25. Audrey
25
AUDREY
In the light of day, regret swirled inside me. How could I have been stupid enough to let him touch me like that? No, that wasn’t right. How could I have been stupid enough to go to him when he was upset and think that he would let me help him?
I wasn’t naive enough to think we had some magical connection. I knew it would just be sex, and I was fine with that. But then he shut me down. I didn’t get it. He clearly wanted me. I felt his attraction to me, yet he pulled back and took away the pleasure we both wanted.
And now I had to stay with him for the remainder of the time, knowing that he wouldn’t want me. There would be awkward moments and weird looks…God, I hated that crap.
I rolled over and looked at the clock, but it was one of those mornings. I sat up and squinted, moving my eyes around as I tried to see the numbers on the clock. Crap, I’d slept late. I tossed off the covers and stood, immediately jamming my toe into the nightstand.
“Son of a bitch!” I shouted.
The door flew open and Spencer walked in, his usual worried eyes roaming over me until his eyes took in my foot. “Let me guess. Toes met nightstand?”
“It’s one of those mornings,” I grumbled. “I need coffee.”
“How about a smoothie?”
“How about I shove that smoothie?—”
“Geez, alright,” he chuckled. “Coffee it is.”
He grabbed my hand and pulled me out of the room and down the hall. I was hardly dressed for company, but I never cared too much about that. I was in pajamas and modestly dressed for the most part. Besides, they’d probably seen me in worse at some point during our stay.
Spencer practically shoved me onto a stool while he grabbed a mug for me. “Rough night?”
“Nope. I slept fine,” I answered, wiping the sleep from my eyes with a yawn.
“Yeah, you look like it.”
“I would have slept better if someone had gotten me off in the shower,” I grumbled.
Spencer glanced to his right and cleared his throat. Yep, he was there. I turned my head just a little and saw Baldy standing there, glaring at me just like I knew he would. Was it wrong that I said something? Maybe, but I’d learned a long time ago that I would put my foot in my mouth more times than not.
“You know, I’m standing right here. If you want to bitch about what happened between us, take your shot.”
Spencer slid the mug across the counter to me, giving me a sympathetic look. I brushed off the anger building inside me. Again, nothing I could do about it. I took a deep breath and smiled at Baldy.
“Did you need something?”
“Spencer, we need to talk.”
“Shoot.”
“In private.”
“If it’s about me, just say it,” I cut in.
Silence greeted me for nearly a minute as Baldy considered his options. I rolled my eyes, tired of the games we were playing.
“Look, whatever it is, just spit it out. I’m a big girl. I can take it.”
I saw Baldy turn toward me, but I couldn’t make out the expression on his face. He was right in my blind spot. I turned slightly, adjusting so I could see him better.
“Look, there’s no easy way to say this.” He ducked his head, rubbing the back of his neck. I noticed he did that when he was really uncomfortable. “Audrey, we got word last night that your mom died.”
I stared at him for a moment, then burst out laughing. “Yeah, that’s a good one. Is that some kind of joke? Because of the whole hospital thing?”
I couldn’t make out exactly what his expression was, but the silence was deafening. I twisted a little more in my seat and finally caught the full weight of his expression. Fuck, he wasn’t joking.
I swallowed hard, processing what he just told me. “You’re serious.”
Spencer was around the counter in seconds, wrapping his arms around me. I didn’t know what to say. I mean, she was my mother, but…
“I need a minute,” I said, shoving to my feet. I stormed out of the room, tripping over chairs in my way, until I got to the back door and yanked it open. Fresh air filled my lungs as I bent over and took large gulps of air. My pulse fluttered rapidly and my heart felt like it was pounding in my chest. I was going to be sick.
My hand slid along the side of the house until I was a few feet from the back door, then I was hurling into the dirt, gasping as a thousand emotions rushed through me. His hand was on my back, rubbing up and down in a soothing manner I knew all too well.
A cracked sob tore from my throat as I spun around and threw myself against his body. With my arms squeezed tight around his neck, I broke down. But the moment I did, I realized it wasn’t Spencer out here with me. It was Slider.
And he was holding me.
Oh God. I was breaking down in front of him.
I tried to step out of his arms, but he held me tighter, refusing to let me go, which only made me cry harder. His hands slid up and down my back, calming me as much as they could while he whispered in my ear, telling me he was here. I wanted to believe him, but he wasn’t really. Spencer was here. He was always here. This man was only temporary.
