Broken, page 20
I stood by, watching, mesmerized by the sheer power of the bouncer’s arm as he came down again onto Buzz Cut’s face.
I couldn’t even divert my attention as Rae escorted me back to a stool at the bar.
Chapter 30
Clay Carter
I had pulled into the parking lot of Fast Jack’s and had started to climb off my bike before I even came to a complete stop. It had been the first time I’d ridden it since I’d left Annie at that very place, and all of it together made me sick to my stomach.
The idea I couldn’t hold her, that I couldn’t love her the way my heart wanted to, taunted me. The way I felt about her was so very wrong and messed up.
The accumulation of a lifetime of lies and delusions had finally killed the last of my black heart.
The heavy wooden door slammed at my back, and some blonde I was sure I’d been within a past lifetime stumbled over in a pair of stilettos to greet me.
“Clay,” she mumbled.
Her determined eyes met mine, causing me to doubt my decision to come. Even that place had become a tomb of what should have been.
I pushed past the blonde and maneuvered around several more sorority girls and one very drunk cowboy on my way to the bar where Rae was glaring at me. She slapped a towel on the bar as I mounted a bar stool. “I’ve got something you might like in the back room.”
I tapped my knuckles on the bar twice. “Already had what you have to offer. Not interested.”
“Oh, I think you might want this. That sweet little brunette you’ve been bringing in here has been making a spectacle of herself tonight.”
I bolted from my seat, my feet propelling me to the back before I knew what I was doing. Rae was on my heels every step of the way. As I reached the office door, she gripped my arm. “Wait a minute. She’s had a rough night. Some guy tried to attack her on the dance floor. Then she got drunk and cried until she passed out.”
Instant anger consumed me. I pushed through the door. Annie had been through enough hell in her life, and the thought someone was trying to hurt her again was too much. I promised her I would protect her. I failed and knew I would continue to. I couldn’t stop the past from destroying our future.
A lamp on the desk illuminated the soft profile of Annie’s face. Curled up on a faded sofa in the corner, she made the slightest, cutest, whistling sound with her nose. My heart ached in my chest. She was beautiful, and I’d once had the honor of holding her when she had slept like that.
I raised my hand to signal for Rae to give me a minute then closed the door. I stood over Annie for a few seconds to take in the moment before kneeling to brush her hair off her face. Her eyelashes fluttered before they finally popped open. Her puffy eyes were glassy and sleepy but spoke volumes to me. I reached my thumb over to wipe a tear away and smudged the mascara down her cheekbones. She had been living in the same hell that I had been in. I had promised myself I would never let a girl break me. I’d lied because as I lifted Annie into my arms, I realized MS wasn’t the flaw that had broken me. It was loving the wrong girl that had broken me beyond repair.
“I didn’t like him touching me. I just came to forget. I wanted to forget the pain for one night.”
Her sweet, innocent voice uttering those words was my undoing. She had come to forget the pain of me leaving her and got hurt. I had to get us both through this nightmare. She was a living testament to the fact we could survive anything.
“I’m sorry, precious. I’m here now.”
I stroked a finger down the side of her face. Her warm hand enclosed around my lower arm, and she scraped her palm around the gauze bandage wrapped around my wrist.
“What happened,” she slurred, and wobbled her head next to my chest.
“A moment of weakness,” I said and kissed her forehead but halted; I didn’t have that right anymore.
“I think I love you,” she whispered, and lay her head against my shoulder.
“I know I love you.”
I squeezed her against my chest and imagined for a moment that I didn’t know the truth. But I did, and when she learned it, I would never get a moment like that again. I would always love her. Just not the way my heart wanted to.
****
Annie López
My head ached like the pulse of blood behind a bruise, throbbing one second and lingering pain the next. I slowly opened my eyes and stared off at the far wall. I was in my bed but had no recollection of how I got there. I pivoted my head to read the clock on my bedside table and caught a glance of a note propped up against a glass of water.
