It was seven thirty in the morning when the phone rang, and I could barley crawl across the room to pick it up from the place on the floor it had landed when I dropped it the night before. My head was pounding and the room was spinning. Two bottles of wine all to myself had done me in hardcore. I managed to pick up the call just before it went to voicemail, not being able to read the screen because my vision was so blurry. I hung onto the back of the couch and roughly slid down to the carpeted floor. “‘Timber...lake...”
“Justin! Justin!”
I groaned. It was Austin. “Hey Bud,” I croaked. “You okay?”
“Yeah! But, they have this cool game here that I want!” He yelled.
My head pounded harder, and I wanted to rip into him for calling me so early in the morning about something so ridiculous, but I couldn’t. I just...loved him. It came rushing back to me right away, the fact that the boys were such a huge part of my life, and would continue to be whether Abbey was around or not. “And you’re up playing it right now, huh?” I chuckled, and winced because it made my head hurt more. “Did you eat?”
“Yeah! We got up at six!” He said excitedly. “We’re going to the Statue of Liberty today!”
“Cool,” I said, trying to sound enthusiastic. “Make sure Davey doesn’t unzip his jacket, all right?”
“Okay! So...they have this cool game here, and I really want it, and I know we just had Christmas but...will you get it for me?”
“Slow down,” I laughed. “What is it that you want?”
“Metro Rider!” He yelled. “Davey wants it too, right Davey?”
I could hear my youngest brother in the background, shouting that it was the coolest game ever, and couldn’t help but laugh some more. It started to me feel just a little bit better, took me away from my reality for a few minutes. “Sure. I’ll have it for you when you get home.”
“Thank you! Thank you!” he exclaimed. “Is Abbey back yet? I want to tell her something.”
My smile faded away, the mention of her name reminding me of everything I’d been thinking about while she’d been gone, and the very reason I was hungover in the first place. “She’s...she’s not in yet, buddy.”
“Oh...”
I was silent for a moment, as I rubbed my face tiredly. “You better get going. Don’t hang on the phone. That’s rude to do when you’re a guest.”
“Okay...” he trailed off, the despair in his voice apparent.
I couldn’t lie to myself anymore. It had been a week, and he hadn’t been the same since he’d seen Abbey on the TV, kissing some other guy. He knew something was wrong, but he hadn’t come right out and asked me the questions I expected him to. Davey didn’t seem to remember the newscast, thankfully. He was still a little young to have a grip on things like romance and cheating girlfriends.
“Call me tonight, okay?” I whispered.
“Justin.”
He said it gently and I tried to hold my breath, but it made me feel sick so I decided not to do that. I started to loosen my tie, realizing for the first time that I’d slept in my work clothes. I was a mess, and I was glad the boys were away. They didn’t need to see me that way...drunk, hungover. I wouldn’t have been a very good role model. “Yeah, Aus?”
“Is Abbey...is Abbey coming home?”
I sucked in a long breath. “Yeah, of course,” I forced a small chuckle. “She actually called me the other day and said she would be back some time today.”
It wasn’t a lie. She had, in fact, said that in her voice mail, but Austin didn’t need to know the details. He was just a kid and I could still make him believe anything I told him, well, most of the time anyway.
“Why did she leave?”
“I told you,” I said it quickly, because I was trying my hardest to get him off the phone. “She went to see her family.”
“But...but you love her. She’s not supposed to kiss somebody else, is she?”
I sighed heavily. “Austin, I have to go. We can talk about this when you get home, right?”
“What if she decides she wants to kiss that man, forever?”
I put my head in my hands and held the phone away from my ear for a few seconds, praying that he wouldn’t hear me sobbing. I was so hungover and depressed that I couldn’t help myself, but I still felt like a fucking asshole. “Don’t worry about it. Go have fun with your brother and the other kids.”
“If Abbey comes back will you send Quincy to come get us?” He asked me next, in a pleading tone.
I sighed. “Sure, bud. Have a nice time. Look out for your brother.”
