Chapter 28 #2
“Oh.” I still don’t know which is worse. “Did you love her?”
“No,” he says quickly, his face scrunching up with disgust. “No, Lana. I didn’t—I’ve never—I didn’t love…any of them,” he says quietly.
“Any of them? As in…there were more.” I nod, saying it out loud for myself to process. I think I might vomit.
“Lana…”
I drop my head. “It’s fine, Christian.”
“I haven’t loved anyone except you,” he says. “I haven’t loved anyone the way I love you. You were my first real love. My only love.”
I nod, pressing my lips together. He was—is my first love and my only love.
So it hurts when you picture your love with someone else.
When you start to wonder if his body moved the way it moves with you.
When you wonder if he kissed them the way he’s always kissed you or if he’s touched them the same way he touches you with the same hands.
If he’s given himself to them the ways he’s given himself to you.
“Lana?”
“Yeah?” My voice cracks and his thumb wipes under my eye.
“She meant nothing. None of them,” he rasps, his voice cracking like he might cry too. “I was high and drunk and…Lana, I wasn’t okay. I didn’t know what I was doing.”
I shake my head and pull him to me, kissing away the tear at the corner of his eye. “It’s okay. I know, I just…I think I need a minute.”
“I regret it,” Christian says, sadly. “I regret all of it. The worst part of it is, I was an asshole to all of them. I always pictured you and I’d sometimes say your name and… Please, Lana. I can’t take it if you hate me.”
I guess…that makes me feel a tiny bit better. But I try not to smile.
“You’d say my name? Like…while…”
He nods. “Yeah.”
The look in his eyes, the shame and guilt that drowns him makes me never want to bring up anything that happened in New York ever again.
And I won’t, ever. For both of our sakes.
We’re working through all of it, and it’s worth it.
He is worth it and we’re working through it.
The past will stay where it is because it has no business here with us.
But I can’t help but ask one last thing, just out of curiosity. “And? What happened when you’d…say my name.”
“I got slapped a couple of times.”
I crack a weak smile. “Okay.”
“Does it bother you?”
I shake my head, tears dripping off my chin. “No. Not as much now that I know you were slapped a couple times.”
Christian snorts and kisses the corner of my mouth. “No one makes me feel like you do.”
“I know.”
“And I didn’t kiss them.”
“Ever?”
He shakes his head. “Couldn’t.”
“Alright, then…” I’m happy about that, obviously. “I think it’s healthy to admit that I might be a bit jealous when it comes to you.”
He laughs. “A bit? You turned into a cave woman.”
I gape at him and pinch his side. “At least I’m admitting to the problem!”
“Okay—okay, fine. You’re right.”
I wrap my arms around his neck and pull him close between my legs. “Christian? Did she… Did she order you a drink?”
He nods, his throat working. “Yeah.”
“I’m proud of you,” I whisper. “Not just for that, but…for all of it. I should have told you back home that night. I’m sorry I didn’t, but I am, Christian.”
His eyes drop and slight frown tugs at the corner of his mouth.
“Hey, don’t do that,” I say, tilting his head back up to look at him with my hand against his jaw. “Don’t act like your recovery isn’t anything special or important.”
“Is it important to you?” Christian asks quietly, sadly.
“Is it important to you?” I counter. “It has to be important to you, baby. Is it?”
He nods. “It is.”
“Then it is to me too. It will always be special and important to me.”
“I’m trying,” he says. “I really am.”
“I know.”
“Some days it’s hard,” Christian rasps. “And… Sometimes I—”
My fingers sift through his hair at his nape. “You don’t have to talk about it right now if you don’t want to.”
“Sometimes… Sometimes I miss it,” he chokes. “And I hate that I miss it because I’ve missed you more. I hate myself for it, Lana, I can’t—”
I shake my head, my heart breaking for him. My throat feels tight and my chest constricted. “Christian…”
“I know you and everyone told me that I had to do this for me, and I did. But Lana, I want this for us and it terrifies me when some days I wake up and I know it only takes one mistake to fuck this up.”
“You aren’t going to fuck this up, baby.
” A tear rolls down my cheek. “You won’t.
I trust you, I believe in you, Christian.
I’m here and I’m going to hold your hand through it.
And on a day that you feel like that, you stay next to me and I’ll help you through it.
You can come to work with me, I’ll make you stock shelves all day.
And if that doesn’t work, then I won’t ever leave your side. ”
His smile is weak, and doesn't reach any other part of his face. “I’m scared.”
“I’m not,” I assure him. “So long as you’re honest with me, as long as you tell me when it’s a bad day, we’ll be okay.”
“Okay.”
I kiss his jaw. “Let’s make a thing.”
“A thing?”
