Kicking Reality

by Kat T. Masen

  “Mom, I’m sorry but—”

  “Emerson. I didn’t raise you this way,” Abbi begins, then stalls, a look of discouragement spreading across her tired face. “I’m disappointed in both of you. After what happened with Ashley, I thought you knew how I felt about secrets in our family. What did you think I would honestly say to you?”

  “It’s my fault,” Wesley jumps in, quick to defend her. “Things got out of hand in Amsterdam and I let it ruin our relationship. Just don’t blame Em, everything she’s done is in an act of revenge against me, not you.”

  I remain tight lipped. Angry that we were even here. All of this could have been avoided if she had fucking left him. He was the reason we were here. His fucking dick running loose with whores. Yet if he didn’t hurt her to begin with, you wouldn’t have realized that the person in front of you is the only woman you want to be with.

  “And you?” Chris points again at me. “I still don’t get why you’re here.”

  “Chris,” Abbi raises her voice in frustration. “They’re sleeping together.”

  “Who?”

  “Emerson and Logan.”

  Emerson keeps her head low, then raises it to meet mine with a tear falling down her exhausted face. Wesley moves over to where she sits, comforting her as I stand here watching, wondering why the fuck am I allowing this. His hands are all over her again. My anger paralyses me, my emotions wild and out of control.

  “Is that true?” Chris questions, disturbed by the reality.

  “I love her.”

  In the arms of the man that offered her a life of happiness, her conflicted gaze confuses me. Isn’t that what she wanted to know? And isn’t that what all women want a man to confess? There’s nothing else I can say or do. That’s all my cards, laid flat on the table for everyone to see.

  “You damn right you better love her if you were willing to jeopardize your goddamn career!” Chris shouts. The sound echoes through the apartment until Abbi asks him to keep it down. “Your whole life you worked to get where you are. Ashley is back home training his ass off to win this game and you are here because of what?”

  “Because I fucking love your daughter and watching her be with someone else is torture!” I stand, raising my hands as I yell in frustration. “The game means nothing to me if the one thing I want is fucking engaged to someone else.”

  Abbi moves her gaze to meet mine, a look of astonishment mixed with relief. Chris is not so receiving, still full of rage and no empathy for our fucked-up situation.

  “Now you listen to me.” That pointed finger comes out again, stern and warning me that I had no say in what he was about to command. “You will go back to England. You will win your games and prove you are still the best. I did not spend the last fifteen years raising you as my son for you to let me down despite who the girl is.”

  “Chris, you don’t get it—”

  “Oh, I get it alright,” he interrupts unapologetically. “She’s my daughter. You want my respect? You want my approval to date her or whatever your plan is? Then get the hell out of here and leave her alone. Focus on your game and then deal with this when you’re done winning. That’s the end of it.”

  Chris tells Abbi to grab her bag and pack Tayla’s belongings so they could fly back home. The two of them disappear into the bedroom leaving the three of us alone.

  Rubbing the back of my neck, I struggle to even think about walking away right now. How the fuck did he expect me to focus on the game? My fingers are restless, moving on their own accord till they bunch up into a ball, clenched and ready to smash into something for relief.

  “I don’t have words for either of you.” Emerson removes herself from Wesley, moving towards the balcony with her back facing us. She had changed into sweats and a tank; her hair propped up into a messy ponytail.

  “Did you try to pay him off?”

  I nod at the same time she turns around. There is nothing but hatred in her expression. No signs of love or any compassion even though I told everyone in this room that I loved her.

  Her angered stare shifts to Wesley. “And you so willingly would accept that?”

  Wesley tries to move towards her but is stopped as she holds her palm up and demands that he does not take another step forward. She bows her head, focusing on her hand, and removes the diamond ring from her engagement finger. She extends her hand and motions for Wesley to take it.

  The tension releases from my muscles. The sudden lightness curing the doubt that washed over me only moments ago. Her ending their relationship for good in front of me, meant only one thing—she is ready to commit and I could walk away and win our finals knowing the woman I love is waiting for me.

  Wesley takes the ring from her, silently with his shoulders slumped. His body shakes, again, his reaction to the drugs I knew he took quite often despite Emerson thinking he was clean.

  Finally, she meets my stare. I wait, holding my breath for her overdue smile and words to ease my insecurity.

  “I want you both out of my life.” She grits her teeth with an arctic glare. “I don’t care what happens with the rest of filming. I almost lost my sister today because of this mess. It’s not worth it. Neither of you is worth losing my family over.”

  “Emerson,” I call, panicked. “I am your family.”

  “You.” The fire burns in her eyes, wild and out of control, fueled by exhaustion and anger. “Especially you.”

  “Don’t do this,” I warn her.

  “You know what?” she shoots back with a bitter stance. “You did this. Not me. I was looking for a friend that night at the lake. You took advantage of the situation. You had your fun, you played your game, and you won. Game over, Carrington.”

  “It wasn’t a game, Emerson.”

  “It’s always been a game with you. That’s what you do. You play, you aim to win. In this game, you’ve won. I call defeat.”