Precious,
I never wanted to hurt you. Anybody but you. I had to face the truth. I’ll be back as soon as I can to tell you what’s going on. I left you two acetaminophens and some water. Take them. YOU WILL NEED THEM.
You look peaceful when you sleep.
Clay
I wrapped my arm around my torso to hold it together. Bits and pieces of the night came floating back. That man treating me like an object, not a person. The bouncer pounding his face in. Rae was sitting with me at the bar as I released the tension of the last few days. Not one memory of Clay came to my mind. He had been there, though. The sheets smelled of his cologne. He had saved me; he had brought me home. I inhaled to take more of him into my lungs and was hit with the stench of stale beer and cigarette smoke.
I quickly jumped out of bed, stripped, and sank down in the tub, hoping to wash away the funk of the night. The warm water, the overflowing bubbles — nothing could keep my mind from wandering over the words of that letter.
The truth, what’s going on, the truth, what’s going on, you look peaceful when you sleep.
Clay watched me sleep while debating a lie.
I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to quiet the screaming in my head, and cupped my hands over my mouth and nose. I needed answers and needed to find Clay sooner rather than later.
I drained the water from the tub, positive I couldn’t take a bath long enough to sort out the train-wreck in my head.
I changed, not even sure I matched, sat back in the recliner, and switched on the television to fill the empty vacuum in the room. I didn’t watch it or even hear it. I sat and stared at the blank space above the fireplace. The doorbell chiming throughout the house was the only thing that brought me out of my trance.
I laid the remote on the coffee table and stood up when Clay barged through the front door. I took a step toward him. He had his hands cupped around my face and his forehead pushed against mine.
“Precious,” he whispered.
Chapter 31
Clay Carter
Being close to Annie was torture. So, close yet a million miles apart.
I’d spent the last two hours with Wes Carter, having my whole life ripped to shreds. All I wanted to do was inhale Annie’s very essence and tell her what she meant to me. But first, we had a lifetime of lies to unravel.
“What did I do? Why did you leave me?” she asked.
It hadn’t even dawned on me she would have thought I left because of her. Had she spent the last few days thinking I walked away because of something she did? Damn, in my attempt to run from the truth, I’d forgotten the most important detail of them all — Annie.
“I ... I didn’t leave you. I realized something and needed to figure it all out. I sent Will to get you.”
“Gee, thanks. I only sat there scared for an hour.”
“I was scared and confused too,” I confessed.
Annie let out a hard laugh. “Well, I understood perfectly. You left me. Luckily, there was a nice man there that kept me company.”
I cringed and stared into her expressive eyes as my heart fractured in my chest. If she was trying to hurt me, she succeeded.
I inhaled to take her scent into my lungs before leading her to the couch. Annie didn’t hesitate when I guided her onto my lap. She straddled me. I moved my hands to cup her face like the treasure she was.
“It’s tearing me up inside that you could honestly believe that I didn’t want to be with you or that every moment I’ve spent with you wasn’t the best time of my life. Because every second I’ve been with you has been the greatest,” I said, and then encompassed the base of her neck with my hands and stroked her jawline with my thumbs. “You mean so much to me, and no matter what, you always will.”
Annie twisted my t-shirt in her hands. “Why then?”
I didn’t deserve her understanding. I’d never deserved the time I’d spent with her. I also didn’t deserve to have my heart breaking, but it was. Then again, life had never been fair.
I licked my dry lips and realized my mouth had gone dry, too. “I remembered you were my tiny dancer.” It came out more as a raspy whisper than anything else.
“Huh,” she said, and placed her head on my shoulder.
Her warmth seeped into my cold heart. “When I was about eight or nine, my granny and dad …” I paused and shook my head. I shouldn’t have called them by that term but what else did I call them and get Annie to listen? “Took me to see some dance recital. There was this little ballerina in it. She had this big white bow in her beautiful brown hair and a smile that made my heart flip in my chest. I called her my tiny dancer.”
