If I Break THE COMPLETE SERIES Bundle (105 page)

“Did you miss me?”

There’s a long silence, and right when I think he’s not going to answer, he says, “Every day.” His tone is quiet and makes me smile but a sense of sadness washes over me. If he’s here, where is Chris now?

“It used to be us before anything. Now it seems like that’s changed,” he says solemnly.

“We have a daughter now. It can’t be like that anymore. Secrets almost destroyed us, Cal. We almost lost each other; I did lose you. I don’t want that to happen again.”

I wish this conversation wasn’t happening during a drive. Are my words affecting him? Or are they going in one ear and out the other? He has always put up a huge wall up around himself, one that I could never get behind. Has he changed, is this the same man that left me on the floor in tears and alone all those years ago? He’s quiet, which means he’s probably thinking. This is good. So I decide to push a little more.

“I want you to get better because I love you and for our daughter.” I see his jaw flinch, and I know I took it too far too fast.

“Better, meaning Chris?” he asks through clenched teeth.

“Better, meaning all of you,” I say defensively.

“Why didn’t you have this conversation with him?”

“I was going to, but he’s not here now—you are. But why does it even matter? This shouldn’t be you versus him. We’re in this together.”

“We are? Well, since we’re all in this together, tell me why he left?” he spits out and my patience is offically up.

“You tell me! Better yet, how about you tell me how this all works? Does he decide? Do you decide? Is there a fucking schedule that I can get a copy of? Because
this
is insane. I thought when you came back, I would have answers. That the big puzzle in my life would be solved, but of course, it’s not. That would be easy, and with you, nothing is ever easy.”

“There she is.”

“Who?”

“The real you,” he answers smugly. He’s such a smart ass.

Great, he wants me to be a screaming lunatic and Chris wants me to be a nun.

Fanfreakintastic.

W
e survive the ride without killing each other and, eventually, I fall asleep. How do you fall asleep in the midst of a storm surrounded by a torrent of unanswered questions? I don’t know, but eventually your mind and body shut down giving you a respite, and I dream. I dream about my world, about how it was, about Chris coming into it, how he changed things and then Cal coming back, flipping things on their head. When I wake, I think about where my world is going. How do I parent in the midst of dysfunction? How do I avoid being pulled back to the place I used to be? I feel like I’m fighting a war, weaponless and against an opponent that knows my very weakness is him. I open my eyes to see that it’s dark out. The car has stopped and my door is open. I look up to see him leaning over me, his hands resting on the roof of the car. I sit up and look around.

“Where are we?” I ask, a yawn escaping my mouth. It doesn’t look like we’re in a part of Michigan or Chicago.

“Is that something you really need to know?” he quips. He’s such a smart ass.

“Yes I need to know where we are in relation to our daughter. You know, the one we were supposed to pick up from your parents.”

“Gwen knows we’re picking her up tomorrow,” he replies.

“You talked to your mom?” I ask, surprised.

“Gwen is one of the few people who doesn’t think I’m the anti-Christ,” he says sarcastically.

“And we’re in Ventian, a shitty little suburb in Michigan” he says.

“What are we doing?”

“You say you want to know the whole story…all
 my
 secrets. Well, this is where it starts,” he says, reaching his hand out to me. I look up at him skeptically.

“Is this a game or something?”

“Games are for kids. Welcome to our new fucked-up reality,” he says.

Riddles and games, all freakin’ puzzle pieces. It’d be too easy get straight answers. I let out a deep breath and watch him walk into the house.

I look around. It’s late evening and the street is quiet. It looks like a lower, lower middle-class neighborhood. I reluctantly follow him. I stop half way and wonder if I should just jump back in the car and speed off to the Scotts’. That would be the logical thing to do, then again, I’ve never been logical when it comes to me and Cal. If this is a game, though, there will be a winner and a loser. I don’t plan on losing.

I stop at the little mailbox in front of the house and look in it. I pull out three letters that all say Cal Scott on them. What the hell? He actually had this place—owns it, maybe? But, for how long and why?

“What? Are you Nancy Drew, now?” he chuckles before disappearing into the house. I begrudgingly make my way up the stairs and follow him into the little two-level home. By the time I’m in, he’s flicked on the lights and I’m actually shocked. The outside of the house looks old and more than a little run-down, but inside, it’s completely different. It’s decorated in cool grays and shades of blue. I’m impressed, it looks like a professionally decorated space. On one end of the living room is a pale gray sofa with dark-blue pillows. A glass, asymmetrically-shaped coffee table with metal legs fills the space between the sofa and two printed, similarly colored, armless chairs. It looks expensive, like our home, which would mean the furnishings in this house are more than the house is even worth. In the left corner of the room is a fireplace surrounded by black stone. The kitchen is modern, complete with stainless steel appliances and is painted the same grays and blues as the living area with just a touch of lime green in the backsplash mosaic and in the hand towels.

“So when did you get this? Why do you even have this?” I ask, confused.

“It was before us and the area interests me,” he says simply, taking off his jacket and putting it away in a closet. His phone vibrates on the counter top. He glances at it and a wide smile spreads across his face.

“It’s Jenna,” he says, looking over at me. “You want to get it? What do you think Chris would say to her? Since he’s your new soulmate and all,” he says sarcastically. I can’t believe he’s really jealous.

When I make no move to answer the phone, he swipes it from the counter and answers with a curt, “What’s up, Jenna?”

“No, it’s not Chris. It’s Cal. I was going to be calling you soon anyway. Just thought you should know Chris fucked Lauren last night,” he says matter-of-factly.

“Really, Cal?!” I shout at him. I can’t believe he just said that! Well actually I can believe it, but oh my God!

“Yeah, I couldn’t believe it either. The pussy grew a dick—a scientific anomaly.” He winks at me.

“Hang up the phone,” I say tightly, walking over to him. He backs away from me.

“I didn’t have anything to do with it. It was all him, trust me,” he continues, dodging my attempt to snatch the phone away from him. “If it makes you feel any better. I plan on fucking him right out of her memory,” he says with a wink.

“You are such an asshole!” I shout at him. Jenna’s not one of my favorite people. She’s actually my least favorite person but she deserves to hear about Chris’s absence a helluva lot better than that.

“I’m the asshole?” he laughs boisterously.

“I’m not the one who screwed her fiancé,” he chuckles.

“Do you hear yourself?” I say angrily. “You’re mad at me because I slept with
you
? I let
you
touch me,
your
hands,
and your
lips. You don’t trust me because of that?” I laugh hysterically and his face hardens.

“I don’t trust you because you turned on me!”

“Turned on you?” I ask in disbelief.

“You weren’t supposed to give up on us, remember?” he says bitterly. “You told me you’d never look at me like I was the villain,” he continues, walking towards me.

“I’ve never looked at you like that!”

“How do you think you’re looking at me right now?”

The quietness is eerie. For a second, I see vulnerability in his eyes. This man hides behind his arrogance, his cockiness, and hard façade. I have to remind myself this unbreakable man I’ve come to think of as Cal, isn’t right. He has a mental illness. He is broken, more broken than I’ve ever been and it’s entirely possible that he, in fact, sees what I did as a legitimate act of betrayal. I let out a sigh and lean on counter nearby.

“Are we going to be able to get past this? Are you going to hate me forever and never trust me again? Is this it for us?” I ask him sincerely.

He looks away from me. “I’m going to go get some groceries. Maybe you can make use of some of those cooking lessons you’ve been taking,” he says before walking out the door. How much does he remember? Is it everything? How does he know all and Chris knows nothing except what Cal wants him to?