Falling for Autumn (22 page)

The vitriol I hurled in his direction shook him up, but after a grimace, he continued on. “I met you and decided I wanted to find out the real story. I tried to be your friend because if you found out I was Thomas’s stepson, I would never learn your version of things.”

I scowled at him as I put distance between us and resumed my perch on the desk. “So you decided to play junior detective and question me about my past? You’re pathetic.”

“It soon became crystal clear you were nothing like I expected and every fear I had about Thomas was confirmed.”

“Okay, so you stopped thinking I was the real predator and your stepfather wasn’t the hapless victim of my feminine wiles. Then why did you continue to stick around?”

“I saw how hard of a time you were having coping with what had happened. I liked you from the get-go and I hated knowing my stepfather caused someone so much misery…”

I shook my head. “I don’t know what’s worse—you trying to investigate me or you thinking your friendship would somehow fix what your father did to me.”

“Nothing could fix it, I realize that. It was a horrible feeling, knowing how much pain someone I loved had caused. And I hated myself for not seeing sooner that there was something dark inside of him. Maybe I could’ve prevented you from getting hurt.”

“So, instead your plan was to make me love you to ease the hurt? Blake, you had to know I was going to find out the truth eventually.”

“I made so many mistakes with you and I told myself to walk away over and over again. But I did feel a connection to you and I found it impossible to break it. I’d see you at a party or at class and I could only think about holding you and kissing you. You had so much warmth about you and I found it unforgivable Thomas had hurt this beautiful girl I was falling for. I had the insane thought that despite the universe saying we didn’t belong together—it could actually work.” Blake ran his hands up and down the side of his face before resting them against his cheeks. His eyes widened and I could feel the desperation of his pleas coming off of him in waves. His entire being was willing me to believe in him. The intensity of his stare forced my eyes away.

“Does he know about us?” Who
he
was stayed unspoken and I hated to even think of his name. Blake was humanizing Mr. Bridges and I resented it. Mr. Bridges was a callous villain and I didn’t want to think of him as a husband and Blake’s surrogate father. Because how could the man who assaulted me be the same man who had helped Blake deal with the loss of his father?

“No. I haven’t spoken to him in more than a year. For the first year he was in prison, I’d go see him and I would demand to know why he would have an affair with a student. He had been a teacher and coach for almost twenty years. What drove him to throw his family and career away? I couldn’t understand why my mom forgave him and why she didn’t hold him accountable for what happened. But my mom has no idea how to survive on her own. She may not have liked what Thomas had done, but she can’t imagine a life without him.”

“He’s getting released next month,” I said in a harsh whisper.

Bla
ke’s shoulders slumped. “I know. My mom told me and Thomas has written me several times from jail. He wants to start over when he gets out and rebuild our relationship.”

“Is that what you want?” I was horrified over the prospect and I was certain the revulsion was clear on my face. Why should Thomas be allowed a fresh start? Would Blake be willing to accept him after knowing the truth about his stepfather?

“I haven’t written him back and I didn’t open up the last two letters he sent. I miss the person I thought he was, but I won’t forgive him.” Blake looked regretful. “My mother will let him know about us and I’m sorry for that. I told her how I feel about you and she’s furious. She sees it as a betrayal and although I told her the truth about our meeting, she’ll warp it around in her mind until she believes you targeted me. I asked her to leave today and told her I didn’t want to see her again.”

Everything he was telling me was too much to process at once. The Blake I had known yesterday was an entirely different person than the Blake who stood before me. He belonged to a family that included Cassie and Thomas Bridges and I had no idea where his loyalties truly lay. I’d known Blake for less than six months and he wanted me to believe he would willingly walk away from his family for me.

“What I’ve done is unforgivable. I’ve lied to you and although you opened yourself up to me, I never did the same.” Blake closed his eyes as he finished. “But I’m asking you to forgive me.
I need you
, Autumn, and I’ll do anything not to lose you. If there’s one thing you have to believe it’s that I love you. I tried to hold back because I understood how dangerous it would be for me to have these feelings—but it was impossible not to fall for you.”

Blake closed the distance between us and kneeled down to press his forehead against my own. My hands itched to push him away, but my eyes closed of their own accord. I breathed him in, understanding it was the last time and feeling lost as I caught his seductive and familiar scent. I didn’t want to be comforted by his nearness, but my body wasn’t cooperating with my brain. I whispered, “How can I forgive you? How can I forget who you are?”

