Worth Repeating (Worth It All Book 1)

by Elizabeth Perry

  A single nod is all that I get in response. But really, that’s all that I need. Before I can even put it all into one complete thought, my story spills out of me.

  It’s harsh, and unpolished. It’s really just a jumble of stories that I’ve been told, all rolled into one that I’ve managed to wrap my head around.

  I was driving my car in the outskirts of Chicago, an area far more rural than the city in which I lived in. It was raining really hard, in fact, it had been storming for days. No one knows why I was way out there, on that back country road in the middle of a storm that left most of Chicago without power for three whole days. I certainly don’t remember why I was.

  But I was driving too fast for the road conditions and didn’t see that the strong winds and rain had caused a huge, old tree to fall down into the middle of the roadway. According to my dad, there weren’t even any skid marks, which means I either didn’t see the tree, or…no. I shake my head to myself. There’s no way that I hit that tree on purpose. That would just be insane.

  Either way, I hit the tree head on. From the sounds of things, I was out there, unconscious, in my car for a very long time. By the time that I was found, and airlifted to the hospital, my temperature was near death. I was unconscious, with multiple areas of internal bleeding in my brain. I was barely breathing and was placed on a ventilator.

  I had a broken arm, a broken leg, and was covered in bruises.

  By all accounts, it’s a miracle that I survived the crash. My parents and my fiancé were given little hope that I would make it through, but somehow, I did, only, my brain wasn’t so lucky.

  While I regained complete function of my body, after my broken bones healed, of course, I haven’t regained the brain function that I had prior to the accident, at least, I haven’t regained any memory of who I am, or the people that I loved. I know my name, that part remained intact. Everything else, has been a wash.

  Liam is silent for a long time after I finish. I’m not even sure that he understood half of what I was saying, since it was all so scattered, and honestly, hard for me to even put together. Trying to piece together other people’s account of what happened is a difficult task to do. And honestly, doing so is stressful and hard as hell.

  “That doesn’t make any sense.” Liam’s fork clanks loudly on his plate, as it drops from his hands. “You hate driving in the rain. You never would. You said it messed with your eyes too much. I used to think it was crazy, since you would drive through a blizzard and not bat an eye, but let a couple of rain drops fall, and you’d completely lose your shit. Why would you have purposely gone out in a rainstorm, to the middle of nowhere, and driven like an ass? It makes no sense at all.”

  I just shrug.

  “Who knows. Maybe I wasn’t scared of the rain anymore, or maybe I was doing something really important. I can’t be sure, because I don’t remember. My phone was never recovered, and the GPS on my car was disabled. The last memory that I have, is waking up in the hospital, and being absolutely terrified. If I’m being totally honest here, that feeling hasn’t left yet, either. Deep down, I’m still really afraid, and I have so much anxiety. People look at me funny, like I’m a science project or something. I have no idea who I can trust and what stories about me to believe. I found your letter by complete accident, but I feel like it was fate. You have nothing to hide, and nothing to gain here, Liam. That’s why I came to you. Anything that you can tell me about myself, I want to hear. Good or bad, I need to know.”

  As the words leave my mouth, my head begins to ache. At first, it’s just a dull ache, one that throbs behind my eyeballs, and then begins to fade, before slowly building back up, and then fading again.

  But as quickly as it started, the pain worsens. My stomach turns, and my vision blurs. My wine glass drops right out of my hands, shattering on the floor at my feet. The pain takes my breath away, as the entire room spins.

  “Abby!” I hear Liam’s voice boom, the sound of it causing my pain to reach the crescendo. I sink to my knees, falling from the chair, but am scooped up into Liam’s arms before the broken glass is able to slice my skin.

  “What’s going on? What happened?”

  “Migraine.” It’s all that I can muster. I make a feeble motion towards my purse, as my head absolutely pounds. I’m so embarrassed, so much, in fact, that if it wouldn’t cause my pain to spiral past the point of no return, I would ball my eyes out. This isn’t how tonight was supposed to go. I came here to get answers, not to make a scene like this.

