Envious

by Cheryl Douglas

  “I don’t know what you want me to say.” What she really meant was she didn’t know if she had the courage to admit the truth. Looking up into those hopeful eyes made her want to bare her soul, but her pride stood in the way. She wanted Chris to think she was sexy and desirable. If he knew the truth, he would see her as an insecure little girl masquerading as a woman.

  “Whatever it is, you can tell me,” he said softly. Putting one foot in front of the other until they stood face to face, he waited for her to make the next move.

  Katie was tempted to back up, to put some distance between them, but she knew that would tell him more than she wanted him to know. “I don’t know what you want from me.” Or what you see in me.

  “Yes, you do.” He ran his calloused palm over her cheek.

  “Chris, I…” She flattened one hand on his chest, torn between pulling him closer and pushing him away. “I think this is a mistake.”

  “The mistake is trying to deny this.”

  He dipped his head lower and brushed his lips against hers without connecting the way she wanted him to. He wouldn’t make it easy on her, that much was obvious. Chris intended to taunt and tease her until she begged him to put her out of her misery. Could she really cast her doubt aside and find relief in his arms?

  She lifted her head, hoping he would kiss her without making her ask for it. She was close enough to the jagged edge of recklessness that if he told her to beg, she’d consider it. She hadn’t felt so out of control since she’d taken her last hit, and she’d vowed she’d never feel that way again. Something about Chris made the temptation impossible to ignore. He would never intentionally wreak havoc on her life, but could she risk a broken heart when her hard-fought sobriety and daughter’s future were at stake?

  “Stop running,” he whispered, his hot breath tickling her cheek as he whispered in her ear. “I can see how much you want this. Stop fighting it.”

  “You don’t understand.” Her voice came out as more of a whimper. She hated herself for sounding so weak, but the mask of strength had slipped away and she couldn’t get it back. “Every day is a fight for me. It has to be that way.”

  Framing her face with his large hands, he looked into her eyes as though he had all the time in the world to study her. “I understand the fight with your addiction. What I don’t understand is why you’re fighting what you and I could have. Can’t you see how amazing we could be together?”

  She’d spent so much time thinking about him over the past several days, she was making herself crazy. She imagined days at the park with their kids, movie nights as they all squeezed in on the over-sized sofa, and winter nights snuggled under the duvet. She wanted the family she’d never had, and she wanted her daughter to see a healthy relationship where both partners were totally in love and committed. But the thought of giving herself over to that fantasy was scarier than the first or last time she’d poisoned her body to ease the pain of not having the life she wanted.

  “If you tell me you don’t feel the same way, I’ll go. But I won’t let you lie to me or yourself anymore.”

  “I’m so scared.” She’d said it. There was no turning back.

  “I know you are, baby. So am I.”

  She could hardly imagine Chris being afraid of anything. He seemed so fearless, a man who knew he had the skills to be the master of his own destiny. “Really? What are you afraid of?”

  Before she could think to stop him, his mouth came down on hers hard and fast. If he’d asked for the kiss, she wasn’t sure she would have been able to give it. But he wasn’t asking, and she was grateful for that because he’d showed her how much she needed it. She surrendered, giving herself over to a moment unlike any other she’d experienced. As his mouth mated with hers, he didn’t just kiss her; he worshipped her. Clinging to his shoulders, she wanted the kiss to last forever, to explore his mouth until she knew where to go to elicit that moan from him again. She wanted him to feel as weak and vulnerable and scared as she did. She wanted him to make her believe she had nothing to be afraid of because he would never, ever hurt her.

  “Perfect,” he whispered when he broke the kiss. “Just like I knew it would be.”

  A shaky laugh slipped past her lips. “That’s one word for it.”

  “I connect with you like I’ve never connected with another woman. For years, I told myself you were just the best female friend I’d ever had. I refused to let myself believe I would allow myself to feel something for my best friend’s wife.”