I hung up after that, to ensure he wouldn’t be able to ask me anymore questions, and then I proceeded to vomit in the nearest bathroom. It was pure alcohol, disgusting. I spent the rest of the morning hunched over my toilet, ruining a perfectly good Armani dress shirt over the fact that Abbey’s long lost lover had returned from the war. I laughed, coughed, vomited, and laughed some more. It was like a fucking movie, unreal as hell. How could it happen to me?
He was supposed to be dead, gone forever.
I didn’t wish death on anybody. I never had, not even when I was a fucking asshole. It wasn’t right. There was no need for it...
But in that moment, I wished like hell that Braeden had never found his way home.
Abbey was the love of my life. It was my turn because he’d gone away, through no fault of his own. It wasn’t his fault but it wasn’t fair that he could come back and sweet talk her back into his life. She was supposed to love me. That was supposed to prevail. Couldn’t she think? Didn’t she know how fucking hurt I would be when I found out that they’d slipped right back into their relationship?
I knew her well, and I knew that she had to know.
And the fact that she did what she did on national TV, showed me that she didn’t care how I felt.
It was all about her and what she needed then. She pretty much said, ‘screw Justin,’ when she let him kiss her like that. It didn’t matter what I’d given her, how much I loved her, how much I’d completely changed my life so we could be happy together with the boys. All of it was thrown out the window when Braeden Sampson walked off that airplane.
I felt like I was nothing to her. Vapor. Like a new stock we would buy into, get all excited about, and then quickly sell back when we realized it wasn’t benefiting us after all.
That was me. Never worth the investment.
I managed to get myself in the shower once I’d gotten control of my stomach, and rinsed the puke off my face. It felt good, refreshing. It woke me up a little more, helped my headache a little bit. I sank down to the floor and let the water pour over me for a long time. I realized I was crying at one point, forced myself to stop, and got out of the shower. My skin was wrinkled and red from the steam. I wrapped a towel around myself and cleared the condensation off the mirror so I could look back at myself.
I never looked so bad before. So sick. I was pale, tired, overburdened with worry. I shaved, even though I didn’t see the point. I felt more like myself when I was finished though, which was a good thing. I went out into the bedroom and got dressed in a polo and jeans, deciding I would make the best of things and go get Austin his game, figuring getting out would take my mind off my problems.
“Hello!”
The door slammed.
I froze.
It’s been about ten minutes.
I know she’s in the house.
“Boys!” I hear her call out.
Silence.
I hear her footsteps on the stairs. I want to jump out the window but that...that just wouldn’t end well and where would the boys be if I died? No, can’t do it. I sit down on the bed. She’s out in the hallway now. I hear her luggage clunk down onto the hardwood floor.
r32;“Hello?”
I stare at my closed bedroom door.
“In here.”
Damn it.
It opens. She walks through, looking...looking just fucking beautiful. It makes me want to break down all over again, knowing I’m going to lose her, but I refuse to let that side show. I can’t. I gotta be strong and prepared, just like I when I left my parents behind so many years ago. I get up from the bed, and cross my arms as I stare at her.
“Hey.” She smiles slightly.
“Hi.”
She runs a hand through her hair, and I know she’s uneasy. Whether or not she knows how frustrated and upset I am with her right now is a mystery, but I have a horrible feeling that I won’t hesitate to let her know.
“Where...where are the boys?”
“With Dennis and Trish,” I nod.
“Oh...well, okay.” She shrugs a little bit and removes her scarf as she walks towards the closed closet doors.
I sit back down on the bed.
“So, what’s...” She cuts herself off when she opens the doors, and stares inside of my closet, realizing her clothes aren’t there. She turns back around. “Justin,” she says, so softly. “What happened to my things?”
“They’re in the spare bedroom down the hall.”
She licks her lips. “W-why?”
She’s acting clueless, but I know better. She knows exactly why, and I hate...I hate that she’s being so damn fake right now. When did this start? When did she change?
Oh yeah, when her solider boy came back home to her.