  But I’m broken. Even I know that, and damn, I don’t know much of anything at all. My head is a mess, and my body isn’t much better. In fact, right now, it’s totally failing me. These fucking migraines come on without any warning at all, and they are a stark reminder of what happened to me.

  “I just need my meds.” My voice sounds pathetic, even to me. “I need my meds, and I need to lay down, in total darkness.”

  Liam holds me like an infant, clutching my face against his chest. I breathe him in deeply, letting the scent of him soothe me. Being in his arms feels like being wrapped up in a blanket on a cold winter day. It’s a short lived feeling, and I know it. But right now, I’ll take anything that I can get.

  The stairs click underneath his feet, and in just a few short moments, I feel myself being lowered onto soft sheets. I hear him rummaging through my purse, and then I hear the lifesaving sound of him popping the top off of my pill bottle.

  “Are these the ones?”

  My eyes can’t even focus, so I don’t even try.

  “Are they blue?”

  “Yes.” I’m lifted just enough for him to pour water into my mouth and to swallow down the pill.

  “It’s going to make me crash,” I mutter weakly. “You deserve more than to be stuck babysitting me. Call my dad. He’s listed under my emergency contact in my phone. He doesn’t know that I’m here, and, he might be pretty mad, but he’ll come and get me. My parents don’t live very far away.” I lean back down on the bed, the scent of Liam all around me, warming me like the fire downstairs.

  I fall into a deep slumber before any more words leave my lips. I sleep so hard that I don’t even notice how long Liam sits on the bed next to me, staring down at me, and watching my every move.

  7

  Liam

  “I can’t put my finger on it, bro, but something is just off about her story.” My leg swings around, nailing the bag hard enough to send my brother flying back a couple of steps. He regains his composure quickly, snapping back into place with the bag, ready for another blow, which I almost immediately deliver. “You should have seen her last night. She scared the shit out of me.”

  It all just happened so fast. One second, Abby was telling me her story, and the next, she was ready to crumple onto the floor. She was so pale, and shaky, unable to even speak in full sentences. The way that she held her head in her hands, with her eyes wild and desperate as hell, gutted me wide open.

  I’ve never seen Abby like that. She was always fierce and strong. Quick witted, determined, and happy as hell. Seeing her broken was more than I can handle.

  Abby is the one person that I don’t ever want to feel pain.

  But there’s something else that has been irking me. A lingering feeling in the pit of my stomach, telling me that something about her story isn’t right. Something about it just does not add up.

  “Abby crashed her car in the middle of a rainstorm.” I land on both feet following my kick, and then move fast, striking the bag with first my left hand, and then my right. “Abby would never be out driving in the rain. She just wouldn’t.”

  The second that the sky even turned grey, Abby would pull her car over, and beg me to drive. She’d check the weather several times before venturing out too far all alone, and if there was even the slightest percentage of rain in the forecast, she just wouldn’t go.

  I always made fun of her for it. It was her silly little quirk, at least it was to me. To her, it was a deathly fear.

>   “You knew Abby when she was eighteen.” Luke jumps to the side with the bag, forcing me to break my stride and adjust. “That was probably just a childhood fear. She’s a grown woman now. It’s not like she could avoid driving in the rain forever. I’m sure she adjusted. She must have just outgrown her fear.”

  “Maybe.” I’m still not convinced. Her overcoming her fear and driving around town, I could maybe wrap my head around. Luke is right- as an adult, sometimes, you just have to man up and handle your shit. But the idea of her purposely driving out into the middle of nowhere, when no one had any idea as to why she was out there, just doesn’t sit well with me. Overcoming your fears to manage your day to day life is one thing. Taking a road trip to the middle of fucking nowhere on day three of a terrible storm is something else completely.

  And grown woman or not, I know that it isn’t something that Abby would do, regardless of how much time has passed since I’ve seen her.