Blake didn’t answer and I felt his arms wrap tentatively around my waist. Blake was a Trojan horse. He was beautiful and I felt as if he had been my prize after all I suffered through. How could I have anticipated what he concealed from the world? His lips grazed across my own and I could feel my mouth tingle when the peck ended. The electricity was still there between us, despite the fraudulence surrounding our relationship.

I moved out of his embrace and crossed the room to regain perspective. Being in his arms clouded my thoughts and made me question whether he was truly the enemy or not. “Blake, I can’t be with you. I took a huge risk trusting you and I can’t do it again. After my attack, I isolated myself and thought I’d never get close to anyone again. You made me feel safe and protected, but my intuition was horribly wrong.”

“I can’t change what I already did, but I promise you I’ll never lie to you again. I waited so long to tell the truth because I wanted to steal as many moments as possible when I was just Blake and you were just Autumn.”

Blake’s size was imposing, but he looked very small suddenly. As if his words were breaking him down and leaving him the most vulnerable he had ever been. But what Blake was asking of me was unimaginable. I couldn’t stay inside a bubble with him and pretend outside forces didn’t exist.

“You should go,” I sighed. I was exhausted, drained dry of all emotion. I no longer had the energy to rage at him. The emptiness inside was growing rapidly and I acknowledged I’d soon be able to escape into the nothingness.

“Will you call me? Can we talk some more?”

“There’s nothing left to say, Blake.” I held my head high as I strode past him and opened the door. “You said you thought before the decent thing would’ve been to walk away. Please, can you do it now? I need you to let me go.”

He joined me at the door and I sensed the unspent energy coming off of him—his seemingly innate need to do more to convince me to give him another chance. “I love you, Autumn
Dorey, and I say a big fuck you to every last person who tells me what I feel for you is wrong. I’d do anything for you and if you want me to leave you alone, I will. But I feel like although I never told you everything about my family,
you still know me
. You get me and I hope if I give you time, you’ll see I want to share everything with you. I want to share every moment, not just the good ones. I can’t take away your pain, but I want to be there whenever you need me.”

“Goodbye, Blake,” I managed and tried to stop the trembling threatening to make my legs give out. He needed to go because if he stayed I would say something I regretted. My heart wrapped around his words and I wanted to reach out and tell him never to leave. He was a beautiful fraud, but maybe if he loved me, could it somehow cancel out the bad parts of him? Could I accept him fully: the good and the bad?

He glided past me and I slammed the door closed behind his retreating back. I rested my forehead against the door and told myself it was all for the best. There was no phoenix that could rise out of the ashes left behind by his betrayal. Every moment of our relationship was fabricated and I couldn’t hand my heart over to a proven liar.

Blake was the son of a monster. He may not have had a blood connection to Mr. Bridges, but he
had been raised by him. I tended to lean toward the nurture side of the nature versus nurture debate and where would that leave Blake? Blake had loved someone so terrible that the very thought of him brought upon a horrible clawing feeling deep in my gut.

But Blake’s words softened me, making me think of my mistakes. I may not have loved Mr. Bridges, but I had respected and admired him. The pain had seared my soul when I realized how wrong I’d been. What had Blake felt the moment it became clear the person he loved was sick and twisted up inside?

I watched the waves break on the shoreline with my mouth set in a grim line. The moonlight reflected over the ocean and I tried to immerse myself in the beauty of the setting. But like each night previous, I couldn’t shut my brain off and stop the sadness from creeping into my heart. I shivered against the cool ocean breeze and blinked rapidly, trying to dispel the tears threatening to escape.

I heard my mother approach and felt the soft chenille blanket rub against my skin as she set it upon my shoulders. I leaned against her and she tucked a stray piece of my hair behind my ear. “I made popcorn and found a few good movies we could watch on TV. Why don’t you come inside?”

My smile was watery as I turned in her direction. “Just give me ten more minutes and I’ll be inside.”

“Are you okay? Do you need to talk?”

“I’m just thinking about going back to school next month. It’s going to be hard.”

My mother’s brow furrowed and she motioned for me to follow her to the set of Adirondack chairs centered on the deck of our beach house rental. We were in Seaside Park, New Jersey, in the second month of our summer vacation at the beach. The house had become a refuge for me after the way things ended with Blake. Although nights were hard, it had been easy to turn off my brain during the day when my mother had a full day of summer activities planned for us. We would go to the beach, shop, and visit all of the touristy destinations overrun with the summer crowds.

