Chapter 21 – Run

Run, Addy.

Her subconscious immediately started screaming at her as her heart tried to process the shock. Her feet were slowly moving by themselves, taking steps backwards.

Run.

Before she knew it, that was exactly what she started to do – turn around and walk away quickly, setting the drinks she had been holding down on a counter. She ran to grab her coat and purse where Nick had taken them when they had arrived at the party, and as she walked into the living room to head to the door, she eyed Joey.

Slinging her coat over her arm, she walked over to him and gently grabbed his arm to get his attention.

“Addy,” he said as he turned around towards her. “Weren't you supposed to go back outside to Lance?”

“Yeah, about that,” she said. “Something came up, I have an emergency. If you see Joanna or Nick, can you tell them I had to leave and I'm so sorry I didn't say goodbye?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Emergency? What emergency? Is everything okay?”

“No, it'll be fine,” she said hurriedly. She had no time to think through her lie. “I just have to go.”

“Wait, isn't Lance going with you?”

“No, Joey, he's not,” she responded. “He doesn't even know I'm leaving – and if he asks you, this conversation never happened.”

“Adeline, what the hell is going on?” Joey asked, feeling frantic. “What happened?”

“Why don't you ask him?”

Adeline started walking toward the door, until Joey grabbed her arm to stop her.

“No, that won't do,” he said, pulling her back towards him. “Don't you run from me without telling me what is going on and why you expect me to lie to my best friend and your fiance.”

“Joey, if you love me...you'll let me leave.”

She hated to throw his own advice back in his face, but she was still satisfied when he let go of her arm.

“Just don't tell Lance about this,” she said as she grasped her purse tightly and walked off toward the door, leaving him speechless.

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Lance was stunned silent. He had been talking with Mackenzie innocently, despite her odd behavior and the way she had cornered him. In fact, for a few minutes, he would even say they started to get along – but that was before she had reached up and grabbed him, pulling him into a kiss.

He had tried to push her away – a part of him didn't want to, but she had such a grip on him that the other part that did want to couldn't manage to push her away from his body. When he finally did manage to, both of them stood staring at each other, frozen.

“What the hell is your motive, Kenzie?” he asked. “You don't want me, but nobody else can have me?”

“I do want you,” she said. “That's why I came back. I want to get back together.”

“Yeah, insulting my girlfriend, assaulting me, and generally acting like a psychotic bitch is the perfect way to accomplish that,” he said. “I'm sorry, Kenz – I'm sorry that things ended the way that they did with us, but I've moved on. For a second, I really thought that we could move past this...craziness, and be friends. But I realize now that's a bad idea. Someone will get end up getting hurt. And to be honest, I don't want that to be Addy. It would break my heart.”

“You're making a big mistake, Lance,” she said as he started walking away. “She'll never be able to give you what you want. You'll never be able to live the life you want with her.”

“Yeah,” he said, turning around to face her one last time. “But you want to know something, Mackenzie? You made a big mistake when you left me last year to move to Germany. That was a mistake you thought you had to make, and you were right. We're both better off without each other, I think. Even if I'm making a mistake by marrying Addy – it's a mistake I have to make.”

Before she could say another word, he opened the patio door and closed it quickly. Finally inside, the warmth from the house hit him and he finally realized how long he had been outside and how cold it was. He shivered as he felt the goosebumps on his skin.

“There you are,” Joanna said as she walked into the kitchen. “I've been looking for you for half an hour. Where the hell have you been?”

“Outside.”

“All this time?” she said, surprised. “It's freezing out there, what have you been doing?”

“Dealing with an overload of batshit crazy,” he said. “Who was drunk enough to let Mackenzie into the party?”

“Mackenzie?” Joanna exclaimed. “Nobody let Mackenzie into the party. I don't want that crazy bitch coming anywhere near me or my house, Lance.”

“Looks like you need to get a security system, then – or a dog,” he said. “Because she's out there.”

“She must have snuck in behind someone else. Nick might have let her in, I don't think he's ever met her. Damn it.”

Joanna walked to the patio door with zest, opened the door and turned on the porch light from inside, popping her head outside to look around. She quickly came back inside and shut the door.

“Are you sure you're not hallucinating?” she said. “There's nobody out there.”

“No, she was definitely there, every deranged part of her. She must have decided to leave because she didn't get what she wanted.”

“What did she want?”

“She wanted to get back together,” he said.

“God, you dodged a bullet with her,” Joanna responded. “I know you were hurt at first so I didn't say anything, but Lance, she's a lunatic.”

“Yeah, thanks for being such a great friend and warning me before I was going to marry her,” he said sarcastically.

“Wait – how does she know where I live?”

The question hadn't crossed his mind, and he paused to think about it.

