“Always so dramatic,” he sighed. He set his briefcase down and knelt in front of me. Taking my chin in his hand, he forced my head up. “Look at you, such a mess. What did you think running away would accomplish?”
“I hate you,” I whispered, on the brink of tears. I didn’t want to lose it in front of him. It was his favorite kind of ammunition to use against me.
“Maybe right now you do, but when you’re back home and thinking clearly, you’ll thank me.” He let go but stayed where he was.
I should have signed over the house when he’d asked in the first place; I’d have been free of him now if I had. “Why are you doing this?”
“Why?” Trey asked in a low, angry hiss. “You took everyone from me. And then, after everything I did for you, you left, you ungrateful—” He stopped and righted himself. “I’m going to pack you a bag and you’re going to come home. When you’ve signed over the house, you’ll be free to do as you please. Even if that means running back here to that degenerate loser you’ve been letting fuck you for God knows how long.”
“Hayden’s not a degenerate.” I struggled to my feet.
My limbs felt loose, uncoordinated, my body detached from my mind. Trey stared down at me with absolute loathing.
“Don’t defend him to me. You are defiling yourself, and for what? Some deviant who enjoys corrupting you until you’re no longer fun to play with?”
He dragged me to the bedroom by my arm, depositing me roughly on the bed. He was good at isolating my fears and gouging wounds in my self-esteem. Trey opened my closet door and found a suitcase. I pushed up off the mattress and elbowed him out of the way.
“I can’t leave. I have classes to teach,” I said, wondering how far he would push this.
“I’ve already taken care of that. I spoke to the dean of your program and your advisor on Friday.” Trey headed for my dresser.
“You did what?”
“You’d be amazed at what a little legal paperwork can accomplish. Your advisor seemed very understanding. We spoke at length. He expressed concern over whether or not you were mentally prepared to endure the rigors of the program.” Trey smiled derisively and reached for the top drawer. His audacity knew no bounds. “He seemed rather adamant about keeping you under his advisement. Tell me, Tenley, what exactly is your relationship with your advisor?”
“Who do you think you are, interfering in my life like that?”
Trey turned to look at me, eyes burning with anger. “I’m the person who made sure you were taken care of.”
“You consider shoving pills down my throat and keeping me medicated to the point of unconsciousness care?” I asked bitterly.
It was bad enough Trey had come unannounced, treated Hayden like trash, and threatened me with a subpoena. That he’d contacted my advisor and the dean of my program was such an inexcusable invasion of privacy that I didn’t want his hands on my things.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“Yes. You are. The memorial service is barely more than a week away. You will be there.”
I felt like I’d been backhanded. “Memorial service?” The reality I hadn’t wanted to face came anyway. The anniversary of the crash was only days away.
“Yes, Tenley, they’re meant to commemorate the dead,” he said contemptuously. “Why do you look so shocked? Haven’t you listened to any of my messages? Christ, you really are a selfish little bitch.”
He yanked open the drawer with such force that it came free of the dresser, the contents spilling all over the floor. He fisted a pile of colorful underwear, rifling through them until he held up a black silk and rhinestone-dotted thong at the end of his finger.
“You give off quite the illusion of innocence, don’t you?”
I snatched them out of his hand. “My choice of underwear is none of your business.”
“Consider it my concern over who you choose to wear it for.”
“Also none of your business.” I crouched down and gathered up spilled items, shoving them back into the drawer. There was no point in fighting Trey. I had to go back to Arden Hills, if not to sign over the house then at least for the memorial service. It sickened me to think I’d been so wrapped up in my new life that I’d forgotten all the people I’d lost.
I went back to my closet and pulled clothes off hangers, paying little mind to what I was tossing in my suitcase. When my bag was packed, Trey grabbed it from me and hefted it to the bathroom. Setting the suitcase on the vanity, he opened the cabinet over the sink and swept his hand across the top row, pill bottles raining into the bag. He did the same with the second shelf.
