be and all that I cannot be.
For all of it is a lie.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Letting Go
I find them sitting at the kitchen table. Kacey is curled up on Trent’s lap with her fingers coiled in his hair, laughing as Dan pokes Storm’s swollen belly repeatedly, trying to make the baby respond. She’s due in two months now and she’s as beautiful as ever.
“Livie?” My sister’s watery blue eyes stare at me with a mix of surprise and worry. “I thought you weren’t coming home over your break.”
I swallow. “Neither did I, but . . . things changed.”
“I can see that.” She stares pointedly at my outfit. I never did go back to the dorm to change. I simply jumped in a cab to Newark and went on standby for the first available flight out to Miami. It took ten hours, but here I am.
Home.
Where I never should have left to begin with.
No one says a word, but I feel their eyes on my back as I walk over to the pantry. I pull out the bottle of tequila that Storm keeps on the top shelf. For emergencies, she says. “You were right, Kacey.” I grab two shot glasses. “You were right all along.”
“I missed the sound of seagulls,” I murmur.
“Wow, you really are fucked up.”
With a snort, I fling my hand in Kacey’s direction and end up slapping her in the cheek. Last night, with the bottle of tequila and two shot glasses in hand, I had silently walked out the patio door to the deck. Kacey followed me, pulling up a lounge chair next to mine. Without a word, she started pouring shots.
And I started pouring my guts out.
I told my sister everything.
I admitted to every detail of my last two months, right down to the most intimate and embarrassing. Once the truth started flowing, it cascaded out of me in an unstoppable torrent. I’m sure the booze helped, but being around my sister helped more. Kacey just listened. She held my hand and squeezed it tight. She didn’t pass judgment, she didn’t scream, she didn’t cast disappointed sighs and glances or make me feel embarrassed. She did scold me for not using a condom, but then quickly admitted that she shouldn’t be throwing stones.
She cried with me.
At some point Trent came out to stretch a duvet over us. He didn’t say a word, leaving us to our drunken, sobbing stupor. And as the first hints of sun came over the horizon, completely drained of every last emotion, every secret, every lie, I passed out.
“Can I see that picture again?” Kacey asks softly.
I hand her the four-by-six from my purse, so thankful that I had it on me when I left. “I can’t believe how young they are here,” she murmurs, tracing the lines of the image as I had. I smile to myself. Three years ago, Kacey couldn’t even glance in the general direction of our parents’ picture.
Waving it at me before she hands it back, she murmurs, “Proof that he cares a great deal about you, Livie. Even if he is a train wreck.”
I close my eyes and heave a sigh. “I don’t know what to do, Kacey. I can’t go back. I mean . . . he’s engaged. Or he was.” Is he still? I’d received a where-the-hell-are-you text from Reagan earlier. After explaining that I was back in Miami, we shared a few messages, but she had no information for me. Or she didn’t want to tell me, other than to say that she hid out in Grant’s room all day because there was a lot of screaming and yelling.
That made me start worrying about Ashton more. What if he’s not with Dana? What will his father do to him? Will he use whatever he has over his head?
“And he’s definitely a train wreck,” Kacey repeats. “He needs to clear the tracks before he can move on with anyone, and that includes you.”
Just the thought of it stirs an ache in my chest. She’s right. Whatever Ashton and I had, I have to let it go. As much as I want to keep trying, to stay close to him while he battles whatever demons he needs to battle, I can’t keep doing it. Not like this.
Not with Connor and Dana and . . . ugh. The ring. My stomach tightens. This thing between us—love or not—has turned me into a selfish, manipulating idiot who takes what she wants even though it may hurt others. Who kept convincing herself that everything she did was okay because she knew that the man she wanted cared about her.
Who would likely fall back into that trap because it felt so right, despite being so wrong.
“You don’t have to go back.”
I crack an eyelid to look at her, flinching against the harsh daylight as I do. “What . . . just give up on everything?”
She shrugs. “I wouldn’t call it giving up. More like living through trial and error. Or taking a breather. Maybe time away from Ashton and school will put things into perspective. Or maybe they’re already in perspective and you just need a little time to let the dust settle.”
“Yeah. Maybe.” I close my eyes, gratefully absorbing the comfort of being home.
“You sure you don’t want me to stay home?” Dad asks as he pushes the matted hair off my forehead.
I answer with a sneeze and a groan.
With a heavy sigh, he says, “Okay, that does it. I’m staying.”
