Being Me (Inside Out Trilogy)

by Lisa Renee Jones

  Answers, Sara. You want answers. “Staying. I’m staying.” My feet move. That’s progress. One step into the den is closer to one step out.

  The massive living room I bring into focus a few feet down the hallway is exactly what I expect of Mark. Rich, rich, and rich in every way. An obviously expensive chocolate brown leather couch is framed by two oversized matching chairs. A fireplace is to the left, and above it a painting I recognize as a Motif. Two sculptures are to either side of the fireplace, and I have no doubt they were done by famous artists, though I am not knowledgeable enough to be certain.

  Mark steps to my side, intimidatingly tall and close. “Let’s sit.”

  I walk forward and choose the solitariness the overstuffed chairs allows me and perch on the edge of one, setting my purse beside me. Mark sits on the arm of the couch facing me, automatically assuming the position of dominance.

  My throat is ridiculously parched and my pulse starts thrumming wildly, afraid of what may be another Pandora’s box.

  “Yes, Ms. McMillan?” he asks when I’ve apparently let too much time pass.

  A heavy breath escapes my lungs. “I need to know what caused you and Chris to come to bad terms.”

  He considers me a moment. “What did he tell you?”

  “I’d rather hear it from you.”

  “Why is this important?” His voice is crisp.

  “It just is.”

  “That’s not a good enough answer.”

  Of course not. That would be too simple. “Was it over Rebecca?”

  “Is this about the police investigation?”

  “No, it’s not that. I . . .” I almost tell him about the storage unit but think better of it. “She’s just become very personal to me and I came across some of Rebecca’s items, and there were keepsakes from a charity event that she and Chris—”

  “They weren’t involved. Not even close. In fact, she came to dislike him quite a lot.”

  “I didn’t think they were involved, but what made her dislike him?”

  “He saw her as a young kid who needed a daddy more than a Master.”

  This explains why Rebecca had scribbled out Chris’s name in her work journal. “And you didn’t agree with him?”

  “No. I didn’t agree with him. I saw a young, intelligent, beautiful woman with the world in her hands.”

  There is a softness to his voice I’ve never heard, and not for the first time I believe he had feelings for Rebecca. Maybe not love, but he had an attachment I once thought him incapable of feeling for anyone. “Where is she, Mark?”

  “Contrary to Ricco’s insistence that I know that, I don’t.”

  “What the fuck is she doing here?”

  I jump at the sound of Ava’s voice and stand up, turning toward a hallway to my right. Ava is standing there, eyes ablaze and wearing nothing but an oversized T-shirt. Ryan is behind her, bare-chested, in a pair of dress pants.

  “I tried to stop her, Mark.” He reaches for Ava and she turns and throws punches at him, tearing her nails down his cheek. “Holy fuck, Ava!”

  “What the fuck is she doing here, Mark?” Ava screams, and she looks wild, insane.

  “Ava, I told you to wait in the bedroom,” Mark warns sharply. “Go back to the bedroom.”

  “So you can fuck her and then come back and fuck me like you did that bitch Rebecca?” She bolts forward and Ryan tries to grab her, but he misses. My heart jackhammers as she closes in on us and I’m not sure where to go, what to do. She’s running toward us, no—me, and I start backing up.

  Mark grabs me and shoves me behind him just as Ava crashes into him. She starts thrashing around, trying to reach me. Before I escape, she grabs a chunk of my hair and twists it in her hands. Pain splinters through my scalp and I scream with the force of her grip.

  “Enough, Ava!” Mark barks, and I feel a painful jerk before I am suddenly free. I stumble backward, hit the table again, and this time I end up on top of it with a hard thud that rattles me to the bones.

  “Fuck you, Mark!” Ava screams in pain, and I can see Ryan’s hand wrapped around her hair, yanking her backward. “You did this to me with that bitch Rebecca!” Ava screeches. “You’re not doing it to me again.”

  I roll to the floor and land on my hands and knees.

  “I’ll kill that bitch,” Ava hisses. “I’ll kill her.”

  “Get out of here, Sara,” Mark orders. Kill me? Was she serious? Mark grabs me and pulls me to my feet. “Sara! Get the fuck out!”