“Anything else you need now that we have the most important things?” he asked, condescension thick.
“I need a few toiletries.” I’d packed the bare necessities for my proposed sleepover at Hayden’s. I wished we’d stayed in his bed. Then I wouldn’t have been here, facing Trey and a past I’d tried to leave behind.
Trey stepped aside, glancing impatiently at his watch as I went about gathering essentials. I wondered if he was worried about Hayden coming back. The selfish part of me wanted him to.
TK meowed at my feet, fur puffed out; her anxiety level matched mine. When I picked her up, her nails dug into my arm, and she hissed at Trey. He gave her a contemptuous scowl.
“TK has to come with me. I can’t leave her here alone,” I said.
“Absolutely not. I’m allergic. That thing is not coming in my car.”
“I’ll drive myself.”
“You’re not getting behind the wheel. You’re barely keeping it together as it is. The last thing I need is for you to cause an accident and end up dead as well.” Trey zipped up my bag and lifted it from the vanity. “You’ll have to leave her here and figure it out later. Maybe your degenerate will take the thing.”
There was a knock at the door. We froze and looked at each other, Trey assessing my next move and me deciding if I could make it to the door before he stopped me. He was at a distinct disadvantage, since he was holding the suitcase. I sprinted down the hall with TK still cradled in my arm. I skidded across the floor, putting my hand out to stop me from hitting the wall. Trey had abandoned the suitcase and was on my heels. I turned the lock and threw the door open in time for it to connect with his face.
He cursed and covered his nose. Whatever his plan had been, he’d failed this time. I almost smiled.
There was a moment of disappointment when it registered that it was Sarah standing in my doorway and not Hayden. But it was better this way. If he came back, I ran the risk of not being able to leave him.
“Tenley! Thank God! What the hell is going on? Chris and I were out and he got a call from—” She stopped short when she saw Trey standing behind me, holding his nose.
He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, like we were still living in the ’50s, and dabbed under his nose. “Tenley’s leaving. She doesn’t have time to talk.”
Sarah bristled. “Who are you?”
“I’m her brother-in-law. If you don’t mind, we need to be on our way.” He thrust my purse at me.
“Where are you going? What’s this about?” Sarah asked uneasily.
When Trey made to move into the doorway, I put my hand up. “Give me a minute, please.”
“We don’t—”
“Give me a goddamn minute to deal with my life!” I yelled.
“Watch your fucking mouth,” he snapped, but he turned and strode down the hall to the bathroom, slamming the door behind him.
“I don’t have a lot of time,” I told Sarah in a rushed whisper.
“Where are you going? What’s going on? Hayden called Chris, freaking out.”
“Is Chris with him?”
“He just went to Hayden’s. Can you please tell me what’s happening?”
“Trey’s subpoenaed me, and Hayden found out about Connor.”
“Oh shit,” Sarah breathed, “that’s not good.”
I nodded in agreement.
“But where ar
e you going?”
“Back to Arden Hills. I need to take care of things, and now that Hayden knows . . .” I trailed off. “It’s better this way.”
“What? Why? Tenley, you’re not making any sense.”
“It’s not fair. I can’t be enough for him.”
“According to who? That asshole?” Sarah motioned to the closed bathroom door.
She couldn’t understand, and I wasn’t capable of explaining. “I have to deal with the estate. If I don’t, Trey’s going to contest Connor’s will.”
“So let him contest it. You don’t have to go back there. We’ll be here to help you fight it,” Sarah reasoned.
“It’s not that simple. Trey won’t stop until he gets what he wants, and in the meantime I’m stagnating. Besides, the anniversary of the crash is in less than a week. There’s a memorial service. I have to go, Sarah. I can’t escape my past, and as much as I want to be with Hayden . . . I’m no good for him. Not like this. Maybe not ever.”
The bathroom door swung open. “It’s time to go,” Trey barked, his nose no longer bleeding.