Annie’s brows pulled together and her lips twisted into the cutest pout. Damn, I love her. Paying for a father’s sin had taken on a whole new meaning to me.
A flicker of light popped on in her eyes. “My biggest fan. You gave me those roses. I’d totally forgotten.” She started to slide out of my lap, but I gripped her hip, shifting her closer to my body.
“I haven’t. I’ve dreamed about your smile more than once, but I didn’t put the pieces together in my head. I don’t think I wanted to admit it to myself. But when I did and thought about the way Granny acted around you, how the sound of your name made Wes tear up, it clicked. Wes is …”
I had let my clasp of her loosen enough to give her the leverage to jump out of my lap. “Clay, don’t tell me. If he’s mine. If you’re mine.” Her hands started shaking, and her eyes filled with tears. “That’s how I know him. Your dad … he came to all my recitals.”
The tears flooded my eyes, and immediately, I regretted hashing out the crap sober. I glanced up at the ceiling, trying to hold myself together. I couldn’t even imagine what was going through Annie’s head, but I was sure I knew how she felt.
I pulled her back onto my lap, but she shoved against me. I couldn’t allow her to run until she knew the whole truth.
“Stay. I’ll tell you everything I know.” Annie settled against me, soothing my raging nerves. I pulled a folded picture out of my pocket.
“What’s that?” she asked.
I brought the picture into her direct line of sight. She looked down at the picture, back up at me, and then back down at the image. It was a picture of Wes Carter and Evie López taken only a week before Annie was born. Wes and Evie had their forehead pressed against each other’s, and Wes was cradling Evie’s swollen stomach.
Annie opened her mouth, but nothing came out. She ripped the picture from my hand; her face dropped like her heart was breaking. “That’s my mom.” The instant she spoke the words, her eyes overflowed with tears. “I’ve never seen a picture of her.” Her voice cracked and was hardly audible.
“She’s beautiful. Just like you.”
I swept Annie’s hair off her shoulder to kiss her behind the ear when I remembered she was no longer mine.
Annie’s lip trembled as she asked, “He’s my dad?”
“Yes.”
Annie didn’t budge. She didn’t utter a sound, and I waited for her to as I begged my heart to beat again.
My life had never followed the script of a fairy tale, and that had been perfectly fine with me. It was real. It was nitty and gritty, and I was fully aware people like me didn’t get to keep the girl.
But even if I never got to have the happily ever after, I wanted Annie to experience it. I loved her enough to let her have that.
“Why didn’t he want me?” She raised her head and wiped at her eyes with the back of her hands. “I’d always tried to reason it out in my head. My dad was the guy in the wreck with my mom. He didn’t know about me.” She flicked the picture. “Both of those weren’t true. He could afford to keep me. There is no reason other than he didn’t want me.”
My life had been a lie too, but none of it mattered. All I cared about was easing the pain in Annie. Wes Carter had let her down her whole life, but I would prove I wasn’t him and would never leave her.
“The worst of it all is … if Wes Carter is my father, then that makes you my brother.”
I flattened out the picture of Wes and Evie to reveal the folded side. Even through the tears, it caught Annie’s attention instantly. It was my mom and Cory Blankenship; the man killed in the accident with her mom. Annie didn’t know who he was, only that he was a carbon copy of me, or I was of him. It was all still new to me, and I was as confused and baffled as she was.
“Who’s that?” she asked and stroked a finger over the image on the paper. Cory’s hair was curlier than mine, but he still wore it longer, and his jaw wasn’t as square as mine. But other than those two differences, it was as if we were looking at a picture of me circa 1990 something.
“Cory Blankenship, or as I learned just an hour ago, my father.”
That throbbing in my chest had not stopped since Wes and Courtney informed me of that fact in a well-rehearsed and planned speech. All the times my mother yelled; I was just like him made sense. She wasn’t talking about Wes Carter but my real DNA-contributor, Cory Blankenship.