“Really, Ab?” I crack a sarcastic smile as I shake my head and laugh a little. “You’re gonna pull this?” I get up from the bed and stand before her, arms still crossed, daring her to act clueless again.
“Justin, I was going to talk to you about this. I wish you would have called...”
I hold a hand up to silence her. “I think you said it all when you made out with him at the airport.”
She looks down at her feet. “So you did see that.”
“Yeah, sorry. I’m sure you meant to keep that a secret too.”
“I wasn’t going to keep it from you,” she says, sending me a hurtful gaze. “That’s why I called. I wanted to talk.”
“Yeah? Well, I didn’t want to fucking talk,” I snap at her. “Did you have a nice time, Ab? Did you and Braeden “bond”?”
“You’re overreacting.”
“I’m overreacting!” I yell. “You made out with him on national fucking TV, and I’M OVERREACTING?”
She just stares at me, knowing I’ve lost my mind completely. “You’ve lost it,” she croaks. “You look like hell, Justin. What the hell have you been doing? I can smell it, the wine...how much did you have?”
“Did you fuck him too, Ab?” I sneer, ignoring her questions.
Her mouth hangs open for a moment.
“You must have,” I laugh bitterly. “And if you didn’t, you will. What happened, huh? Did he sweep you off your feet with his self righteous, all American bullshit? Tell you that your good for nothing boyfriend back home didn’t matter?”
“I didn’t do anything more than you saw,” she grits out. “He wanted to but...I wouldn’t let him. I would never do that to you.”
I raise an eyebrow. “What do you mean, he wanted to?”
She lets out a rough sounding sigh and puts a hand to her forehead. “He...he wanted to but...but I stopped him, that’s all.”
“So he was touching you.”
“Well...it...”
“Was he or wasn’t he?” I mutter, my eyes narrowed at her.
She won’t look at me. “Yeah. He was.”
I laugh bitterly, and rub my top lip. “So you lied. You said all you did was kiss and now you’re telling me he tried to have sex with you?”
“It just happened,” she tells me, the tears filling her eyes now, and spilling out of them. “I’m sorry, Justin. I am. I was an emotional mess and I have no excuse for it, but it doesn’t mean I don’t love you, all right?”
I stare back at her, knowing she’s speaking from the heart. I hate that she is. That she can give me that kind of an explanation for what she did, like it will make everything just fine between us. I can’t...I can’t accept it. I would never go and feel up some other woman because I was “a mess.”
That shit just doesn’t sit well with me.
I’m disgusted, and I hate that I am, but I can’t deny it any longer.
“So what now?” I ask her. “Why’d you even come back? To tell me this shit? You should have just stayed away, Abbey.”
“I came back because I love you. Why...why can’t you just let me sit with you and talk this out?”
“We’ve talked enough,” I grunt. “Really, what more is there to say? Braeden is home. You don’t need me anymore. Fuck the ring, fuck Paris...fuck it all. It’s just a waste of time now, because you never cared about us. It’s always been about him.”
“You know that’s not true,” she whimpers.
“It’s pretty apparent that it is.”
I walk out on her.
“Justin!”
I’m downstairs in seconds, throwing my jacket on, determined to leave for the store, to let her suffer here on her own, let her know what it feels like to live like I have for a week. I hear her pounding down the steps, calling out my name, and I try hard to get out before she catches up with me, but she’s too quick. She stands in front of the door when I reach it, tears streaminge down her fac, a pleading gaze in her eyes, telling me that she doesn’t want to lose me.
A small voice inside tells me that I don’t want to lose her either.
But I push it away, push her away, because I can’t do this. I can’t wait around, hope that she’ll decide not to go back to him.
I have to protect myself.
“Let me explain.”
“I told you,” I say, my stern tone not relenting. “I’m done talking about it and I’m fucking done with you.”
She sobs. “Baby...please...”
“No.”
“We...we’re a family,” she tells me next. “What about the boys, Justin? What about everything we’ve done for them, together? How happy we’ve been?”