“No, Daddy.” I shake my head, though I’d love nothing more than to have him comfort me. “You should go. I’ll just get you sick if you stay here and it’s Kacey’s big game tonight. She’d be upset if you missed it.” Scratch that. My sister would be crushed if Dad missed it. “I’ll be—” My words are cut off by another violent sneeze.
Handing me a tissue, Dad cringes. “Well, I’m not going to lie to you, kiddo. You’re kind of grossing me out right now.”
The way he says “kiddo” with his faint Irish brogue makes me giggle.
“Don’t worry. I’m grossing myself out right now, plenty,” I say between nose blows.
He answers with a chuckle and a pat to my knee. “Just teasing. You’ll always be my beautiful little angel, green snot and all.” He busies himself arranging the medicine a
nd liquids on my nightstand while I reposition myself. “Mrs. Duggan is in the family room—”
“Ugh! Dad! I don’t need a babysitter!”
I see the shift before he utters a word. “Yes you do, Livie. You may act like a thirty-year-old sometimes but you’re biologically only eleven, and Child Protective Services frowns upon leaving eleven-year-olds home alone. No arguing,” he says briskly, leaning in to place a kiss on top of my head.
My brow knits as I fumble for my remote. Three back-to-back episodes of lions eating gazelles in the wild are too much.
With a sigh and a mutter about his stubborn girls, he stands up and heads toward the door. But he stops and turns back, waiting, his watery blue irises twinkling with his smile. My scowl lasts all of two more seconds before a grin wins out. It’s impossible to keep a scowl when my dad smiles at me like that. He just has a way about him.
Dad chuckles softly. “That’s my Livie Girl. Make me proud.”
He says the same thing every night.
And tonight, just like every other night, I flash him a toothy smile as I answer, “I’ll always make you proud, Daddy.” I watch him leave, shutting the door quietly behind him.
I wake up to a late-afternoon sky and my last words to my father playing over in my head. Such simple words. A tiny, routine phrase. But in reality, guaranteed to be a lie. I mean, how can anyone commit to something like that? Not every decision you will make is going to be a good one. Some of them will even be disastrous.
I turn and see that the person sitting in the lounger next to me isn’t as red-haired or female as the one who was there when I fell asleep.
“Hello, Livie.” Dr. Stayner adjusts his hideous two-toned bowling shirt. It almost goes with the Hawaiian boardshorts that no man his age should ever wear. “How do you like my beachwear?”
“Hey, Dr. Stayner. Why are you always right?”
“I tend to be, don’t I?”
“Thank goodness. I thought I’d have to torch that chair if you didn’t shower soon.”
I give my sister a playful shove as we walk down the hall toward the kitchen. “So . . . Stayner?”
She shrugs. “I texted him last night to let him know that you finally cracked. I didn’t expect him to show up here with a suitcase, though.”
Apparently, Dr. Stayner has decided to enjoy a few days in sunny Miami, Florida at Chez Ryder. Well, Storm insisted that he stay with us, even though that means he takes Kacey’s room and she either sleeps with me or at Trent’s. I reminded her that it was strange and unprofessional for the family psychiatrist to stay with us. Then she reminded me that everything about Dr. Stayner is strange and unprofessional, so this actually makes sense.
My argument ended there.
And now Dr. Stayner is at our kitchen sink in one of Storm’s polka-dot aprons, peeling carrots with Mia’s help.
“Do you think eating carrots really make you see better or is that just what moms say to make kids eat vegetables?” Mia’s at that cute age where she’s still quite gullible but is learning to question things.
I lean up against the entranceway with my arms crossed and watch with curiosity.
“What do you think, Mia?” Dr. Stayner replies.
She narrows her eyes at him. “I asked you first.”
I shake my head and laugh. “Don’t bother. She’s too smart for you, Stayner.”
With a squeal, Mia drops the carrot and runs to dive into my arms in a hug. “Livie! Mom said you were here. Did you see X moving?”
I chuckle. I guess Mia has moved on from the loving nickname “Baby Alien X” to just “X.” It works. “No, but I saw Dan poking your mom’s belly last night,” I say with a wink.
She makes a face. “I hope he’s not going to be weird when X is born.” The topic quickly changes. “Are you staying for a while?” Her expression is hopeful.
“I don’t know, Mia.” And it’s the truth. I just don’t know anything anymore.
“What do you think it is?”