  I don’t need to be told again. I run out of the room and for the door, and I don’t even shut it behind me. Ava is screaming from inside, wild, insane. I’m running so fast I smash into the side of my car, heaving in air. I reach for my purse. Oh, God. Oh, God. No! My purse and keys are inside. Pressing my hand to my forehead, I try to think what to do, but there is too much adrenaline rushing through me to think straight. I start to pace, willing myself to calm down. Neighbor. I have to walk to a neighbor and call Chris for a ride. There isn’t another option. I start to run down the drive.

  Behind me I hear the garage door creak open and I turn to be blinded by headlights that start moving toward me. I edge to the side of the driveway, but the lights follow me. I cut across the lawn, and I don’t have to look back to know the car is still behind me and it’s close—too close. Desperately, I dart behind a massive tree and stumble to my hands and knees as the car blasts into the trunk with a loud crash that echoes through my bones.

  I hear my own breathing. I hear shouts. Mark and Ryan, I think, but I can’t make them out. I scramble to my feet and run toward the voices, bringing both men into focus as they head for me as well. The car door opens with a groan behind me and I turn to walk backward as Ava pushes out of the car, holding a gun on me.

  “Stay where you are, bitch!” Ava screams, blood gushing from her temple.

  I freeze at the venomous look on her face, at the certainty she is insane and will pull the trigger. “Ava!” Mark shouts from somewhere just beyond my shoulder, and he must have taken a step forward because Ava hisses at him, “Stay where you are, Mark, or I’ll shoot her right here and now. Get in the car, Sara.”

  Ryan says nothing. I don’t know where he is, but I hope he’s not here and he’s getting help. It’s our only hope.

  “Get in the car, Sara,” Ava orders.

  I can’t get in the car. I can’t. I know if I do I won’t get back out alive.

  “Now!” she screeches.

  I swallow the panic threatening to overcome me, trying to be logical, trying to think of a way out of this. She won’t hurt me. There are witnesses. People will know I left with her. None of it is true. She’s crazy. That’s what it comes down to.

  She fires by my feet and I jump, and Mark shouts. I move toward her out of fear she will shoot again at me this time. I’m one step toward her and I hear the sound of a motorcycle before I see it. Ava hears it too and reacts by turning the gun toward the sound. The motorcycle comes into view and I know it’s Chris. It has to be, and all I can think is that she’s going to shoot him. Instinct kicks in and I run for Ava, but the gun goes off before I get to her. The bike and Chris go flying and crash into my car. I reach Ava and jump her from behind and try not to think about Chris dead and bleeding. Just get the gun. I yank her hair and do the only thing I know to do. I bite the shit out of her arm. She screams and twists and we go down to the ground with her back to my chest, but I have what I want. The gun flies through the air and I can hear the sound of sirens fast approaching, but I lose my hold on Ava. She rolls off me, going for the gun.

  I grab her shirt, which is all she’s still wearing, and she kicks me hard in the face. Pain jolts me and I lose my grip on her shirt. She scrambles away and somehow I rise to my hands and knees to follow. At the same moment I see a bloodied Chris grappling with Ava for the gun. Her hand touches the gun and terror for Chris shoots adrenaline through me.

  “Chris!” I scream, and slam my fist into Ava’s head. She falls to her si
de with a yelp.

  Ryan comes out of nowhere and grabs me, pulling me back. Mark yanks Ava against him and she screams bloody murder, fighting against him like some kind of possessed person, blood pouring down her face.

  Chris comes to his knees, and he has blood pouring from a gash in his head, too, but he’s got a steady hand on the gun and it’s pointed at Ava as he shouts at Mark, “Get that bitch out of here or I will shoot her!”

  Mark drags Ava away from us and police cars screech into the drive. “Don’t move!” a police officer screams at Chris, holding a gun on him. “Drop the weapon.”

  My eyes meet Chris’s and hold as he drops the gun and I feel the short distance between us like punishing desert miles. He had secrets he kept from me. I went to Mark for answers. Police swarm the yard, blocking my view of Chris, separating us. We are worlds apart, damaged beyond our bodies, perhaps beyond repair.

