Fighting to Stay (Fighting Madly Book 2) (7 page)

Mark places his hands on Sarah’s shoulders, his mouth set in a hard line as he peers at me holding Jadon. “How was your little adventure, Hadley?” Mark’s words drip with sarcasm. He doesn’t care, never has. He thinks I should have stayed in treatment instead of running away like he says I did. Nothing I do…

I’ve spoken to him a grand total of four times in the six months I was gone, and each conversation was him lecturing me on how I let down the family doing what I did; that I was selfish to tarnish the family’s good name, and that the only way to come close to fixing it, is to stay far away from any member of the Thomas family. All because I didn’t get the treatment he wanted, didn’t do what
he
said. I’m an embarrassment to him. Each conversation ends after he accomplishes the tear down of me with not even a goodbye from him.

Someday he will understand that I did the best thing for me.

Someday. I hope.

I didn’t need it then—I don’t need it now. There is one truth hidden in his words, though… I was selfish. I threw a fit and acted spoiled when things didn’t go my way. I know that with everything in me. I’ve come to terms with it. If I could take it back, that decision… I would, without hesitation, but that’s not how it works. You make mistakes, you grow up, and you learn. But you can’t ever change the past.

And with each mistake I’ve made, the lesson taught, the lesson learned changes everything.

“Great. I’m going to make sure everything is ready for the grill.” I hand Jadon over to Sarah, then I make my way into the kitchen before I open my mouth with words to Mark I’ll never be able to take back.

I lift the beans out of the oven when I
feel
him. I can be gone for almost seven months and it’s no use, his spell still works on me—the hair on the back of my neck still stands up, he still makes my breath come out in short gasps like ever before.

Last night after I unpacked the boxes I had waiting for me, and after Matt was long asleep, I laid on my bed staring up at the blades of the fan, spinning around and around. The phone I’d dedicated to all the messages Reed sent, never left my grip. I must have pulled the screen up a dozen times to either read or delete the messages, but in the end, my decision wasn’t made, so nothing was done.

My finger had floated over his number, ready to call, to hear his deep voice I once loved and try to have
the
conversation without the risk of an outside interruption. But I couldn’t even do that. Chicken? Hands down, I was... I am. What if he asked me how I felt? What if he asked to be back in my life? Too many what ifs to do over a phone. Especially after his face wasn’t the one I’d recognized while he was fighting. He was far too gone, and if I told him something he didn’t like, that he didn’t agree with, it could potentially break another piece of him. And I don’t have that in me to do because I do still care. No matter what clouds surround us, I owed him more than a measly phone conversation.

I can pretend he isn’t here. I can put on a mask and play masquerade. But what’s the use, really? He’ll be here whether I fake it or not.

The beans slosh as I shake while setting the pan down. I drop the pot holders and grope the counter in hopes of steadying myself. The conversation between Reed and me, the conversation that could have been dealt with yesterday, is going to happen now in the kitchen of our best friends’ house during their baby shower. How did we get this far away from where we were, when we can’t deal with each other like the adults our ages say we are?

I flex my hands and take a deep breath. As I exhale, I shift around to face him.

My heart races and I feel every trembled beat against my chest. My eyes trail from the bottom of his old, dark boots to the tips of his longer-than-normal auburn hair, then down to his face. The very face that makes me weak in the knees. And hot damn, the TV didn’t do him justice. He’s got a maddening presence about him now. Reed’s ragged, he’s tired and warn down. Dark circles under his eyes, he hasn’t shaved in weeks, and his hair is too long for what he used to like. As we stare, both locked in place, both of us utterly speechless, I wonder what I look like to him.

I swear I spot the pulse on his neck move rapidly with each agonizing second that lingers between us. I gather my courage the best I can and speak. Speak the first words to him in months. “Hello, Reed. How are you doing?” My voice mimics my insides, coming out shaky and completely uneasy.

He snaps his eyes closed and inhales sharply. Reed’s forehead creases while his face turns beet red, almost like he’s trying to control the rage that lives in him. After a few seconds of deafening silence, Reed’s eyes pop open, lips gap, moving and about to say something, when the sound of James stepping through the back door breaks my internal contact with him. When I return to meet Reed’s hazel eyes, he only offers a hardened shake of his head, and turns around so quickly, the sound of his stomping boots ricochets in the kitchen as he walks out.

“Shit, sorry, Hads. I didn’t know he was here yet.” James peers out the way Reed just left.

“God, James. I can’t…” I place my hand over my chest, feeling every single thump like a damn drum.

“Did you guys talk?”

“Not really. I said hello, and that was the extent of it.” No matter how hard I try, my heart won’t stop racing. The bond, the link between us is heavy. I knew that in the bar with Gus, but something about breathing the same air as him seems to charge the current even more between us.

