All About Them (Love & Hate #2)

by Joanna Mazurkiewicz

  If anything, it’s me that has to make the next step, but I’m not ready. My soul needs to be patched back together first before I’ll even attempt to reach out and say what I should have told him five years ago.

  Chapter Thirteen.

  Apology.

  Dora

  “Dora, are you all right?” Dad asks, sitting with me in the conference room on a miserable Thursday afternoon. I look back at him, trying to shut out the nasty voices in my head. I have proven to myself that I can be good at my job, that I deserve to be happy and in love.

  “Yes, I’m just distracted. So what were you saying, Dad?” I ask, looking at him. Maybe my relationship with my father will never be perfect, but at least we have each other. My doctor says that I’m making progress and Dad will eventually notice me.

  “I was saying that Lindsey did a great job with those briefs. It was such a shame that I had to fire her. She was a good paralegal.”

  We have been sitting in this room for over an hour now, going over some of my cases. Dad has been trying to talk to me, but I’ve been too distracted to pay attention to him. His comment about Lindsey injects new energy into me. All of a sudden I don’t want to hide the truth anymore. It’s been over a month and I haven’t even called her to ask if she managed to find another job. I owe this to her.

  “I don’t think we should be talking about her,” I say and I want to bite my tongue automatically.

  Why am I so weak?

  Lindsey had been my friend since she started working in the office. I made a terrible mistake that day. I lied and pushed her away. She had done nothing wrong; I was the one to blame.

  My father keeps shuffling the papers, the vein on his neck bulging. I swallow hard, aware that my palms are sweaty. The voices in my head remind me that I should keep going, keep saying the right things.

  “Why not? She made a mistake, but she was a damn good paralegal. You can’t deny it,” Dad continues. I lower my head, thinking fast.

  “Dad,” I begin, knowing that I might be sick. “I think I have to tell you something about her.”

  The lies flow out of my mouth so easily, but when it comes to telling the truth, everything is difficult.

  My father lifts his blue eyes, staring at me with that familiar frown.

  “Tell me what, Dora?”

  The awkward silence stretches for a good while. I can’t keep doing this to myself. I do love Jacob. Nothing will ever change that, and this first confession might change me, maybe for the better.

  “Lindsey didn’t know about that appointment with Mr. Wilkinson. It was my fault all along. The night before I went out to a party and I forgot that I made that appointment with him,” I say, wanting to close my eyes and just disappear. My stomach contracts when my father’s frown deepens.

  He gets up, takes off his glasses and rubs his face, like he is tired. I have a feeling that he will just throw me out, and I’ll never practise law ever again.

  “Why are you telling me this now, Dora?” he asks with a heavy voice.

  “Because … because I want to be done with lies. I shouldn’t have let Lindsey get fired over this. It was wrong and I feel terrible.”

  Wow, what is happening to me? I’m really telling him that I screwed up big time.

  “It’s all right, Dad, you can fire me; I know that I don’t deserve to be here. I’m sorry. That day I panicked, so I lied. You were right, she was a good paralegal.”

  “Dora, I have to tell you, I’m disappointed. I wasn’t expecting that you would do such a thing,” he says, more calmly than I expected. “You jeopardised the relationship that we had with this client because you wanted to have a good time.”

  I don’t say anything. My father is right. I was the one responsible. I pushed the boat, set my own course with my lies. Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been thinking more about what is right and wrong. Right now all I can think of is my punishment. I might as well go and clear my desk. Half of the time Lindsey was coordinating all my cases. She truly was excellent, but I never really appreciated her.

  “But you have stopped going to the parties, right? A few days ago I overheard a conversation between Robin and Sarah. A lot of people in the office are saying that you’ve been working really hard over the past couple of weeks,” he points out. Most of the time, he puts me down, so I’m very surprised to hear that he is talking positively about my work.

  “I guess it’s time to grow up. I can’t go through life partying all the time.”

  “And lying,” he adds.

