Spots of color brightened Kenzie’s cheeks, and I could tell she was struggling with remaining calm and in control when she clearly wanted to attack me. “Don’t touch me, don’t talk to me, don’t call me, don’t come over. We’re done.”
Done. There it was…the word that would be etched on my tombstone. The word that would forever haunt my soul, until my body finally crumpled under the strain. “No, Kenzie, you can’t… I did this for you!”
I surged forward, but hands grabbed me, holding me in place. Face expressionless, Kenzie turned from me, and started walking away. She was walking away from us. From me. And I couldn’t let her go without a fight. I struggled with the person in front of me; I was so absorbed in my objective that I wasn’t even sure who was blocking me until they spoke. “Hayden…I think you should go.”
Looking down, I saw that it was tiny, distraught Izzy who was keeping me from my goal; she was so much stronger than she looked. What she’d just said made absolutely no sense though. “You think I should go? I’m family, Iz.”
Sad smile on her face, Izzy shook her head. “I know. But so is Kenzie, and you wronged her, so you should be the one to go.”
I stopped trying to get away from her, and just stared in disbelief. “Unbelievable. I did it for her, Izzy.”
A slow exhale escaped Izzy as her eyes drifted to the floor. “I’m sure it started out that way,” she murmured.
There was an accusation in her voice that sparked a fire in my cold body. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Izzy flashed a quick glance at Felicia, still sitting beside Grunts, a shocked expression on her face as she carefully watched everything that was happening. I returned my glare to Izzy. “This has nothing to do with her.”
“I’m not the one you have to convince,” she said with a raised eyebrow. Then she sighed again. “Just go, Hayden. It will make things easier if you’re gone. I’ll talk to Kenzie, see if I can’t smooth things over. And I’ll call you the minute Antonia is out of surgery, okay?”
No, none of this was okay. But all of it was beyond my control. Maybe it always had been, and I’d just never realized it. “Fine, I’ll go.”
It took everything in me to walk out the door instead of storming over to Kenzie to continue our disagreement. She couldn’t possible mean we were over-over. She’d change her mind once she’d had time to calm down. I was sure of it. But even still, I’d like to have some sort of assurance from her before I left.
The ER doors slid shut behind me, sealing in the sound, and for the first time in a long time, I felt utterly and completely alone. Everyone I cared about most in the world had just shut me out. Icy numbness ran through me as the desolation sank in. Antonia was sick, Kenzie was gone, and my family had just turned their backs on me. I was back at square one with nothing, and it was all my fucking fault.
Furious at life, furious at myself, I nearly shoved my bike over when I saw it. That fucking motorcycle had gotten me into more trouble than it was worth. But no, that wasn’t entirely true. Motorcycles had saved me, given me purpose, meaning, hope… I needed hope again, but right now, I felt like I was being compacted into a ball, squeezed tighter and tighter. I couldn’t breathe. Everyone leaves…are you really surprised?
Needing out of there, I slammed on my helmet, started my bike, and peeled out, leaving tire marks on the concrete. My chest pounded as I rode away from the hospital. Everything about this felt wrong. I shouldn’t be leaving Antonia, I shouldn’t be leaving Kenzie. My whole world was back there, and I was running away from it.
I pressed my bike to its limits once I reached the freeway. What did I care if I got a speeding ticket now? If I got charged with reckless endangerment and Keith benched me, did it really matter anymore? Did anything? She couldn’t be gone.
My entire body felt like it was vibrating when I got back to my apartment. I felt manic, like if I didn’t do something, I was going to explode…I just had no clue what I was supposed to do. There was no one I could talk to, no one I could vent to, no one I could turn to. No one, no one, no one. Seemed to be a theme in my life, and I was sick and tired of it.
Pacing my living room, I debated walking over to Keith’s. He hated Kenzie, and he probably wouldn’t shed a tear over our breakup, but maybe talking to him would keep me from feeling like I was going to shatter into a thousand pieces. This can’t be happening.
