Forgive Me (8 page)

After getting dressed, I head back down to my temporary room. In front of the full length mirror I brush out my hair and braid it down off to one side quickly, purposely letting it look a little mused. I add a little makeup and line my lips in a juicy gloss.

Its useless at this point to pretend I’m looking good for nobody in general. All I could think about before falling asleep was Zander. All I could dream about was Zander. I woke up thinking about Zander, nearly sensing he is next to me. Yet, he wasn’t. He can’t be. He is going to be getting married soon. This is all ridiculous. Yet, here I am, sliding my feet into wedged sandals and spritzing some floral perfume on my skin. Heck, I even adjust my tank top to make it look as though I have some cleavage. That’s a first.

I grab some of the platters on the countertop on my way outdoors, then I bring it over to where Faith is laying everything else out. She smiles at me, but I can see the hidden meaning behind it. Zander is here, with his fiancé. Our son is on his way. My heart still belongs to him.

Oh, and here comes Tanner, with Bray.

Yeah, this is going to be a fan-fuckin-tastic day!

Tanner smiles warmly when our eyes meet. I walk his way and give him a small hug. “Sorry for taking off last night,” I whisper.

“Sorry for upsetting you.” He pulls back and smiles a little wider for just a quick second before it completely fades away. I can feel the hair stand on end with the ragged breath on my neck. I have no doubt its Bray, about to attack.

I slowly turn with a sad smile and she looks at me with a stone cold stare. I admit, it hurts. Her lips press together as her eyes look me up and down, her head shaking back and forth so slowly. The silence surrounding us is deafening, and I’m pretty sure all eyes are on us. It’s a showdown, one that I do not want to have.

Finally, I break the silence. “Bray,” I say with a hint of a smile.

She scuffs.

She has to be somewhat okay with me being here or else she wouldn’t have shown. Somewhere deep down, she has got to be happy to have me around. To be back, in her life. To be safe. “You’re actually here?” She raises a perfectly plucked eyebrow. Actually, now that I look at her, everything is perfect. Just as I imaged she would be. Beautiful is the biggest understatement I can think of when I look at Bray.

I look down at my feet, feeling beat down just by her scrutiny alone. I nod my head a little, unable to find my voice all of a sudden. A new set of feet join in seconds later and I immediately recognize Faith’s brown strapped sandals.

“Ladies,” she says in a sweet, yet threating tone. Warning us to take this somewhere else, or settle it a different time. I’d rather get it over and done with, but not with all these people around.

I look up to Faith and give her an apologetic smile. “No problem,” I tell her.

With a huff of breath, Bray turns on her heels and walks away from us. From me. The only best friend I’ve ever had in my life- besides my grandmother and my child. Pathetic to say the least. Either way, she just walked away from me, as I walked away from her all those years ago. My heart cracks, bleeding out a little more than it already has. I’m pretty sure I was born with a heart three times a normal size, because it keeps cracking, yet it hasn’t quite shattered.

Then again, if my heart were bigger than a normal one, I wouldn’t have hurt all these people.

Therefore, my heart must be made of solid steel, and it’s bending and breaking. All the destruction I leave behind me has to be against the laws of science.

With a clearing of my throat, I keep my chin up, my back straight, and I walk to the cooler in a calm and collective manner. Then I grab one of the beers that I apparently have no choice but to get used to, I open it, and guzzle it down much faster than should be humanly possible. Yeah, that part was no so smooth, but very much needed.

Within twenty minutes, everyone Faith invited has arrived except for Justin and Rease. This includes my dad and Torin, who both have ignored me even more so than Bray and Zander. It’s fine, because my taste buds have made no choice in the fact of getting used to the beer, and I’m now guzzling down my fourth one.

Just as everyone is starting a buffet line, I head indoors to use the bathroom. The second I get inside, I start mumbling to myself about how much bullshit this all is. This is ridiculous. I could have made this right a near decade ago, and I didn’t. I was scared of my mom, scared of what people would think, scared of being cut off from the little support I did have. I was scared of so much. All that fear I had has nothing on what I feel now.

I’m not only scared of everything, but I’m heartbroken. I’m weak. I’m embarrassed. I’m sad. I’m lonely. And even with all that, I’m a horrible person still.

