The Story of Us: A heart-wrenching story that will make you believe in true love

by Tara Sivec

  “Yes, we’ve talked, Dr. Phil.”

  Rylan sighs and shakes his head at me.

  “I mean, have you talked about important stuff, dumbass. I know you haven’t told her everything or you wouldn’t be standing here all casual while you try and pretty up that ugly mug of yours.”

  My head starts to pound right behind my eyes and I squeeze them closed, pressing my hands against the edge of the sink and taking a few deep breaths to make the pain go away. Rylan’s words make my gut churn with an unknown fear and I have no idea why. Shelby and I have done nothing but talk the last few weeks.

  We talked about the summer we fell in love and we talked about how she’s been trying to ease her way back into dancing again. She told me about Meredith’s writing career and about how mind-numbing her job is working for her mother. I told her about Kat and Daniel’s life together and about my niece, Lilly. We did regular things like a regular couple and it felt good to do stuff like that and feel…normal.

  “Of course we’ve talked about important stuff,” I scoff, opening my eyes to glare at him through the mirror.

  “Right. Sure you have. Why don’t I believe you? Why do I feel like there’s still something huge you haven’t told her yet?”

  The pain slices through my head and I wince, wishing he would just stop talking.

  “We’re getting to know each other again, all right? It’s good. It’s better than good, so just leave it alone,” I warn him.

  I hate being short with my best friend, but I don’t like the way his words make me feel—confused and anything but normal.

  “You need to tell her about what happened over there, Eli. You can’t keep all of this to yourself or it’s going to eat away at you and you’re going to lose her,” Rylan tells me softly.

  “Shut up! Just, shut up,” I finally growl, tossing the razor into the sink and grabbing my head with both hands to try and stop the headache that just won’t quit. “Everything is fine and I don’t need you telling me what to do or what to talk about with Shelby. We’re fine.”

  We stare at each other silently through the mirror until Rylan finally takes the hint, delivering one last annoying reminder.

  “You need to tell Shelby what happened over there and let go. Just…let go.”

  I don’t reply to him as he turns away from me and walks out of the bathroom. As soon as he’s gone, my headache starts to ebb and I tip my head from side to side to stretch out the kinks in my neck from clenching my muscles so tightly.

  He’s wrong. I don’t need to tell her what happened over there and I don’t need to even think about what happened over there. She knows it was bad and that’s all she needs to know. Telling her all the gory details won’t do anything but screw up the progress we’ve made. I don’t need her looking at me with pity, not now. I just need to be with her and everything will be fine. We’ll talk about the letters I wrote her, and soon we’ll have to talk about her mother’s involvement in my life and what she’s done to hurt me and my family, but that’s where the sharing will end. I refuse to make the rocky ground we’re standing on as we get to know each other again crumble at our feet. I know I’d never lose her over something like accusing her mother of trying to ruin me, but I also know it won’t be pleasant. It will kill her knowing her flesh and blood was responsible for what happened to me. She’ll feel guilty and she’ll hate herself, thinking there might have been some way for her to prevent any of it from happening.

  She makes the bad all go away, and that’s exactly where it needs to stay.

  Chapter 26

  Georgia

  This has gone far enough. I’ve done everything you’ve demanded of me for years and it has to stop. You got what you wanted. Why can’t that be enough?” I plead as I stare at the man standing across the room, casually picking up a framed photo of Shelby as a teenager.

  I want to scream at him not to look at her, not to touch her, but I keep my anger and fear in check, knowing it will only enrage him.

  “You know why it’s not enough, Georgia. You were supposed to get rid of him for good, and now he’s back, threatening to screw everything up,” he informs me, placing the photo back on the shelf as he turns to face me.

  “I never had any intentions of getting rid of him. That was your doing. I got him away from Shelby, like you asked. I’m sure he has enough problems to deal with after what you had done to him, that coming back for Shelby is the least of his concerns,” I reply, hoping, wishing, and praying that what I’m saying is true.