  • • •

  Swarms of EMT and police officials surround us and I cannot see Chris, but I am assured he is fine. I don’t feel like he is fine. I don’t feel like anything will ever be fine again. It’s only after Ava is taken away, and I see Chris talking to police across the lawn, that I can breathe again. Only then do I let myself be ushered to an ambulance to be checked out.

  It’s there, with a kindly older gentleman with salt-and-pepper hair checking my vitals, that Chris finds me, as he appears at the door looking battered and bruised. The idea that he could have died tonight to save me, because I came here, overwhelms me.

  “How’s your head?” I ask, noting the rather large bandage on his forehead.

  “I need stitches but I’ll live.” He flicks a glance toward the EMTs. “How’s she looking?”

  “Bruised up but she’ll live, too.”

  Chris and I stare at each other, and my heart twists at what passes between us, with the certainty we are still worlds apart. The EMT clears his throat. “I’ll be right back,” he says and quickly exits the vehicle, clearly reading our need for a few moments alone.

  Chris climbs into the ambulance and sits down next to me. “Blake called. Ava confessed to killing Rebecca.”

  My hand balls between my breasts with the impact of this news. “How? When?”

  “We have no details, thanks to an attorney who arrived and shut her up, but I suspect we will in the next few days. The private eye you had the encounter with at the storage unit turned over some journals he took from the unit. He’s had some past trouble and wants no part of being connected to a murder. He seems to think they’ll be helpful.”

  “More journals,” I say. “More people reading Rebecca’s private thoughts. Like I did.”

  “Because of you, she can be properly put to rest. And Ava can be put away before she hurts someone else—like she almost hurt you tonight.”

  I turn to him, wishing away the space between us. “You saved my life.”

  His reply is slow, his expression shuttered, closed off from me the way he is. “Yeah, well, this time I got protecting you right. Apparently I haven’t done so well in other cases.”

  “That’s not true. I just—”

  “Had to hear the truth from Mark because you didn’t believe it from me. I know. I get that.”

  “You didn’t tell me about Rebecca until I discovered it on my own.”

  “I get that, too, but what I can’t seem to get is the fact that you were willing to take his word over mine.” He scrubs his jaw and rests his elbows on his knees. “You say I shut you out when life gets hard. Well, you seem to run to Mark.”

  “No, Chris. It’s not like that. Not even close to that.”

  “You want honesty, Sara. I’m giving it to you. I knew you’d go to him. That’s why I let you leave the apartment so easily. And I swore if you went to him, it was over between us.”

  I am weak all over, trembling from the possibility that he means this. “No, Chris. Mark has nothing to do with us. It hurt that you hadn’t told me everything about Rebecca, and I was still raw over last week.”

  “I know. I know, Sara. We are just so damn good at hurting each other.”

  “What are you saying?” The question comes out barely there, my voice lodged in my throat with my heart.

  “I don’t know what I’m saying. I know I died a thousand deaths tonight when I thought Ava was going to shoot you. I would have died for you tonight; that’s how much I love you.”

  “But sometimes love isn’t enough,” I say, repeating his words from back at the club. “Is that where we’re at again?”

  “I’m not sure I’m the one who has to answer that question this time, Sara. I think you do.”

  “What does that even mean?”

  “Excuse me.” I look up to find a police officer at the back of the vehicle and will him away but it doesn’t work. “Ms. McMillan, if you’re up to it, we’d like you to come inside to answer some questions.”

  “Of course. Now?”

  “That would be the preference.”

  Chris climbs out of the ambulance and offers me his hand. I slide my palm in his and warmth spreads up my arm, but the space between us, the damn space, is thick and cold, and I fear it is becoming more impenetrable by the second. I don’t want to leave him. I want the people to go away and leave us alone.

  The EMT reappears and eyes Chris. “We’re ready to roll on to the hospital, if you are?”

  “Yeah,” Chris says. “I’m ready.” His eyes meet mine and hold a moment. “I’m going to get my head stitched up.”

  “I’ll go with you.”

  “You need to answer the questions they want answered, and get tonight behind you and us. Stay here. Do what they need you to do.”

