Unforgivable
Page 15
Her clothes had started going stiff from the blood. She didn’t know if it were hers or Wendy’s, but she wanted a hot shower, clean pajamas, some ice packs, and her bed. Everything hurt. She was already purple with bruises.
“I just want to go home.” Alice turned her head to look away from the doctor who was poking and prodding her.
“You have a ride?” the doctor asked.
She hesitated. “I called my . . . a friend. To come and get me. But he hasn’t answered me yet.”
The doctor gave her a sympathetic smile. “Do you have any other friends who you can call?”
She did, but she didn’t want any of them. She wanted Mick. She needed him.
“Do you want to give your friend some more time to answer you? Or we can call you a cab.” The doctor was already looking harried, not that Alice blamed him. The ER was overflowing with patients in worse condition than hers.
Alice checked her phone, but Mick hadn’t returned her call. She took a deep breath that hurt everything inside her and shook her head. “Yeah. A cab would be great.”
Chapter 33
“Mick. It’s me. I’ve been in an accident, a car accident. They’re keeping my sister, she’s banged up pretty bad, but they’re letting me go home. I’m okay, but . . . I need you. . . . Can you come get me? Please call me back. I need you.”
He’d listened to the message ten times, at least, each time feeling sicker and sicker inside. It had come in around two thirty on Sunday afternoon, while he was driving home from his parents’. He hadn’t listened to it until just before he went to bed. Not on purpose. Not to be a dick. Just because he hadn’t noticed it until then.
He’d called her back as soon as he’d listened, but had gone straight to voice mail. Three times, though he hadn’t left a message after the first. At a loss, he’d called Jay, but he hadn’t answered, either.
Monday morning, exhausted from being unable to sleep, he’d missed the alarm. Got to work late. He’d called Jay again, this time at the office, but got an out-of-office voice mail. Useless for anything, Mick canceled his onsite visits. He logged into his computer, but Alice’s name didn’t appear in his list of contacts.
He called her again. “Alice. Call me, please. I’m sorry I didn’t get your message before. I really am. But please, call me back, okay?”
She didn’t call him back. Not all day, and by five o’clock, Mick couldn’t stand it anymore. With rush hour traffic it took him close to two hours to get to her place, and by the time he did, he was starving. Worried. Anxious and a little angry, too.
When she opened the door, all the breath left him. She looked like . . . shit, she looked like she’d been hit by a truck. He wanted to take her in his arms, but the way she stood so stiffly, as though merely looking at him hurt her, kept him from touching her.
“Can I come in?”
Silently, she stood aside to let him pass, then closed the door after him. Without a word she went into the living room and settled onto the couch, where it was clear she’d been for a long time. Blankets, a bowl of half-eaten soup, ice packs. The TV was playing something in black and white, but on mute.
“Alice . . .”
She looked at him, her expression completely blank. She’d done nothing to cover the bruises on her face, and they stood out starkly in shades of purple, blue, and even black. It broke him to see them, along with the railroad track pattern of stitches on her forearm and the back of her hand.
It broke him worse the way she looked at him. Not cutting her gaze. Flat and disinterested and emotionless.
Mick knelt beside her, tried to take her good hand. She tugged it gently away and put it under the blanket. His insides twisted.
“I’m sorry,” Mick said. “Baby, I’m so, so sorry I wasn’t there for you.”
Something glittered in her gaze. “No. You weren’t. I called you, and you didn’t answer. And this time, Mick, it wasn’t about whether or not we were going to lunch. This time, I really needed you, and you were not there.”
“I’m sorry,” he said again, helpless to do anything but repeat it until maybe she’d hear him.
Alice only stared, silent. She’d heard him, Mick realized. But she would not listen. He got to his feet.
“You want me to go,” he said, not a question.
“If you can’t be there for me when I need you,” Alice told him, “then I don’t want you.”
She swallowed, her mouth thinning. She blinked rapidly, and it killed him that she was trying so hard not to cry in front of him. He’d done that to her. Hurt her worse than that truck. Left her with worse than bruises. Worse than scars.
It was over.
Mick to Alice
Don’t you believe in second chances?
—Mick to Alice
Chapter 34
Time had passed, but could anyone really ever change? That was the question that came to Alice’s mind in the darkness of her room with Mick breathing soft and steady in the bed beside her. His declaration had led to an embrace, which led to a kiss, which had taken them to her bed. Toe bone connected to the shinbone, Alice thought and rolled to face him. Her fingertips drifted down the line of his bare shoulder and arm to rest for a moment on his hip before she rolled onto her back again. Mick hadn’t stirred.
He’d always slept hard and deep. She was the one who tossed and turned and woke in the night to go to the bathroom. Now, though she really could’ve waited until morning, Alice got up and used the toilet. She rinsed her mouth at the sink, then looked at her own reflection, turning her face from side to side as though she’d find some answers in the slope of her cheekbones or the shadows under her eyes.