  “Yes, that too,” I mutter and get up, knowing that I have to get out of here. “I’m going to clean out my desk, so you can hire Lindsey back. I don’t think that I’ve ever been good at this job.”

  I walk to the door, thinking about other jobs that I could do, when I hear my father’s voice.

  “Dora, wait. I need to say something to you.”

  I sigh loudly and turn around.

  “No need to clean out your desk, since you will continue using it. I’m relieved and kind of proud. You handled Jacob’s case very well. On top of that, you finally admitted to your mistake. This must have cost you a lot,” he says unexpectedly.

  Tears well in my eyes, but this is not the time or place. The lies never made me feel better. I just acted on an impulse.

  “Thank you, Dad, I … I appreciate it.”

  “Good. You can call Lindsey. It’s up to you to make it right. Call her and apologise. Tell her that I want her to come back,” he adds, shrugging. “Oh and, Dora, go and speak to Jacob. I know that you two are still close. You just have to tell him the truth, like you just told me. I always liked him.”

  I freeze, going over what he said. Then my legs continue to push me forward. I get out of the room, feeling like a tonne weight is being lifted off my chest. People keep glancing at me as I walk back to my office.

  Maybe everyone around me is right. Maybe I should give myself a chance and start over.

  By the time I get back to my desk, I’m flustered, thinking about the past few weeks, about Jacob and Mum. For some reason I can’t quite believe Dad really meant what he said. He only said what he thought was right. Tomorrow things will get back to normal and he won’t even remember that for the first time in my life I told him the truth.

  I leave to meet a few clients later on in the afternoon. These days I’m much more focused on everything that I do, on all the cases. Mike meets me in Chelsea and we have a late dinner, planning our next holiday. I need to get away, need to remember that there’s more to life than just work and therapy.

  A trip like this might change my life forever.

  Mike accompanies me home, saying that he doesn’t want to spend the evening alone. The taxi drops us outside my apartment building. We climb upstairs, talking and joking around. I feel fine, and for the first time in a while I don’t think about self-harming or about my next meeting with Dr. Wilson. Maybe I’m finally all right.

  I unlock the door to my flat and Mike automatically flops on the sofa.

  “Just tell me that you have wine in the fridge?” he asks. “I really need a drink … and ice cream.”

  “No, sorry. I’m off the buzz on a school night.” I laugh, and then we both hear the bell.

  There is a guy outside with a huge bucket of beautiful red roses. I instantly think that he most likely mixed up the flats. I’m not expecting any delivery.

  “Dora Harrison?” he asks. I nod. “These are for you. Sign here, please,” he says, handing me a tablet.

  I sign my name, still very much confused. No one has ever sent me flowers, well, no one apart from Jacob. We haven’t spoken for over a month, so there is no way that he had anything to do with it. I take the roses from the delivery guy and shut the door. Several seconds later Mike strolls back to the hallway.

  “Wow, who sent those?” he asks.

  “I have no idea.”

  “There is a card; read it aloud,” he orders me. I roll my eyes and open the white envelope.


  I instantly recognise the handwriting. It’s Dad’s.

  Dora

  I should have done this a long time ago. You handled the last case really well and I’m very proud seeing you excel.

  I’m glad that you told me the truth today and I’m glad that you are turning your life around.

  You’re my daughter and I’m proud of everything that you’ve achieved, although sometimes I don’t know how to show it. You shouldn’t take the things that I say too seriously.

  The flowers are for you. I hope next week we can have dinner together to truly celebrate, and discuss the possibility of making you my business partner?

  Love, Dad.

  I stop reading, staring at the piece of paper like it doesn’t exist. My heart starts beating dangerously fast and the world around me spins. Is this what the truth does to people? Did Dad really mean all this?

  Maybe he was trying to make up for lost time before this, but I was too blind to see it.

  “Dora, what did I miss today?” Mike asks and I’m truly losing my mind. I hide my face in my palms and burst out crying. The relief—I feel so relieved knowing that Dad has finally acknowledged me. And that he loves me and values me.