“Did you tell her?” she asked.

“No,” he said. “This is the first time I've talked to her since she left the apartment.”

Joanna felt an uneasiness come over her stomach.

“Have you seen Addy?” he asked. “She was with me a while ago but I haven't seen her since then. It's been a while.”

“I stopped to talk to her for a minute, then I saw her talking to Joey,” Joanna said. “That was a few minutes ago. I haven't seen her since then.”

He walked off to find Adeline without another word to Joanna. There were a lot more people in the house than when they had arrived, so he searched through the crowd. It took a couple of glances, but he finally saw Joey by the front door with a couple of people he didn't know.

He walked through people and up to Joey, tapping him on the shoulder.

“Hey, is Addy still with you?”

Joey gave him an unsettling look.

“No, she's not,” he responded.

“Do you know where she went? I'm looking for her.”

Joey shifted his weight and briefly looked away.

“Joey?” Lance said, sensing his uncomfort.

“She left,” Joey said. “I wasn't supposed to tell you, but she was upset and I'm worried about her.”

“What do you mean she was upset? About what?”

“I don't know,” he said with a shrug. “She said to ask you. What happened?”

A feeling of dread overtook Lance, and he sighed.

“Shit, she saw Mackenzie,” he whispered.

“Mackenzie?” Joey exclaimed. “Mackenzie was here?”

“She snuck in,” Lance said. “Showed up to cause trouble. Addy must have seen her come in and it upset her. Did she say where she was going?”

“Not a word,” Joey said. “She said she had an emergency and she had to leave. She looked totally freaked out.”

“I have to go find her,” Lance said, walking off to grab his coat with Joey following. “She doesn't do well in large groups; she might have panicked and taken off.”

“I don't think so,” Joey said. “It sounded like she was upset at you. What happened with Mackenzie?”

Lance stopped to grab his coat and turned around to face Joey.

“She kissed me,” he said in a low voice.

“Lance,” Joey groaned.

“I have to find her,” Lance said, realizing that if he didn't walk away, Joey would stop to lecture him. “Tell Joanna I had to leave.”

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Lance wasn't surprised that he hit New Year's Eve traffic on his way home. He had tried many times while he was behind the wheel waiting to call her cell phone, but every time he only reached her voicemail. He couldn't be sure she had gone back to his apartment, or that she was even upset at him and ignoring his calls.

He also couldn't be sure she had actually seen Mackenzie, because no one else seemed to. He tried to let himself believe that she had been overwhelmed by the amount of people at the party, had gotten tired and was now at home sleeping and didn't hear her phone. He hoped she hadn't gone back to her own apartment, because he couldn't imagine driving there as well to check on her.

By the time he reached his own apartment building and rode up the elevator, he was too tired to consider it. If she wasn't here, he had no choice but to collapse in his own bed and plan to look for her in the morning – and hope she was okay, in the meantime.

The minute he opened the door and saw her sitting on the couch with one lamp in the living room on, he breathed a sigh of relief.

“Thank God you're home,” he said. “I couldn't find you anywhere. You wouldn't answer your phone. You had me worried, Addy.”

She said nothing, but he could see she was biting her lip.

“Are you as done with tonight as I am?” he asked as he walked through the entryway and straight to the kitchen. He threw his keys on his table and went straight to the fridge to grab a beer. “How about a movie or something? Hey, let's put in Star Wars. That way neither of us will be upset if we fall asleep half...”

He had walked into the living room and was stopped in his tracks when he saw two suitcases sitting beside her, in front of her feet.

“You've packed for Los Angeles already?” he asked, hoping he would get the right answer.

“No,” she whispered. It was only then that he noticed she had a steady stream of tears running down her cheeks.

They were both silent for a moment, and she wiped away tears with a heavy hand.

“I saw you kiss her,” she finally said, barely above a whisper. “Through the glass.”

He closed his eyes and silently sighed, the sense of dread coming back.

“Adeline, you didn't see what you think you did,” he said.

“I saw your lips on hers,” she said, more tears falling. “What else do I need to see?”

“The whole story,” he said softly. “She kissed me. It wasn't the other way around.”

“Does it matter which way it went?” she asked, her voice getting louder. She finally looked up and her red eyes connected with his. “The end result was the same – the two of you together.”

“But it wasn't like that.”

“I don't care what it was like!” she screamed, suddenly standing up from the couch. “I put all my trust in you when I didn't have much left to begin with. And you took it all and threw it away, and now you're trying to convince me that it wasn't like that? What was it like then? Why should I overlook what I saw because you say my eyes are deceiving me?”

“I'll admit that you saw what you saw,” he said. “It happened, but it didn't happen like you think it did.”