  But that’s not the only part of the story that really bothers me. When she mentioned last night that her recount of the story is actually the story that her parents told her, I immediately felt a chill run down my spine. She can’t remember the way that her parents used to treat her, but I sure as hell can.

  Abby’s parents are the devil in disguise. Two wolves dressed in sheep’s clothing. I wouldn’t trust either one of them to do what was in the best interest of their only daughter, which is pretty fucking sad, and yet, it’s spot on.

  Something doesn’t add up here, and while I’m not a betting man, I would bet every fucking thing that I own, that they’ve somehow spun this story to be the one that they want it to be. Odds are, it’s not even close to the truth.

  Those two just cannot be fucking trusted. As much as I wanted to tell her that and warn her to tread lightly with any information that they give her, I didn’t. She’s obviously in a fragile place, and I’m just not willing to bring her any more harm.

  Luke may not see the red flags here, but I sure as hell do. Something is very wrong, and odds are, Abby didn’t just magically show up on that backwoods road in the middle of a storm. Something happened that made her feel the need to get away, and fast. It’s on me to try to figure out exactly what that was.

  “So, is she married?” Luke interrupts my thoughts, staring back at me with a blank face. “I mean, I saw the ring on her finger. If that’s the case, where’s her husband?”

  “She’s not married.” I don’t mean my words to come out as shitty as they do. But yeah, it’s pretty fucking impossible not to notice the ring still sitting on her most important finger. The thing is the size of a fucking hockey rink. “She’s just engaged.”

  “Just engaged?” Luke raises an eyebrow. “Well that’s good. I mean…”

  “Don’t.” I interrupt him by kicking the bag as hard as I can when he’s not fully paying attention, sending him flying.

  “Dick,” he mutters, hopping back into place. “I just meant…”

  “I know what you meant. That road’s closed, brother. She and I don’t even make any kind of sense, at all.” We honestly never fucking did. “I don’t even have feelings for her anymore.”

  “Yeah, right.” Luke snorts, shaking his head. “You are such a shitty liar, Liam. You always have been.”

  I ignore him, and luckily, he drops the subject. The very last thing that I want to talk about right now is whether or not I still have feelings for Abby. Even though I do, I’ll never fucking admit it. There’s not a chance in hell that I would own that.

  We practice for a while longer, the same as we do every day. I like to get here first thing in the morning, before we open up the gym for the day. Luke and I have fallen into this pattern, meeting down here every morning at six am sharp.

  It’s easy for Luke to be here, since he lives in one of the apartments above the gym. It’s a little more difficult for me, since I live a little further outside of town, and since I still have to keep tabs on my baby sister, Bianca. She’s eighteen and a senior in high school. She can drive herself and wake herself up for school, but she’s in no part a morning person. I have to be home by seven thirty a.m. sharp, to make sure she’s up and moving for school.

  This morning, though, I have even more reason to get home soon. I left Abby sleeping in my bed, like Rumpelstiltskin. I want more time to talk to her, once she’s feeling up to it.

  “Derek’s still in Chicago, isn’t he?”

  Luke’s eyes lock with mine.

  “You really think something’s up with her, don’t you?”

  The grim look on my face is all that he needs in response.

  I’ve lived a hard life, that’s no secret. But I’ve survived on my own two feet, never asking anyone for anything. Doing it myself has given me a sense of pride that no one can ever take away from me. Even though I was saddled with raising my younger siblings on my own, and doing my best to provide for them, I wouldn’t change a thing. Asking for a handout a time or two would have made my life far less difficult. Even still, I never did. I may not have grown up with shit, but I had pride.

  So, for me to mention asking a favor from Derek, Luke’s childhood best friend, who just so happens to be a detective in downtown Chicago, it’s obvious that I’m serious. If I wasn’t, there’s no fucking way I’d be asking for a favor right now.

  “I’ll get in touch with him.” Luke lifts his chin at me. “When I have some info, you’ll be the first to know.”