  She knew how it felt to live with guilt and remorse. Too many times she’d go to the living room curtains at night and steal a peek at Chris’s house. A time or two she saw the silhouette of him with a woman, and she went to bed with an ache in her heart that she couldn’t explain. “I know.”

  “But when Lee gave us his blessing, I couldn’t go on pretending. Look at me,” he said when she dipped her head. “I’m crazy about you. I want you, but what scares the hell out of me is that I need you.”

  She questioned whether he was just saying what he thought she needed to hear. Her heart told her Chris would never intentionally hurt or deceive her. “I feel the same way.” His face lit up like a kid at Christmas, and she stood in awe that her words could make a man feel so much.

  “Then why are we dancing around this? Making each other and ourselves crazy? Relationships are a risk, but my gut tells me this is as close to a sure thing as it gets.”

  Stealing a deep breath, Katie looked down to collect herself. “I’ve never felt so much. That’s why I’m scared. If this doesn’t work out, I’m not sure how I’ll handle it.”

  His features softened as though her quiet admission tugged at his heart. “Baby, don’t you think I feel the same way?”

  “But you don’t have my history.” She’d come a long way since she was that out-of-control addict, but she’d been going to NA long enough to know that she was no better than the rest of the recovering addicts. She was always just one misstep away from sending her life on another downward spiral. Only she would be taking her innocent daughter with her, and that scared her more than anything else.

  “Do you really think I’d be proposing this if I wasn’t in it for the long haul? I didn’t make the decision to come here tonight without thinking it through. I know how much we both stand to lose. I would die before I’d be the cause of you going back there.”

  There. She shuddered when an image popped into her head of a strung-out junkie, makeup smeared, clothes hanging off her thin frame, barely able to form a sentence or a coherent thought. She would beg, borrow, and steal to get her next fix. She would break hearts, destroy lives, and despise the image she saw in the mirror.

  She was finally at a place where she was learning to like herself. Her life may be a little empty and lonely when Hannah went to bed, but wasn’t that better than risking the kind of fall-out that came with a broken relationship? “The only couple I know who’s made it work is Drake and Cassidy.”

  “What makes you think we can’t have what they have?”

  A relationship like that was so much more than Katie had ever dared to hope for. Her sister deserved to have a man like Drake, but Katie wasn’t at the point where she believed she had a right to want the same. “I’ve never…”

  “You’ve never what, Katie?” he whispered, slipping his index finger under her chin to tilt her face up. “Tell me.”

  “I’ve never felt I deserve a relationship like that, a man like that.” A tear glided down her cheek. When she saw Chris’s pained expression, she was more determined to keep her face steady. She was determined that no matter what, she wouldn’t fall apart.

  “Honey, you deserve to have it all. Why can’t you see that?”

  If Chris was so determined to take a chance on her, he had to go into it with his eyes wide open. If it meant he decided to walk away, she would have only herself to blame. He had a right to know what he was signing on for if he chose to put his faith in her. “I hurt people. It’s what I do.�
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  “I don’t believe that. I’ve never—”

  “Please, just let me finish.” She stepped back when he tried to close his arms around her. She couldn’t accept his comfort until he really understood. “It started long before I started running with the wrong crowd and getting into drugs.”

  He watched Katie walk to the oversized armchair and sit down, tucking her legs beneath her. “When did it start?”

  “I hated everything about my life for as long as I could remember. I hated that I didn’t have a dad to run to when I got bullied. I hated that we had to live in that crummy apartment where the only thing you could hear at night was sirens screaming.”

  “Honey, you don’t have to tell me all this.”

  “Yes, I do.” She looked at him, knowing she may never see that look of affection in his eyes again. “You need to know everything before you decide whether this is really what you want.” Katie may be confessing because the self-destructive part of her was trying to push him away, but she hadn’t figured out how to stop her inner saboteur from wreaking havoc with her life yet.

