by Stella Rhys
“Stop!” I couldn’t take it anymore. “I am begging you. I want to go to Thanksgiving in peace, okay? I want to see my cousins and my aunts and my uncles and I don’t want to bring up Owen. I don’t want to talk about him ever again – please!”
“We have to.” Liam slammed me to his chest when I fought away.
“Why? Why do we have to? Why do you have to make it any of your business, Liam?”
“Are you fucking kidding me? Because you are my business, Sasha. You’re mine. You are the person I live for. I promised you eight years ago I’d never go after that piece of shit because you said you wanted to move on, but clearly, you haven’t,” Liam seethed, digging into past I’d wanted to keep forever hidden. “You’re still unhappy because you still live for your mother’s approval. You bend over backwards for her because you’re still holding out hope that she’ll turn back into the woman she was before Owen came around, but you should know by now that she won’t.”
“Why not?” I demanded. “How do you know that?”
“She hasn’t forgiven you in ten years, Sasha, what makes you think she ever will?”
“Because she’s my mother!” Ragged sobs choked from my throat. “I loved the life I had with her before Owen came along, and I can’t forget the fifteen years I had a mother, okay, Liam? I can’t forget that she took me shopping for school and wrote me checks for my field trips. I can’t forget the times she sat with me in bed till I fell asleep. I’m sorry, but I miss that bond. I miss that part of me where there was a mom and a daughter and a feeling of love that I can’t recreate with just you!”
Liam finally stepped back. His stare bore into me, and he didn’t say a word, but he didn’t need to. I had hurt him. I knew that. But I was telling the truth. Our eyes locked, the silence stretched between us.
“I’m sorry,” I finally whispered, my voice breaking.
“You don’t have to be.” Liam stood away from me. “I just want you to be happy.”
“I know. I know you do. And I know I make it hard for you,” I said softly. My gaze fell to his bare chest as I waited for him to go with his usual and say no, that nothing was hard for him when it came to me. But he didn’t.
“Yeah, Sash. You do,” was all he said before retreating back into his room. I blinked, my body frozen with surprise and rocked by guilt.
When Liam came back out of his room, he had a T-shirt on and his gym bag slung over his shoulder. His tired gaze met mine for barely a second before he opened the door and walked out, letting the door shut behind him. Standing naked, alone in the kitchen, I waited to hear his steps go halfway down the hall and stop. I didn’t deserve it, but I hoped anyway that he’d come back and comfort me. But all I heard was the ding of the elevator and his sneakered feet walking in.
Once the heavy metal door slid closed, I crumpled to the floor and cried.
Chapter Sixteen
It was my day off, but I couldn’t stay at home for another second. So despite knowing I’d regret it, I went to Riley’s.
“Trav! Didn’t I tell you to clean the living room before I left?”
Riley glared up the stairs of her Battery Park condo – the beautiful luxury apartment in what she called the “lamest neighborhood in Manhattan.” Compared to Liam’s Chelsea loft, the area was certainly less vibrant, but I tried to remind Riley that she was still lucky to have such nice home at all. Of course, my attempts were generally in vain.
“Travis!” Riley yelled with true vigor. “Travis Daniel Shannon!”
“I’m on the phone, Riley – what?”
The second I heard Travis shout back with equal attitude, I retreated to the kitchen, stacks of resumes in hand. An argument, or at least a heated debate, was about to ensue so I figured I’d just get started on our work alone. Riley and I had a fair amount of hiring to do. After going through the holidays as a brand new bar last year, we’d learned that come November, employee call-out rates went through the roof due to trips home for the holidays, failing to get back in time, being hung over or in food comas – the like. So we resolved that by November of next year, we’d have some holiday staff on hand. And since the hiring of new people was always contested at the bar, Riley and I decided to go to her house to keep our search fully private. Plus, it always took forever because Riley leaned toward hiring cute guys and I leaned toward hiring cute girls. From what I observed, it was just better for business.