“It still happened,” she said. “And I'm walking out of a marriage with a cheater already; I refuse to walk into another one.”

“What are you planning to do?” he asked, looking at her then at the suitcases. “Leave?”

“That's exactly what I'm planning to do.”

The stone-cold, tearful look she gave him made his stomach fall to his feet.

“You were right, Lance,” she said. “I don't want to resent you in a year when I decide this isn't what I wanted.”

“Can you at least give me a chance to explain?” he asked.

“Explain what?” she asked as she pulled up the handle on her rolling suitcase. “That she's just a friend that happened to kiss you? It was completely innocent? That's what my husband said. Is that how it went?”

He stayed silent, only looking into her eyes.

“That's what I thought,” she said.

She pulled on her suitcase as she started to walk away from him, but he grabbed her wrist.

“Ad, please don't walk away from me.”

“Don't call me Ad.”

The familiar tone in her voice from months before, when they didn't get along, came back at him, biting.

“You can't up and walk away,” he said, regretting what he was about to bring up already. “You're my employee.”

“And that's why I quit,” she snapped at him, pulling her wrist from his grasp.

As she rolled her suitcase towards the door, he tried to think of all the ways he could make her stay. As he had last year when he had been in the same situation, he came up empty.

“Adeline, please don't leave,” he said, trying not to beg, walking after her as she crossed into the entryway out of his sight. “Let me talk to you.”

With her hand on the doorknob, she stopped and turned to him.

“I let you see a part of me that I don't let anyone else see,” she said quietly. “I let down my guard and let you in. I trusted that you wouldn't hurt me – and you did.”

She looked down at her suitcase, second guessing her decision, but quickly pushed the thoughts away.

“I won't make that mistake again,” she said. “Goodbye, Lance.”

She inhaled a breath of air and before he could stop her again, she opened the door and pulled her suitcase along with her. She avoided looking behind her as she closed the door on him, fearing that he would see the tears that had started rolling uninhibited down her cheeks.

She walked quickly down the hall towards the elevator, knowing if she could make it there before she broke down, she would be safe. The walk felt longer than it even had the first day she had walked into this building, and when she finally made it into the elevator, she sat down in the corner as it finally took her over.

This is for the best, she thought as she sobbed. If he hurt you now, he would hurt you again later. They all do. Marc did in the beginning, Lance would too...it's for the best.

It was hard for her to believe that as much as he had tried to convince her that her husband was a cheater, he had ended up doing the same thing. Not only was it contradictory to the way she thought he felt about her, it was uncharacteristic to the personality he had shown her while she had worked with him. As Stephanie had told her, he wasn't perfect and he had definite flaws, but fidelity was a positive characteristic she thought he had.

I guess I was wrong again, she thought. And at least I know now. It's for the best.

She was still sobbing in the corner when the elevator stopped and the doors opened to let someone on. She lifted her head from her hands to look up, and saw the business man, dressed down more casually with a professional camera around his neck, step onto the elevator.

She only briefly looked at him, turning her head away and trying to collect herself so he didn't see how awful she assumed she looked – but his eyes remained on her.

“Are you okay?” he suddenly asked as the elevator resumed moving.

She looked up without thinking. “I'm fine,” she said quietly. “I've had a bad night.”

“Break up with your boyfriend?” he said.

“Yeah,” she said with a nod, surprised that he could read her so well. “He apparently wanted to be with his ex more than he did me.”

He whistled. “That's bad. I'm sorry.”

She swallowed, feeling more tears threatening to fall.

“Guys like that,” he continued, “they're bad news anyway. You don't want to spend the rest of your life with someone like that.”

“I wish I could tell my heart that,” she said.

“You'll be able to eventually,” he said. “Trust me. In a few months, you'll look back on this and realize that it was for the best and you made the right decision. You'll move on and realize you're better off. You'll be okay, Addy.”

Suddenly, her head snapped up.

“How do you know my name?”

Before he could answer, the elevator dinged and the doors opened. As he stepped out of the door into the lobby, he looked down at her and simply smiled. Without a word, he walked away, leaving her behind.

An uneasy feeling hit her as she stood up and grabbed the handle of her suitcase.

How would he know my name? she asked herself. I've never introduced myself to him. Lance never introduced us. Come to think of it, he never saw me with Lance – how would he know I had a boyfriend?

The doors started to close on her and she reached out to stop them, grabbing her suitcase handle.

Stop, Addy, you're paranoid again, she thought as she gathered herself. You've been at this building every day for three months, a lot of Lance's neighbors know you, you've practically lived here for over a month. She inhaled a breath. But not anymore.

She pushed her uneasiness aside and stepped off the elevator, rolling her suitcase behind her, dreading walking out of the building for the very last time.