  “Fine.” He sat on the edge of the sofa nearest her. “Tell me whatever you feel the need to. If you want to bare your soul, I’ll listen. Just know that it won’t change how I feel about you.”

  “I hated that my mother had to work in a greasy diner all hours. I hated that she drank too much and didn’t seem to care enough to listen to our problems.” Katie pulled her legs up and wrapped her arms around them. In hindsight, she knew her mother had been too broken to help her daughters heal, but at the time, it just felt as though she didn’t care enough to try.

  “It couldn’t have been easy on you,” he said, bowing his head. “My dad was gone a lot too, but at least our mom was there for us.”

  She’d met Chris’s parents plenty of times. His dad was a gentle giant, and his mom was one of the most maternal people Katie had ever met. No way could he understand what it had been like to walk in her shoes. She pretended she hadn’t heard him. There was no sense comparing his life and hers. If they did, he would see the glaring disparities too clearly and realize how wrong they were for each other. A person couldn’t live the life Katie had without wearing scars, and she knew it would take more than the love of a good man and innocent child for her to forget they were there. “I even hated my friends. I hated that they had nice houses, two parents, a mom who wasn’t passed out on the couch or sleeping with one of the neighbors.”

  He tried to reach for her hand, but she refused to uncoil it from around her leg. She didn’t want or need his sympathy, just his understanding.

  “I know it wasn’t easy for you, baby. But you can’t let your past define your future.”

  She looked at him a long time before she forced a smile to soften her words. “Spoken like a man who doesn’t have any skeletons buried in his closet.”

  “It’s not like I haven’t done things I’m not proud of. We all have.”

  He had no idea how long that list was for her, but he was about to find out. It was too late to turn. “I ran away when I couldn’t stand it anymore. That was after I’d started using and skipping school. It started off with alcohol, but it wasn’t long before someone offered me my first hit, and I was hooked.” She looked at the ceiling when the tears slid down her cheeks. “I remember how I felt…all my problems just melted away.”

  He watched her closely, but he didn’t reach for her again. He sensed she was on the razor’s edge and any move he made could easily set her off.

  “The rape, the abandonment…” Her throat felt as though it was closing. “When I hit the streets, Cassidy was the only one who came looking for me. My mother didn’t even go to the police. I guess she was too drunk most of the time to notice that I was gone.”

  “You were raped?” he whispered.

  He said it as though there was only one time. Living in those flop houses, alone with no one to protect her… It was like her body was theirs to use as they saw fit. It didn’t matter how loud she screamed. No one heard or cared.

  “Over and over again.” She looked him in the eye, expecting him to look away, but he didn’t. He stared at her, waiting for her to continue. Katie was glad he didn’t reach out. If he had, she was certain she would have fallen apart. She’d never told anyone, not even Cassidy or Lee, about what happened when she lived on the streets. It was too painful to talk about. The words pierced her like the needles used to, reminding her that memories would always have the power to hurt her.

  “Jesus, Katie,” he whispered.

  “When I got clean, I got tested. It was just before I got pregnant with Hannah. I think that was my biggest fear, that one of them had given me something. Back then, I didn’t much care about whether I lived or died, but by the time I got clean, I wanted a chance at a decent life.”

  His eyes shimmered when he looked at her. She knew it was killing him not to touch her or offer her support, but she respected him for holding back. He let her tell her story in her own time, in her own way, without trying to suppress it because he couldn’t handle the truth.

  “Cassidy and I reconnected, and she convinced me to come to Nashville with her. She found me on the street, in the doorway of an abandoned building.” The look in her sister’s eyes that day had been one of the darkest moments of Katie’s life. “She said she’d saved enough money for us to go to Nashville and get a little place together as long as I wasn’t using. She’d been clean a while by then, and she wanted to pursue her dream of becoming a singer.”

  “How’d you respond?”