  If Eli James comes anywhere near my daughter again, bad things will happen to everyone. This man has proven that he will stop at nothing to get what he wants, and what he wants is Shelby. The idea that I’ve fostered his needs, even encouraged them, makes me sick to my stomach, but there is nothing else I can do, short of turning myself in. I made the selfish choice. One I will live with for the rest of my life. Someone is bound to get hurt no matter what I do.

  I’ve never been very good at being a mother. I had bigger and better things in my sights than being stuck at home with a child, and when I found out I was pregnant, it was too late to do anything about it. I never could figure out how to stop blaming my daughter for ending all my dreams. I knew Shelby hated me for the way I treated her, the way I stifled her, and the way I tried to turn her into something she wasn’t. I can only hope that Shelby will see that all the things I’ve done recently were to protect her and the man she cares about, in my own twisted way. To make up for never being a very good mother. For allowing this man to blackmail me so I could keep my reputation intact. I knew that shouldn’t have been my one and only concern at the time, but my status in this town is all I have. The only thing that makes me stand out and makes people notice me. A way to relive my glory days, back before I had a child, when all eyes were on me and everything I ever wanted was in the palm of my hand.

  I’m a coward and I’m a fool, and if this man weren’t standing right in front of me, I would crumble to the floor, the pain of what I’ve done to my daughter so acute that it almost takes my breath away.

  I had no way of knowing that each time I succumbed to his threats, Shelby would pay the price and I wished more than anything that I could go back and make a different decision. Tell the truth instead of covering it up. Deal with the consequences instead of worrying about my reputation.

  I hoped that he would lose interest when he saw that Shelby never returned his feelings, but it only made him angrier, more aggressive, more vicious with his warnings and his extortions.

  “You better hope that’s true, Georgia,” he says in a low voice with a raise of one eyebrow as he stalks across the room to stand right in front of me. “You better hope he stays far away from Shelby or there will be consequences. I’d hate to have to let this town know all of the things you’ve done with their money, right under their noses. I’d hate for anything to happen to Mr. James and his family…or Shelby.”

  I want to scream and shout at him that he’s the one using charity money for evil instead of good. He’s the one fooling everyone. He’s the one forcing my arm, threatening me to do corrupt things because he knows I’ll do anything to make sure no one else loses their life, but you can’t reason with someone who is crazy. Someone who will stop at nothing to get what he wants. And he wants my daughter, even if he threatens her life in the same breath.

  I made the mistake of trusting him to fix a problem for me years ago, and I never lived it down. I could only hope that Shelby was strong enough to stand up to him when the time came, no matter what I’d done to keep her down all these years.

  “Shelby has always known what’s at stake. She knows that with one phone call the rumor of Eli being a traitor can be brought to light again and Eli’s sister and brother-in-law’s businesses can be shut down,” I remind him, hating the words as they came out of my mouth and the part I played in all of it.

  Hating everything I had to threaten Shelby with just so she didn’t stray from the path. So she didn’t do anythin
g to anger this man and give him another reason to make threats. This man claimed to love Shelby and would stop at nothing to have her, but he had no idea what love was.

  I wish I learned what it meant to love something so much you would do anything to protect it before it was too late. Before I’d fallen so far down this deceptive hole that there was no way of finding my way out without good people being hurt. Without my daughter being caught in the crossfire.

  I can’t take it anymore. I can’t take the lying and the deceit. I can’t take one more second of letting this man bully me. I’ve done enough damage and it’s time to pay for my mistakes.

  “But it doesn’t matter anymore, because I’m done. With all of this. I’m finished with your threats and I’m finished with you hurting my family just to get what you want. I’m turning myself in and I’M DONE!”

  He laughs cynically then immediately wipes the smile from his face and stares at me with so much anger that it chills me to the bone.

  “You’re done when I say you are.”

  As he walks out of the office, whistling to himself like he doesn’t have a care in the world, I hope and I wish and I pray that Shelby will find the strength I know she possesses to see through this man and what he’s done.