Maybe I could call Felicia. I hadn’t done that yet, it had just felt too…wrong before. But now…if Kenzie and I were done—God, please don’t let us be over—then what did I have to lose by reaching out to her. Pulling my phone out of my pocket, I stared at the dark screen for a solid ten minutes. Dark. No messages, no notifications. Nothing from Kenzie saying she was sorry, that she’d been rash and spoken hastily. Nothing to say we were still together. Just empty darkness. I wanted to fling my phone across the room, smash it into a million tiny pieces, then flush those pieces down the toilet. Anything to stop the device from silently screaming that I was on my own.
My grip tightened on the phone, my knuckles turning white. I cocked my arm back, prepared to launch it, when a timid knock sounded on my door. Kenzie? Was she reaching out to me already? Yes, I’ll take you back.
Shoving my phone into my pocket, I ran the few steps to the door. Anxious for the apologies to begin, I yanked on the knob…and saw Felicia standing before me. For a second, my mangled heart thought the dark-haired beauty before me was my girlfriend. My ex-girlfriend now. But the subtle differences intruded on my fantasy, pounding the truth into me with the voracity of a hungry woodpecker. Heart sinking to the bottom of my shoes, I murmured, “Felicia? What are you doing here?”
“Can I come in?” she asked, ignoring my question.
I opened the door wide for her. Why the hell not? It didn’t matter now, since Kenzie was… Since we were…
This had to be a dream, some fucked-up nightmare that I’d wake up from any minute. Please let me wake up.
Felicia sashayed into the room, and I closed the door behind her. Once she was inside, reality seemed heavier. More…real. “Why aren’t you at the hospital?” I asked.
She worked her lip before answering me. “It was kind of…awkward after you left. Especially with Kenzie there…killing me with her eyes.” Hearing my girl’s name on her lips was a dagger to the heart. Seeing the pain sweep over me, Felicia stepped closer. “But really, I just wanted to check on you. Are you okay?”
Her hand came up to touch my cheek, and I didn’t have it in me to push her away. Was I okay? No. Absolutely not. “I’m fine,” I muttered unconvincingly.
Her thumb caressed my cheek, reminding me of countless occasions where she’d been my rock—where my sanity had depended on her. “No, you’re not, Haydey.”
The tender word was too much, too jarring. Even if her touch did make a small amount of warmth return to my chest, we weren’t those people anymore. Pretending nothing had changed wouldn’t solve anything. “Don’t call me that,” I told her, pulling my head away from her touch.
She let me retreat unchallenged, but the disappointment in her eyes was obvious. Her lips firmed, and I could tell she was struggling with how she wanted to deal with me. I wasn’t sure what I wanted…which meant she should probably leave.
“Hayden, I know you’re hurting, but you don’t have to shut me out. I’m here for you.” Compassion swirled in the dark depths of her eyes, and I knew she meant that. But I also knew she was hoping for more. And I had nothing in me right now.
“You should go,” I told her. Before she could respond, I turned and headed for my small kitchen area. Memories of Kenzie doting on me while my leg had healed bombarded me as I searched for a cure to my heartache. Whiskey. I was going to drown myself in about a gallon of it.
Instead of leaving, Felicia followed me. “You shouldn’t be alone right now.”
Finding a bottle, I set it on the counter and removed the cork. Flashing her a glance, I snarked, “And I should be with you? That’s better?” I p
ulled a long draw off the bottle, and nearly sighed with relief when the numbing burn hit my throat.
Anger brightened Felicia’s eyes. “Yes, being with me is better than drinking yourself into oblivion and drowning in your own vomit.”
Grabbing the bottle from me, she hid it behind her back. Emptiness quickly turned to rage. I hadn’t asked for a babysitter, and I didn’t need one. “Give that back,” I seethed, venom in my voice.
Unafraid, Felicia lifted her chin. “No. There are better ways to deal with this.”
A sudden bubble of laughter erupted from my throat. Oh God, that was rich coming from her. “Yeah, you’re right. I could just leave a note on the table and skip town. That’s a much better plan.”
Moisture filled her eyes, but her jaw hardened, so I didn’t know if they were angry tears, or if I’d struck a nerve. “You can be such an asshole sometimes.”