“I’m gonna kill that motherfucker,” Riley muttered when she finally met me in the kitchen, plopping down at the seat across from me.
“I’ll help you clean the house when we’re done with this stuff.”
“I don’t want you to help. That’s not the point. The point is if he works from home, he should be doing housework. I don’t think I’m being unreasonable here. Do you?”
“No, but – ”
“Trav!” Leaning back in her chair, Riley screamed out the kitchen. “Sasha agrees with me, Trav!”
I sighed. “Riley. Let’s just go through the resumes.”
“Ugh, yes please. Show me some sexy male models,” Riley smacked her lips. Our job posting on Craigslist required all applicants to send a picture, which meant half the stack of resumes included professional actor headshots. I gave a little shudder.
“I feel like I’m being stared at going through all these. It’s kind of creepy,” I laughed, fanning out the dozens of portraits. “Tell me why we need to see their faces again?”
“Because asking for pictures discourages the uglies from applying,” Riley said with mock daintiness, forming her usual “yes,” “no” and “maybe” pile. “And the fact of the matter is that looks count in this world. More than any of you politically correct losers are willing to admit.”
“Alright, alright. Yikes, woman,” I snorted, though I wasn’t actually surprised. Riley had always put a fair amount of weight on appearances. She was the pretty one growing up. She started early on makeup, went to tanning salons and kept up with the trends. We ran with similar crowds in middle and high school, but she was the one who curled her hair, wore short skirts and bought twenty-dollar lip gloss. Generally, I wore messy buns and my volleyball tees over black yoga pants. Mom always begged me to at least do a “chic” ponytail or a chignon, but I always ended up taking them out. “I might as well have had a son,” Mom would tease.
It was why I remembered being confused when she first brought Owen home. He looked at Riley the way most men did – with charm and lifted brows over her perky breasts pushed halfway out of her bra. But his eyes on her lasted only a moment. His attention was rapt when he was introduced to me, and it never really left. Not even after Mom confronted him about everything, packed her bags and moved us back to New York.
I could feel my eyes drifting elsewhere as I suddenly remembered the letters he wrote me. All the pages of his diary he’d sent in the mail. My throat went tight as I recalled every profession of love, every confession of wrongdoing in each handwritten note. I had skimmed through the first two that arrived just to make sure he wasn’t planning on coming to New York to find me. The rest that came went unopened and shoved into my drawer. They were disgusting, and they brought back memories I had worked tirelessly to bury.
Fuck.
I paused, remembering that every single one of those letters still existed. My heart almost stopped when I realized they still sat in the old apartment I once shared with Ethan.
“Hey.” Riley snapped her fingers in front of my eyes. “Yes. Hello, Sasha. Welcome back to Earth.”
“I – sorry.”
“What are you daydreaming about? Is it this guy right here?” Riley held up a color headshot of an impossibly pretty man with shoulder length blonde hair and a perfectly trimmed beard. “From Amarillo, Texas! A real life cowboy!” she said in a horrific Southern accent. “No city experience but his abs have abs, so that’s always a plus.”
I gave it some thought and laughed. “He would be a hit with the girls who come in. Go for it.”
He
r eyebrows shot up. “Wow, seriously? You’re not going to fight me on how he’s never bartended in New York? Not that I’m complaining but did you fall on your head or something?”
I blinked. “No.” I just figure we’ll need another main attraction for if Liam and I ever come out as a couple. Riley narrowed her eyes at me but then she nodded slowly and smirked.
“Oh, I see what’s happening here.”
“I somewhat doubt you are.”
“Oh, I do. You’re getting the itch again.”
“Sorry?”
“It’s been two months since Ethan and you need some penis back in your life,” Riley giggled, putting the Texan in her “yes” pile. “So it’s decided – he’s in. It’ll be healthy for us to look at him.”
“Only look?” I teased.
“Hey, you’re not allowed to get that cowboy dick if I’m not.”
“Oh, really. You’re married!”
“Marriage doesn’t always mean forever.”