What in holy hell was she doing?
“I want you,” Mick had said. “Let me prove it to you.”
If orgasms were proof of desire, he’d done as promised. Her cheeks heated. Time had passed, indeed, but Mick still knew her body better than any man ever had. Maybe ever would, she had to admit. She’d had a few boyfriends since breaking up with Mick, but none who’d turned her inside out and many who’d never even turned her on.
In bed, she rolled over so he could spoon her. Eventually, she slipped into dreams. Fractured images of crashing waves and fields of flowers. She woke again to the first hint of light in the sky and listened to the steady in-out of Mick’s breathing, wondering how on earth she was ever going to give this up all over again.
Now that she’d had him again, how could she go back to living without her Mick?
“Are you awake?” he whispered against the back of her neck.
She almost didn’t answer, not wanting to wipe away the brilliance of the night with the mundane morning. She wriggled against him after a moment, her ass pressed to Mick’s very impressive waking erection. She hadn’t meant anything by it, not really. More a silent acknowledgment of her wakefulness than a come-on . . . but that didn’t matter when his hand slid over her belly and between her legs.
His fingers found her clit with unerring precision. Smooth circles, perfect pace. He had her on the edge in a minute or so, then eased off to tease her while his teeth found the back of her neck and the slope of her shoulder. They moved together, shifting until he was inside her. As always, in that first moment when he filled her, Alice made a low noise.
Leisurely, they moved. Dreamlike. Her orgasm rolled through her; she cried out, wordless and breathless and gasping. Mick thrust once, twice more, and shuddered against her.
They slept.
Alice woke to the scent of coffee and frying bacon and toast—did she even have bacon in the house? Bleary-eyed and tousled, she threw on a robe and went to the kitchen to find a feast spread out on the table waiting for her. Cream and sugar had been set out by her mug, which Mick filled for her as soon as she appeared in the doorway. He kissed her when he pressed her mug into her hand. He wore jeans but no shirt. Bare feet, too. Clearly, he was trying to kill her with the sexy.
“Wow,” she said. “You are really going all out.”
Alice held the mug of hot coffee away from her body so it didn’t slop. In the light of mid-morning—God, how late had she slept?—Mick looked even better than he had last night. She, on the other hand . . .
“You’re so gorgeous, you know that?”
Alice burst into guffaws. “Oh, shut up! Oh, my God.”
“It’s true.” Mick looked serious. “First thing in the morning like this? Right out of bed? I’ve never seen a more beautiful woman.”
She sipped coffee for a second before putting the mug on the table and her hands on her hips. “Look. Let’s just get something straight.”
“Anything.” He looked expectant before turning to the stove to shut off the burners and slide the bacon onto a plate, which he put on the table before focusing on her again. “What is it?”
She’d watched this domesticity with a raised brow. No denying that a man who cooked for her was sexy. Still, she had some things to say. “Just because I went to bed with you last night does not mean we can just pick up where we left off.”
“Where we left off was pretty bad,” Mick said. “I was kind of hoping we’d start off in a different place. I meant what I said last night, Alice.”
He’d said he wanted her more than he’d ever wanted any woman. What that meant beyond the physical, Alice wasn’t sure. She focused on her own bare toes for a moment before looking up at him, her fists clenched until she forced herself to open them. “Why did you go to Bernie and Cookie’s party?”
“Because they invited me, and it was a big deal. It didn’t seem right to miss it.”
That had ostensibly been her reason, too, and she wasn’t about to tell him any different.
“And I thought we’d be able to . . . you know. Catch up.”
Alice’s eyebrows rose. “What, like we were old high school pals who hadn’t seen each other in a few years? Like maybe we’d worked together at summer camp? After everything, Mick, you thought we’d just . . . catch up?”
“I wanted to see you again,” he told her. “And yeah. Catch up. Find out how you’d been. I know you think I didn’t care—”
“I didn’t say that.” Though she’d thought it, more than once, as the years had passed without a word from him.
Mick gave her a steady look. “Don’t you believe in second chances, Alice? Remember once how you told me that you were willing to make the effort? That what we had was worth it?”
Like she could’ve forgotten it. Some parts of her relationship with Mick had gone fuzzy over the years, blurred around the edges like a vignette. That conversation was not one of them.
“I love you,” he’d told her. “On some level.”
Oh, the anger had dimmed, after a time. But never the sting of those words. They still burned and bit her in her tender places, remembering.
He took her hand. The one with the scar. It had faded to white over the years. Only someone who knew it was there would even notice it. Mick stroked it now. Then kissed it, sending shivers all through her. He pulled her close, their fingers curled, and put her hand on his heart.
“It’s worth trying,” Mick said. “Isn’t it?”
Their relationship had been over the night of her accident, though they had limped along for a month or so after that before it finally ended. Fighting, mostly. Making up and making love, but the damage had been done, and they’d never really recovered from it. It had been the best and worst month of her life—the sex had been fierce and sometimes brutal. The words they’d thrown at each other, both in person and in letters harsh and ultimately, unforgivable. But the passion? That had been undeniable.