  Without any more words, she walks to her bedroom and slams the door shut behind her. My chest is aching; desperate to follow her and fix us. But I knew who I was dealing with. Emerson wasn’t one to easily forgive. She is headstrong and determined. Chasing after her would only hurt me more right now.

  And she didn’t realize she had done just that.

  I couldn’t stand being here a second longer. Without saying goodbye, I leave the apartment and head to the car downstairs. The paparazzi are animals; multiplying in those few hours that we had been here. I drive the car out of the garage as they attack me like a swarm of bees. With my foot on the pedal, I rev the engine and get the fuck out of here hoping to never see this place again.

  The last plane to Heathrow is boarding in twenty minutes. I flew through customs, avoiding the questions despite their need to pat me down like a drug lord fleeing the country, and ran to the boarding gate with only minutes to spare.

  Settling down in my chair, I finally pull out my cell.

  Twenty-three missed calls—Ash

  It would be like pulling a Band-Aid off, painful at first but worth it at the end. Before the pilot warns us to switch our cells into airplane mode, I hit dial, dreading this call.

  “What the fuck happened to my sisters?!” he barrels through the phone.

  “Ash,” I strain.

  “NO!” he yells, causing me to retract the cell from my ear. “You thank your lucky stars Tayla is alive. But Emerson . . . I can’t fucking believe you. How dare you disrespect our friendship that way! And you lied to me. I’m your fucking best friend and you screw my sister over? You don’t think I know what you’re like? You manipulate women to suit what you want. But guess what, buddy? You messed with the wrong person.”

  “Are you done?”

  “Yeah,” he confirms with a baneful laugh. “I’m fucking done. Don’t come back to the apartment. Consider yourself gone from my life.”

  And that’s what it took. A moment of insanity to make her mine that turned into losing everything that was important to me. Instead of realizing how lucky we are to have each other af
ter Tayla’s brush with death, it broke us.

  I lost the two people that willingly took me in as if I were their child.

  I lost my best friend—my brother.

  But most importantly, I lost the woman I loved. That’s what hurt the most. Despite all we had been through, she didn’t want anything to do with me.

  She told me I had won when in fact—I lost everything. It wasn’t a competition, it was our lives at the stake. And without her in it, it was pointless to move on.

  “When he feels like home,

  that’s how you know he’s the one.”

  ~ Emerson Chase

  “And . . . CUT!”

  It was the hardest episode I had filmed. Not only did I have to tell Wesley on camera that things had to end between us, but it would be the last time we would be together in this apartment.

  Saying goodbye is never easy, even when its’s what you so desperately need to happen to move on. It was hard to tell if Wesley was equally effected, but I gathered through his late nights and excessive drinking—he wasn’t coping well either.

  The camera crew and Cliff pack up all their equipment, along with the makeup artists, wardrobe, and assistants. We started filming at six A.M and finished five hours later. Bittersweet in so many ways yet finally time to wrap up this difficult season.

  “So, this is it?”

  “This is it.” I choke back the tears; my wavering voice barely heard amongst the silence. Even George looks sad; face planted on the ground with his paws strategically covering his face.

  “I never really expected us to be here, Em. It’s odd, you know? Three years of our lives together and now what?”

  “We go on. It’s for the best. We were never meant to be, Wes.” I sigh loudly. “George will miss you.”

  He bends down, patting George’s head and squeezing his mouth in the palm of his hand. “It’ll be nice to leave my shoes out without having to worry about them being eaten.”

  I smile, gently. “He’ll have to move on to stinky soccer boots or something.”

  The small smile that graced his worn-out face disappears. What happened between us had taken a toll on his well-being, a reason I didn’t pressure or push him out of my life like he deserved.

  “So, you’re together?”

  I shake my head, sullen and withdrawing. “No, but I love him. If it’s meant to happen, it’ll happen.”

  The answer is enough to ease his tension. Leaning in to where I stood, he asks for a goodbye hug. It isn’t the greatest of ideas given the circumstances, but I didn’t want to upset him further and found the courage to say goodbye properly to someone who was a huge part of my life.

  Inside the arms of the man I once loved, I realized what I needed to do. We pull apart and I grab my purse with George’s leash linked in my hand. I scan the apartment one more time; boxes stacked high and ready to go. This was never my home. It was a place that we enjoyed our time in. Made memories, good and bad.

  But now—someone else could make the memories for themselves. I needed to go back to where it all began.

  The trip to Connecticut was exhausting and long.

  When Tayla almost drowned two weeks ago, the media went nuts over the Emerson Chase love triangle, at least, that’s what the headlines referred to it as.

  Nina quit, telling me the stress really got to her and she needed a break from the industry. I didn’t blame her one bit—her phone was off the hook since it all unfolded. Every magazine, entertainment program, and radio station wanted the inside scoop. We couldn’t go anywhere without being followed. Jimmy even recruited an extra few bodyguards to assist him because things wouldn’t die down.

  The network told us that re-runs were rating extremely high, and despite their need to control our relationship, they didn’t care that it all broke loose. They got what they wanted in the end.

  The hardest part was covering up the sadness that followed me wherever I went. Deep circles were carved beneath my eyes, I had lost an enormous amount of weight from not eating anything besides the food that Poppy or Scarlett would force down my throat. I had to hand it to them, the two of them tried their best to keep me smiling despite the media hounding them for answers.

