The Reason for Me

by Prescott Lane

  THE REASON FOR ME

  by

  PRESCOTT LANE

  Copyright © 2016 Prescott Lane

  Kindle Edition

  Cover design © Hang Le

  Cover image from Adobe Stock by © el_caro

  Editing by Nikki Rushbrook

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  PROLOGUE

  Pain does one of two things: it either rips you to shreds or makes you realize just how damn strong you are.

  ANNALYSE

  How do you define hell? The dictionary gives a couple different definitions, either a place of turmoil or where the devil lives. The word hell does conjure up images of devils and fire. My own personal hell doesn’t involve a devil, and there is no actual fire. Still, after all these years, those flames of pain still flicker in my heart, still char my soul. The burned remains of my former self are ashes that I will forever carry. No matter how hard I try, I cannot scatter them to the wind.

  So I have learned to love the fire, to crave the burn, to become the Phoenix instead of an arsonist who wants to burn the whole motherfucker down.

  That’s the thing about hell—no one’s coming to save you. There are no white knights in shining armor. You’ve got to save yourself. You’ve got to learn not to throw gas on the flames. And the most you can hope for is to find someone who will stand in the fire right beside you. Sometimes they may guard you from the burn, but mostly they will simply listen to your cries as the fire scorches your battered soul. And there are very few people willing to walk into the fire with you—a firewalker.

  CHAPTER ONE

  HALLOWEEN

  ANNALYSE

  I’ve spent five years in my own personal hell, moving around every month or so for my job as a writer—like a nomad. If you move around a lot, then you don’t get close to anyone, which means you don’t get hurt. After all, loving someone is the ultimate self-harm. One way or another, love is going to hurt you. There are no real happily-ever-afters. Even lifelong marriages end in one person dying, so why do we bother doing that to ourselves?

  The answer?

  Hope.

  Hope in finding someone who understands. Hope in knowing that we are not alone. I had that once, for a brief moment with Logan.

  The day I married Logan, five years ago today, is burned into my mind.

  Logan and I had been together since we were sixteen, and hadn’t broken up once. We weren’t one of those teenage couples that break up and get back together a thousand times. Logan was my everything, my whole world, and I knew I was his.

  We had a traditional wedding ceremony, but the reception was anything but. Logan planned the whole thing. Some girls, my sister included, frowned upon a Halloween-themed reception, thinking it was corny, but I didn’t care. Truthfully, I didn’t care much about the wedding, either. I just wanted to be his wife. The dress, flowers, and fuss weren’t me. I didn’t need any of it as long as Logan was waiting at the altar.

  And he was.

  The ceremony was beautiful, or that’s what everyone said. I don’t remember a single moment of it, outside of the way his brown eyes looked in the candlelight. The way he looked at me was like the sun, moon, and all the planets revolved around me. It was the same way he looked at me in the back of the limo on the way to the reception.

  He told the driver to take the long route and tackled me to the seat. I remember the whoosh sound my dress made so clearly as he landed on top of me. The ride from the church to the reception hall was all of five minutes, and I knew if we took much longer than that, it would be pretty obvious what we’d been doing. I didn’t care. His eyes were so bright as he flipped my dress up over my head. “Annalyse, you did not marry me commando?” he teased as his head peered out from under the tulle. I simply raised my eyebrows at him. He rested his head on my inner thigh, his fingers gently rubbing the flesh under my dress. “I promise I’ll love you the rest of my life,” he said.

  The irony of those words still seems cruel.

  “Annalyse,” my sister, Meg, calls out from her patio, interrupting the flicker of memories.

  Ten years older than me, I think she considers herself fifty years wiser. And in her wisdom, marriage and kids are unnecessary evils. Not that she didn’t have her share of boyfriends, she did. She is beautiful, but looks like she belongs in California with her blonde hair, brown eyes, tiny waist, and boobs big enough to fill out any bikini. She is my complete opposite, with my barely-there A cups, hips for days, and ordinary brown hair. But Meg was always jealous of my blue eyes growing up.

  Meg and I are complete opposites in other ways, too. She is always the life of the party. Me? Not so much. She has avoided marriage her whole life, so she didn’t understand me marrying Logan when I was barely twenty-two. She doesn’t understand a lot about me, but that doesn’t stop her from standing in the fire with me. Meg always has my back.

  “Two minutes,” I yell back from the dock then turn and stare out at the lake. I hate this day—Halloween. I never thought I’d hate anything that Logan loved, but I do. I dread this day. As a crisp wind blows through the dusk sky, the tears I’ve been waiting for all day never come, and I realize I’m all cried out. It’s time to get back out there.