“Riles.” I shot her a look over the joke that Travis hated. She made it far too liberally, and often times in front of him.
“Fine, fine. I’m sorry,” Riley rolled her eyes, tossing a couple headshots of girls into the “no” pile before sighing. “But he hasn’t…” She paused and lowered her voice. “He hasn’t fucked me in almost six months, you know.”
My eyes went wide. “Travis?”
“Yes,” Riley answered impatiently. I could see her eyes flicking about as she debated whether she wanted to get into it. She decided she did. “Like… it sounds horrible, but doesn’t he know that he married out of his league? He should be jumping on me every chance he gets, but he barely wants to look at me. Ever. He says I nag him like I’m his mom. Or he tells me he’s working late but then I get a text from his friends asking why I’m not joining them at the bar. Like, seriously? And he doesn’t even blink an eye about that. About how he lies to me and makes me cry. He doesn’t even care.”
My frown deepened fast. I rarely saw Riley and Travis being affectionate anymore, but I hadn’t expected a dead bedroom or failing marriage. “I’m so sorry. Riley, why didn’t you tell me?”
She went quiet for a bit, sorting aimlessly through the resumes. When her voice came back, it was smaller than I’d ever heard it. “Because it’s embarrassing,” she said, avoiding my eyes. “It makes me feel unwanted. And unloved.”
My chest ached at those words. “Riley, no. Of course you’d feel this way but you should know that you’re not either of those things. You are so wanted and so loved.”
“Thank you.” She gave a silly pout the way she did when she was trying to hide her true pain. My heart twisted as I reached for her hand.
“You can always tell me when you’re feeling this way, Riley. Because it’s not true and if you fester in these dark thoughts by yourself, you’ll end up really believing it,” I said, knowing all too well. “So please. Please just talk to me next time.”
“I’m talking to you now,” Riley said, looking up at me. There was shame in her eyes as she shrugged. “Honestly, I feel really alone lately. I used to tell you everything but your mind is somewhere else lately, and that’s okay, you have a life of your own. You’re getting over a breakup. But I can’t tell Mom either because her mind is everywhere during the holidays, which is stupid. Like, does it really take a whole month to plan Thanksgiving dinner?” Riley laughed, dabbing at the corners of her eyes. “Can you really not take a minute to talk to your daughter who’s clearly calling for a reason?”
“Oh, Riles. I know. She gets crazy this time of the year but she will stop everything she’s doing to talk to you. You just can’t drop hints with her – she’ll miss them all when she’s busy. You need to tell her it’s important and that you need her now. And if she hears that, she’ll get in her car and drive straight to your house for you. You know that, Riley.”
“I know,” Riley nodded as my own stomach twisted in a painful knot. Because I knew that my mother would never do the same for me. She saw me at my worst and she walked in the other direction. She heard me ask for help and told me to handle it myself.
“You did this. You fix it,” she had said to me.
Staring at the table, I forced away the memories of how Riley treated me after the Owen debacle. She did try to help, but her efforts quickly dwindled without the support of our mother. And then she begged me to get over it so we could all move on.
She was just a kid, I reminded myself as I always did. When I was fifteen, Riley was seventeen. She was hardly more equipped to handle the situation than I was, so I had to forgive the way she reacted to it.
“I’ll call Mom,” Riley declared with a sudden confidence. I blinked up at her and nodded.
“Of course. But you can talk to me in the meantime,” I offered quietly. “I’m always here for you. We’re family.”
She put her hand on mine and smiled. “Thank you, Sash. I appreciate it,” she said softly. “But I’ll just call Mom later. She already knows about it because I’ve told her, so I won’t have to catch her up like I would with you. Besides, I should spare you, Sash. You don’t want to hear about my silly shit anyway,” she laughed, recovering quickly. “Anyway,” she said jovially, grabbing a bottle of Prosecco from the fridge. “Let’s get back to this shit. Cowboy’s a go. What other studmuffins do we got?”
