The Avoiding Series Boxset

by K. A. Linde

“Oh, Seth!” she cried truly ecstatic for the young couple. She couldn’t believe it was happening so quickly. “That’s wonderful!”

  He beamed brighter practically bouncing up and down. “Yeah, I think it’s a boy. Sandy isn’t sure yet, but I am. It’s a boy. I’m gonna be a father!”

  “Congratulations! I’m really so happy for you both,” she said giving him another hug.

  “You’ll come down for the shower? I know Sandy would want you to be there,” he said getting ahead of himself.

  Lexi smiled but her happiness had been stripped from her face. She had no idea where she would be in a year. She didn’t know if New York would even still be her home. She was still waiting to hear about the Bar. Not to mention potential jobs she had applied for across the country. She didn’t know if she would have Ramsey then…and after last night. She stopped that train of thought. Get through the night. That’s all she could do.

  The what-ifs hung so heavy over her, that she felt crushed under the weight of the uncertainty that lay ahead.

  “We’ll see, Seth. I’ll let you know for sure once you have a date,” she told him.

  He smiled again unperturbed by her noncommittal answer. “Well, come say hey to Sandy,” he said grabbing Lexi’s wrist and yanking her toward the center of the room.

  “Uh…all right,” she said though she wasn’t certain that she should be wandering around the room like the rest of the friends and family. She wasn’t exactly either. Seth rushed them back to his wife. Sandy’s hand instinctively went to the belly of her baby blue dress as they approached.

  “Lexi! Hey!” Sandy said as bubbly as ever.

  Lexi stepped forward into the hug that was offered and attempted to dispel her nervousness. She knew that she was out of her comfort zone. She had swam so far out into the deep end that she was terrified she would drown. All she could think about was that she needed to keep treading water…keep kicking her feet.

  Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming.

  I can’t believe you’re here,” Sandy said stepping back from Lexi. Her smile never failed.

  “Uh, yeah,” Lexi said tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. “I guess I couldn’t miss it.”

  Seeing that Sandy was occupied for a while, Seth bounded over to the remaining groomsmen, Hunter and Luke. Sandy stepped a little bit closer to Lexi sealing off the space that she had given them. “I mean, with what happened between you and Jack,” she barely whispered.

  Lexi gulped hard and sputtered a little in surprise. Lexi had never thought Sandy was intuitive or even that intelligent. “I don’t know what you mean,” Lexi said slowly after a minute.

  Sandy rolled her eyes. “Lexi, I really like you, but you are blind to that boy. You really didn’t think that I noticed you sneaking off with him every night at the beach before graduation?”

  “You…you noticed that?” she asked knowing how she must look to Sandy.

  She smiled shyly. “A couple times, but at first, I thought it was to see someone else. I think it was the sand that gave it away. Anyway, we can’t fight love when we have it in our grasps, can we?” she asked her eyes landing on Seth.

  “Uh…well…I’m not in love with Jack,” she told her.

  “Okay,” Sandy said brushing her words aside as if they meant nothing. “Either way I wasn’t expecting you to be here for this. I would think it would be too painful…whether you still love him or not.”

  Lexi gulped again. “It’s hard to explain.”

  “You don’t have to explain it to me,” Sandy said her voice taking on her characteristic bubbly bimbo routine once again. “Can you believe I’m pregnant?” she asked completely diverting the subject.

  “Oh! Yeah, Seth told me. Congrats!” Lexi said with enthusiasm that she wasn’t entirely sure where she mustered it from. Sandy giggled and went into a full on discussion about the baby, arrangements, names, and all sorts of things that Lexi had never thought of. Having a baby was about the last thing on her mind.

  When Sandy finally seemed to have exhausted herself of subjects to discuss, Lexi made a hasty retreat. She plopped back down into her seat as the inexplicabilities of new life washed over her. She seemed to miss the remaining relatives sidle into the private dining room.