Returning to my cupboards, to search for another bottle, I retaliated with, “And you can be a bitch. Guess we were just too similar to last.”
“That’s not why we didn’t last.”
I spun around to stop her from talking. Stepping up to her, I snapped, “Don’t. Just save it. Whatever excuse you’ve cooked up to explain away what you did, I don’t want to hear it. I don’t ever want to hear it.”
Her jaw dropped as she stared at me. “You were never going to give me a chance, were you?”
Reaching behind her, I grabbed the bottle and yanked it away. Whiskey spilled over both of us, but I didn’t care. “No, I wasn’t.”
While I took a long draw off the bottle, she calmly said, “I was pregnant.”
The bottle slipped from my fingers, crashing to the floor in an explosion of alcohol and glass. I didn’t even look at the mess. I couldn’t. My mind was too wrapped up in what she’d just said to do…anything. “You were? What happened?”
My voice was a whisper, but she acted like I’d yelled at her again. “Doesn’t matter. You don’t want to hear it.”
She started moving away, and I grabbed her arm. Pain and panic filled me, as I frantically searched her face. “What happened, Felicia? Stop messing around and tell me!”
Her face morphed into compassion once again. “I found out…right after Antonia was diagnosed. I was going to tell you, but…” Her eyes filled with definite tears. “Seeing what Izzy was going through, what everyone was going through…I just couldn’t…I couldn’t love something that much, and risk losing it. I wasn’t strong enough for that kind of loss. So…”
Dread filled me. Dread and fear. Grabbing her other arm, I made her stay facing me. “What did you do?” I asked in a hushed voice.
She shook her head. “Nothing. It was a false positive. My period started the next month, and I was so relieved. And so…not relieved.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Why the hell didn’t she talk to me? “If you weren’t really…then why the hell did you leave?”
Reaching up, she grabbed one of my hands and held it in hers. “Because I realized that I was already risking it all…by loving you.”
“I don’t understand,” I said, shaking my head.
Felicia nodded. “I know. It’s just…everything I feared about loving and losing a baby, the thought of losing you was ten times—no, a hundred times worse. I knew that if something ever happened to you, if you…died…it would destroy me. I’d never recover. And I just couldn’t…I couldn’t let you do that to me,” she said, her voice trembling.
Pulling away from her, I stepped back. “You ruined…everything…because you loved me too much?” As odd as it sounded, I completely understood though. There had been nights when I’d woken up in a panic, terrified that I’d lost her. And then I did lose her, and all my nightmares had paled in comparison.
Crunching on the glass at our feet, she stepped forward and grabbed my hands; I was trapped against the counter now, with no hope of an easy escape. Mentally or physically. “I know it was stupid, Hayden, but I was a kid. I was scared. And you were…my entire world.”
Shaking my head, I murmured, “You were gone for years, Felicia. Years. When we needed you most, when I needed you most, you just…left.”
Tears dripping down her cheeks now, she dropped my hands and grabbed my face. “I know, and I’m so sorry. It took me so long to realize what a huge mistake I’d made. I thought I was saving us, Hayden. I thought it would hurt less if I left. I was so…so wrong…and I’m so sorry. Please…forgive me.”
Lifting, she placed a light kiss on my lips. It was like a gunshot went off in my head. Or fireworks—blinding, deafening. The remembered taste filled me as her mouth moved over mine—the softness, the sweetness…the fear. Even when we’d been together and happy, there had been an almost frantic fear between us, like at any minute everything would be swept away. It made the sex incredible, but it left an ache, a scar that never truly healed. And then my biggest fears had come true—and by facing my worst fears—I’d conquered them. Felicia, though, I don’t think she’d ever faced her fears.
Breaking off contact, I gently pushed her back. “Stop.”
Her wide eyes staring back at me were a mixture of desperation, fear and hope. “Hayden,” she quietly said, her voice strained. “Please…”
She moved toward me again, but I held her back. “I get it, Felicia. I get why you left. I understand running from something you want, but you should have talked to me. If you’d just confessed your fears to me…told me you thought you were pregnant…we could have worked things out.” With a sigh, I shook my head. “But you always had one foot out the door, ready to bolt at a moment’s notice. This is going to sound harsh, but I think you leaving that last time was the best thing that could have happened to me.”