* * *
My heart was beating out of my chest as my weak legs paced up Eighth Avenue in ankle boots. I cursed under my breath at the weekend crowd outside Liam’s gym – mostly younger girls taking selfies and recording video. Normally, I didn’t think twice about them, but with tears streaming down my cheeks, I wished they wouldn’t be around to catch me running crying into Liam’s gym. They were probably a sign for me to stop right there, to wait till Liam got home, but I couldn’t. My emotions were running higher than I knew possible. They were stronger and wilder than I had the strength to fight and I had to let them out.
“Excuse me.” My words were ragged as I angled through the crowd of giggling teenagers. They responded with the typical “ew” and “um” and “excuse you” but their voices were shut out the second I pushed into the gym, the heavy glass door shutting behind me.
“Sash? You okay?”
A.J was spotting behind the bench press when he saw me. The second my name left his lips I heard a thunderous clang – Liam’s massive barbell slamming back on the rack. Frozen stiff, I stood there, watching the lines of his abs tighten as he sat up on the bench. He was shirtless and sweating with worry already knitting his brows.
“Sasha.” He was on his feet and in front of me in seconds. I didn’t mind the eyes of his boys on us but I could hear clamoring behind me. I thanked God for A.J who’d already grabbed the remote that brought the blinds down on the giant window.
“I’m sorry I had to come here,” I finally breathed.
“Don’t be sorry, Sasha – what happened? Did someone hurt you?” Liam demanded in an urgent whisper.
“No,” I replied shakily. It didn’t help ease his tension. He took one glance around before taking my hand and leading me toward the back, into the empty women’s locker room. Seating me on a bench, he stood before me, concern in his eyes as he cupped my face in his hand.
“Tell me what’s going on, Sash.”
I drew in a serrated breath. “I just… I came here from Riley’s. She didn’t do anything wrong to me but she just… reminded me.”
“Of what, baby?”
I let it all go. “How you did everything for me when my own blood refused to even come near me.” My eyes felt like waterfalls as I stared up at Liam, hanging onto his wrists and leaning into his palm. “I always remember it as ‘Liam saved me’ but I never let myself remember exactly what you did for me because I don’t like bringing the pain back in detail. But you did so much for me, Liam – so much that neither Mom nor Riley were willing to do. I don’t even know if you remember what you did.”
“Of course I remember it.” Liam knelt before me. “I r
emember it but I didn’t think it was a big deal. Anyone who loved you should have done that for you.”
“But they didn’t. Only you did. So it was a big deal for me.”
Two years after the mess with Owen, Liam had been the one to listen when I expressed interest in therapy. He was the one who shuttled me in his car from doctor to doctor to doctor, till I found the right match. After spending the past few years spurned, stood up and alone, I’d forgotten what trust felt like. I didn’t remember what it was like to be told “I’ll be there” and actually have it be true. I was on the verge of believing I’d be without that memory ever again, and that it would be okay.
But then came Liam.
He was twenty-one at the time, but he never forgot a single one of my appointments. He wasn’t in college but he was already training at a top Jiu Jitsu academy in Long Island. He was renting his own apartment out there with A.J but he thought nothing of driving two hours to my house to bring me to my appointments. That would wind up being four to five hours including the way back – a total of ten hours a week.
It didn’t even stop there. He found a second job to cover the cost of my therapy, since insurance didn’t cover the doctor I talked with best. I knew it weighed on him. I knew he was sleep deprived, waking up at the crack of dawn to train his clients at the gym he worked at, to train himself at the academy after, then report straight to his second job, occasionally fitting another workout in at the end of his shift. I knew he was tired. That he sacrificed having the life he should’ve been enjoying just to be the support system I wouldn’t have otherwise. But every time I said I would stop so he could quit, Liam said it wasn’t an option. When I cried about being his burden, he told me I was his biggest blessing. He always pressed his lips to the top of my head to reassure me of his word and I quickly became addicted to his comfort – to that warm, full-body relief he could provide me with one word or one kiss. Just the sound of his Jeep tires rolling into our driveway released endorphins to my brain.