“Hey, I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to be the one to tell you.”
It wasn’t rational. None of it made sense. I was crying over a woman I hardly had a connection with, who never really cared for me the way I wanted her to. Yet, I couldn’t stop crying over all I had lost. She was my mother—the only family I had left. I was all alone now.
“Hey,” Slider said, stepping back and cupping my cheeks. This close, I could see his eyes focusing on me, could feel the compassion radiating off him. It couldn’t be faked, and that made me want to break down all over again, but I somehow managed to hold it together.
I swallowed the massive lump of tears in my throat and tried to calm down. I had to pull myself together. I couldn’t afford to break down in tears like this all the time. Not when there were things to be done.
“Oh God,” I whispered, taking a step back. “What about the funeral?”
“That’s what we need to talk about. I know it’s shitty timing, but I need you to tell me what you want to do.”
What I wanted to do. That seemed like a monumental task right now. I couldn’t even think past the fact that she was gone. She had just written me a letter. I didn’t even know how she died. Had she performed in the theater? What about her husband? Was she still married? Would he make the arrangements?
“Audrey?” Slider asked, his face marred with concern.
He wanted an answer. My eyes slowly rose to his face, and for the first time in a very long time, I was angry. Very fucking angry. I thought I had gotten past all of this. I thought I had accepted what was happening to me, but now, when I desperately needed the connection to him, I couldn’t have it. Not the way I wanted.
“I need Spencer,” I whispered. I couldn’t do this without him. There was so much I needed to talk about with him.
Slider actually looked disappointed that I wanted to talk to Spencer instead of him. I didn’t mean to hurt him, but there was so much he didn’t understand—so much that I hadn’t disclosed to anyone besides Spencer.
“Yeah, let me take you to Spencer.”
He turned to leave, but I fumbled for his hand, knowing I needed him to guide me. He squeezed my hand, probably thinking I was holding his hand for comfort. God, he was going to hate me.
“Audrey,” Spencer called out, instantly letting me know where he was.
It was something he did when we were together, always making me aware of his presence. He was by my side in seconds, his arm wrapped around me as he led me down the hall to his bedroom. As soon as the door closed, he helped me navigate a path to the bed.
I shook my head as the tears started to fall again. “God, this is such a mess.”
“Tell me what I can do,” Spencer whispered.
“I don’t know. I don’t know what to do.”
He took my hand, sliding his fingers through mine. “Audrey, what do you want? Do you want to go home for the funeral?”
I huffed out a laugh, finding the whole thing funny. “I shouldn’t, right? She wouldn’t come to mine. She’d probably find some excuse not to come. Maybe she’d have a vacation in Maui or a production that she’d been dying to be in that she just couldn’t miss.”
“She would be there,” he reassured me.
I doubted that. “She wasn’t there for me when I told her about my diagnosis. In fact, she told me it was no big deal, and then she changed the subject.”
“Well, she’s always been a little self-involved.”
“She always was,” I corrected in a small voice. “I thought…”
“What?”
I felt foolish for even thinking it. “I thought I would see her one more time before my sight was gone,” I admitted. “I told myself that I would track her down wherever she was and see her, even if it was for only five minutes. I just wanted to have the memory.”
“Audrey…you still have the memories.”
Tears spilled down my cheeks as I shook my head. “It’s getting harder to remember,” I whispered. “It’s been so long. Ten years is a really long time to go without seeing your mother.”
“I know,” he sighed, brushing the tears from my face. “You don’t have to go if you don’t want to. What about her husband?”
“I don’t know,” I shook my head. “I don’t know if he’s still around. I don’t know if she’s even married or if she wants to be cremated or have a lavish funeral.”
“It’s Ginger. Of course she wants a lavish funeral,” he teased.
I smiled, cupping his face in my hands as tears filled my eyes again. “I wish I could still see your face clearly. I miss it so much.”
“How bad is it?” he asked. It was the question that came up every few months whenever my vision started to deteriorate further.
“My left eye is bad. It’s…There’s just nothing in the center. I can still make out some things, but there are all these blind spots.”
“You didn’t see him standing in the room.”