  Ramsey reappeared at her side, after speaking with the swarm of family who had directed his attention and bombarded him with questions he would have rather left unanswered. His hand slid under the table and grasped her knee for a short second. She glanced at his handsome face covered with the mask of the County Club he had grown up in. His eyes smiled when she finally met them with hers and that was where her true reassurance came from. This was not him. He was not that person.

  The lights dimmed in the room, and the candles flickered across the tables casting shadows on the faces of the guests. The whispers died down as Bekah’s parents entered the room followed first by Jack’s mother, then a short while afterwards, by his father, who looked rather uncomfortable taking the seat next to his ex-wife. Bekah’s parents sat on the other side of the rectangular table leaving a gaping hole with two unfilled seats. All eyes stared at the missing couple wondering from where they would make their appearance.

  Lexi, however, had her eyes on the empty seat to Ramsey’s left. Surely Parker wouldn’t miss Bekah’s rehearsal dinner. Lexi would have killed Chyna if she had not shown up to her own rehearsal dinner. Not that that seemed to be something in her immediate future. But still, as Ramsey’s father gruffly pushed back out of his chair, Parker’s seat remained empty.

  Ramsey’s father cleared his throat silencing all further conversation among the attendees. “Thank you all so much for coming tonight to honor the soon-to-be union between my daughter, Bekah, and her fiancé, Jack.” He waited for the applause to die down before continuing.

  But Lexi wasn’t listening to him or his prepared speech. She had been to rehearsal dinners before and had learned to tune out speeches like this. Plus, she had made it through three years of law school. She was pretty accustomed to tuning in and out of conversations, lectures, debates, and speeches when she saw fit.

  She was thinking about how nice it felt for Ramsey’s hand to stay on her thigh. How, when he moved his fingers just a bit, a tremor ran up her body. How the pressure on her leg intensified the longer that his father stood up and spoke. She wanted to leave this place with him. He had made mistakes, and there were still so many things that she didn’t fully comprehend. But right now all she wanted to do was be tucked up in his arms lost to the rest of the world.

  But they couldn’t just disappear. Ramsey was a groomsman and it was his sister’s wedding. His entire family was here.

  She couldn’t keep trying to escape her problems. Running away from the world wasn’t the answer. It wasn’t going to fix what had happened between them, and it wasn’t going to make anything easier. She needed to man up and face what was coming her way. Avoiding her responsibilities wasn’t going to be the solution to her life. She had gotten herself into this situation, and she could get herself out of it.

  A passage from one of her existential philosophy classes came to mind as she finally realized what she had to do. For some reason the passage had hit home even then. She had copied it off the website onto a tiny piece of paper, and placed it into her wallet. She knew what was making her think of it now.

  Carefully, so as not to disturb the endless droning of Ramsey’s father’s speech, Lexi popped open her hand bag, pulled out her wallet, and rifled through the slips of paper she concealed in its depths. Locating the one she was looking for she read over it to herself:

  “In some cases, however, a person will try to avoid taking responsibility by trying to avoid making conscious choices altogether. Perhaps she cites uncontrollable passion on her part... the presence of peer pressure… or she pretends not to notice the man’s actions. Whatever the case, she acts as though she is not making any choices and hence has no responsibility for the consequences.”

  Lexi sighed heavily reading an
d rereading the passage. She knew why this hit home the first time she had come across it. She had been taking that class her senior year…the semester after she had gone to the beach with Clark, Jack, and the rest of their friends.

  The idea behind the passage seemed crystal clear. She had to make a choice, not act as if all the choices were out of her grasp. Wasn’t that exactly what had gotten her involved with Jack to begin with?

  She cited uncontrollable passion and inability to control her actions countless times. They weren’t anything but excuses…and not even good ones. They were ramblings of a confused girl who didn’t know what she wanted, who let other people—men—sway her decisions for her.

  Running away wasn’t the solution. Sure, she didn’t want to be at the wedding, and if she had come to this conclusion about herself a week ago then she wouldn’t be here. But she had a made a choice…a conscious choice. She was here. She was with Ramsey…albeit a little hesitantly. She was going to carry through with her choice. She couldn’t keep letting the past dictate her present…and future.