Hurt instantly darkened her expression, and she pulled farther away from me. Wishing the truth didn’t sting so hard, I told her, “You and I, we were never meant to be. I want more. I want permanent. I want a foundation I can trust. And that will never be you.”
Fresh tears in her eyes, she looked away from me. “You’re assuming I haven’t changed.” She returned her eyes to mine. “But I have. I’m still here, aren’t I?”
With a sad smile, I nodded. “Yeah, but that’s not going to change anything. I want Kenzie, and I won’t ever give up on her.”
Closing her mouth, she pressed her lips into a firm line. “Kenzie? She…she’s done, Hayden. She doesn’t want you anymore.”
“I know,” I said with a sigh. Collecting my thoughts, I paused for a moment. She searched me the entire time, like she was looking for a path back into my heart. “I loved you once, Felicia, I really did, and I will always cherish the memory of what we had. But we were kids, like you said, and we didn’t really know what we wanted. Thank you for telling me why you left, and…I’m sorry I didn’t let you tell me earlier. Because I get it. It stills pisses me off, but I understand.”
More tears dropped down her cheeks as she stared at me. Her mouth opened and closed, but no words left her, so she merely nodded instead. The lingering attraction that had been popping up since her arrival faded to nothing as I locked gazes with her. Kenzie was all I saw when I looked into her eyes now. “I need to show you something,” I told her.
She was naturally confused as she took my offered hand and I led her to the bedroom. When we stepped inside, her eyes darted to the bed. “I thought you…? Didn’t you just say…?” She licked her lips, like she wasn’t sure if she should keep objecting.
With a small chuckle, I released her hand. “That’s not what I want to show you.” Opening the closet, I rummaged through it until I found an old shoebox in the back. Pulling it out, I slowly turned around to face her. “This is what I wanted to show you.” Opening the lid, I reached inside and pulled out the ring I’d been holding onto for way too many years now.
Shock passed over her features as she took the ring from my hand. Her eyes remoistened as she held it. “I was going to propose to you, but after Antonia got sick, I just couldn’t ever seem to
find the right time.”
Eyes glued on the massive diamond, she gaped at me. “Why are you showing me this? Why do you still have it?”
Smiling at her reaction, I said, “I think I needed closure. A small part of me was holding onto the past—our past. But I can’t keep holding on and move forward, so take it. Toss it, burn it, sell it…I don’t care. I don’t need it anymore.”
With a sad smile on her lips, she held the ring close to her chest and said, “Hayden…Kenzie, she’s…she’s out of the picture. We can still… If you could just find it in your heart to forgive me, we could have our old life back.”
“That’s just it,” I responded. “I don’t want my old life back. And Kenzie will never be out of the picture. Not for me.” My smile was unstoppable. “She has my soul, and I won’t rest until I get her back.”
Felicia’s gaze grew wistful, and I knew it would take longer for the attraction to die from her side than it had from mine. She cringed again. “You really love her, don’t you?” As I nodded, her eyes drifted to the ground. “I really thought you’d still be here when I came back. Even if you were taken, I thought you’d still come back to me.” Lifting her eyes to mine, she shook her head. “It never occurred to me that you could fall in love with someone else. Not really. I always thought…you and me…” She swallowed a harsh lump in her throat, then shook her head again. “I’m sorry I left, more than ever now.” She squeezed the ring in her fingers, and more tears dripped off her cheeks. “And I’m…I’m sorry I messed with your relationship.” I could tell those words were really hard for her to say; I was a little shocked she’d said them. Her next words floored me though. “Keith has bigger plans to exploit us…but I’ll…I’ll respect your relationship with Kenzie. I’ll tell him no.”
Anger crawled up my spine, raising the hairs on my neck. “What plans?” I asked.
Felicia bit her lip, guilt all over her face. “Ever since he found out about our history, he wanted to play us up to the media. Make everyone think we were a couple. Get people talking about us, talking about his team. He’s just about to seal an advertising deal for the two of us. Racy stuff…from what he’s told me.”