The final couple of weeks of the semester before I moved out of the dorms were pure torture. I was nursing a broken heart while trying to study for finals. I gave myself two days to have a good cry and then I decided to turn everything off until I left for the summer. Every time Blake popped into my head, I’d ground my teeth together and force myself to refocus on my coursework. I had worked too hard for my grades to go to hell over a boy. He may be a boy who had stolen my heart before crushing it, but still a boy nonetheless.

My art history professor had been accommodating and I took the exam during the makeup period. My palms were damp and my heart thudded loudly in my head as I walked into the classroom. The memory of the first day of the semester when I had seen Blake caused all
the hurt to come flooding back. A panicked feeling scratched at my chest as I worried Blake rescheduled his exam as well and I’d be forced to see him. I collapsed into one of the desks and focused on the podium at the front of the room as I tried to regulate my breathing.
In and out. In and out.

It wasn’t until the professor handed out the exams that I was able to relax. I couldn’t see Blake yet because I had no idea how to react. It would be easier simply to hate him in the same way I hated his stepfather. I nurtured the hatred of Mr. Bridges, allowing it to grow more and more each passing day. I allowed myself the luxury of thinking of elaborate ways I could hurt him. But those emotions made it impossible to move on. If I was being perfectly honest with myself, allowing myself to love again was what I needed to heal from my past.

Lexi and Casey were my support system as the semester came to a close. They never left my side and they tried to cheer me up while pointedly not mentioning Blake. I tried to rally on their behalf, but it was hard. I wanted to label Blake a liar and a master manipulator and be glad he was out of my life for good. But it wasn’t that straightforward. Because a part of me did believe Blake had developed genuine feelings for the girl his family had declared enemy number one.

I decided to hold off on telling my parents about Blake until after I came home. It felt like a conversation I couldn’t have with them over the phone. It was humbling to approach them and admit once again I failed to see wha
t should’ve been easily discernible. Was there something irrevocably broken inside of me that I couldn’t recognize those with dark intentions in their hearts?

My parents were shocked and I think my easygoing father entertained the idea of hunting Blake down and making him pay for hurting his daughter. My mother wanted to call our lawyer and see if they could file a motion to prevent Blake, and his stepfather upon his release, from making contact. But I didn’t find it necessary to treat Blake in the same way as his stepfather. Blake was many things but he certainly wasn’t cut from the same cloth as Thomas Bridges.

Mr. Bridges was released on the same day my mother and I left for the shore. He would’ve been a fool to seek me out for retribution, but my parents and I weren’t taking any chances. I wanted to be out of state and as far away from Newpine as possible when he was a free man. As it was, a summer in Newpine held no appeal for me. The wounds over what happened during that fateful spring night seemed to fester the closer I was in proximity to the high school.

There was pain at the beach, but I had also found a healing spring. It had come in the form of volunteering at the women’s shelter. I’d been wrong at first to think it would be too much to be around so much suffering. I pictured my pain being contagious and spreading to all those who dared to come near. But when I was at the shelter, it had the opposite effect. It was the strength I
found there that was contagious and was what made me driven to snap out of it and one day be able to move on.

My mother crossed her legs after she sank back into the Adirondack chair. We enjoyed a few minutes of comfortable silence while she waited for me to speak.

“It’s July and I’m going back to Cook in a month and I still feel like the breakup with Blake happened yesterday. I don’t know how I’m going to run into him around campus and not fall apart on the spot.”

“Have you talked to him?”

I shook my head. “I told him to leave me alone and he has. And I should be happy he respected my wishes, but after I wade through all the heartache I have over his lies, I’m left with a hollow feeling knowing he’ll never be a part of my life.” I curled my fingers tightly around the arms of the chair. “I mean I have to let it go, right? It could never in a million years work.”

My mom lifted her legs and brought her knees to her chest. I could see her trying to process my words and wondered what she thought. Getting over Blake should’ve been as easy as it was to mourn my relationship with Hunter. I should be able to walk away relieved I uncovered the truth about him. But there was no relief, only a strong sense of desolation.

“Why couldn’t it work?” I gave her an “are you serious?” look and waited for her to elaborate. “Well, I know the reasons I have for being against a relationship with Blake, but I’m curious over your feelings.”

“Well, he’s a proven liar for one. How could I ever trust him?” Before my mom could reply, I added, “I mean he never outright lied to me about who his stepfather was or wasn’t, but isn’t an omission of that magnitude the same thing?”