  She swallowed hard at the realization that she had a lot of work to do. She needed to practically reinvent herself. She wanted to say that it was going to be easy, but it wasn’t.

  Jack had really done a number on her. She couldn’t trust anyone, and she was manic when it came to him. She cared for Ramsey, but at the first sign of trouble, she had jumped ship. What kind of person was she not to try to stick it out? What kind of person was she to have slept with someone else while being away from him?

  She wanted to cover her face in shame. Yes, she had been happy with her Mystery Man. He had given her exactly what she needed—a reprieve from thinking about her life. But when reality set in, she couldn’t even tell her best friend who he was. She couldn’t tell anyone who he was. That wasn’t the kind of relationship she needed or wanted. He wasn’t the one who had stuck it out with her for a year, long distance, to try and make things work. And yet she had been willing to forget all of that so easily.

  Had she been so desperate to be wanted? Lexi pursed her lips in annoyance. She was a despicable human. She couldn’t even like herself in that moment. Let alone wonder why anyone else could like her.

  Yes, everyone made mistakes, but she was an idiot about it all. She avoided everything at any cost…commitment and the responsibility of her actions. She hadn’t been able to face up to them and what they meant. And she was terrified, because she knew now that she would have to tell Ramsey.

  Ramsey. Lexi shuddered at the thought of his quick temper taking over when she told him. Ramsey had lied straight to her face before, and now Lexi knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that she owed him the truth.

  “Are you okay?” Ramsey breathed, barely loud enough to be a whisper. His green eyes cut in her direction.

  Lexi’s hand dropped back to her lap. She hadn’t even realized that she had been pushing her hair back behind her ear with such forcefulness. Not to mention her breathing was jagged. She was sending herself into a state of hyperventilation. She felt Ramsey’s hand increase the pressure on her leg for a second as he looked at her with concern.

  “Yeah, sorry,” she said letting her breathing even out. She slid her hand under his and squeezed reassuringly. His smile lit up at the small gesture of togetherness.

  Her heart sank again. She had meant to reassure him, but she was still too terrified to contemplate what he was going to think of her once she told him about what had happened.

  She grit her teeth and tried to focus on what Jack’s parents were saying now. If she thought too much about what she had to do in the next 24 hours, then she might really hyperventilate.

  “My son,” Jack’s father said, “is a remarkable individual—persistent, unyielding, and relentlessly hardworking.” Lexi couldn’t agree more. “He is also a rather charming young man, if I do say so myself. I am very pleased as his father to know that those charms won out such a wonderful young woman, who not only shares his aspirations in life, but who truly loves him for him. A father couldn’t ask for more,” he said getting a bit choked up at the end and abruptly taking his seat.

  The heartfelt words his father uttered were better than anything Bekah’s parents could possibly say about her. The way his eyes watered with joy, sadness, and pride was incredible to behold. She had never met the man who sat in that chair, but for some reason she wondered why more of those raw emotions hadn’t been transferred to his son. Had the divorce destroyed that within Jack?

  Before she could think on it further, Bekah’s father stood once more and announced, “Without further ado, I would like to introduce you to the future newlyweds my daughter, Bekah, and her fiancé, Jack.”

  The restaurant exploded with applause as Jack and Bekah materialized in the high arching doorway in which their parents had entered minutes earlier. Bekah looked radiant. Her typically stick straight blonde hair had thick loose curls in it. Her chunky bangs had been fluffed and pushed off her face. A short, white lace dress clung to her body. But what was most noticeable about her was that her eyes actually appeared not to be calculating and her smile wasn’t malicious. She seemed content in the moment, rather than always looking to the next move in her intricate game. If she didn’t know better, Lexi would think she was a real human being.

  For some reason, Lexi had been so transfixed with her enemy that she hadn’t turned to look at the man standing next to her. All traces of the downtrodden man who stood on Ramsey’s doorstep less than a week earlier to tell him he was having doubts had vanished. He was as polished as ever in a black three-piece suit with a baby blue button-up underneath.