James lays his hands on my shoulder and gathers me against him. “Hadley, I’ve seen you grow these months and it’s been the most amazing thing to watch. You need to talk to him, but do it at your own pace, not anyone else’s. But these situations are going to come up again when you see him, and if you don’t do it soon, each and every time you see him will be like this.” James places a soft kiss on my forehead and his brows pinch together. “Don’t let this cause you to run away.”

“I don’t want to run. Well maybe a slight jog. But I should have called him last night so this shit could have been avoided. What we need is to hold a conversation without this awkwardness following us around, so maybe we could be friends.”

“The ball’s in your own court with that one.”

I only nod because he’s right.

The plane ride home was fucking brutal. The doors opened to the outside of the airport and Lance was there, his arms crossed over his chest and his left leg propped up on my SUV waiting for me. It took one look and he knew the plan went to shit. He opened his mouth to speak but I put a stop to that before the first damn word left his fucking lips. We got in the car and he tried talking more.

In the gym the next day, he tried.

My house two days later, Laura tried.

At dinner a week after that, Courtney tried.

But I didn’t.

I didn’t want anyone to know it ended in failure and it wasn’t going to work for me.

I didn’t want to be asked what happened.

I didn’t want another pity pep talk from them.

I didn’t want anyone to say her damn name near me. Fuck, I didn’t want anyone to know her anymore.

I wanted her and her perfect boyfriend to disappear in the fucking clouds.

It hurt me too much. More like gutted me.

But no, she didn’t vanish, nope—she only lodged herself deeper into my damn heart. Like fucking always.

I looked everywhere for someone to help me with forgetting, but I didn’t, still don’t—can’t—because all I see when I look at another girl is her. Her eyes, her body, her lips, hell it could be the way they blink or the way they chew a piece of gum that reminds me she was there. In every single one of them it was Hadley I saw.

It ended before it started.

It became pointless to even try to get them in their bed—bar’s bathroom—their car, wherever, because the moment I touched a girl’s skin that wasn’t Hadley’s, it sent the harsh reality of her really being gone back to the front of my damn brain. Made me miss her that fucking much more. So I stopped even trying, because she has the fucking payment on me.

Closing my eyes at night is pointless; she’s in my dreams, and when I’m about to hold her, she flows through the air. Like a fucking ghost. Four long, agonizing weeks I saw her everywhere, only to
really
look and it not be her.

But not now.

I’m not dreaming.

I’m not looking at another and seeing her…because I feel the agony gushing through me with each breath we share
alone
in the room. Of course, I knew she would be here since Courtney so nicely reminded me that Hadley would be back, but nothing fucking could train me for this bitter-ass feeling. She’s standing in front of me, fucking ten miserable feet away—so damn close, I could take three steps and have her back in my fucking arms. But I can’t because she would only push me away,
because
to her, she doesn’t belong in them anymore.

She has another person’s arms to run into.

Another man to love. And I hate it. If I could stab the feeling between them, I would.
I would.

She just spoke to me like I was a fucking friend, someone she never loved, never shared a life with, because maybe that’s how she fucking sees me now.

The asshole walks in and her eyes lock on him and I can’t handle it…my rage boils over, consuming every cell in me. Hads just cut open my damn chest with a rusty-ass knife, poured a pound of salt on my fucking wound without even giving a damn, and stapled the shit closed, leaving all the pain right in there. Like some fucking infection that will grow and grow.

Fuck it. I could deal with seeing her, but not with that guy. The damn shit head that had made her whole again. The fucking douche bag. I turn away from them before I find a knife and stab something or someone, and get out of the kitchen. Not enough air in there for me with them.

Space and air.

Outside, that’s where I’ll go. Tons of space, loads of fucking James-free air to breathe, and lots of beer. I need all of these three. But the beer, any beer is a must, before I go back and my fist meets pretty boy’s damn face and rearranges it. James doesn’t even know how close he was from his life getting cut short by my fucking hands squeezing his neck.

I twist off the top of my beer and take a swig, then a fucking deep, hard-ass breath of James-free air. I stand nose to nose with one hundred and ninety pound men in the cage and never back down from them, never wanted to, but my girl comes back with her new guy and I become a fucking toddler and run away throwing a damn temper tantrum.
What did she do to me?
Fucking loving someone isn’t for weak-ass bitches, that’s for sure.

I glance around and spot Lance, Bash, and Bash’s partner, Gus, hidden in the corner of the yard, off the side of the house away from everyone. I walk over but I stop dead in my tracks halfway when my ears fucking turn up from their damn conversation.

“What do you think will happen now that they’re going to be thrown together?” Lance asks.

“I’ve got no clue. It’s not like she talked to me about it. I didn’t even know it was Riker who she was tied to till my last night there.”

“If it wasn’t for that douche trying to get in her pants, shit would have been settled when he went down there.”

“James isn’t a douche. He’s a pretty cool guy. Straightlaced but a good person, and he doesn’t want in her damn pants. How many times do I have to tell you that? He had a nurse down there in Columbia after his girl kicked him to the curb, anyway. But I don’t think it would have been settled even if Rike actually talked to her. She seemed locked on her plan.”