  What hurt the most was how I so easily destroyed the relationships that meant the most to me because I was too afraid of letting people down.

  Tayla was the only family member communicating with me. According to her, Dad had flown to England to make sure the boys were solely focused on training because Logan had moved out and he and Ash weren’t on speaking terms. Coach intervened, but nothing could curb their stubbornness. I hated that it was because of me, but Ash refused to take my calls and so I stopped calling hoping that soon he would forgive us both. At least Logan for the sake of their careers.

  Mom and I hadn’t spoken since she left the apartment with Dad and Tayla. Tayla said she was really upset and locked herself in her office all day and night writing. I knew better than to disturb her creative flow, and settled on talking to her when I got back home.

  The toughest pain came from how I left things with Logan. I was angry, beyond livid, the night Tayla almost drowned. I couldn’t stand being near him or Wesley. I had never felt so degraded, like a pawn in their sick and twisted game. Exchange me for money? It had me seeing red. How dare they treat me like that.

  Then Logan said he loved me. A pity ‘I love you’ to smooth the mounting tension in the room that day. The words meant nothing to me because I didn’t feel that they came straight from the heart. They came from this ugly, jealous place—that wanted to prove a point to Wesley.

  It wasn’t until the morning after—when everyone had long gone—that the guilt of my actions sunk in. My heart had splintered into a thousand pieces, followed by long, drawn-out sobs. In my entire life, I had never felt so alone. Battling to keep breathing and finding a purpose to wake up every morning.

  I was stupid. Caught up in the game just as much as Logan. I knew how important soccer was to him yet I teased him for my own benefit because I felt insecure and needed some sort of validation. But all of it—the greed, the selfishness and the games we played—almost cost him everything he had worked so hard for.

  And all because of me.

  I let him down.

  Once I realized it was my fault as much as it was his, I fell into a deeper funk. I wanted to reach out to him but knew that would be another selfish act. He needed to concentrate and I proved to be a distraction of the worst kind. The only thing I could do was move out of the apartment and say goodbye to Wesley Rich.

  My baseball cap is down low, covering my eyes and gaunt face. It doesn’t stop the paparazzi recognizing me, flashes going crazy until airport security needed to restrain them. I walk past the noise and to the doors where Dad is waiting outside in his car.

  Dad helps me with my bags, raising his eyebrow without a single word as he places George’s carrier on the back seat. He mumbles something about the dog making a mess, but doesn’t direct his words at me while he piles into the driver’s seat and speeds off.

  The drive to Green Meadows seems longer than usual, despite the small amount of traffic heading out of town for the weekend.

  I knew Dad wasn’t impressed with my affair with Logan, and as much as it is painful to talk about it, I needed to apologize to him.

  “I’m sorry Dad,” I whisper, staring out the window, restraining my tears from falling.

  There’s only music between us. The sounds of U2. It’s so depressing yet the perfect song to capture my mood.

  “I’m disappointed in you Emerson. I didn’t raise a daughter to behave like this. What were you thinking?” He keeps his eyes steady on the road.

  “I wasn’t . . . I can’t explain it.”

  He lets out a sigh, shoulders slumping. “When Ash came home and told us he got married, I was furious. He had his whole life ahead of him. He worked himself to the bone to achieve his dreams. I didn’t want some woman taking that away from him. Someone he had known
for five minutes. Marriage is a great thing when it’s done at the right time. It wasn’t the right time for your brother and it isn’t the right time for you.”

  “Why didn’t you say something? Convince us not to get married if you saw the signs?” I wondered out loud.

  It’s funny how when you break up with someone, everyone voices their opinion on how wrong you were for each other yet prior to that, no one breathed a single word.

  “I did,” he tells me. “I wasn’t going to let either of you ruin your lives. But neither of you listened. What would I know? Just an old man out to ruin your life.”

  “Dad,” I say softly. “You’re not an old man. You’re just my daddy.”

  The sentiment makes him smile, placing his hand on top of mine.

  “Despite our earlier arguments, I’m proud of you Emmy. You took the best of the situation and built it to bigger things. You’re an extremely smart businesswoman and if Forbes magazine named you the next best thing, you know you’re going places.”

  “I was going places. This separating our assets is trickier than I thought.”

  “So you’ll get a good lawyer, pay your dues then build yourself back up.”

  Wesley and I had been tied financially in every way. The lawyers recommended we split everything fifty/fifty from our cash, investments, properties, and businesses. I had hired a woman recommended to me—a shark in Hollywood who would fight to make sure everything is divided equally.

  “Thanks Dad, for the confidence. I just need to take it one day at a time.”

  “You’re a smart woman. You never needed to be on that show to prove that to me. Sometimes I wish your brother would have fed off your brain cells.”

  I laugh. Dad often put Ash down but deep inside—he was so proud of him.

  “Ash has his own way of thinking.”

  “Yeah.” Dad grunts. “Know a good divorce lawyer?”

  “Excuse me?” I stumble out my words. “Him and Alessandra?”

  Dad nods, clearly not pleased with the outcome.