“Yeah,” I say. “When it’s a bad day, you’ll put the jar on the island in the kitchen. You don’t have to say it, you don’t have to explain. It’s a quiet thing. If you want to have the bad day with yourself, that's okay, but at least I’ll know.”
“I promise,” he says. “I’ll do that.”
I hold him close by wrapping myself around him, feeling spent enough to sleep. “We have to get back,” I breathe and kiss his lips.
“We do.” Christian smiles and nudges my nose with his. “But I have something to tell you.”
I pull back. “What?”
“Elena is in New York.”
“What? How—How do you know?”
“She’s working at this law firm owned by a friend of mine—a good friend. She apparently told him to say hi to the girls.”
“Oh my god.” My mouth tips up. “Oh my god, Elena! Do you think she’ll come back?”
“I hope so, baby.”
I sigh, my heart feeling hopeful that our fourth, missing piece will come back to our little town. Then I remember where we are again. “I guess we have to get back now.”
“Can you walk?”
I laugh. “You have a big ego.”
He smirks. “Yeah?”
“You’re annoying.” Smiling stupidly, I say, “Can we just hide and make out for a minute?”
He chuckles against my lips. “Sure.”
After I adjust my dress and Christian adjusts his pants and tie, we unlock the bathroom and walk out.
His hand is on the small of my back and he walks through the party as if we don’t both look freshly and thoroughly fucked. And my knees remain unsteady.
I kind of like it, though. His hair is all messy and he has this barely-there flush in the apples of his cheeks with a bit of my lipstick on his neck, and he wears it proudly.
My hair is tangled and frizzy, the makeup around my mouth smeared and faded, and my jaw and neck red from his stubble scratching. I bite my lip, smiling, secretly hoping our disarray is noticed. Also hoping it isn’t.
Christian holds my hand as we join the party again, the DJ playing more pop songs that are still pretentiously mellow. I try to hide behind his thick arm and shoulder, but he looks down at me smiling. “What are you doing?”
My hold on him is unyielding. “I look like I’ve just had sex.”
“You did.”
“Shhh,” I hiss. “I don’t want it to look obvious. My hair is a mess and you messed up my makeup.”
Christian laughs and kisses my head. “Dance with me?”
I nod and release him briefly, trying to pat down the back of my hair and adjust the frizzy roots. Christian holds me steady with his hands on my hips and I think it’s his prerogative to be arrogant.
“How do I look?”
He smirks. “Gorgeous. Let’s leave the party.”
“Christian.”
He laughs and the sound is disrupted by the voice of someone I would be happy to never see or hear from again. “Christian.”
“Shit,” he hisses and his hands on my hips tighten, his body seething with anger through his suit. “She’s drunk. Ignore her and she’ll go away,” Christian tells me in my ear.
“Christian, my baby,” the hateful woman sings.
His hand comes around my waist, pulling me in close to his stiff body. “Caroline,” he grumbles.
The woman scoffs in her laughter, holding her martini glass. “Christian, please. Don’t be that way with me.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Best you remember that I own part of this company as well, son,” she says.
“You’re drunk,” Christian says roughly.
Caroline raises her brows into her botoxed forehead, looking past her son. “Lana Gomez,” she patronizes. “It seems you’ve found your way back to my son.”
“Don’t talk to her.”
Caroline dismisses him, her eyes stuck on me. “We had an agreement, Miss Gomez.”
“Caroline,” Christian warns, tucking me behind him.
“I am your mother.”
“And Lana is with me.”
“Oh, yes.” Her eyes flick over to me again with a demeaning smile to match her gaze.
“Your mother used to clean our house before the two of you met. I never understood a word she said.” She laughs.
“I don’t think she ever bothered to learn English, did she?
You learned English just fine though. But you’d think after all that time she spent here in Am—”
“Don’t finish that sentence,” I hiss.
“Or what, darling?” She takes a step.
“Back off, Caroline,” Christian growls.
“I am your mother, Christian.”
“Biologically,” he tells her. “Don’t disrespect Lana.”
“She didn’t tell you, did she?” His mother laughs before she chugs down her cocktail. Then her eyes are pinned on me. “I could destroy you. Everything you have is my money. Our money.”
My eyes find Christian, the confusion flashing in his eyes as she glares at Caroline. I squeeze his hand harder and try to hide behind him, shielding myself with his broad shoulder.
“You don’t belong here—”
I release him and leave them there.
I trip over myself, nearly falling on my face as I make a beeline for an escape. Groaning and not being able to see clearly, I bend to remove my heels, my shaky fingers fumbling with the strap around my ankle.
As much as I want to rip them off, I undo the buckle carefully to treasure these shoes that he bought especially for me.
I miss my mom.
Once they’re off and in my hand, I run to the lavish women’s restroom. I lock the door behind me and find a space in the fancy powdering area with love seats and a wooden coffee table.
When my body hits the seat, I let my sorrow and grief pour out of me.