  “Thanks, brother.”

  We switch positions, and I take over the bag. Luke gives me back every ounce of shit that I just gave him, spinning and twisting, and basically, giving me one hell of a workout. By the time that we’re done, both of us are dripping in sweat. I help him wipe down the mat quickly, but before I can make my escape back to my house, he corners me, drilling a few of his words into my head.

  “I remember the way that you used to look at her, Liam.” My entire body immediately begins to stiffen up, trying to block him out. “And I remember all of the times that you tried to push her away. I’ll give it to you, the timing back then was shitty, and you had no control over most of the things that tore you guys apart. For fuck’s sake,” as I begin to turn away, his voice rises, “at least hear me out. No matter how hard you tried to push her away, you still couldn’t help yourself. You constantly ran right back to her, because you couldn’t stay away. You loved her, and whether you’ll admit it or not, I know that you still do. Don’t discount this, her being here. Some shit is just meant to be, man. You and Abby, fuck.” As he sighs, his tough guy demeanor fades. “Well, let me just say, that if I ever met someone who rocked my world the way that she rocked yours, I’d be on my knees thanking God. Fate does happen, Liam.”

  Yeah, right.

  Fuck fate. If we had been meant to be, that shit would have happened. Instead, the world just tore us apart, leaving me completely fucking broken in the process.

  8

  Liam

  Ancient History

  Damn, I shouldn’t be here. To be honest, I don’t even know why I came. But once my mind began to focus on her, I couldn’t stay away.

  I didn’t even know if she’d be here. I almost wish that she wasn’t. It’s not the normal time of day that she comes to this park, sits on her park bench and stares out at the water. Usually, she does it in the afternoons. It’s odd to see her here in the morning.

  But today, she looks sad. Normally, she has a friend with her who makes her laugh, her sweet voice echoing into the air all around her. Sometimes she’s alone, and playing on her phone, smiling to herself at whatever text she’s reading, or video she’s watching. Today is different, though. This time, she’s all alone, with her legs tucked underneath her, her beautiful face expressionless, her normally sparkling eyes completely empty.

  There is no laughter anywhere around her. My gut aches at the idea that I caused her pain.

  I should just back up before she sees me, get the hell out of here and leave her alone. I should have fucking left her alone to
begin with, but I just couldn’t stop myself. I had to have her, I had to hear her say my name. And then, when she showed up at my gym, I couldn’t help myself from taking what she was offering me.

  Now, I’m officially fucking wrecked.

  I can’t eat, and I can’t sleep. I can’t stop thinking about her, and obviously, I can’t stay away.

  My feet move towards her even as my brain screams at me to stay away. I just can’t help myself. Knowing that I hurt her the other day is killing me.

  “Abby.” Her entire body tenses at the sound of my voice. “Hey.”

  Hey? Real slick, asshole. My inner voice is screaming at me right now. Steal the girl’s virginity, kick her out of your bed, and then swing by and say ‘hey.’ Hello, team idiot? I am officially your captain.

  She turns her head away from mine, but not soon enough to hide the fact that she’s obviously been crying. Her normally sparkling, blue eyes are now shining with tears. My heart aches at the sight.

  “I can’t do this with you right now.” Her voice shakes. “Please, just leave me alone.”

  “Abby.” I sit down next to her on the bench, even though it’s quite apparent that I’m not welcome. “I came to apologize for the way that I treated you.”

  She snorts, her eyes still turned away from mine. “Apology accepted. Now, please, just go away.”

  I glance down at the bench. Sitting directly next to her is a piece of cake on a plate covered in saran wrap. Underneath the cake sits a beautifully wrapped box in shiny, silver paper that must have cost a fortune, complete with a bow.

  “A present for me?” I try and fail miserably at making a joke. She keeps her attention focused out onto the lake, her eyes far away from mine.

  “If I say yes, and give it to you, will you please go away? I really don’t have it in me to do this with you today, Liam. I came here to be alone.”