Only rivals, p.13
Only Rivals, page 13
“Twice.” My mind trails back to the two most awkward times in our relationship. The two times I ever looked Christopher in his eyes and lied straight to him, acting like he was out of his mind.
“Twice?” His face turns pained. “Why so many?”
“I don’t know.” My mouth turns dry. “The first time was when we first started dating. The second when he was drinking.” I swallow, hoping it’ll help. “It was like he knew … but he didn’t want to believe it.”
I thought I had him fooled.
He said he believed me when I acted defensive. When I looked at him in shock and asked why he’d ever think such a crazy thing.
I was not only afraid of hurting him, of losing him, but I was also scared he’d lose Jax. If Christopher didn’t have Jax or me, he’d feel as if he had no one.
“If he hadn’t wanted to know, he wouldn’t have asked,” Jax states matter-of-factly. “And maybe we should’ve been honest with him. You two weren’t together when we slept together.”
“But he would’ve felt betrayed by the two people he loved the most.”
His jaw is set when he says, “It doesn’t matter now.”
I nod in agreement, my voice a half-whisper. “It doesn’t.”
But it does.
It does because we’re the ones who have to live with it.
We stare at each other, both of us uncomfortable but at ease simultaneously. There’s so much to say, but we’re too afraid to dive into our true feelings.
Momentarily, I wonder what I’d be doing right now if things had gone differently between Jax and me.
What if I’d never met Christopher?
Or if Jax and I had started dating before Christopher came into my life?
Jax was a kid, having fun back then. No way did he want a serious girlfriend like Christopher did.
But I never doubted Christopher when he told me I was the only girl he’d ever be with. When he told me he loved me, when he told me he’d never cared about any other girls and not touched anyone else, I knew it was the truth. He was always my safe place.
I felt content. But I also never asked Jax those things.
I was afraid to ask, and Jax wasn’t as giving with his feelings as Christopher.
Could Jax and I have been more?
I shake my head to rid myself of those thoughts.
No. It could and would never happen.
Christopher will always be a ghost, haunting us.
Even if I wanted to touch Jax, it’s like we have some barrier between us, a this isn’t right boundary line.
“Maybe you should move,” Jax suggests, and I give him back my attention.
I scrunch my face. “What do you mean?”
“You can’t sleep in your own fucking bed, Amelia. Maybe you should move.”
“I … I want to move, but I don’t want to move. Just like with the brewery, it’s almost like this home is all I have left of him.”
“Because of all the good memories of him here?”
I shut my eyes. “Yes … but then my worst memory of him is here too.”
I’ve never seen Jax’s face turn so compassionate, so caring, so raw with his emotions when he says, “I’m sorry you had to see that,” in a low whisper.
Chapter Nineteen
Amelia
Six Months Ago
I’ve been exhausted for weeks, and the past few have been harder on me than any other time in my life.
They’ve been even harder on Christopher.
We’re engaged, but I told him I want to wait to get married.
And that’s been hard on both of us.
It broke his heart, but there’s no way I can go through with it, feeling like it isn’t the right time. We aren’t ready, so even though I hated every minute of it, I told him that.
The longer Christopher and I live together, the more I am learning about him—grasping who exactly he is and seeing parts of him I never knew existed. I’ve educated myself, researched for hours, and studied the medication he takes. Pills I only discovered because I was putting his laundry away and found a bag of some prescription bottles hidden in his sock drawer.
I asked him to talk about it, but he said it was nothing.
It worsened a month ago when Christopher found out his younger brother, Corey, had died from a heroin overdose. He was only twenty-one, and Christopher hadn’t seen him in years. Once Christopher had moved out of his mom’s house and to Jax’s, he hardly spoke to his family. Christopher blamed himself for Corey’s death, believing that maybe Corey wouldn’t have turned to drugs if Christopher had stayed, taken him with him, or reached out.
Last night, I sat on the edge of the bed, tears in my eyes, begging Christopher to talk to me.
But he only said, “Everything is good, babe. I need to shower.”
When I tried to join him, he gave me a kiss, washed himself off, and said it was all mine. He was sleeping when I returned to our bedroom.
When I try to wake him up this morning, he waves me away and says he’s sleeping in. I have a meeting scheduled with 21st Amendment. They want to go over their marketing materials, so I tell him I’ll be back in a few hours.
Christopher needs sleep since he’s hardly been getting any.
He works nonstop. Which I understand.
New businesses required long hours.
The meeting is a few towns over, and I text him before it.
No response.
My mom asks me to have lunch with her. She knows something is wrong and wants me to talk about it. I tell her the same thing I’ve been telling others—he’s working long hours, and it’s taking a toll on him.
I text him again during lunch, but no answer.
Finally, on my way home, I call him two more times.
Nothing.
My next call is to the last person I want to speak to, but the only other person who might know where Christopher is.
“What?” Jax says when he answers because he greets me so well.
