The Difference Between Someday and Forever_Aly Martinez, page 2
When I’d told Mark I’d think about it, it wasn’t a complete lie though.
I ran three miles that day with a huge smile on my face, imagining Bowen’s reaction when I told him the good news.
It was a reaction I never got to see.
Because just before I rounded the last corner to go back to my car, my whole world went dark—literally and figuratively.
Remi
“Please, stop the car,” I begged, fear ricocheting inside me so hard I was sure I would be bruised forever.
Maybe it was the pounding in my head or the entire hell-spun reality playing out in front of me, but I was emotionally and mentally wrecked and confused.
Mark Friedman—my best friend, my brother, part of my family—had his hands wrapped around the steering wheel of his truck, driving erratically down the highway. A voice that usually made me smile felt like talons ripping my flesh.
“Slow down, and let’s just talk…please.”
He did not slow down or stop the car, but rather barked a laugh. “Sure. Let’s fucking talk. Ya know, after the plane crash, when you couldn’t remember Bowen, I thought, ‘This is it. She’ll finally fucking see me.’ What were the fucking odds? You got amnesia and forgot the one man who fucking stole you from me. But I haven’t gotten lucky, have I?” Mark sneered as his gaze slid to where I was sitting, still frozen in shock, my face locked in a mask of horror.
He frowned as he took in my expression. “Don’t fucking look at me like that.” His head shook. “Trust me, this isn’t fun for me, either. I mean, where’s the humor in loving a girl for over a fucking decade, wasting away while she’s out fucking some guy who doesn’t deserve her? Worshipping her while she’s trying to move in with a man she barely knows? All the while, I’m there in the same fucking house with her, day in and day out, right under her nose for years. I may as well have been a Goddamn ghost wandering those halls for all you saw me. So I did what I had to do.” His broad shoulders straightened as he winked. “I guess twice.”
Horrified couldn’t begin to describe the thoughts that raced through my mind while he spouted all the ways he “loved” me. There was no making sense of it, despite how hard I tried. I had a thousand things I wanted to say, but every last one of them failed to leave my lips.
“Why, Mark?” The terror in my gut coated the words.
“Don’t fucking ask me that.” His eyes rolled as he clucked his tongue like I was nothing more than a pestering child. He let off the gas as he angled his head toward mine. “For whatever reason, you can’t seem to see who’s right in front of you. You keep trying to run away from me, and I’m sorry, but I can’t let that happen. I won’t let that happen.”
Mark was wrong. I did see who was in front of me. A fucking monster. I swallowed, forcing tears back as the weight of reality crashed down on me. I was completely helpless to stop whatever twisted plan he had in mind. Mark could easily overpower me, and it was painfully clear that the teddy bear I’d once trusted with my life had no qualms about doing whatever he needed to keep me exactly where he wanted me.
With him.
Nausea rolled over me as the bitter irony of this whole fucked-up situation hit me. The people I’d pushed away because of lies and betrayal were the only people who could save me, and every last one of them was oblivious to the fact that I needed their help at all.
Bowen
I couldn’t put my finger on it, but something was wrong. At least, that was my rationale as I drove nearly double the speed limit, barely slowing at the stop signs that seemed to be on every fucking corner between my place and Remi’s.
She would be pissed as all hell that I’d once again ignored her wishes and inserted myself into her life, but I didn’t give a damn. The rock that had cemented itself in my gut told me that I needed to get over to her house. Fast.
“Call Remi’s office!” I shouted for what felt like the hundredth time. The robotic Bluetooth voice took an eternity to connect the call.
It didn’t make sense that she and Mark would have gone to chat at her office, but desperation rarely made sense. I’d alternated between calling her office and Mark, a silent prayer sent up every time the phone rang. But just as quickly as the flame of hope flickered, it died again when her sunshiny voicemail told me to leave a message.
I’d one, but when the beep sounded, I pled, “Remi, please. If you’re ignoring me, that’s fine. Just fucking pick up and tell me to fuck off. Something. Anything.” I stabbed the disconnect button on the screen in my truck and let out a frustrated growl.
I couldn’t make sense of how Remi would be so angry with everyone involved in the deception after the plane crash and then choose to leave with Mark. It was his fucking idea in the first place to keep the truth from her. I hadn’t told her that, but I suspected Aaron hadn’t sat on the details for long after she cut him off. Mark had led that siege, so why would she overlook it when she couldn’t even stand to face anyone else—myself included?
I wasn’t blameless, and though I stood by the fact that I would do it all over again for her, I still owned up to my responsibility in the disaster we had created. Even after we’d had desperate and frenzied sex against the door in my house, she’d made it clear she was still livid with what I’d done. What all of us had done. So why would she hop into the truck with Mark leaving her purse, phone, and most shocking of all, Sugar behind?
Something was way fucking off. I felt it in my bones.
My phone rang, and before the caller ID could register who it was on my screen, I snatched it off the passenger seat. “Remi?”
“Aaron,” he corrected.
“Fuck,” I breathed as the optimism that had sprung to my chest vanished. “Any news?”
Aaron’s flustered exhale told me the answer before he even said a word. “Mark didn’t answer. I’m assuming you didn’t get ahold of Remi?”