“Besides Thomas Bridges being his stepfather, do you think Blake lied to you about anything else? Like what kind of person he was? Or how he felt about you?”

I pulled the blanket tightly around me, tucking my legs underneath my behind. At first, his deception was all I could see when I pictured the time I spent with Blake. His words were infected and polluted the air and nothing he had said to me could be real. But my traitorous heart wouldn’t allow the visual to stick. “No, but he only befriended me because he wanted to see if I was a slut and a liar. What kind of foundation is that for a real relationship?”

“To play devil’s advocate for a minute. Let’s say your father was accused of murder tomorrow. A man you have loved your whole life and that gave you all of the support you needed growing up. Would you believe it? Or would you try to find out the truth before you made your final judgment?”

I gave her a slack-jawed look. “Are you
sticking up
for Blake? You wanted us to take out a restraining order when I told you.”

“I’m not defending him at all. What Blake did was misguided, but the more you tell me about the nature of your relationship, the more doubts I’m having over the maliciousness of his actions. I think he wanted to get to the truth about what happened between you and his stepfather. No one was there that night besides you and Mr. Bridges and Blake’s gut reaction was to believe that the man he loved and respected would never try to rape one of his students.” My mom’s eyes watered and I could hear the hitch in her voice. “From the moment you walked through that door in May, I knew someone evil had hurt you. But I’m your mother and Blake didn’t know you until years after it happened. It sounds like once he got to know you and saw what kind of person you are, he was able to accept the truth about his stepfather.”

“But he was raised by Thomas Bridges. His mother is the woman who went to the press and painted me as the devil incarnate. How can he be a good man? I trusted Mr. Bridges and thought he was a decent human being and didn’t realize my mistake until he grabbed me and forced me into the car.”

My mother shuddered and was quiet again. I liked that about my mom. She was never careless with her words. She understood that once the words were out there, they were much harder to take back. “Did you really trust Thomas Bridges though?”

“Of course I did, he was my teacher.”

“But you told me about his reputation with the female students and how accepting he was of your flirting. If he was someone that could’ve been trusted, he would’ve called you out on any inappropriate behavior and not encouraged it.”

I cringed. “You’re saying I should’ve known being alone with him was a mistake.”

“No, I’m saying you trusted him to not cross the invisible line you created. You trusted him because he was put in that position by the school, not because he earned it. Blake had to earn your trust through his actions. So, if he behaved in a way that made you uncomfortable, you wouldn’t have let him in.” My mother grabbed my hand and I watched as her thumb grazed over my knuckles. “I see how sad you are, Autumn, and I’m scared of you going backwards after all you’ve been through. You’re strong and beautiful, but I think you have a hard time accepting that side of you. Missing Blake doesn’t make you weak, it only means you saw something wonderful inside of him.”

“I did see something wonderful, but every second I spent with him is tainted now. I look back at our time together and now understanding who he is distorts the images.”

“I don’t want you to hurt again and you have to decide for yourself if Blake is deserving of you. In my personal opinion, no one will ever be good enough for you.” I forced a smile in her direction before she continued. “Now that the truth is out there, I’d understand if you wanted to try and make new memories with him that don’t feel contaminated. If he still isn’t the person you thought he was, you’ll be able to have the closure you need to move on.”

It was an intriguing concept, but I wasn’t sure my heart could take it. If we were both stripped bare of all our secrets and I was able to get to know the real Blake Preston, what would he be like? Would he still be kind and funny? Would he still be respectful and gentle? The truth was I had no clue. Because although Blake had been a stranger to me when we met, his preconceptions about me had already been filled in from the second we met. I was unsure exactly how that affected the way our relationship progressed.

Restarting therapy during the summer had helped, but it still hadn’t given me the answers I desperately needed. My therapist was round with a lively personality and I found myself opening up more than I thought after the first couple of sessions. Her name was Kelly and she chewed gum incessantly to try and hide her cigarette addiction. She was the polar opposite of Dr. Fabian, but I still liked her.

During one of our sessions, she had thrown a word out there:
forgiveness
. When she first uttered the word, I thought what a foreign and outrageous concept. But I was learning forgiveness didn’t have to be about granting absolution for sins but being able to find freedom from pain.

I had one month of escapism left. But the bottom line was I’d be returning to Cook in the fall. I was always running and hiding, never having the strength to stand my ground. But my mother was right, I did have a strong spirit and I would always have the fight inside me that had gotten me through my darkest times. I just needed to decide if Blake Preston was worth putting up a fight for.