“Is Christopher with you?” I ask through my car’s Bluetooth.
“No.”
“Do you know where he is?” My heart speeds, and my voice turns frantic.
There’s never a time when Christopher isn’t with one of us.
“No.”
“Jesus,” I shriek, almost running a red light, and I slam on my brakes, jerking me forward and hitting my chest on the steering wheel. “Can you say anything else?”
“What do you want, Amelia?” He speaks as if he’s annoyed. “I’m busy.”
“I’m trying to get ahold of Christopher.”
“Then, you’d better get off the phone with me and call him.”
Over his bullshit, I hang up on him and mutter, “Asshole,” as I speed through the streets until I make it home.
Christopher’s car is parked along the road, in his usual spot, and I park behind it.
Then, I run up the stairs and into the house.
“Christopher!” I yell.
Nothing.
“Christopher!”
There’s no sign of him.
Until I step into our bedroom.
My entire life comes crashing down on me.
And life as I knew it will never be the same.
Chapter Twenty
Jax
This is the first time I’ve acknowledged the pain I know is carved deep inside Amelia. From the moment I saw her at the funeral, hysterically crying in her mother’s arms, I knew she was broken.
I also knew I was too.
We were two people who loved the same person in different ways.
Two people who didn’t know why that person had done what he did, so we pointed fingers at the other one. We played the blame game, and we played it so well.
I stare at her, taking in the short distance separating us in her laundry room. When I woke up this morning, my arm slung over her waist like I didn’t want her to leave me, I was confused. But as I forced my eyes open, it all came crashing down on me.
Showing up here, drunk.
Admitting that I’d wanted her to love me instead of my best friend.
And then pleading with her to let me stay.
I broke bro code.
I’d been breaking it for years, I guess.
I don’t know how much she cares about me saying, “I’m so sorry.” Or if she even believes me, but it’s the truth.
I am fucking sorry because had I been the one to find him, I don’t think I could even sleep on this damn street without wanting to run away. Chris and I had a close friendship, but he and Amelia had something deeper.
She doesn’t reply to what I said.
I smack my palms on the floor. “I’d better get home.” I look at her and put all my strength into exposing the truth in my eyes. “I really am sorry.”
It’s as if her brain went into a different world at my apology earlier, so she nods, not meeting my eyes. Instead, she stares at the wall over my head. Groaning, I bring myself up, shoot her one last glance, and leave the room.
As I make my way outside, I’m reminded of how much I drank last night. The sun hurts my eyes, and my head spins with each step I take. I don’t make it past the sidewalk when I realize I didn’t drive here.
Shit.
I turn around, grateful she didn’t get up and lock the door behind me, and head back into Amelia’s. I hear the faint sniffle as I grow closer to the laundry room, and when I walk in, I find Amelia still on the floor. She scooted to the wall, taking the spot where I was, and her head is bowed. Her body is shaking in a clear sign that she’s distraught.
“Amelia,” I whisper, but she doesn’t look up.
I drop to one knee in front of her and whisper her name again, and she raises her head in what feels like slow motion. She releases a whimper as our eyes meet. Her face is blotchy, her cheeks wet from tears, and she stares at me in agony.
Not even a few minutes have passed since I walked out, and it’s as if she’s an entirely different person.
Was she waiting until I left to break down?
“Come on,” I say. “Let’s go.”
“What?” she stutters.
“I can’t have my business partner crying on the floor.” It’s the best response I could come up with fast.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not.”
“It’s not like this is the first time this has happened. I’m used to it. You can go.”
I gently grab her wrist. “Come on.”
She doesn’t give me trouble as I help her to her feet.
“Grab some shit.”
“What?”
“Where are your keys?”
“Jax, you—”
“We can talk later.”
“They’re in my car.”
I snatch an armful of folded clothes from a laundry basket and tuck them under my arm, and somehow, someway, my hand finds the small of her back. It’s a silent walk into the garage, and I toss her clothes into her Jeep before helping her into the passenger seat.
Another bro code violation.
But I don’t care anymore.
All I can think about is seeing her on the floor, crying and needing someone to take care of her. Even if for a minute.
I’m no knight in shining armor, so don’t get it wrong.
But I’m here, and he’s not, so I have to be the one to take care of her.
I ignore thoughts of Chris as I drive us to my apartment.
To the apartment I once shared with him.
My mind is only on Amelia as I lead her to my bed, lift the blanket, and motion for her to get in. She sniffles, wipes her cheeks, and does what I silently said. And this time, I feel no regret when I slide into bed with her.
We deserve some decent sleep for the rest of the morning.
Even if it means being in bed with the wrong person.
God, I need to stop this.
To stop caring.
I need to hate Amelia Malone, so I don’t love her.
Chapter Twenty-One
Amelia
I wake up in Jax’s bedroom again.
That guilt creeps in again.
Jesus. What’s happening?