  “Hey, sugar, you’re scaring me. What’s going on?” Mike questions me, embracing me in his arms.

  I don’t know what’s happening to me. I can’t control the tears, the sobbing. I shouldn’t be breaking like this in front of my best friend. He walks me back to the living room and I sit down.

  “I told him the truth today about Lindsey. I admitted that I got drunk and forgot about the appointment, that he should have never fired her,” I say, swallowing hard.

  Mike smiles and hands me a tissue. “I don’t think that’s the reason you’re crying your eyes out, Dora. What is really going on?”

  I take a deep breath, feeling happy.

  “My father always made me feel inadequate, unwanted, unlovable—and that’s why I never truly believed in myself. All my life I kept hating myself, thinking that I was never good enough,” I explain, looking down at my palms, knowing that it was stupid, doubting myself for so long. “Today, something changed. He was proud, and now the flowers.”

  “And now you finally realise that all these negative thoughts were making you more ill,” Mike says, wiping my tears away. “Well, what can I say? Your old man can be a bit of a bastard, but he has a good heart. He was harsh, probably because he wanted you to do well. Personally I don’t believe that’s a good thing, but at least today he came around.”

  I smile then, knowing that my best friend is right yet again. The roses are beautiful. My heart swells in my chest. Now I have to tell him the rest, the real truth.

  “Mike, listen, I don’t want to hide this from you any longer, but I have been cutting myself. Not just once, but many times over the years. No one knows about it, apart from Jacob. He wanted to help me, but I pushed him away.”

  Mike gets up and takes a step backwards widening his eyes. I can see he doesn’t want to believe me.

  “Self-harming? God, Dora … you’re beautiful and intelligent. You don’t need to do that shit,” Mike says, looking troubled.

  “It’s all right,” I say, feeling that I should have told Mike about everything earlier. “In the past few weeks I’ve been seeing someone, a therapist. He is helping me and I’m not abusing my body any longer. Things are better now. Now I can see clearly that I acted irrationally, that Jacob was right all long. Today my Dad told me to go and speak to him. He said that he always liked him.”

  The silence stretches for a long moment. I keep staring down at my hands, wondering what to do. In the end of the day Jacob still hates me.

  “Well, then what are you waiting for? This shit won’t sort itself. Go!”

  Jacob

  I’m in turmoil. The girl that came last night to have sex with me left shouting, calling me an arsehole. Most likely the whole building heard her screaming. Everything was fine up to the point when we went to bed. I just couldn’t bring myself to fuck her. She called me a loser, and deep down I know that I have become one. There is nothing else left for me. Dora has clouded my whole soul, wrecked me and then disappeared. This isn’t how this was supposed to go, no. I wanted to break her, push her to the edge.

  I’m still angry, furious, even after all this time apart. That evening, after my conversation with her father, I went to her expecting to hear the truth. Every time we talked I always felt that she wasn’t being honest with me, that she was hiding behind her bubbly persona. She pushed me away again, shut herself down, but for some reason I can’t erase her from my memory. And that last time I saw her the day of my court case, I sensed she didn’t want me to leave, but the ball was in her court and she did nothing.

  Now I’m sitting in my big luxury apartment changing channels on the TV and eating crap. Maddie has visited me a few times already, pushing me to do something with myself, to give Dora another chance. I nearly threw her out the last time she tried to tell me what to do. The relationship with my mother is still complicated and silent, but the apology and retraction article are coming out in a couple of weeks, and I have plenty of money in the bank, but that’s not the point. I’m unhappy.

  I hear a faint knock but ignore it. I don’t want to see anyone today. It’s probably Pete with a new batch of weed. He can fuck off. I no longer care. My misery will take me back to hell. This sad fucking life is cruel and unfair. Whoever it is doesn’t stop banging on my door, so eventually I get up and walk over there, really, really pissed off.

  “Pete, I told you to go. What the—?”

  “Hi, Jacob,” Dora cuts me off in midsentence. I stare at her for a good few seconds, my mouth wide open.

