Almost Too Far (Almost Bad Boys #3) (16 page)

Ten Years Ago

I lost everything today.

My hope.

My faith.

My heart.

All that I had done to protect him didn’t mean a single thing now. I left to give him a better life, a chance for him to follow his dreams just like we’d always talked about. Except in doing that, and leaving him in the dark, I condemned myself to a fate worse than I could have ever imagined. It had only been three months since I’d left him, but it felt like it had been a hundred long, agonizing years.

I needed him and I needed him now, to feel his arms wrapped around me—holding me tight—and telling me everything would be okay.
It’s not going to be okay.
Especially, when the look on the doctor’s face went from hopeful to an outright mask of uncertainty when I told her what was going on. She examined me thoroughly and I gritted my teeth through the pain, trying my hardest to stay positive and calm, but it was no use. The only link I had to the one person I’d given everything up for slowly slipped away from me as each minute passed.

Squeezing my eyes shut, I envisioned in my mind that I was back at home getting ready to have the summer of my life before I left for college. It was supposed to be perfect, just me and Matt enjoying our time by the ocean and being what we were … teenagers. Things weren’t supposed to happen like this.

The ever deafening silence in the room made me want to scream. My eyes burned like fire, scorching me from the inside out as I tried to hold back the tears. Was I stupid for still wanting to hold onto hope? That maybe there was still a chance.

This can’t be happening to me. It’s all just a bad dream. It has to be a bad dream.

Shaking my head quickly, I finally opened my eyes only to be blinded by the fluorescent lights of the examination room. The table felt like a boulder against my back, but I lay there, numb to everyone and to everything around me, silently letting the tears fall. I had to brace myself for what was to come.

Jace and Lexi, who were my two closest friends at Berkeley, both squeezed my hands, bringing me back to reality. Lexi, in her Hello Kitty pajamas and her blonde hair in a messy ponytail, tried to stay strong for me, but I could tell she was barely hanging on by a thread. Jace was a different story. He was literally the strong one out of the trio both—literally and physically—however, even the strongest ones broke at times. I could see it in his melancholy, crystal blue gaze that he was also trying his hardest to stay strong.

It all happened when we were studying together in my apartment, eating pizza like we always did for the past few Wednesday nights, when something went terribly wrong. I’d had a few issues before, but everything came back normal after the tests, so I thought I was in the clear. I didn’t understand why it was happening again.

Jace and Lexi rushed me to the emergency room as fast as they could, hoping that I’d be okay like I was before. This time was different, though; I could feel it in my blood and I could sense the spark of life dying inside of me as each second passed. A person knows when something is wrong, and I knew something was terribly wrong.

I was so angry with myself that I couldn’t even look at my friends without feeling ashamed of how weak I was. I did everything right, and everything I was supposed to do to keep myself healthy and strong.
What more could I do?

Lips trembling, I bit down hard, not even caring about the pain or the metallic taste of blood on my tongue, and turned my head away. Jace brushed the tears off my cheeks with the pad of his thumbs, but as soon as he did, more fell in their place. It was hopeless.

Putting his forehead to mine, while his other arm wrapped gently around my shoulder, he leaned in and whispered in my ear, “We’re here for you, Shels. I texted your mother and she said she’ll be down here soon. You’re not alone, okay? I’ll stay in here with you if you want me to.”

“Same here,” Lexi agreed, putting her arm around me as well. “I’m not going anywhere either.”

Swallowing hard, I nodded quickly, and squeezed my eyes shut. “Thank you,” I whispered hoarsely, trying to hold onto their warmth. I was cold, my body trembling and teeth chattering as I tried to take in a deep breath.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Dr. Jacobs place her stethoscope on the desk before hesitantly turning toward me with sorrow-filled eyes. “What did I do wrong?” I asked her. Hearing the sound of my voice, I could barely recognize the strangled cry that left my lips. I was heartbroken, and I felt … empty. I guess it was because I was.

She swallowed hard and took a deep breath, approaching me slowly. Her strawberry blonde hair was smoothed back in a tight bun, and even with her glasses on it still didn’t hide the turmoil in her midnight blue eyes.

“You didn’t do anything wrong, sweetheart,” she answered soothingly, placing her hand gently on my arm. Her lips quivered when she tried to reassure me with a smile, but it only added to the grief. “Sometimes it just happens and there’s nothing you can do to prevent it. It doesn’t mean that it will always happen like this. You’re young and healthy. One of these days, when the time is right, it will happen again. I’ve been through it, too, so I know the pain you must be feeling. The last thing you need to do is blame yourself. It’s not your fault.”

I nodded quickly, but nothing was going to take away the pain of my loss … of both of my losses. Was it karma rearing its ugly head and taunting me for making the wrong decisions in life? Could it honestly be that cruel to make me pay with such a high price? The desolation and despair I felt in my chest was like a blunt-edged knife burrowing deep into my soul, ripping me from the inside out. I honestly felt like I would die from the torment because it was so overpowering; it was as if the shadow surrounding me sucked away every ounce of happiness I had ever felt.