  I look back at my sister’s house, my house for the next several months. Her house, like most of her neighbors’ houses, is a traditional brick home with massive windows along the back to maximize the lake view. A couple years ago, Meg settled down with Patrick. He’s a great guy. I love him, and I love Meg with him. And while he’d managed to get her to move in with him and get engaged, they have yet to walk down the aisle—Meg’s issue. I don’t understand why she doesn’t want kids, she’s always so nurturing to me and her patients. But she never has. She says she just knows herself and knows she doesn’t want that kind of responsibility. I hope that doesn’t have anything to do with her feeling responsible for me all these years. Still, I know Patrick is committed to her, and it makes me happy to see her so happy.

  Patrick’s job requires him to travel a great deal, and this time he will be overseas for an extended period of time. Meg took a leave of absence from her nursing job and is joining him, which means they need someone to watch the house they built on the lake a year ago, so I volunteered to housesit for her for the next few months.

  The timing couldn’t have been more perfect. I finally sold the condo that Logan and I bought together right before we got married. I’d hung on to it for so long, too long. I
knew it, Meg knew it, hell, even Logan’s family knew it. So housesitting is perfect. I’ll help out my sister while I look for a place. Living in Little Rock is going to be a big adjustment from traveling the world for my job, but I’m ready. I think.

  “Lyse,” Meg calls out from her patio again. I hate it when she calls me that. It sounds like she’s calling me lice. She waves me towards the house, and I take a deep breath. It’s only Halloween. Hand out candy. No big deal. “Come on, we need to get ready.”

  Starting back towards the house, I ask, “Ready for what?”

  “The party,” she says, pulling me inside. “I got you a costume and everything.”

  “Meg, I’m not . . .”

  “The party’s at the clubhouse,” she says. “Come on. We don’t get many kids down this way. It’ll be fun.”

  I don’t want to disappoint her. She’s leaving tomorrow morning to join Patrick; he left a week ago. We really only have this one night together. Plus, I know she wants to see her neighbors. There are only a handful of houses around the lake, so they are a tight knit group. She has keys to almost all their houses, and they have keys to hers.

  “Wait until you see the costumes I got,” she says, walking over to a hall closet and pulling out two garment bags. “I thought I could dress up like you, and you could dress up like me.” She laughs and pulls out a sexy nurse’s outfit, handing it to me.

  “Meg, I’m not wearing that.” It’s so short, it will barely cover my bottom, and that’s the least of my concerns. It’s also got a garter belt with white fishnets stockings and is so low cut my belly button might show.

  “Yes, you are. You need to embrace your inner slut,” she says, sticking her tongue out at me.

  “What’s your costume?” I ask.

  She opens up the bag and pulls out the most godawful housedress. “Bookworm! Of course, I’ve got to rub white makeup all over my face because you look like Casper’s cousin.”

  Meg always has a healthy, sun kissed glow. Not me! I burn, blister, peel, and turn white again. I embraced my paleness years ago. “Very funny. And I’m not a bookworm. I’m a writer.”

  “I know, I know.”

  Meg is a people person, and she’s never understood the solitude of writing. I can lock myself away for days and not talk to anyone, except through the pages of my laptop. And I’m good at it. I’ve done some travel writing, some stuff for blogs. I am the freelance queen, but almost a year ago, I started my own blog. I write about all kinds of things—books, clothes, what I’m feeling, thinking. For some reason, it resonates with people, and I have over a hundred thousand followers now. It’s new and different, and I’m excited about it. I’m not making a ton of money, but between advertising on the blog, freelance pieces, and what I’ve saved over the past five years, I don’t need to take any more writing gigs that require travel.

  Meg thinks writing is just another way for me to avoid life. Actually, it’s the only time I feel like I’m really me, really able to say what I think and feel. My whole life is on that blog. I haven’t held back a single thing, and I think that’s why people like it so much. It’s like sneaking a peek at someone’s diary.

  “How should we do our hair tonight?” Meg asks, as the doorbell rings.

  Meg hurries to answer, and I take the time to examine the sluttiness that is my costume. As if the fishnets weren’t bad enough, it’s pleather and has a corset top. Good God! I hold it up over my body and look in a mirror. Maybe showing so much skin will distract from the dark circles under my blue eyes. Nope, there’s no hope. Plus, there’s no way I’m showing the girls. Good thing my brown hair is long. Maybe if I pull it to the side, it will cover up some of my non-existent cleavage.

  “Did you hear a motorcycle on the street . . .” a deep male voice starts to ask, but Meg interrupts.

  “Yeah, that was my sister. I hope it didn’t disturb you. She doesn’t ride that often.” She’s right, but I don’t even own a car. I’ll be using Meg’s while she’s gone. With all my traveling, I just haven’t needed one. I hope this guy isn’t some prude who’s got something against motorcycles. Because if so, we’re going to have a problem. “You should come in and meet my sister,” I hear Meg say, so I step closer to the door.

  “No, I’m just getting home,” he says, “but tell her if she needs anything to just knock.”