Dr. Stayner slurps at the extra-large latte as we sit side by side in lounge chairs on the back deck, watching the early morning joggers pass by. All that coffee can’t be good for him. “I can’t begin to hazard a guess on that, Livie. He clearly has some issues to sort out. It would seem that he uses physical connections with women as a way of coping. It would seem that his mother’s death is too difficult for him to talk about. It would seem that he does care greatly for you.” Dr. Stayner sits back in his chair. “And if he grew up with an abusive father, then it is quite possible that he still feels as if he has little control over his life. Maybe he does. But I can tell you that you’ll never get an answer that makes sense to you about why it all happened to him. And until he talks about it, it’s difficult to help him. And that is why, my dear Livie Girl . . .” I roll my eyes but then smile. For some reason he took a liking to that nickname. “You need to untangle yourself from his mess until you can straighten out yours. Don’t forget, your sister and Trent needed the same. It was five months before they reconnected. These things often take time.”
I nod slowly. Five months. Where will Ashton be in five months? How many women will he “forget” with in by then? And can I handle being at Princeton while he works things out? If he’s even trying to work things out. My stomach is starting to churn again.
“Livie . . .”
“Sorry.”
“I know it’s hard, but you need to focus on yourself for a little while. Get this hang-up out of your head that you”—he lifts his fingers in air quotes—“‘lied’ to your father.”
“But . . .” I avert my gaze to my freshly painted toes, care of Storm. “I know what he wanted for me and I’m going against it. How in the world would that make him proud of me?”
Dr. Stayner pats my shoulder. “I don’t guarantee anything, Livie. Ever. But I will guarantee that your parents would be proud of you and your sister. Beyond proud. You are both simply . . . remarkable.”
Remarkable.
“Even though I finally cracked?” I smile sadly, repeating Kacey’s words.
He starts chuckling. “You didn’t, Livie. I’d like to say that you finally came to a crossroad and just needed some guidance. You’re a smart cookie who seems to figure things out. That’s all you need sometimes—a little bit of guidance. Not like your sister. Now, she cracked.” He turns to mouth “wow,” and I can’t help the snort of laughter that escapes me.
“I think you are going to be just fine with time. Now is the fun part.”
I raise my brow in question.
“Figuring out who you want to be.”
I’m used to Dr. Stayner in small doses—one hour per week on the phone, max. So when he leaves after spending several days with me, my brain temporarily shuts down like a machine that’s overheated. We spent most of that time out on the back deck, discussing all the options I had before me for my education, for my future career aspirations, and for my social life. He never shared his opinions. He said he didn’t want to skew my own selection process. The only thing he insisted on is that I embrace ambiguity for a while, that I don’t dive into a choice for the sake of making one. He suggested that taking classes without focusing on a major right now à la Reagan isn’t a bad idea. Of course, he had to acknowledge that the longer I waffled, the less likely the “stay at Princeton” option would apply, because I’d fail the semester.
I think my biggest fear about going back to Princeton isn’t Princeton itself—I’ve accepted that the school just isn’t for me. And I’ve already called the hospital to inform them that I’m quitting my volunteer position.
My biggest fear is facing Ashton again and my weakness around him. A simple look or touch could pull me back to him and that’s not good for either of us. I’ve walked away once. Will the second time be harder or easier? Or impossible . . .
My life is full of difficult choices and
one that’s easy—Ashton.
And he’s the one choice that I can’t have.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Choices
I swear Reagan was waiting at the door like an eager pet for the sound of the unlocking mechanism, because the second I step through on Friday night, she barrels into me. “I missed you so much!”
“It’s only been two weeks, Reagan,” I say with a chuckle, tossing my purse on the desk. I decided to come back to Princeton after all. Not because I particularly feel like this is the place for me, but because I do know that I want an education, and until they either kick me out or I transfer to Miami—which I looked into while back at home—I may as well be here.
Tucking my hair back behind my ear, I ask casually, “So how has everything been?”
Her nose scrunches up. “Same. Don’t know. Ashton’s staying at my parents’ right now and I can’t get anything out of my dad. Grant’s been staying here a lot because the house isn’t much fun right now. Connor is hurt. But he’ll be fine, Livie. Seriously. He just needs to get laid.” She flops down onto her bed in typical Reagan fashion—dramatically. “Oh, and Ty sprained his ankle. Dumbass.”
I chuckle, but it doesn’t loosen the angst inside.
“What’s your plan for this weekend?” She hesitates. “Are you going to see him?”
I know who “him” is and it’s not Connor. I shake my head. No . . . We need more than two weeks to sort this mess out. It’s too new. Too fresh. Too painful to deal with. “Trying to catch up, if there’s any hope.” I missed a week’s worth of classes, including a test. I slowly climb up the rungs to my bed, pushing out all the memories. “And I’m going to visit the boys at the hospital.” I have to say goodbye properly, for my own closure.