“We were never a fucking family. Me and the boys...that’s a family. You’ve just been around.”
She shakes her head. “Don’t say that.”r32;
“Why,” I say. “It’s the truth.”
She steps forward and reaches out to touch my face. I hate that I let her do it. Something inside of me won’t stop her though, and my eyes close at her touch, because I love it.
But I just don’t know if I’m in love with her anymore.
“Justin, I love you,” she whimpers. “I want to be with you.”
I open my eyes and pull her hand away, gently pushing it down to her side. “I...I don’t think I can love you, or be with you. Not like this.”
“Don’t...don’t give up on me,” she cries, desperate now. I hate it. I hate what this is doing to her. She’s turning into a wreck before my eyes, and it would be easier if I could just get out of here, but she’s not going to give up without a fight, and I know that. I know her. I know how tough she can be when she wants something, and right now, I don’t think she’s wanted anything more in her life.
But it’s...it’s too late.
Protecting myself and they boys is key.
“Braeden came home,” she whispers, moments later. “He came home, Justin. After everything we’ve talked about and confided in one another, I thought you would be the one person who really understood why I needed to go do what I did.”
“I had no problem with you visiting him,” I say to her. “You took it further.”
This is going nowhere. We’re going around in a sick, twisted, circle and it’s driving us both completely crazy.
“Please don’t push me away,” she says softly.
I back away from her, turn my back to her for several minutes, contemplating what the hell I’m supposed to do. I know she can’t stay, and I can’t be with her. It hurts too much and I know that if I give her another chance, in six months...Braeden will contact her and convince her to go back to him. I couldn’t deal with that.
I have to get out. Now. While I still have some dignity.
“Justin, please,” she speaks up hoarsely. “Please look at me.”
I do, and take in a long breath before I start to speak again. “I don’t care about you anymore,” I begin.
She sobs into her hands.
“Maybe...maybe I never did,” I continue, holding back all the emotions inside of me as she sinks to her knees. “Maybe I was lonely...overwhelmed between work and the boys, and I allowed myself to get closer to you. Maybe I forced myself to believe that I’d fallen in love,” I say. “You’re looking for that from me now. You’re looking for me to just...fall apart and break down, get all sappy and tell you that I can’t live without you, that I don’t care what you did with Braeden. I’m not a fucking wimp, Abbey. You and me had a nice run, but now it’s over. That’s all. There’s no more to be said. So just pack your bags...leave. Go fuck your long lost lover and have a nice life.”
She’s a complete mess now. I have good grip on how she feels, like her insides have been ripped out of her body, stomped on and crammed back in senselessly. It’s the way I’ve felt all week, and...months ago when I didn’t have a soul, I would be smiling right now.
But all I can do right now is try desperately to hold my sobs back from her, until she’s out of my sight.
“I want you out,” I say to her next, gently. “I’ll send for the boys tonight so you can say your goodbyes, but I want you out of the house by Monday.”
She won’t say anything more. Won’t beg or plead for the survival of our relationship. She’s too busy curled up on the floor, crying, because what I said was extremely harsh.
But it had to be done, for her own good.
I know she wants to leave.
I’m making it easy for her.
“You better start packing, Abbey.”
She just cries.
I step over her and leave my house, slamming the door behind me without looking back.
I ride the elevator down, walk a couple of blocks, reach a bench and sit. I look straight out into the busy city street, watching the traffic float by endlessly, watching the people on the other side of the street walking and talking together, going about their lives like they don’t have a care in the world.
I wonder what they think of me right now. They probably just think I’m some regular Joe, relaxing on a park bench on this brisk January day.
But there’s so much more going on with me.
The first tear seeps out of my eye, and trails down my face. I sob, trying to tell myself it was just a pathetic cough, but I know I’m not kidding anybody. I lean over, place my face in my hands, and sob again, for real this time...
Knowing I’ve just lost the most important part of my world.
Author's Chapter Notes:
Please don't kill me!
Story Tags: triangles justinandtrace executivej