How can I go back to the way things were?

The answer was simple … I couldn’t.

Present Day

There were times in my life when I’d just sit and wonder … wonder what my life would’ve been like if I’d stayed and followed my heart; if I’d done things differently. I knew I wasn’t the only person in the world who felt regret, but what I wanted to know was why did I feel so alone? I had everything I could ever want, and yet it still wasn’t enough. Would it ever be enough?

“Shelby, what are you doing here? I thought Bryan told you to take the day off? Not to mention, I figured you’d be hung over after last night’s festivities,” a voice from behind me scolded playfully.

Ah yes … last night.
My boss, Bryan Winters, did tell me to take the day off, but I hadn’t had one in so long I forgot what they felt like. After winning two National Journalism Awards and getting a promotion, I definitely deserved to celebrate. However, I think I over did it with one too many martinis and getting a little too comfortable with a guy I met at the after party.

Gazing out of my office window at the San Francisco Bay, I didn’t have to turn around to know it was Lexi Martin, my headstrong best friend and other half for the past ten years. I could see her reflection in the window, and like always, she had her bright blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail with her Nikon camera securely wrapped around her neck. She never went anywhere without taking pictures of something. There were more pictures of us in college than there were of me as a child.

With a sly expression on my face, I peered at her over my shoulder and replied, “Lex, you know I practically live here at the office. Besides, Jace fixed me one of his cure all smoothies this morning so I feel fine. I guess his studies in Nutritional Science paid off. Anyway, it takes a lot more than that to get me down.”

I really need to figure out what he puts in those drinks, I thought to myself as I turned back to the window.

Jace Harding was one of my closest friends and currently sharing a house with me now that Lexi had moved out to live with her fiancé. I thought it would be a little difficult explaining Jace to the guys I dated, but once I told them he was gay it all worked out just fine. It wasn’t like I went on many dates, anyway. Jace and I had lived together for the past nine years, and not only was he a wonderful friend, he was family; more like the protective brother I never had since I grew up an only child.

Sometimes I hated not having any siblings. Lexi had a younger sister she was close to, and for that I envied her. They always spent time together, and had a bond that I would never have. Maybe that was a reason why I focused mainly on work and not relationships; work was my significant other.

Staring at my reflection in the window, it was hard to believe that my face now appeared in every issue of the prestigious,
Physique Sports and Fitness Magazine.
In college, all I ever wanted was to work for a prominent magazine and I got my wish. The only thing about my success with
Physique
was that the articles I wrote and became well known for were under my pen name, Paige Monroe. For some reason, I didn’t think Shelby Dawson sounded marketable so I changed my name and my whole appearance in the process. It felt good being someone else for a change. Most people at the office usually called me Paige so in a way it felt like I lived a double life. Only Lexi and my boss called me by my real name.

If I was going to be someone else I might as well play the part, right?

My shoulder-length hair was no longer a dull shade of ashy brown—like it was for all of my life—instead, it was now a dark, chocolate brown with honey highlights that matched the color of my eyes. It was also longer in length, which worked great to throw it up into a messy bun on those lazy days.

I graduated from Berkeley with a journalism degree, earning numerous awards among my peers, which happened to get me noticed by the right people. Three weeks after graduating, I found myself in a swank office with a wonderful view and doing what I loved. In the process, I was able to bring Lexi along with me so that she could put her photography skills to good use for my articles.

To get my attention, Lexi tapped her fingers on my desk and cleared her throat. “Hey, no amount of spacing out is going to get you off the hook of giving me details. You never called to tell me what happened between you and Caleb last night. You know Hayley brought him specifically to the party to meet you, right?”

Wide-eyed, I quickly turned around and gasped in disbelief, “What? I had no idea.”

Lexi smiled, batting her eyelashes innocently at me, but she wasn’t fooling me; I knew that look. Her and her fiancé, Will, have tried numerous times to set me up with some of his friends, but none of them interested me. They were all arrogant and completely self-involved, and most of all they were boring. Somehow, it didn’t surprise me that Hayley wanted to try next.

Hayley was Lexi’s younger sister by only two years, and a dance choreographer with numerous music videos under her belt. Her parents made her visit me and Lexi at Berkeley in hopes that we would convince her to go to college instead of pursuing a career in dancing. Hayley had always been headstrong and determined to get what she wanted, so it was no surprise that after high school she followed her dreams against her parents’ wishes. She had guts, and I loved that about her.

Crossing my arms at the chest, I glared at Lexi and sighed. “She didn’t want to tell me because she knew I would get pissed if she brought a blind date to my party, right?”

Sheepishly, Lexi slumped down in her chair. “Yeah, kind of. She was almost positive you would like him, so she offered me two tickets to see One Direction in concert if I added her boyfriend and Caleb to the after party list. It worked out great, didn’t it? He’s cute and you both seemed to hit it off pretty well. Since you didn’t know it was a blind date, there wasn’t all of that blind date awkwardness that you hate so much.”