Twenty-Seven
Trina
This was a mistake. Had to be. Nothing good could come from this. My head was a mess, my heart was racing. I couldn’t get my conversation with Valerie out of my mind and now was not the time to be panicking, but there I was.
“You keep pacing in my kitchen, you’re going to end up wearing a hole in the floor, and I’ll be ticked if the fall breaks my projector screen.”
Leave it to Cole to be so calm.
“I’m worried,”
I told him.
He kicked his feet up on his coffee table and grinned. “Really? Couldn’t tell.”
“Ugh.”
Of course he’d be calm. These were his friends he saw all the time. These were friends who loved him.
Sure, they’d once loved me, but he didn’t know about the last conversation I had with Ashley.
“I hope you go to New York and are as miserable as you’ve made Cole. You’ll never find someone like that up there. I hope you fail and live a long, lonely, and painful life.”
She’d spat the words at me at graduation, when everyone around us had clearly taken Cole’s side in the break-up. Who knew Ashley had been so clairvoyant?
Not me. Not then. But that didn’t mean the weight of her words hadn’t hit me like a two-ton truck slamming into me, running me over, and then backing up to make sure I was done for.
Perhaps that was why I’d fought so hard when I got there. I’d wanted to prove everyone wrong. I’d wanted to return to Deer Creek a star. I’d wanted everyone, especially Ashley, to eat their words and be jealous of me and all I’d accomplished…
And look at me now…
My eyes burned and I spun, intending to take off down the stairs, but a warm hand wrapped around my arm.
“Hey,”
Cole said.
I froze at his touch, the surprise of it, and the strength in his hold.
He let me go and cursed. “I’m sorry, Trina. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“I don’t think I can do this,”
I whispered. “I can’t face her again, and there’s no point. Val said Jonathan is pissed and looking for me and if he doesn’t know I’m here, he will soon. She said he already suspects it, and you’re not hard to find, and now I’m putting you at risk. Your girls….”
Everyone. I was putting everyone at risk.
“Hey. Hey there.”
He reached out again and took my hand.
Warmth flooded my fingertips as soon as he entwined our fingers together and rushed straight to my rapidly beating heart.
“Come here, Trina. Look at me.”
He tugged on my hand, gently but firmly, and kept tugging until I was forced to turn.
I stared at his floor. It was clean because I’d spent hours making sure his house was perfect even though he’d come back home and told me I didn’t have to clean for them.
I couldn’t help it. I’d needed something to do to get rid of the anxiety choking me.
The floor and my sock-covered feet blurred in my vision, and I shook my head. “I can’t, Cole. I can’t do this.”
His hand fell from mine and reached out. I forced myself not to flinch as it came up, and his thumb pressed to my chin. “Look at me,”
he repeated and pushed against my chin.
I shivered and fought against meeting his eyes as he lifted my face.
He was in front of me, so close. So handsome and as good as he’d always been, and I was… tainted.
I’d bring him nothing but ugliness, and it was so frustrating he couldn’t see that.
“You’re safe, and you’re okay.”
He proclaimed the words like he believed them to the depths of his soul. “Jonathan can’t hurt you. I won’t allow it. And no one will hurt my girls. Absolutely not.”
“You don’t know him.”
My chin wobbled and his fingers brushed along my jaw. Another shiver sent shock flames to my chest.
Handsome wasn’t strong enough to describe him. Beautiful too feminine, but as I locked eyes with his deep russet eyes, it felt like I could get lost in them. Lost in his promises and proclamations.
For once, I had the desperate desire to see what he saw when he looked at me. What made him treat me with such tender care and be so kind.
And that was maybe more terrifying than anything else.
Even Jonathan.
I sniffed and stepped back. His hand fell, but the warmth in his gaze only heated me further. “You’re safe here, Trina. To do anything you want, be anyone you want to be.”
He’d told me that before. I didn’t believe it any more or any less this time. And that lingering, hopeful what if I’d spent all week pondering was suddenly nowhere to be found.
Doubts and fears assailed, and it had everything to do with the visitors who would be arriving any minute. Visitors I had to see. Maybe if Cole finally saw what I knew I would, he’d see the truth, too.