  Why is she here? A bit too late, love. I’m over you.

  “What do you want, Dora? I’m really not in the mood,” I say, not wanting to let her in.

  She bites her lips, looking nervous and tense. My dick stirs in my pants. Yeah. Sometimes I’m that pathetic.

  “Can we talk, Jacob?” she asks, hesitant.

  “No, we have nothing to talk about. I have said everything I wanted to say, thank you very much.” I know that I’m being an arsehole, but who cares? She doesn’t deserve being treated any other way. Both of us said everything that was needed.

  “Please, it won’t take long. Can you listen to me for just a few minutes? Afterwards you can throw me out,” she says, sounding pretty desperate.

  I block the door, eyeing her beautiful face, then move slightly to the side, so she can enter. Hell, I can listen, but I don’t know what she is expecting. After she is inside, I walk back to the sofa and start changing channels on the TV, just so I don’t have to look at her.

  “Jacob, I need to tell you about that afternoon from five years ago,” she says, approaching me. I roll my eyes at her.

  “The afternoon when you fucked that arsehole and I caught you?” I question her, keeping my eyes on the TV.

  She sighs loudly and sits next to me; her knee brushes lightly against my leg. The instant heat wave is a killer.

  “It was a set-up, Jacob. I got scared, I panicked … so I called him to arrange it. We didn’t have sex. I knew you were coming over that day,” she adds, grinding her knuckles.

  It takes me a moment to process what she said. Her words roll through my head over and over. Finally after a long moment of silence, I look at her.

  “Dora, do you really think that I’ll believe shit like that?”

  She looks directly at me, flustered and uncomfortable. Odd, she has always hidden her emotions well.

  “Jacob. For the first time in my life I’m telling you the truth. I’m trying to explain what actually happened that day. I didn’t know that you were going to propose. We were happy and I loved you, but my emotional issues had gotten on top of me. I got scared. Every day I was convincing myself that you were ready to leave me, so I pushed you away first.”

  I have to get up then and run my hand through my hair, at the same time tr
ying not to roar. She can’t be serious. After all this time she is telling me that she never cheated on me, that it was just a stunt.

  I take a few deep breaths and walk until the sudden panic goes away.

  “And you’re telling me this now? Dora, it’s been five years.”

  Then she is beside me. One moment she is sitting on the sofa, the next she is touching me. Her fingers caress my chest, and her touch feels so fucking good. I need to focus. She treated me like I never meant a thing. I remember everything that was said word for word. She let me suffer, and I can’t just erase that from my memory.

  “Because I finally realise that perfect love doesn’t exist, that you were always the one for me. The lies have gotten me nowhere, so it’s time to tell you the truth. You asked me about the scars, about what was wrong, and now I’m telling you. I have been afraid, self-conscious about everything, unhappy that my father never paid attention to me, sad and lost without you. A part of me still believes I am a miserable, unlovable creature, but I finally have the courage to try and fight it. I have been cutting myself since college. No one knew, even my mother. It was easier to punish myself than face the problems. Then I met up with you and my life changed.

  I have fallen back in love with you. I don’t think I ever really stopped but seeing you just made everything so real. That time in Braxton—what we had was the most precious thing in my entire life. I loved you, but then toxic thoughts started slipping in and I was convinced you deserved someone much better than me, and that you would find her and leave me, so I sabotaged what we had.”

  I don’t want to believe her, don’t want to listen to her, but this all makes sense. She was happy when we were together, but there was always some kind of abyss between us. Now I see her tears and I understand, but is it enough?

  “Dora, you ruined me … I went off the rails when I lost you. This isn’t simple anymore.”

  “I love you, Jacob. I have never stopped loving you and I’m sorry. Hurting you was the worst thing that I have ever done. My life hasn’t been right since the moment you left. Ricky and I never slept together. He saw me naked, but that was it. I needed you to hate me, because I thought I couldn’t have it any other way,” she says, running her fingers over my back with her head down.