I passed TK to Sarah. “Can you take care of her? I don’t know when I’ll be back.”
“Tenley, I don’t think—”
“Please tell Hayden I’m sorry.”
I pressed my apartment key into Sarah’s palm, wishing things were different. I hugged her hard and then Trey was tugging on my arm, ushering me down the hall. When we got to his car, he corralled me into the passenger seat. Trey slid into the driver’s seat, put the car in gear, and gunned the engine.
My heart was splintering into a million pieces as we passed the backlit sign of Inked Armor. Trey turned right, carrying us away from my home and back to the prison I’d been so desperate to escape. The adrenaline drained out of me, replaced by paralyzing hopelessness. I’d lost everything I loved all over again.
34
HAYDEN
“What the fuck . . .” Chris trailed off as he took in the state of my living room.
“I was a little pissed off.”
The wooden coffee table was on its side, across the room. It might have gone farther, except the corner was embedded in the wall. The drafting table had fared worse. It was in pieces, the contents of Tenley’s folder strewn across the floor. I’d been staring at the mess for the past several minutes, completely unmotivated to clean it up, waiting for Chris to arrive. The chaos seemed apt, considering how I felt.
Chris stepped around the debris and dropped into the chair across from me. “How you feeling now?”
“Still pissed.”
He nodded like he understood. Which he didn’t.
“Wanna tell me what happened?”
“Tenley had a fiancé,” I said, “and he died. Less than a year ago.” What I left out was my relief at his nonexistence, because it meant he was one less threat. It was a horrible thing to be grateful for.
“Shit.” Chris let out a long exhale. “In the plane crash?”
I dipped my chin. “They were on their way to their wedding.”
“Jesus. Tenley told you that?”
Too wound up, I shot up off the couch and stepped over the crap littering the floor. I needed a drink to take the edge off. Chris followed me to the kitchen.
“Her asshole brother-in-law showed up at her door. He dropped a subpoena on her over some estate, and then he tossed that little bomb at me.” I slammed two glasses on the counter and uncapped the bottle. My hand shook as I poured. “You know what the worst part is? If that dick hadn’t stopped by, I still wouldn’t know, and then where the fuck would I be? Blissfully oblivious? A dead fiancé seems like a pretty fucking important detail to keep from me, especially when she’s clearly still involved with members of his fucking family.”
“I’m sorry, man. That’s one hell of a way to find something like that out.”
“I should have expected this. After all the shit I’ve dealt with, I finally have a good thing, and then poof. It’s fucking gone.” I slid a glass toward him and took a hefty gulp of my own.
“What do you mean it’s gone? I get that it’s hard to take, and you’re upset, but you’ll figure it out.”
I shook my head, remembering the way she had looked at me, with those vacant, dead eyes. “I’m pretty sure she broke up with me. It just felt like . . . I don’t fucking know . . . she told me to leave.”
Maybe the end was inevitable. Maybe once the tattoo was done, she would have walked away, having gotten what she needed. Like I was a temporary placeholder for the things she didn’t have anymore. Or maybe Tenley was drawn to me because I stood in direct opposition to everything and everyone she’d lost.
“What if she just didn’t know how to deal with it?” Chris reasoned.
“I don’t think so. She didn’t tell me about her fiancé because she didn’t want me to say no to the back piece.”
“What? According to who? You don’t really believe that, do you?”
“That’s what she said.” I took another sip of my drink and reached for the bottle in preparation to pour another. Chris grabbed it before I could. Whatever. I could get shitfaced after he was gone.
“Is that all she said?”
“She fed me some bullshit about not wanting me to see her differently, but she used that line before, back when she wouldn’t tell me about the crash in the first place.”
I scrubbed my face with my hands. She’d been so terrified that I wouldn’t want her once I found out how extensive her losses were. But knowing the truth hadn’t changed a damn thing. It wasn’t just the lie that got me, though. It was her refusal to be honest, to have faith that I could handle whatever she threw at me.
