Full Circle (43 page)

“I got you a Sprite from the vending machine.
For your stomach.”

He saw the bottle of soda on the table on his
side of the bed, and guilt flooded him again. No way did she
believe his stomach was upset from dinner, and yet she played
along, allowing him to think she believed him. “Thanks.”

Awkward silence stretched between them as he
kept his back to her, unmoving, his mind racing down a dozen
terrible paths.

“Want to watch a movie?” Her voice betrayed
her eagerness to right their ship so they could sail blissfully
onward once more.

He closed his eyes and bowed his head. “No.”
This was one time the ship would remain capsized.

“Okay,” she said quietly, obviously
disappointed.

He should apologize. He should turn around
and look at her. Hold her. Tell her everything was okay.

But he couldn’t. Right now, he couldn’t bear
to see the scared, wary look in her eyes. The same look Carol had
given him when he’d found her fucking Antonio when she was supposed
to be marrying him. The same look she’d given him tonight when he’d
grabbed her arms to keep her from falling. He didn’t want to see
that look in Karma’s eyes, because that would make everything far
too real.

Instead, he lifted the covers and climbed
underneath, on his side, facing away from her.

“I’m going to cancel my visit with Holly
tomorrow,” she said quietly. “So we can head home early.”

“That’s fine.”

He couldn’t see Carol, anyway. Not after what
had just happened. He wasn’t ready. His reaction tonight proved
that.

The TV clicked off, and Karma lay down behind
him. A moment later, her hand pressed against his back. Warm and
compassionate. Loving.

And all wrong, because he didn’t deserve her
love.

“Karma, don’t . . .”

“Mark . . . ?”

He stiffened as her palm caressed up to his
shoulder. “I don’t want to be touched right now, Karma. Please.”
The sad part was, he did want to be touched, but he couldn’t stand
the thought that the poison flowing through his veins might be
contagious. Karma didn’t need to absorb any of that. He’d already
done enough damage.

Her hand abruptly stopped, and a moment later
she removed it as she sighed. “I’m sorry. I
just . . .”

“I don’t want to talk about this.”

“I know, I—”

“Karma, please.” He squeezed his eyes
shut.

“Okay.” Her voice sounded choked. As choked
as his heart felt.

But what she did next nearly undid him.
Nearly made him break all the way down to his marrow.

She leaned toward him and pressed her lips to
the back of his shoulder. Warm and pure and sweet. Such a simple
kiss, but overflowing with love. Love he hadn’t earned.

“I love you,” she whispered. Then she rolled
away from him and settled herself under the covers on her side of
the bed.

Mark’s silent tears fell to his pillow.

He was blowing it. He was losing everything
he ever wanted all over again.

Chapter 29

Some steps need to be taken alone. It’s the only way
to really figure out where you need to be.

-Mandy Hale

Karma pulled her damp hair into a ponytail and
gathered her things from the bathroom. In the bedroom, Mark still
sat in the chair by the window where she’d left him to take her
shower. His head was back, eyes closed.

She had barely slept last night, but she
might have gotten at least an hour or two. Mark was lucky if he’d
slept at all. Every time she woke up, he was either sitting on the
edge of the bed, standing by the window, staring out at the lights
of Chicago, shoulders shaking as he silently cried, or in the
bathroom throwing up. He’d vomited at least three times.

Whatever memories Carol and Antonio had
stirred to life, they were eating him alive.

The only other time she’d seen Mark like this
was when his assignment at Solar ended and their affair was over.
But whatever was happening now was ten times worse, and she didn’t
want to think about why.

She also didn’t know what to say to make it
better. She knew that seeing Carol and Antonio was the reason for
his breakdown, but from everything he’d told her about how seeing
her used to affect him, it had never been this bad. The night
they’d met, for example. Hadn’t Mark told her he’d seen Carol that
night? That he’d gone to his room, thrown up, and then returned to
the party relatively unscathed? Then he’d made his move on her at
the blackjack table, and the rest was history.

So, why this severe breakdown? What was it
about this time that made seeing Carol so intensely
distressing?

“I got you some peanut butter crackers and
another Sprite.” She set them on the table beside him.

His head jerked away from the back cushion,
his bloodshot eyes opening a sliver. “What? Oh . . .
thanks.” He sat forward and twisted off the cap, and the spitting
hiss of carbonation broke the air.

He sipped his soda and nibbled a cracker
while she finished packing. