I shook my head, a croak dislodging from my throat, but my words caught there just the same.
“Yesterday, with Stacia . . . we could have been caught. We can be caught anytime. It’s wrong. It’s my fault, so I’m leaving.”
“I don’t want you to,” I pleaded, realizing my control was all gone. It had slipped through my fingers, and I didn’t care.
“I am. I have to.”
“Where are you going? This is all happening so fast.”
He moved away and opened my car door, his expression begging me to get in. “It’s not for you to know. Coach Hall will keep me updated on the team. It needs to be this way.”
I shook my head again, tears coming this time, washing away what little makeup I wore and dripping onto my shirt.
“There’s no use denying how much I’ve come to care for you, Jules, but you have to leave now. I need to go. It’s all for the best.”
He practically lifted me and put me back in the driver’s seat of my mom’s car. His hand brushed gently over my cheek, moving a few damp strands of hair from my face.
“Good-bye, Jules.”
The door closed and the locks engaged, cutting through me like a knife.
Jules
For weeks, I dragged my tired ass around, pretending everything was A-OK. I became convinced if I didn’t let on about our relationship, Drew would come back. He’d see everything was fine and nice.
But, really, toast was nice. I was more like a burned piece of toast to be discarded. Garbage. Rubbish.
When I finally lay my head down on my pillow every night, I felt defeated.
I was the ultimate idiot. First, the victim of a stupid sex crime. Helpless and needy, to boot.
Then I’d fallen for the man in charge, my coach. He’d been the smart one to escape. And fast, at that.
After he left, three or four weeks passed where I barely slept at all. Eventually, my body became cloaked in pure exhaustion.
At least, I’d thought that’s what it was.
Then all of a sudden, sleep started coming easily to me. In class. In bed. In the Union Building.
That whole time, my only salvation was tennis. I took out my frustrations on the ball, beating the hell out of it, harder and harder.
“Turn it down a tiny bit, Juliette,” Coach Hall called to me. “We don’t need you killing Stacia during a practice. Add more precision and less animosity, Juliette. You’re going to tear the yellow right off the ball.”
I didn’t even bother to correct him on my name.
Jules had become reserved for Drew, and only Drew. I’d even put my green J in the bottom of my underwear drawer. The way he’d licked around it, his tongue pushing it out of the way as he sucked on my neck . . . he owned the damn necklace too. My mom had given it to me when I received my first tennis scholarship—the last time she’d really been proud of me.
“Jesus, girl, you look flushed,” Stacia said to me after our practice match. “Coach told you to slow it. I mean, I can take it, but holy shit, you’re on some sort of vendetta lately.”
“Just my competitive spirit,” I said before I guzzled some water.
“God, I can see your pulse racing in your neck. Sit down,” she ordered.
Quite frankly, I hated that she was taking an interest in me. It felt forced, even though it really wasn’t. It was just my past experiences rearing their ugly head. But honestly, it felt like my heart was going to gallop out of my chest, so I listened.
When I sat down, Lulu plopped down next to me.
“You good?” she asked.
“Yeah, I think I just went a little crazy out there.”
“I saw. I mean, are you good good? Hilary said you were hanging out with Lamar a lot, and now no one sees you except for at practice and class. Something happen with him? I know you keep to yourself and all that, but if you need to talk . . .”
When I laughed, water bubbled back up my throat. “No, nothing happened with Lamar.”
“Again, we’re here for you. I know you’re private, but if you need to talk, I can be discreet—”
“All good,” I said quickly, cutting her off. “I swear.” No one had ever been there for me before—until Drew—and look where that got me.
Taking another sip of water, I was surprised when it suddenly came back up faster than it went down, and I threw up all over my shoes.
Lulu stood up and took my hand. “I’m not arguing with you anymore, Jules. We’re going to the health center. You look like shit.”
Our fingers woven together, her feet leading the way—it was like soup for the soul. Until we got to the health center and they ran my labs.
When I got the results, Lulu jumped to conclusions, Lamar being the unlucky target of her suspicions. Hilary ran to the health center after getting a text from Lulu, and threatened to call Lamar and let him in on what he’d done. Which I kept trying to explain was nothing.
The one saving grace was that Stacia was too busy to come with us.
When I quit the team shortly afterward and left school, claiming I wasn’t interested in tennis anymore and therefore couldn’t keep my scholarship, Lulu and Hilary were the only ones wise enough to know I was lying. But they were still convinced Lamar was the guilty party.
Thanks to some unofficial sister code I’d never heard of, they promised to never reveal my secret. With kisses and hugs and belly rubs, we said good-bye, promising to stay in touch.
Sadly, I didn’t plan to keep my end of the deal. When it was over, it was over.
Wasn’t that what Drew had shown me?
Jules
As soon as I’d come clean to my mom about my condition, she wrote me off as a great big failure. It was my mission to prove her wrong. Things didn’t exactly work out as planned, but I did my best. I owed it to someone else to be the very best I could be.
On a promise and a prayer, I’d headed toward North Carolina. I found a job teaching tennis at a tennis club, and transferred my credits to a small community college there.
That was seven years and a lifetime ago. College and tennis were both long behind me, but not the memories of King. Leaving those behind was a physical impossibility for me.
Most nights when I lay down, I tried not to dwell on the day it all changed. I forced myself not to think about that day, about turning the key in the ignition or putting the car in drive. I wouldn’t think about King’s devastated face growing smaller and smaller until only his silhouette haunted me in the rearview mirror, a face I still saw sometimes in my dreams, and daily when I looked at her. Except hers was framed with strawberry-blond hair, alight with the exact big blue eyes I dreamed of.
Speaking of, I checked the rearview mirror as I drove along the highway, leaving North Carolina behind. It was time for a new beginning for me . . . and for the precious six-year-old girl asleep in the backseat.
Drew
I ran my hand through my hair, which was shorter these days, and swiped the sweat from my brow. Sighing, I tried not to roll my eyes at the overeager girl on the treadmill next to me.
“I’ve never seen you here before,” she purred, but it came out as more of a scream as she spoke over the music piping through her neon-pink earbuds.
Forget it, girl. She was a freaking baby, and I was a grown man immune to silly come-ons.
Most of the time.
“I’m here every morning at six,” I said matter-of-factly, barely breathing heavily even though I was on my third mile. “Except Sundays when I sleep in, and I’m here at seven.”
It was the truth, and everyone at Extreme Fit knew it. If I missed a day, they’d probably send an ambulance to my house. I was a fixture at the gym, every single morning, every damn day.
“Oh, that’s awesome.” She plucked the bud from her ear closest to me, and I couldn’t help but notice her matching neon-pink nails. “I have a new schedule, and I’m trying to come in before my nine a.m. class.” She revealed bright white teeth in a wide smile, her blond ponytail swinging from
side to side as she ran.
Most men would have bitten—asked for her number and banged her a few days later. She was young, hot, and obviously willing.
But not me.
I nodded and focused on the TV above me—SportsCenter repeating the same loop I’d already seen.
If she were a redhead? Maybe.
Look, I wasn’t meant to be celibate, so every now and again, I found a redhead who happened to be pleasing to the eye. They were never as satisfying as I’d hoped, and they always left me wanting more.
Not with them, though. With someone else I’d left in my past.
It had been my own doing, the leaving part. Something I needed to regularly remind myself.
Oblivious to my disinterest, the blonde rattled on. “I’m a pre-med major, so my classes are early. They like to get us used to being up early.”
Of course, after I realized my mistake, I’d tried to look for her—Jules—wanting to keep tabs on her. I had called Coach Hall and asked after the team, how they were doing and shit. I’d even snagged the roster off the Internet, but she wasn’t on it. A few times a week, alone in my office, I would google her name.
Nothing. I never found a damn crumb.
“What do you do?”
I snagged my towel off the machine and wiped around my neck, slowing my stride. “Sorry, I don’t mean to be rude, but I gotta roll. I work in finance, so that’s why I have to get in here and get done early.”
It was mostly a lie. After running my investment firm by myself for a year, I added a sizable number of associates and a few junior partners. If I wanted to go in late now, I could.
I’d always had a knack for watching the market and picking funds. It didn’t take me long to get my broker’s license after leaving Ohio. With a black book full of old prep school contacts, it took even less time to fill my client roster.
After a proven track record in the first year, they all sent me their newer, richer friends. It was like a pyramid scheme for high rollers.
“Good luck to you,” I said to the young chippie as I wiped down my machine.
“Thanks. Do you—”
She’d started to say something else, but I was already gone.
My day had officially gone to shit.
Seated behind my oversized desk, I leaned back and listened to Sully on my cell phone.
For just a second, I put my cell on mute and called my assistant on the landline. “Hey, Shelby, can you call my two o’clock and let them know I’m running fifteen minutes late?”
With my full attention back on my client and friend, I unmuted my cell and said, “Yeah, I hear you, Sully. Either way, this fund isn’t going to do you wrong, and if it performs the way they’re thinking, you’ll be able to retire sooner rather than later.”
“What the hell would I do if I retired?”
I tossed my glasses on my desk and propped my Pumas on top of all the papers. It was business casual at my place every day. I didn’t have time for suits or ties, or any of that nonsense. My loneliness did just fine strangling me.
“Let’s see . . . You could play eighteen holes every day, lose the gut—”
He laughed into the phone. “Hey now.” He let out a long sigh and pretended to be thinking about my recommendation. “Yeah, buy the riskier one. My golf clubs are calling to me as we speak. But when Rosie is good and pissed at me, I’m telling her you made me do it.”
I closed my eyes. I didn’t know what it was like to have someone want me to slow down and spend time with her.
“Blame me all you want. The ladies all love me, Sull.”
“You should find one of your own, Drew. One to keep.”
“Hey, I’m already running late for my next meeting. I’ll have Shelby send you the papers to sign for the buy-in.”
“Yeah, right.” Sully let me off the hook, but not without a huff.
I wasn’t getting a girl of my own, because the only girl I wanted was now a grown woman who had probably long forgotten about me.
My mood dampened, I tramped out into the Florida heat and off to the coffee place down the street for my meeting.
Jules
“Mom, I don’t want to eat breakfast!”
“Darla, you have to eat something.” It was an ongoing battle, and one I was determined to win.
She shook her head at me and stuck out her lower lip. I guzzled half a cup of coffee, hoping to chase away the aftereffects of a late night and regain my composure.
“Come on, honey. Just a little cereal, or how about some toast? Gotta feed your brain.”
“Fruit Loops?” Her smile turned into a smirk, transforming her into a little-girl version of her father and guaranteeing her the win.
“Sure.”
After insisting she was starting first grade today and therefore was a big girl, Darla slopped the milk in the bowl under my watchful eye. She could pour her own milk. Sort of.
Pretending not to notice the sticky mess on the counter, I reminded her, “Your teacher is Ms. Green. She’s supposedly very nice. Be good today, Dar.”
She nodded, stuffing her cheeks full of food coloring, sugar, and corn-syrupy carbs.
“Good?”
She nodded again, then swallowed. “Do you think I’m going to have a birthday party? I know it was last month, but maybe?”
I reached across the counter and swiped her strawberry-blond bangs out of her blue eyes. Her DNA was mostly her dad’s—olive skin, light hair, and eyes as deep as the Mediterranean. Smirk and all, I loved every inch of her, but there were moments I wanted to run away.
Like now.
“I know we didn’t have one for you—yet—but we will. We were moving, remember, and I thought you’d want to meet some new friends . . .” And money was tight.
I didn’t say the last part; she didn’t need to know that. It wasn’t her fault. Yeah, I’d never finished college because of my daughter, but getting knocked up was all on me. I knew the risk when I had sex without a condom, and I didn’t care in that moment.
Darla blinked, and her bangs caught her long eyelashes again. “Maybe I can have a pajama party like in the book we read last night?”
“Sure, baby. You behave at school and we’ll plan it. I know everyone is going to love you, and you’ll probably have a huge guest list by the end of the week.” I did my best to reassure her, figuring it was nerves over making friends or going to a new school causing her to focus on the party.
“Done!” She jumped up and grabbed her backpack.
“Let’s go.”
I placed the bowl in the sink and grabbed my keys after refilling my mug. I’d tossed on running shorts and a T-shirt to wear for walking Darla to the bus. My plan was to take a quick run afterward, and then a short rest before grocery shopping and paying bills, all before my little girl got home from school. Then I could spend some actual time with her. I was off on Monday nights, and I couldn’t wait to be home with Darla instead of relying on the babysitter, Molly, to put her to bed.
We walked down the steps and to the corner, Darla talking the whole way about her upcoming pajama party.
“Popcorn and the minion movie. And pancakes! Oh, I’ll need new jammies,” she said, chattering on about all her plans for her party.
For six, she was something. Smart, funny, and wise. Sometimes I worried she was too wise, having only one parent.
But I did the best I could.
The week flew by. As predicted, Darla had ten girls on her list and fifty outlandish requests for the party. She wanted a sleepover, a purple-and-pink cake, sparkly streamers, hot cocoa with pink marshmallows at bedtime, and strawberry milk and chocolate chip pancakes in the morning.
“And maybe Ms. Green could stop by?” she asked Saturday night as I got ready for work, right before I made an epic mistake.
On her actual birthday, I’d given her a manicure and pedicure at home, applying some brand-new neon-green sparkly polish while she sat curled up in my robe. I should have left it at that.
&n
bsp; Nope, tonight I screwed up and asked what she wanted for a real gift as I secured my cranberry-red tie into place before a long night of waiting tables.
“I want a dad,” she said. “My dad. Maybe he’ll feel bad he missed my birthday and come?” Her voice started out vibrant and strong, only to be swallowed up with the threat of tears.
She’d jabbered about her dad from time to time. I never had the heart to let her know he didn’t even know she existed.
Sucking in a deep breath, I steadied my voice before I spoke. “He loved you very much, but he couldn’t stay with us. It happens sometimes to mommies and daddies. I’m sure he thinks about you all the time,” I said, reassuring her with the same sentiment I always did.
It was vague and stupid and wrong, but it was all I could muster. Saying the truth out loud hurt me too much, and I had to have some sense of self-preservation.
To my shame, I never even gave Drew a chance . . . right away, I’d written him off. I’d deliberately made myself hard to be found, and I never tried to seek him out. In my heart, I knew he would have done right by us, but I was selfish. I wanted him to do right by me.
He might have changed his mind, given us a chance, but that didn’t negate him deserting me. It was immature of me to focus on that, but I was a victim of my heart.
Staring into Darla’s hopeful blue eyes, ones just like his, I almost felt like trying to find him.
But what if he rejected me? What if he’d made a life and moved on? Had other children with another woman?
The fact was, it wasn’t only me who would be affected if I found him. Both of us would. We were a package—Darla and me—a pair, a team, a double.
During my shift later that night, I swore in my head, unable to push the memory of her tears aside. Fuck, now I was forced to wait tables for Florida’s finest with the bruising memory of a pained and hurting Darla weighing on me.
Don’t judge. I was miserable.
“Claire?”
My floor manager stole me from my painful thoughts, calling me by my middle name, which I’d assumed full time. It was the only name Bryce had ever known for me, and we’d come to Florida from the Southern Steak and Sea’s North Carolina franchise together. We’d worked together for six years, ever since I’d shown up for an interview with a month-old Darla in tow.
Break Point Page 5