“She’s not at the office. Did you talk to the neighbor again?”
“He didn’t have anything more to add. Said he barely glanced over here before he left for the grocery store.”
“What about her car doors? Were they unlocked? Did Sugar seem overheated? You said her purse was on the seat. Was it knocked over, like maybe someone went through it? What about the house? Everything locked up? Did it look like she’d been inside?”
“Whoa. Okay. Slow down.”
I couldn’t slow my racing mind any more than I could have commanded my foot to let off the gas pedal at that point. “This feels wrong, Aaron. Really fucking wrong.”
“I agree. It doesn’t look like anyone went inside the house. Sugar was fine, purse was fine, everything looked…fine. Where are you?” His voice might have been even, but concern laced every word.
I looked around for the first time since I’d climbed into my truck. I’d driven the route between our houses so many times I could have done it asleep, but I’d been on autopilot. “Turning onto your street now. I’m gonna try Remi’s office one more time.” Without giving him a chance to respond, I disconnected the call, immediately pulling up Remi’s contact. The goofy selfie of us I’d programmed into my phone flashed on the screen, twisting my stomach. And after four agonizing rings, I hung up and tossed the phone onto my passenger seat. “Where are you?” I groaned.
Aaron was waiting for me in the driveway as I whipped in behind her car, the tires letting out a squeal that echoed my thoughts. The truck was barely in park before I was out and bounding up to his side.
“You have Remi’s phone?” I snapped.
With one hand squeezing his neck, he gestured toward her SUV. “Still sitting on the seat. As soon as I saw Sugar in the car, I grabbed him and called you. I didn’t touch anything else.”
I marched past him and pulled the driver’s door open. The sweet scent of Remi’s perfume slapped me across the face as I leaned in to grab her phone. Snagging her purse by the handle with one hand, I palmed her phone with the other and righted myself.
“Fourteen missed calls, six text messages, and three voicemails,” I murmured as I unlocked it, putting in the code she used for everything despite my protests otherwise. For once, I was glad she didn’t listen.
“What are you looking for in there?” Aaron asked, worry lining his forehead.
“No fucking idea. No missed calls from Mark though. Here, hold this.” I pushed her purse into his arms.
“Well, if they’re together, that would make sense.”
Aaron continued to drone on about all the reasons that we were probably overreacting, Remi’s purse tightly clutched to his chest, but I tuned him out as I scanned her cell. Aside from the missed calls, I couldn’t find anything that would give me even the slightest hint about where the hell she was. Mark had texted her a few times over the last few days, pleading for her to talk to him, but she’d ignored them all. When I started to turn my gaze back to the car, something shiny glinted in the sunlight and caught my eye.
Her phone cradled in my hand, I dropped to a knee to take a closer look. My breath lodged in my throat as I picked up a silver stud earring on the edge of the driveway.
“What’s that?” he asked.
I held it up so he could see it and frowned before looking back at the ground. “Must have fallen out when…”
The words died in my throat when I noticed crimson-red specks on the concrete. I braced myself as I bent forward to inspect them closer, though my brain already knew what I was looking at. With trembling fingers, I swiped at the cluster, smearing them.
Blood.
It was blood on the ground.
It was Remi’s fucking blood on the ground, right beside her lost earring.
My heart hammered as my own blood roared in my ears. The icy grip of fear raced through every vein in my body.
“Call the cops,” I whispered.
“What is it?” Aaron asked, dropping into a squat beside me. “Is that—”
“Call the fucking police!” I roared.
Remi
“How could you be such a heartless bitch?” Mark seethed. “I gave you everything. I did everything right. I took care of you when you were sick, always brought you home dinner from the bar, kept the fridge stocked with your favorite wine. Do you have any idea how many nights I spent listening to you ramble for hours about fucking plants? I dedicated half my life to you. And it still wasn’t good enough. I wasn’t good enough.”
Mark’s phone buzzed in the cupholder, but I didn’t dare pull my gaze away from the maniac at the wheel.
Think, Remi. Think!
I had to do something. The longer Mark was left to his own thoughts, the louder and more menacing he became. I had to find a way to distract him, to calm him down. All I needed was a moment with his guard down and maybe I could get away from him. I might have been his captive, but I wasn’t going to be a victim ever again.
“I just want you to love me the same way I love you!” He finished on a shout, his fist slamming on the center console.
I fought the urge to press away from him and instead scooted closer. “Mark,” I purred, my voice intentionally soft, “I had no idea.”
He scoffed. “Don’t give me that bullshit.”
“I swear to you. I didn’t know you felt that way about me. You’re right. I should have seen it. I was so stupid for not seeing it.” I swallowed the vomit that crept up my throat and mustered the courage to keep going. “I see you now though. I see everything you’ve done. For me. For us.”
He craned his neck toward me, his suspicious eyes blazing as they roved my face. “Bullshit. You only see what I’ve opened your eyes to.”
I shook my head hard and my hair slapped my face. “No, no. I mean it. The silly spa nights I forced you into. Fourth meal at Rusty Nail after the bar closed. All the ways you worked so hard to make sure I stayed safe while showing houses. I missed all those clues along the way.” I paused and pinned him with a stare, my hand snaking out to rest on his arm. “But I promise I realize now how lucky I am that I have you.”