Mid-stream while peeing, the door opens and I try my best to cover up to no avail. The door slams and I look over to the most pissed off looking bull I’ve ever seen. “Do you mind?” I yell.

“No, not at fucking all.” I watch as he works his jaw back and forth.

Using my finger, I make a twirl in the air, asking him to turn around. He reluctantly listens to me, steam blowing out of his ears, and I quickly wipe. The second my shorts are back in place, I tell him its fine to turn around, making sure I give a little attitude for interrupting my privacy like that.

He doesn’t just turn to face me, but he storms towards. I may as well be waving a red flag, begging for him to charge directly at me. That is how I feel. No, I actually feel more like a rodeo clown, playing around with the bull. Pissing him off more. Wanting to get him caged, but knowing its no use.

“Za-za,” I clear my throat and start over. “Zander.”
There, that’s better.
“You couldn’t wait three minutes, or knock, or something?”

“Do you think I’m some kind of idiot?” His heated glaze stares me dead in my own eyes and I feel two inches tall. I can see all the muscles in his gorgeous body tense and move, as his flared nostrils inhale and exhale short, curt breaths.

I don’t want to go and assume anything- you know what they say about assuming- so I play it dumb. Yeah, either way, I guess I’m making an ass out of me. Out of us. Great, just great. “Of course not.” I honestly don’t know what more to say.

His hand flies out into the direction of the closed door. “Your son arrived.”

I swallow the lump of panic forming in my throat and try to think of a million and one ways to get the hell out of this situation, but I can’t. I just nod my head, and give a simple remark. “Thanks for letting me know. I should go say hi.”

I try to go around but his arm comes out, stopping me in my tracks. “Lexi,” he spits my name in my ear. The tone he uses hurts. It breaks down a barrier. It reminds me, once again, just how horrible of a person I really am.

“Zander.” His name comes out in a near whimper. I’m sure he knows just how damn terrified I am. I’m not terrified of his anger though, no, I’m terrified of what he is thinking of me right now. What he is thinking of his son. Our son.

“How old is he? Huh?” He grabs my left hand, examining it with his thumb and pointer finger. “You’ve never been married.” It’s a fact, not a question. “You sure as hell didn’t adopt him. He has your eyes and ears.” In a different circumstance, I’m sure I’d laugh that he just compared our ears, but I don’t. I can’t.

My lip starts to quiver as I attempt to answer but nothing comes out.

“When the
fuck
were you going to tell me?” His lips are so close to my ear, they both start ringing and immediately pulsate after. My heart feels as though its in my stomach right now. My hands are shaking and my knees are weak. My legs are wobbling, and everything around me just blurs.

“Lexi?” I can hear him in the distance but all of a sudden the fading white turns to gray, then into black, and all I can hear are distant echoes of nothingness. My thoughts are scattered and my body warms, contradicting the shaking its currently doing.

I feel my body getting lifted and carried as though I were a child, until its being laid on a flat surface. I can feel the vibrations of someone speaking but I’m not hearing the words or seeing anything but pitch black. It all fades into less until I’m not seeing, hearing, or feeling anything. Nothing.

I thought I wanted to feel empty, but really, maybe not so much.

I’m springing to life when I’m soaked in ice cold water. The breath I inhale burns my throat as my skin crawls in liquid cold. “What the fu-“ I look over and see Zander with a bucket held in front of him, a smug smirk in place of his lips.

Ass.

“What happened?” I choose to ask instead of the other.

His eyebrows shoot up, like I should know. “I’m pretty sure you had an anxiety attack or something.”

I’ve never had one of those, so that is just weird. I’ve had anxiety, but not to the point of blacking out like that. Maybe I had too much to drink. Four beers the morning after drinking, I really wouldn’t be all that surprised.

He pulls some of my gym shorts and a new tank top out of my top drawer, then he digs through the next two doors until I’m thrown a sports bra and a pair of my embarrassing cotton underwear. “Get dressed before you get hypothermia.”

“Yeah, because I’m going to get that when its over a hundred degrees out.” I get out of bed anyways, and start immediately stripping it from its bedding.