Everyone hated me and knew I was as worthless as I’d become.
“I need a second,”
I told him and wiped tears away.
“If you need more time, I’ll call Robbie right now and let him know. They’ll understand.”
Please. That’d make them hate me more.
“It’s fine,”
I mumbled.
Soon. He’d see the truth soon enough, and then maybe he’d finally stop his foolish hope I was something better than he believed me to be.
Maybe I was wrong.
Ashley’s arms were around me, and I was crushed against her. She looked different but the same. Older but happy. As soon as she and Robbie entered Cole’s house, Ashley ran up the stairs and threw her arms around me. Her purse slammed against my hip, and her tight embrace shot pain to my ribs, but she held on.
It took a while before I hugged her back, so shocked by the smile I’d glimpsed on her face right before tears poured from her eyes.
“Hi,”
I finally managed to mumble, getting her hair stuck on my lip gloss.
She squeezed me tighter and cried. “You’re here,”
was all she mumbled, hiccupping over her tears, and somehow, I found myself needing to comfort her. When I’d been so sure she’d want nothing to do with me.
There was only one explanation.
Cole told her why I was there.
I opened my eyes and found him and Robbie setting pizza boxes on the kitchen counter.
I’d recognize the green, red, and white boxes anywhere. Scalecki’s was a local favorite, and where I’d had my first part-time job one summer.
One glance at the boxes and not only did my stomach rumble, but I could envision the kitchen and all the homemade spices and Louie Scalecki’s boisterous Italian voice.
It smelled like home and heaven and peace and happiness and now, darn it… my own eyes were leaking tears.
I squeezed Ashley back and held on. “I thought you hated me.”
She nodded against my shoulder. “I did. For a long time,”
she admitted, and I was thankful to hear the truth of it. “But that was a long time ago,”
she whispered, her voice nothing more than a rasp.
“Any chance you’re going to let her go tonight so I can say hi?”
Robbie’s voice was a laugh, but there was a warning tone in it too, and when I glanced back at him, he was watching both me and his wife with a wary expression.
“I don’t think so,”
Ashley said and then she pulled back. Her hands pressed to my cheeks and it was so sweet, so kind, I almost collapsed to my knees.
There was no anger at all in her eyes, just concern, and it didn’t skip my attention that her eyes lingered too long on my yellowing bruises I’d tried so hard to hide. “I’m glad you’re here,”
she finally said. “So glad to see you again.”
“Me too,”
I mumbled, and maybe for the first time since I’d been back, I truly meant it.
“All right, all right,”
Robbie said and gently guided his wife to his side. “My turn.”
He held out an arm, and I went to him, fell against his chest as he one-armed hugged me. Robbie was larger than he’d been in school and definitely stronger. His arm, draped across my back, holding me against his side, felt like a steel bar.
“Good to see you, kid. Good to see you.”
He held me tight, kissed the top of my head and then stepped back.
For once, I hadn’t flinched at a touch or an embrace, and I’d let myself think of all that later.
“I’m a mess!”
Ashley cried. She half-laughed and sobbed and headed down the hall. “I’ll be back. Give me a second to get my face put back together.”
She vanished into the hall bathroom and Robbie chuckled, watching his wife go. He smiled down at me. “Don’t know what she’s so worried about. Makeup, no makeup, smeared makeup, she’s always beautiful.”
What a lovely thing to say. “You’re a good man, Robbie.”
His smile turned cold and then wary. “It’s good you can still recognize them.”
“Robbie.”
Cole’s voice was a warning shot.
Robbie kept his gaze on me, and it didn’t soften in the least, but it wasn’t scary. It didn’t make me tremble with fear. He was honest, and I appreciated that.
“Let me get you ladies some drinks,”
he said and turned to open the fridge.
I followed more slowly, uncertain on my feet, of my position in this group.
Years ago, it would have felt so normal, but that was before.
In the time in between, they’d all grown up together and stayed close. They had kids. Cole had had a wife. I wasn’t part of the crew anymore, and I wasn’t sure I could slide right back into it.
But for now, the moment, the dinner…
It felt good to be included in something clean and pure and good again.
What was the harm in trying to enjoy it?