  And to someday forgive me for the part I played in all of this.

  Chapter 27

  Shelby

  December 30, 2010

  Shelby,

  It kills me that I haven’t heard from you. I have no idea if you’re reading these letters and hating me even more, or just throwing them away without looking at them. I don’t want to bother you anymore, so this is the last one I’m going to write. The hardest one I’m going to write, which is why I kept it for last. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I should have been a stronger man and I’ll always regret that I wasn’t. I love you, Shelby. Only you. Always you.

  I’d been on edge since you left for the airport for your audition. I knew you’d only be gone overnight and I’d see you again tomorrow, but I still couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling I had when we said good-bye and I watched you walk away.

  That nervous feeling became full-blown fear, anger, and panic, settling like a rock in the pit of my stomach when I got back to my apartment and opened up an envelope that had arrived in the mail with no name or return address.

  I acted without thinking. I scanned it and e-mailed it to your mother with a threat for her to come clean before I went to the authorities, and quietly seethed in my living room until I got a reply, a few hours after I’d sent it.

  Twenty minutes later I was walking into your mother’s office at the plantation, being led through the sprawling home by a staff member, stepping foot over the threshold of a house I was more than welcome to work at, but never good enough to enter.

  She dismissed the staff member with a terse nod, walked out from behind her desk and across the room towards me. I held my ground and crossed my arms over my chest, feeling confident that I had the upper hand with this woman who’d ruined my life, my sister’s life, and had done everything she could to make you miserable and afraid of her.

  Your mother didn’t speak until she’d slammed the door of the office closed and turned to face me.

  “How dare you threaten me,” she seethed.

  “How dare I?” I fired back, dropping my arms and taking a step towards her. “How dare YOU. Tell me, just how many dicks did you have to suck to make it all go away?”

  Her hand cracked against my cheek before I’d barely gotten the last word out. I’d never wanted to hurt a woman before, but it took everything in me not to wrap my hands around her neck and choke the life out of her for what she’d done to my family. For the pain she’d caused and the hours and weeks and years we’d spent hating the wrong people.

  She stared at my face with an open mouth and wide eyes, and for one second, I could almost imagine I saw guilt and shame in her green eyes, the same color as yours, but completely void of your same light and hope and happiness.

  “You have no idea what you’ve done by sending that e-mail. No idea what problems you’ve caused by not leaving this alone,” she threatened.

  She stalked away from me and went back behind the comfort of her desk, putting distance between us like she instinctively knew my hands were clenched into fists at my sides because it was the only thing that stopped me from hitting her back.

  “Your unit’s deployment has been bumped up. You’ll be leaving tonight, as soon as you pack your things and get your affairs in order.”

  The blood drains from my face when she speaks in a monotone voice, so cold and uncaring, like she’s reciting the facts to a math problem instead of ruining my life all over again.

  “Bullshit,” I muttered.

  I knew it was only a matter of time before our unit’s turn to go to war, but we’d been briefed countless times and reassured we had at least a year before that could be a possibility. Plenty of time for you and I to get settled in New York, for me to put a ring on your finger and officially make you mine before I had to leave you temporarily. There’s no way in hell Georgia Eubanks, no matter how much money she had, could make something like that happen so quickly. No fucking way.

  “Go ahead and check your e-mail, Mr. James. You’ll find a message from the military confirming what I just told you.”

  With shaking hands, I pulled my phone out of my back pocket and opened the e-mail app. Nausea filled my mouth with spit and made me break out in a cold sweat when I saw the e-mail with my orders.

  “You need to get out of my daughter’s life and you need to get out now. If you want Shelby to have her silly dreams of being a dancer and your sister to finish college and have a secure future, you will leave and never look back.”

  My head whips up from my phone, the sickness rushing through me immediately exchanged for anger once again.

  “Are you seriously threatening me right now? Threatening your own fucking daughter? MY SISTER?” I shouted.