  “At first I told her to go without me. I tried to tell her I’d only bring her down, but she insisted.” Katie bit her lip to keep from sobbing.

  “I’m glad.” His full mouth tipped up on one side. “If she hadn’t insisted, we wouldn’t be here now. I wouldn’t have met you.”

  Katie couldn’t be sure he would still be grateful for that when he heard the worst. “She took me in and tried to help me stay clean, but the challenge was too great for her. I wasn’t ready to leave that life behind.” She’d wanted to, more than anything, but she wasn’t strong enough to resist the temptation. “When Cassidy met Drake…” Katie shuddered, thinking about all of the horrible things she’d done to the only person who’d ever tried to protect her. “I fed her insecurities. I was so miserable; I guess I wanted everyone around me to be miserable too.”

  “What did you do?”

  “It’s not what I did, it’s what I said… or didn’t say.” Katie’s hands trembled, so she clasped them tighter, hoping he hadn’t noticed that her whole body was trembling. “She was still so broken, so insecure. She didn’t believe a guy like Drake could really care about someone like her.” Katie wished she could hit rewind and tell her sister how amazing she was. “That’s when she started using again. At first, I think it was just to silence the voices in her head that were tormenting her, telling her that she was about to blow her big break at a career and a great relationship.”

  “So what happened?”

  “Drake found out and got her into rehab. He paid for the little apartment she and I shared, but without Cassidy to talk to, I hit the streets looking for someone to share my miserable life with.”

  Chris closed his eyes, drawing a deep breath. “You eventually got into rehab. How did that happen?”

  “Cassidy got out and was determined to turn her life around and help me do the same. She didn’t want to take any more handouts from Drake. She was determined to do it on her own, so she made me promise I’d stay at the apartment while she saved money for my rehab.”

  “Obviously you agreed.”

  “It’s not like I had a choice. My sister can be pretty determined when she gets an idea in her head.”

  “Thank God for that,” Chris muttered.

  “Yeah.”

  It still pained Katie to think about how strong her sister had been, how much she had endured to help Katie wrestle her demons. It made Katie sick to think about how she’d gone
over there with Cassidy’s poison of choice, knowing how hard it was for her to get through every day without thinking about getting high. But Katie’s only thought was feeding the beast inside of her. She planned to take enough of Drake and Cassidy’s valuables so she would have a decent place to rest her head that night, put food in her belly, and poison in her veins. She knew Lee hadn’t told Chris the story about what drove them both to get clean. Katie had asked her husband once if he’d ever shared the story with his best friend, but Lee admitted he was too ashamed. “I did something horrible, unforgiveable.”

  “Tell me.”

  “I went to Cassidy and Drake’s place…” She dropped her head into the circle of her arms, wishing she could hide from her shame. If that didn’t drive him away, nothing would. Chris was an honorable man, and he would no doubt agree she’d committed an unforgiveable sin by betraying the sister who had tried so hard to help her.

  “What happened?”

  His voice so gentle, it only made Katie feel worse. She didn’t deserve his kindness or compassion. It would be so much easier if she saw the same contempt in his eyes that she still felt for herself. “I needed money.” She sighed. “Lee and I were staying with friends, but they were getting kicked out, so we needed a place to stay, fast. We’d burned through every dime we had, and with a daily habit and no fixed address, we couldn’t exactly get a job.”

  “What did you do?”

  She heard the fear in his voice. He was almost as reluctant to hear her story as she was to share it. It could change everything: the way he viewed her, whether he would go into business with her, learn to love her, even stand to say hello to her when they met at the mailbox.

  “We hatched a plan to steal from the two people who’d tried so hard to help us.” There was no point trying to stop the tears. They were flowing freely, and Katie knew she would be able to fill a bucket by the time she was done. “I took the drugs over, thinking I could convince Cassidy to take them. Just one more time, for old time’s sake, I told her.”

  Chris frowned. “Jesus, Katie, why the hell would you do that?”