I’m pushed aside my Zander as he finishes what I was doing. “Get dressed,” he barks out. With a roll of my eyes, I pick up the clothing and march across the hall into Justin’s room to quickly get dressed. When I walk back into the guest room, Zander is laying towels down on the bed, soaking up the water.

That should teach him.

“Why would you pour water on me like that, anyways?”

His body tenses but he doesn’t answer and he doesn’t face me. He continues soaking up the water on the mattress, and I continue watching his muscles flex. He certainly works hard, that much is for sure. I only wish I could see him in his dirty work attire, boots and hat, dripping in sweat. I already know its got to be one of the best views. Better than a sunset, or a blue jay perched on a tree, or a baby fawn running asides its mother.

“Stop biting that damn lip and talk to me,” Zander orders. My eyes immediately snap to his and I realize that I was mentally undressing him, with my eyes where they sure as hell shouldn’t be, and he most definitely just caught me. Oops. Damn those beers and this hot guy.

I clear my throat and pull out my hair tie, giving me something to do. We continue a stare down while I comb my fingers through my now damp hair, and I fix my side braid. He waits patiently until its fixed, and continues waiting until I fix my somewhat smudged makeup in the full length mirror. As I’m about to turn around, I catch his eye sight in the mirror from behind me. His eyes roam my body, even though you can’t see my curves in my sportswear.

“Almost ten years,” he says out of the blue.

I just nod my head, staring at him. I’m pretty sure he is eyeing my ass right now, but I don’t say as much. His goes down towards my calves and quickly make their way back up. When they rest back on mine, he hypnotizes me to stay in the same spot as he takes a few steps forward, standing directly behind me. My body is all too aware of him standing so close, like its magnetized to his. My heart a negative, his a positive, and they’re making a zing filled charge, connecting us in a hyperaware power.

“Lexi,” his voice caresses my name. Much different than earlier, when he was angered and distraught.

I swallow everything I’m feeling and turn to face him directly, instead of in through the mirror. We seem to have a conversation using just our eyes and no words at all. After a few moments his eyes close slowly and I can see the pain behind his expression. I don’t know what the pain is for- if its because he has a son in general, or because
we
share a child, or because of the fact he doesn’t know his own offspring.

With a large inhaled breath, he slowly opens his eyes and exhales through his nose. He repeats his earlier words. “Almost ten years.”

“I’m so sorry, Zander,” I finally say. Wow, those words feel good. I’ve needed to say them, and I’m ashamed I’m just now doing that, but the weight of the world has been lifted from me and I feel as though I can fly.

Okay, that is exaggerating a lot. I do, however, feel much better.

Even with the pain searing across his face.

“Why haven’t you told me?”

I lick at my lips, thinking how I can explain this so he can understand. “I wanted to. I was going to. It was three days before I planned to tell you and my mom walked into the bathroom the same time I happened to be throwing up from the morning sickness. I was in a sports bra and she could see the belly. She knew, there was no denying it. She made me pack up, right then and there, and I was on a plane within three hours. She told me if I ever told anyone, than she’d cut me off from any support. She said everyone would disown me. That you wouldn’t love me or Justin. She terrified me. When I finally knew she was so very wrong, and nothing could hurt me more than losing you, it was already too late. It was years down the road and everything was going so great. We have a life. We’re healthy and happy, and you are too, and I didn’t want to burden you. I assumed you had moved on. I assumed you’d have a little one or two running around here by now, that you were already married. I didn’t want to interrupt all that.”

Wow. I should curtsy and thank the audience. I cannot believe I said all that, without tears, without a second thought, without stuttering. And luckily, Zander listened.

He takes a few steps forward until we’re breathing each other’s breaths. “Lexi,” he says softly, leaning in closely. I can taste his words on my lips, and it takes a lot of effort not to shutter at the proximity between us. “You should have told me.”

My eyes close until I’m being pushed back. They snap open the same time my back is pressed against the chilled wall. Zander’s hands go to my hips and he lifts me up until I’m on the tip of my toes. His mouth comes crashing down on mine so hard and fast, I feel dizzy all over again. Our lips glide against the other, remembering the tastes, the sparks, the bliss, the euphoria, the love. All of it. Everything we had. They’ve been connected and they’re being connected again. The pieces are being piled back on together.