  “You won’t call Shelby, you won’t text Shelby, and you won’t see her again,” she orders, like I hadn’t even spoken. “You will leave her a note, saying whatever you have to to get her to let go of you and move on and you will forget about everything you saw in that report you so foolishly e-mailed to me. If you don’t, everything I said will become a reality, and I know you don’t want that for anyone. Make the right choice, Mr. James. I tried…my hands are tied…you have no idea what you’ve done…”

  With those final words, she sat down in her chair, lifted up the receiver of her phone, pressed a few buttons, and turned her back on me.

  I’d come in here so angry and so sure of the outcome, and in just a few minutes Georgia Eubanks had slid the rug right out from under me.

  Feeling like I had no other options, not if I wanted to protect everyone I loved, I made the only choice I could, not even realizing it would be the worst decision I’d ever made.

  In one final act of defiance, I grabbed a large, expensive-looking vase from a side table by the door, turned, and hurled it across the room. The only satisfaction I got from that was the wide, scared look on your mother’s face when she whipped her chair around as soon as it shattered against the wall by her head.

  I’m sorry, Shelby. I’m so sorry. I wish all of these words weren’t true. I wish I could take them back and make it so none of this ever happened, so that I was a stronger man and never walked away from you, but I can’t. I’m sorry.

  —Eli

  With my hands clutching tightly to the ballet barre attached to the mirrors that ran the length of the studio wall, I bowed my head and tried not to scream.

  When I left Eli earlier today, after another laid-back, easy afternoon of riding horses and reminiscing about the summer we first fell in love, I ran home to finally read the last letter and almost wished I hadn’t. I wanted nothing more than to pretend like I hadn’t seen those words, didn’t know what my mother had done, didn’t have the proof of it back in my bedroom or the realization that I’d probabl
y always instinctively known she had something to do with the way Eli left and chosen to ignore it.

  I’d also ignored the text my mother sent me a few weeks ago the morning I was in bed with Eli, simply stating that we needed to talk. After reading that letter, I wanted nothing more than to turn my back on her and never speak to her again. She never cared about me, she never cared about my happiness, she only cared about herself. The pain in my chest is so acute that I can’t stop the sob that flies from my mouth when I think about the words Eli wrote and remember everything she stole from me.

  The only reason I finally agreed to meet with her, the only reason I’m here right now, is because I want to understand. I want to know how it’s possible for a mother to hate her daughter so much. I want to know what was in the e-mail Eli sent to her that day and I want to know why he didn’t tell me about it, but I’m scared to death to finally have all the answers.

  I thought coming here to the studio to stretch and listen to music before I met her up at the house would calm my nerves, but the longer I stay here and avoid the inevitable, the worse I feel.

  “I was always jealous of you two.”

  My head flies up and I quickly whirl around when I hear her voice. My heart flutters nervously, wondering how she found me here, how she knows about this room, and why she doesn’t look at all shocked to be standing in the doorway.

  “You and your father,” she continues quietly, assuming the surprised look on my face has something to do with the statement she made. “I was always jealous of the connection the two of you had.”

  She steps farther into the room, her heels clicking against the wood floor and I take a moment to really look at her. Gone is the demanding, haughty look on her face, perfectly pressed business suit, and every hair flawlessly in place. She looks like she’s aged twenty years as I continue to stare at her when she stops in the middle of the room, twisting her hands together nervously in front of her. Her black pants suit is full of wrinkles and her usual tight, slicked-back French twist has started to come loose, strands of hair falling against her face and around her shoulders. She looks so vulnerable and small and it makes me sad. It should make me happy that she finally looks as miserable as she’s made me feel most of my life, but it doesn’t. I don’t know how to deal with the emotions I’m feeling for her right now. I’ve spent so much of my time resenting her and she made it easy with her nose up in the air, looking down on me all these years. It’s hard to hate someone who is standing in front of you, cutting herself open and bleeding all of her emotions out into a puddle at your feet.