I shook my head. “My right eye isn’t as bad,” I smiled. “Blurry, but I can still make out a lot of things. It depends on how I look at things.” I smirked at him like this was all a joke. It was a defense mechanism. “If I wiggle my eyes just the right way, I can usually find what I’m looking for.”
“Wiggle your eyes?” he teased.
“Yeah. I wiggle my eyes.”
His soft smile nearly broke me as he brushed my hair back from my face and tucked it behind my ear. “It’s time to tell the studio. No more hiding.”
“I know,” I whispered softly. “They’re going to sue me.”
“Let them try. It’s a medical condition.”
“One that I hid from them. I knew it was coming and I didn’t tell them. I knew it would end my career, and they’ll argue that I deceived them. Which I did,” I admitted.
“There’s nothing wrong with wanting to live the way you want for as long as possible.”
This was why I loved Spencer so much. When I got the diagnosis, he let me wallow in my sadness. He let me get angry and scream at the heavens for stripping me of something so vital at such a young age, and then he held me as I broke down and cried in his arms. And ever since then, he’d done everything possible to help me achieve my dreams and make sure I had no regrets.
He had been my rock at the expense of everything he wanted, and as I sat in this room with him, thinking of all the years I’d dragged him along with me, all I felt was sadness that I had been so selfish.
“When this is over, I need you to move out.”
“What?” The anger in his voice only pushed me to go through with this. I wasn’t being fair to him.
“Spencer, I love you for everything you’ve done for me, but it’s time you live your life for you. Go audition for the theater and find whatever it is that will make your dreams come true. Find the love of your life and raise a family. It’s time that you stopped living only for me.”
“Audrey—” He grabbed my hand and squeezed it, but I pulled it away from him, needing for once in my life to make him a priority. “What are you doing?”
“I’m giving you your life back.”
“That’s not your choice to make,” he snapped.
“It has to be. Because all this time, you’ve given up everything for me.”
“You need me,” he argued. “Things are just getting bad. How are you going to get around without me?”
“I’m not completely blind,” I scoffed. “I never will be. Besides, blind people have been walking around by themselves for centuries and somehow have survived. I need to do this on my own.”
“And get yourself injured?” he snapped.
“Spencer, I can’t lean on you forever. You can’t always be there to guide me everywhere. Besides, if I really need help, I can hire someone.”
He scoffed, shoving to his feet. “You’d rather hire a stranger to look after you than have me there with you? I’m your family! What about me? You can’t just shove me away! Is this about your mother?”
“This has nothing to do with her,” I argued. “This has to do with me and you. I’ve been selfish since this whole thing started. How many nights have you stayed up with me and studied lines because I couldn’t read the script? How many times have you covered for me because I screwed up on set? And now the studio is going to come after me, and you’re going to get dragged into my mess! You don’t deserve any of this!”
“That’s my choice. You don’t get to tell me what I take on. If I didn’t want to help you, I would have walked away. I would have chosen to leave you all those years ago. Audrey, you’re my family. You’re?—”
He pulled me into his arms and held me tight. I could feel his chest constricting as my own tears fell. My fingers dug into his back as I held on for dear life. I didn’t want to let him go. I didn’t want to think of how much my life would change without him in it on a day-to-day basis. But I couldn’t hold him back any longer. I couldn’t stand to think of him waiting by my side, refusing to take jobs because he didn’t want to leave me. And I knew he would do it in an instant.
“I love you, Audrey. I love you so much,” he whispered.
“I know. I love you, too.”
“I can’t lose you.”
I stepped back and looked up at him, pressing my hand to his cheek. It tore me up inside that I could no longer see the beauty of his eyes the way I used to. But I smiled at him so he wouldn’t see the pain inside.
“You’ll never lose me. It’s not wrong to find a new path. You deserve this, and I want you to take the chance while you still can. Then you can come back and tell me all about it. And we’ll have our late-night pizza feasts just like old times.”
“And smoothies in the morning,” he said, and I felt a tear slip down his cheek and settle against my thumb.
“Well, we’ll see about that.”
He shook his head. “The smoothies stay. If you want me to leave, you have to promise me you’ll take care of yourself. Smoothies every morning.”
How could I say no to that? “Smoothies every morning.”
He pulled me into his arms again, this time pressing a kiss to my forehead. “Not until after we bury your mother.”
I nodded, grateful I would have him to see me through that. “Thank you.”