  Lexi had recognized the man standing before Ramsey—weak and disheveled with a five o’clock shadow and Converses. She had known that man for a long time. And though she had seen Jack dressed up before, he had always still looked like himself. He was gorgeous. There was no denying that. But he didn’t look like her Jack anymore.

  And he wasn’t her Jack, as he had proven a year ago. The man standing next to Bekah belonged to Bekah. She had made him the person that he was…the person she wanted him to be.

  It felt surreal that they were standing here with other people. Somehow she had never really expected this moment to happen. Jack was never supposed to end up with Bekah. Lexi desired him for everything that they were, but not everything that they could be.

  But still he wasn’t supposed to end up with her.

  Lexi tore her eyes away from the couple as they began their round of thanks. She couldn’t look at them right now with so much else going on in her head. She hadn’t anticipated having a mental breakdown in the middle of their rehearsal dinner.

  Her eyes took in the room around her crowded with people just as Parker entered stealthily through the back doors. Lexi clenched her jaw. This was the first time she had seen her since…well, since that night. She knew that she was going to have to see her…even speak to her maybe, but she hadn’t realized until that moment how much she was dreading it.

  She didn’t want to see Parker. She didn’t want to be around Parker. The thought of seeing her and Ramsey in the same room made her skin crawl. The knowledge that she would soon be sitting next to him made her physically ill.

  Parker looked stunning, and not in the same way as Bekah…or even really, Lexi tonight. Parker looked like she had thrown on the first dress in her closet, hastily threw her hair in a tight ponytail, and stormed out of the house without a hint of makeup. Lexi knew it was probably, because she had had to come straight from the hospital, but she didn’t care. She wished that for one night the girl didn’t look so gorgeous when she had clearly just thrown something on.

  Parker scampered across the room until she found her assigned seat. “So sorry,” Parker breathed to the people at her table as she slid neatly into the cushioned chair and demurely crossed her legs.

  “Where were you?” Ramsey asked his eyes steeled on her.

  “I got caught in surgery,” Parker said her eyes moving from Ramsey to L
exi and then back again quickly, as if she had been caught doing something wrong. “I couldn’t leave.”

  “You had to change in the hospital?” he asked holding back a smirk.

  “Is it that obvious?” she asked adjusting the hem of her dress unnecessarily.

  “Only because you don’t look like you do at the Club,” he murmured under his breath.

  “All the better,” Parker responded quickly before ducking her head to show that the conversation was over.

  Lexi was surprised to find that the remainder of the rehearsal dinner went off without a hitch. The delicious food came and went. The conversation at their table was light and refreshing without any of the biting remarks Lexi was fearful of being involved in. And after Parker and Ramsey’s brief exchange, they acted as if they hardly knew each other. When a question was directed at the both of them, they answered it separately without their eyes cutting to each other or the easy banter that she had seen fall between them. On the outside, the evening seemed to be a rousing success, besides Lexi’s momentary mental breakdown at the beginning of the night.

  As the dessert dishes were whisked away, Bekah stood once more. “Now, I know it’s mine and Jack’s night tonight, but we wanted to give a special announcement,” she said smiling down on him. “This is known to very few people, and we thought we would share it with our dearest friends and family, first and foremost.”

  For some reason, it was like Lexi could feel Bekah’s eyes on her. She had no idea why. The room was dark with a spotlight on the front table. Why her eyes would find Lexi in this crowd of people when she spoke made no sense.

  “Ramsey, do you mind coming up here?” Bekah asked. Ramsey stared forward at Bekah in confusion. His eyes narrowed, calculating what he could possibly have to do with any of this. “Come on,” she sing-songed forcing her hand as the bride-to-be.

  Ramsey stood slowly. There were too many other people that would cheer him onward if he didn’t follow his sister’s orders. “Of course.” He nodded standing and walking toward hers. His head turned once and met Lexi’s gaze. She had no idea what to expect in that moment. She was holding her breath unsure as to what Bekah had in mind.