His arm jerked away from my touch, and even though I needed him to believe me, I had to admit a wave of relief washed through me that I didn’t have to touch him. “Please, give me a chance to prove it to you.”
It was barely perceptible, however, I didn’t miss as his face softened. His eyes were still skeptical, but there was something else there too. Hope? Relief? Excitement? Whatever it was, it was all I needed to forge ahead.
“Remember when we met in high school?” I asked. “I never told you this, but I couldn’t stop thinking about you that night. You were so tall and handsome. A man in a sea of boys. I’d wanted to maybe ask you out, but then we kind of fell into the friends routine and I didn’t want to lose you, so I pushed those feelings away.”
His eyes rolled, but when he didn’t stop me, I knew I had him.
“You know how I always call you my big teddy bear? It’s not very sexy, I know, but it kind of is to me.” I pulled my bottom lip in between my teeth and shrugged. “There’s just something sexy about knowing a man can protect you. And I always knew that I’d be safe with you.”
The corner of his mouth tipped up in a grin as he turned his attention back to the road. “Sexy, huh?”
The phone buzzed again, and with Mark’s attention diverted, I took the opportunity to glance down. Sweet relief sang in my veins as I saw Bowen’s name light across the screen, and for the first time since I’d woken up in his truck, hope sprang inside me.
He knew. Thank you, God. He knew.
Bowen knew I was missing. There was no other reason for him to call Mark.
I couldn’t remember everything in our past, but in the few months we’d been together this go-around, history had taught me if Bowen had even an inkling something was amiss, he would be looking for me.
And if he was looking for me, he wouldn’t stop until he found me.
Once again, tears filled my eyes and I blinked hard to push them back. But the tears that threatened to overtake me were those of joy.
This was my chance.
This might be my only chance.
With a steady breath and a hard swallow, I leaned across the console and rested my cheek on Mark’s shoulder, a whisper escaping my lips. “You’re very sexy.”
Nerves vibrated inside me, my whole body trembling.
I had one chance.
One fucking chance.
I’d heard the stories of how Bowen had saved my life time and time again.
I could only pray he had one last ace up his sleeve.
Leaning my upper body across the center console, I wrapped my arms around Mark’s shoulders, but not before I dragged my hand across his cell phone in the cupholder, my finger swiping the screen to answer the call.
Bowen
Three rings.
That was all it took for my heart to stop beating in my chest. Not that it was truly beating after we’d found blood on the ground.
When one of the many calls I’d made that day finally connected, I nearly passed out as Remi’s voice floated across the line. “I should have told you.”
“Where the hell are you?” I barked, unable to keep the panic at bay any longer.
Her quiet laugh was all I got in answer.
“Remi?”
Her voice was smooth and even, but she wasn’t talking to me. “I’m telling you now, Mark. I am in love with you.”
My back shot straight. What the fucking fuck? Mark? She was in love with Mark? How was that possible?
The question died on my lips as her next words punched me in the gut.
“You didn’t have to take me. Not the first time or now. I would have happily gone anywhere with you if only you’d told me how you felt about me sooner.”
The brief reprieve I’d felt from hearing her voice vanished as my mind tried to process what the hell I was hearing now.
He’d taken her? Twice?
A vise cranked down on my chest as over a year and a half’s worth of puzzle pieces started to click into place.
He loved her. He was the one who’d kidnapped her the first time. Remi wasn’t the one who’d been spooked when I’d asked her to move in with me. It had been Mark. It had been Mark all a-fucking-long.
He was the reason this whole nightmare had begun in the first place.
He was the reason I’d nearly lost her to suicide.
He was the reason I’d lost her after the crash.
And now this motherfucker had her again?
Fury, white hot and damn near searing, shot through me.
“Hey, Bowen,” Aaron called out. “The cops want to know what time she left your house?”
With lightning-fast reflexes, I muted my end of the phone while shaking my head hard in his direction. I couldn’t risk Mark hearing us and ending the call before I could figure out how the hell I was going to save her.
I couldn’t speak. I just waved him over as I put the call on speaker.
He trotted over, confusion lining his face, his phone held to his ear. “Did you get ahold of Mark?” he asked, nodding toward the phone in my hand.
“She’s with him,” I stated to Aaron. “Let them know that she’s in imminent danger.”
“What?” he asked, but I lifted a hand to silence him when Mark’s muffled voice came across the line.
“How the hell would I have known that?” he barked.
The lines in Aaron’s forehead deepened. “What is he talking about?”
“It’s Remi. She’s talking to him. I don’t think he knows I’m on the phone. He took her, Aaron. He fucking took her.” My stomach turned as I said the words out loud.
Her gentle voice filled the air. “Do you really love me, Mark?”
“I’ve told you over and over that I have always loved you.” His growl elicited a feral response from me.
I needed to get to her, and more, I needed to get my hands on him.
Aaron and I stood there, our eyes trained on the phone as we held our breath and listened to her sweet-talk the fucking piece of shit who had duped us all.