She supposed everything about the two of them together had always been undeniable.
Alice went to the small, built-in desk in the corner of her kitchen and opened the drawer. Inside was a tightly bound packet of letters she’d shoved there some time ago because she’d been unable to convince herself to burn them, but hadn’t wanted to be reminded of them all the time. She held them out to Mick.
“I kept these,” she said. “I haven’t read them in a long time. But I used to read them all the time. I’ve read them so often I memorized most of them. They all hurt me.”
Mick winced, but Alice kept going.
“The angry letters were meant to hurt me, I guess, but the love letters always hurt me, too, because I could remember, so much, how it felt when we were together. I would read them and cry, torturing myself, because . . . because they were all I had left of you. All I thought I would ever have of you, and I could never bring myself to let them go. Ten years is a long time to hold on to something, Mick. It’s a really long time not to let go.”
He crossed to her. Pulled her close. She buried her face against his chest, breathing in the clean, warm scent of Mick’s skin. It hadn’t changed, not in all these years.
He kissed the top of her head. “I kept yours, too.”
Alice to Mick
Last night I dreamed of a long hallway lined with doors of black and white, all but the one at the end. That one was red. I walked toward it, not bothering even to knock at any of the others. I didn’t care what was behind them. I only wanted to get to the red door, because somehow I knew already what was behind it. The more I tried to get there, the longer the hallway got. Total cliché. Even in the dream, I knew it, and suddenly I knew it was a dream, and that I could control it, so I yelled out, “I want to get to the red door!”
Everything stopped.
I stood in front of the red door.
And there you were.
—Alice to Mick, unsent
Chapter 35
It had been a long time since Mick had put pen to paper this way. Not merely a scribbled to-do list or a signed birthday card, but an actual letter. The last time that he could remember writing something like this, in fact, had been to Alice. A long time ago.
It felt right, though. The scratch of the nib against the creamy thickness of the paper. The way the lines flowed, one into the other, making words. Handwriting was so different than typing on a computer or on a phone screen. He had to be very certain of what he wanted to say before he wrote it down. No backspace. No erasing.
It felt very fitting.
It had only been two weeks since he’d shown up at Alice’s door. They’d agreed to take things slow. It was easier, in a way, than it had been back then. Now they both had smartphones, social media, unlimited texting. Maturity, he thought with a snort as he twirled the heavy fountain pen in his fingers and thought about what to write next.
The letters had been his suggestion. They’d written to each other a lot the first time around. Funny cards or little notes. During the breakup, they’d sent even more letters. It had been easier to write what they felt instead of saying it aloud, at least for him. During that last horrific month when they’d both been clinging to each other and trying to tear each other apart, writing those letters had been like lancing a boil. The sight of an envelope in his mailbox, addressed in Alice’s familiar hand, had always simultaneously lifted him and cast him down. And after it had ended for good, that last final letter from her that had told him never to contact her again, Mick had still kept writing letters he never sent.
There’d been girls before Alice and a few after, but he’d never done that for any of them. Held on that way. He didn’t pull those unsent letters out to read them now, but he remembered all too well the words in them. He’d been angry. Pleading. Contrite. Sarcastic. Despondent. Vengeful, too.
This time around was going to be different.
In high school, his teacher had been adamant about making a rough draft before the final copy. There was something to be said for that, but in letter writing, Mick had found the first words were the best words. Okay, so maybe he spelled some things wrongs, or scratched them out, or repeated things. He wasn’t an author, just a guy trying to get h
is girl back.
First words, he thought. Best ones.
Dear Alice, he wrote. I wish you were here.
Mick to Alice
Today I was onsite and stopped at a little deli for lunch. I got an egg salad sandwich because the last time I was at your place, you were boiling eggs to make some. I didn’t get to try any of your extra-special egg salad, and I’m pretty sure this deli’s didn’t even come close, but it was a pretty good sandwich, anyway. By the time you get this letter the weekend will probably have come and gone, and I’ll already have been able to say this to your face, but in case something weird has happened and the zombie apocalypse came or something like that (which is the only thing that would prevent me from seeing you) I wanted to send you this letter and tell you this . . .
I ate egg salad today because it made me think of you.
—Mick to Alice
Chapter 36
There were good days, and there were bad days. This was one of the bad ones. Wendy had called Alice at work, asking her to come over to help out with the kids for a few hours until her husband Raj could make it back from an unexpected business meeting.
Alice didn’t usually mind helping out with her niece and nephew. They were the light of her life, those two punkins, but Alice didn’t envy her sister’s domestic bliss. Alice had known for a long time she probably never wanted children of her own. She loved Benjamin and Mallory, but pregnancy, childbirth, diapers, toddlers . .. all of that was much better experienced vicariously and from afar. And the husband thing seemed great, except of course when it didn’t.