In spite of all that, I still wanted her. She was the one person I’d been with who got in past all the ink and steel, and when she found out what I was really like, she still wanted me.
Chris capped the bottle and put it away. “Can I ask you something without you ripping off my head?”
“No guarantees.”
He asked anyway. “What are you most pissed about, the dead fiancé or that she didn’t tell you in the first place?”
I thought about it for a minute, struggling to verbalize. “I don’t know. Both?”
“One has to outweigh the other.”
The exclusion of a crucial truth was a sharp pain in my chest. After a long pause I finally replied, “The betrayal.”
Ironic I chose to call Chris instead of Lisa. But I knew what Lisa would say. Chris got me on a different level. We’d been here before; the circumstances had been vastly different, but some of the emotions attached were similar.
He nodded slowly, mulling over my answer. “So you feel betrayed because she didn’t tell you, or because she was in love with someone other than you?”
And that was when it finally clicked. This dead man who had been hers would always be a black shadow between us. Death immortalized people. The less pleasant parts of them washed away, leaving behind a rosy, soft-edged impression of perfection. I was so fucking far from perfect. It hurt in ways I couldn’t begin to explain. I was her rebound. Her spiral down. Her punishment for surviving, just like her brother-in-law said.
“Tenley’s in love with my dick, not me.”
Chris arched his pierced brow. “I’m going to go ahead and disagree with you on that.”
“And you’re speaking from experience?”
Chris gave me a wry grin. “No need to rub that shit in. Look, I can hang out and keep you from trashing your apartment while you get wasted, but all that’s going to do is give you a hangover and a mess to clean up. The problem is still going to be there tomorrow. You might not want to acknowledge it, but this thing between you and Tenley is serious. In all the years I’ve known you, you’ve never been like this about anyone. Are you really going to drop it all because you find out something you don’t like and you don’t know how to deal with?”
When I didn’t answer, he sighed. “Look, you’ve both kept parts of your past from each other. An
d for good reason. No one wants to relive that shit. I get it’s screwing with your head, but I think you need to ask yourself if it really changes how you feel about her.”
“Does it even matter? I can’t compete with the memory of a dead fucking fiancé.”
“It’s not a competition. You can be pissed at her for not telling you, but it comes down to whether or not you’re willing to walk away over it. And personally, I don’t think you are.”
“Thanks for the unsolicited opinion.”
“I thought that was why you called me. If we’re having an honesty session, I’m here because I don’t want to deal with your sorry emo ass if you make a stupid decision.”
Chris had a point. The lie and the betrayal were only a part of the problem. I wasn’t just angry about it; I was hurt. I wanted her to trust me enough to share those parts of herself and her past with me. I might not like the truth, but it was better to know than remain in the dark. Beyond that, I wanted to do for her what she’d done for me; fill the holes in my life I hadn’t realized were there. I wanted to be able to replace the memory of the person she’d lost, and I feared I never would. What an assload of revelation.
Chris’s phone vibrated on the counter. “It’s Sarah.”
I motioned for him to answer it. “Hey—” His greeting was cut off. “What? I can’t—Slow down. Are you—?”
Sarah’s voice filtered through the phone, high-pitched, frantic.
“She did what? We’re coming.” Chris ended the call. “We gotta go to Tee’s.”
It didn’t occur to me to argue. Not with the look on Chris’s face. “What’s going on?”
“She just left with her brother-in-law.”
“It’s after midnight. Where the hell would they go?”
I pushed away from the counter, grabbed my phone, and dialed Tenley, but it went to voice mail. I tried again as we left the condo and bolted down the stairs. We rushed across the street to her apartment. The anger over the belated disclosure evaporated as Sarah came into view, standing in Tenley’s doorway. Her eyes were red, she was sniffling, and TK was curled up in her arms. The kitten let out a forlorn meow and struggled out of Sarah’s hold, bounding toward me. As I picked her up, the heavy feeling in my chest expanded.
Clipped Wings Page 35