Annie wrapped her hand around my jaw, bringing my attention from the picture to her. She smiled a sympathetic smile, then looked down at my trembling fingers that were massaging deep into her thigh. She lay her hand on mine and rubbed soothing strokes over the top of it.
“He was in the wreck with my mom. I don’t understand.”
I cared more about Annie than I had about any other person ever. Something about her clicked with me when I was only a child. Then finally being able to hold her as an adult had brought about a slew of emotions, I was unaware was even possible.
When Wes told me about being Annie’s father, he referred to Evie as My Evie. I understood what he meant because Annie was and would always be My Annie. I only hoped she agreed.
It wasn’t until she looked back that I realized she was as lost as me. For a moment, it felt good to share that at least.
“I only know the basics. Dad ... Wes is coming over soon to explain it all to us.”
I traced the line of her jaw with the back of my hand for no reason other than I needed to touch her. As my fingers stroked over her skin, chill-bumps appeared on her arms. I smiled for the first time in days, knowing it was my touch that caused that reaction.
“Please, don’t leave. I want you here when he is,” she said.
I sucked in another breath. All she had to do was ask.
“I’m not going anywhere. Plus, I think he wants to talk to both of us.” I wrapped my arms around her and placed my chin on top of her head. “He has something he needs to tell us. He said it is bigger than just who our daddies are. As if anything can be bigger than that.”
Annie squeezed her eyes shut, remembering that everything that had happened to her directly resulted from the man who raised me. She had to realize I was nothing like him.
I started to speak when the doorbell startled us both.
****
Annie López
The world as I’d always known it had exploded with facts and images life hadn’t prepared me for. The world wasn’t black and white or even shades of gray anymore but a rainbow of colors.
The doorbell rang again.
“Wes is my father but not yours?” I tasted the words on my lips. It tasted wrong but right, too. All the puzzle pieces were finally in place. Except, for the most important one, where Clay and I fit together.
Clay nodded just as the doorbell buzzed throughout the house for the third time, and Wes Carter stepped into the room.
Despite the tip-hammer beating of my heart, I slipped out of Clay’s lap and greeted Wes — my father — with a smile. Clay made it known he wanted to maintain a connection with me, by the way that he eagerly and quickly grabbed my hand.
Wes walked over and sat down on the chair across from the sofa I was sitting on, but he didn’t seem comfortable. He looked around, taking in the house I recently started to call home.
Was my dad trying to learn something about my life?
My dad. I wondered if I would ever call him “Dad” or if I even wanted to.
I toed off my sandals, then tucked my feet under me, and stared down at the picture of my mother. I favored her.
Wes slipped off his sunglasses and twisted them in his hands. “Princess,” spilled from his lips, as if I was special to him. “I see Clay has told you.”
I traced a finger over the picture of my mother. Wes didn’t deserve us. “Don’t call me that.” I shook my head. “You didn’t even want me. Don’t act like you care now.”
Unable to speak, he swallowed. Whether it was fear, regret, or saliva, I didn’t care because he had turned his back on me.
Clay let go of my hand to wrap his arm around me and pulled me closer to him. Again, Clay proved that precious wasn’t some flimsy pet name he made up to give me a false sense of hope but a name he called me because I genuinely was precious to him.
While I heaved onto Clay’s shoulder, Wes started talking. “You’ve been my princess since I first held you in my arms, and I wanted you. I wanted and still want you more than life itself. You have been my first thought every morning and the last one every night.”
“What the hell are you talking about? The only thought you’ve had the past twenty years is which whore you will run off to see next,” Clay said.
“The only woman I ever left your mother and you for is Evie,” Wes replied.
My head darted up as he spoke, and Clay squeezed my shoulder. He understood me. No one had ever taken the time to understand me, but Clay did. He understood because his world was being ripped apart at the seams, too.