  There’s something about his deep voice that makes me shiver, and not in a good way. I recognize something—the polite nature, but the tone is off—aloof, maybe. Then I catch a glimpse of him—tall, brown hair, a strange eye color I can’t quite make out from the distance. But it’s not his body that’s got my attention. He’s got a smile I’ll never forget, one I’ve mastered, too. It’s perfect and polite and completely full of shit. The one you use when someone asks you how you are, but they don’t really want to know.

  A mask.

  Meg closes the door, breaking my stare. “That was Holt. He lives right next door.” I nod, and she continues to stare at me. “He’s sexy as hell, huh?”

  “What?”

  “Please, Lyse, don’t tell me you didn’t notice how hot that man is?”

  “I really wasn’t . . .”

  She waves her hand in the air. “He looks exactly like Jake from Scandal.” We both start to giggle. That show is our guilty pleasure. We call each other almost every Friday morning to discuss what happened the night before, and we both love Jake. He’s sexy and sweet, with a bit of a bad boy edge. What’s not to love?

  “Too bad I didn’t get a good look,” I tease.

  “It doesn’t matter anyway,” she says. “He’s nice, but . . .”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know. You know all the neighbors are friends. But Holt is . . . Well, he’s friendly, but not friends. You know?”

  I do know. I know that exactly. It’s how I’ve functioned in society for a long time. You’re nice, polite, cordial, but no one really “knows” you. It’s a safe place to be, a place where no one is close enough to hurt you.

  “Besides, Holt works a lot, so he’s not around much. Plus, I get the feeling he’s a commitment phobe. Not the type of man you need,” Meg says, a glimmer of mischief in her eyes. “Now, one of the other neighbors just got divorced, and he’s super cute, too. Maybe . . .”

  “Not today, Meg.”

  “Right, sorry.” She pats my back a little and begins to talk about some of the other neighbors, but I’m only half-listening. “Judy and Carla live on the other side. They are this great old lesbian couple. You’ll love them. Carla loves to cook, so don’t be surprised if she shows up at the door with cookies or something. You’ll meet most everyone tonight at the party.” Meg walks over to the huge kitchen island, looking over her lists of things she needed to tell me and grabbing an envelope. “I almost forgot.”

  “You aren’t paying me. We already discussed this.”

  She rolls her eyes. “I know, but I made a bunch of appointments for you tomorrow after you take me to the airport.”

  “What kind of appointments?” I ask, reaching for the sheet of paper.

  But she whips it up over my head before I can grab it. “First, the internist then the dentist for a cleaning, an eye exam, and finally the OBGYN.”

  “Meg!” I swear my sister has no boundaries. And she forgets that she’s not my mother.

  And we both forgot a long time ago that she’s not my actual sister. That’s right. Meg and I aren’t related by blood. I was a foster child placed with her family since before I can remember. Actually, I was one of many foster kids they took in over the years, but I’m the only one that stuck. Some got reunited with their own families, others were just delinquents.

  When Meg’s mother died in a car crash, Meg’s father fought to keep me over the objections of social services, knowing it would crush his daughter to lose someone else. He loved to tell the story of when I came to live with them, and Meg went to school and told everyone she was getting a real life Barbie doll. She dressed me up and did my h
air and carried me around everywhere with her.

  I’m convinced she lived at home and went to college locally just so she could be with me, and her father treated me like his own. When I turned eighteen, he didn’t turn me away. I wasn’t his responsibility anymore, but he continued to care for me until he died my freshman year of college. Meg stepped up, taking over for him, not missing a beat. She helped pay for my college tuition, which is a lot on a twenty-something single woman with a nursing degree. But she did it—for me.

  But now Meg has Patrick, and I’m hoping against hope that they decide to start a family. I want that more than anything—a family. Logan and I were supposed to have that. He was supposed to be my family. That’s gone now.

  So I’m stuck with my de facto mother, Meg. I generally just appease her. It makes her happy, and I know her craziness is out of love.

  “The day ends with a haircut and mani/pedi,” she says, flashing me a smile. “Also, I got you a guest pass to my gym. And there’s always the subdivision tennis courts and pool, too.”

  “Meg, this is over the top,” I say, although I know I’ve got no hope of winning.

  “You did all that traveling working for magazines. I know some things have slipped. And this is a new start for you. Plus, you know you’re supposed to see Dr. Barbara more frequently since the . . .”

  “Fine,” I say, throwing my hands up. Starting fresh doesn’t mean reliving all my old pain, especially on this day—the day the pain was born.

  “Good,” she says, her face beaming. She loves getting her way. “Now, let’s get ready for the party.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  HOLT

  Some days change your life forever. Like this day—Halloween.

  But I’m going to do my best to forget it. Twirling the little white-colored pill in my fingers, I’m grateful one of the side effects of taking it is memory loss, because if there is any day I want to forget, it’s this one.

  Looking out the window, I see the lights on at the subdivision clubhouse, everyone ready to party and drink and celebrate. More power to them. All I want to do is crash, forget, and pretend this day doesn’t exist.