We went from trying to avoid one another to hating each other to sleeping in the same bed. He saw me cry, heard me tell him why I didn’t want to sleep in my bedroom, and instead of giving me hell like I’d thought he would, he helped me.
But it’s a bad idea.
We can’t continue this.
Can’t get any closer.
What Jax said to me repeats in my head as I lie in his bed, looking around his room. I inhale the scent of his sheets—a signature smell of his lingering cologne, my perfume, and the scent of whiskey.
How would people react if they found out where I was right now?
I have to get out of here.
I slowly slide off the bed, and he groans, sleepily grabbing for me.
I hold my breath, waiting to see if he wakes up, but his eyes don’t open.
Then, I find my keys and leave.
“You’re scared to read the letter.”
I stare at Cindy, my therapist, sitting across from me, and chew on my inner lip while struggling with the best response.
When my mother first suggested therapy, I told her she was crazy. I couldn’t talk about my loss with my family, so there was no way I could do it with a stranger. I also thought people doubted my pain, that they didn’t think it was real or that it was deserved.
When you think of a grieving woman, you think gray hair and wrinkles, someone with grandchildren, a woman who spent decades with a man and then lost him.
That isn’t me.
I’m a twenty-six-year-old woman.
People don’t see my loss as painful.
Then, there’s that oh, she’ll easily find another love mentality.
Don’t believe me?
Watch romance movies.
Read romance novels.
There’s always that second love after your first.
But when you’re eighty and grieving, people’s automatic thought is, You’ll live alone for the rest of your years because too much time has passed to find someone else. Your heart is too old for you to hand over to another.
Christopher and I weren’t married, hadn’t spent decades together, but that doesn’t mean the hurt didn’t shatter as hard. Losing someone young might be harder because it’s the only love you’ve ever known. You haven’t experienced the love of children, of grandchildren, of seeing friends and family grow old. I was only learning how to love and share a life with someone. We were merging into the real world together, leaning on each other as we matured, and then in the blink of an eye, it was all gone.
When you’re old and in love, you know your time will eventually run out.
When you’re naive, young, and in love, you believe you have all the time in the world.
What idiots.
It was a reality check I hadn’t been prepared for.
I loved Christopher, and maybe I wasn’t as experienced in love, but that didn’t make the hurt any less devastating. Just like who and how we love, grief is always different for everyone.
“I am,” I croak out, playing with my hands in my lap. “Is that wrong of me … to not want to open it?”
“If you’re not ready, then don’t.” Cindy crosses her legs in her black pencil skirt, and her tone is soothing. “Maybe you should write him your own letter. Write what you’d say to him if you were to have one last conversation. What do you think you’d ask him?”
“I’d …” I try—and fail—to keep my voice strong and steady. “I’d ask him why he didn’t come to me.” I peer up at Cindy, my eyes filled with unshed tears. “If he had come to me, I could’ve helped him. I could’ve saved him.” I use the backs of my palms to wipe my eyes. “Then, I’d ask myself how I could’ve been so blind.”
Depression is an easy disease to hide. One that can be masked with as little as a forced smile and a simple lie. To know Christopher was silently struggling kills me the most.
“Amelia,” Cindy says, handing me a box of tissues, “his death wasn’t your fault.”
I nod, snag a tissue from the box, and tightly grip it. People tell me that all the time, but sometimes, guilt is harder to beat than reality. Than the truth.
“You and Chris, you grew up differently, right?” Cindy asks.
I nod, my shoulders sagging.
“You came from a loving home with caring parents. Chris grew up in an abusive one,” Cindy continues. “You said he never discussed his childhood, but most children who grow up in dysfunctional homes have trauma—most times, suppressed trauma. If they don’t get help for it, it gets worse over time and follows them into adulthood. And you and your friends were happy most of the time. Sometimes, it can become difficult for sad people to relay their feelings to those they think might not understand their pain—like you couldn’t relate and would see him differently. And at times, it can be even harder for them to be around happy people they see as stable. He could’ve felt as if he didn’t belong.”
He didn’t belong?
Sadness clutches at my heart as if it were in Christopher’s fist, and my throat throbs, making my words come out scratchy. “He belonged with me,” I cry out. “My family and our friends never made him feel as if he were the odd one out. He was one of us.” I stab my finger into my chest as my voice shakes. “Jax’s parents took him in as their own. He was my family. My partner. My parents, they loved him. I loved him.”
Heartbreak claws through me, and my shoulders move as tears—tears I wanted to hide—slide down my cheeks.
I want to heal from this, to stop blaming myself, to feel whole again, but it’s so damn hard.
I squeeze my eyes shut, hoping to block out more tears but they break through. I bow my head and sob. Cindy silently sits there, allowing me the space to break down in peace. To absorb her words, the possible reasons for Christopher’s death, and I feel as if my heart, my body, everything that is me is crumbling.