  I cling to the word us, but I know how broken we are. I know how close we are to losing each other, how abnormal it is for Chris to not insist on being by my side for this. My throat constricts. “Right. Okay.” I turn to the officer. “I’m ready.” I don’t look at Chris again since I know that if I do, I won’t walk away. For the first time since meeting him, I wonder if he might be relieved if I did.

  Thirty-one

  An hour after Chris left for the hospital, I’m done with the police questioning and I step outside Mark’s house. A flicker of movement draws me to the shadowy area of the yard, to the tree Ava had crashed into, and I find Mark resting against it. His head is bowed low, his arms resting on his knees, and it’s clear this isn’t the composed, controlled Mark I’ve come to expect.

  After a moment of hesitation, I join him and settle onto the ground beside him. His head lifts and I’m shocked at what he allows me to see. Pain. Torment. Blame.

  “She came back because I asked her to,” he tells me.

  “What?” I ask, but then it hits me what he means. I remember Blake saying Rebecca came home and just disappeared.

  “I called Rebecca while she was on her vacation with the guy she took off with, and told her to come back. That things would be different. She told me no.” He shoves a rough hand into his hair and curses. “I thought she shut me out. I never even knew she came back into town. I brought her back here, and Ava did God knows what to her. I’m the reason she’s dead.”

  “Don’t do this to yourself.” I go to my knees to face him. “You didn’t do this. You aren’t responsible for what Ava did.”

  He fixes me with a haunted stare. “I am. You don’t know just how fucking responsible I am. I threw Rebecca and Ava together at the club. I included Ava in play. I—” His voice breaks off and he looks away sharply. “Rebecca was . . .” Seconds tick by and abruptly he is staring at me again. “I caused this, and I almost did the same thing to you. I would have, if not for Chris. You and I both know it’s true. Go home, Sara. Get as far away from me as you can.”

  The order is rough and razor sharp, but I don’t move. I want to help him. “Mark—”

  “Go home.”

  I know then that he has to deal with his demons in his own way, like I’ve had to deal with mine. I push to my feet and stare down at him, but he is
n’t looking at me and I know he won’t again. I walk to my car. Once I’m inside, I start the engine, but I’m not sure what to do with myself. Chris had said he’d vowed we’d be over if I came here tonight. Did he mean it? I’ve heard nothing from him, but I love him too much to have much pride right now.

  With nerves fluttering in my stomach, I try to call him. The rings radiate through me, one after another, until I hear his voice mail and hang up. I feel that same pinch in my chest that I did last week when he’d shut me out. He’s angry and hurt and I’m not anymore. I’m uncertain and confused.

  I’m not sure how tonight landed where it did, and as I start driving, I find myself searching for answers where it all seemed to start. I end up at my old apartment and go to Ella’s unit, the place where I first discovered Rebecca. I walk to the bedroom, drop my purse on the bed, and lie on the mattress to stare at the ceiling. Thanks to Ella and Rebecca, I dared to be me, not the shell of a person I had settled for. And because of them, I found Chris.

  I roll to my side, exhausted beyond belief. I want to go home, I want to see Chris. I want to talk to him about all I am feeling, but we are broken. So very broken. I don’t know how to fix us. I don’t know if he wants to fix us. Maybe I shouldn’t want to fix us. But I do. And I don’t care if that makes me foolish. I dig my phone from my purse, shut my eyes, and will it to ring.

  • • •

  “Sara.” I blink awake to the sound of Chris’s voice and find him standing above me.

  I sit up in a haze, afraid I’m still dreaming. “Chris?” I scoot to the end of the bed, relieved he is indeed here, hope filling me that we still have a chance.

  He squats down in front of me, but he doesn’t touch me. “I thought you’d be here, when I didn’t find you at home.”

  “I couldn’t go home when you weren’t there. I tried to call you.”

  “They made me turn my phone off at the hospital, and you haven’t been answering yours since I turned it back on.” He cuts his gaze away and I sense the struggle in him, and dread fills me before he turns back to me. “Look. Sara.” Again he hesitates, and I hang on the moment until he continues. “I’m leaving for Paris at ten in the morning.”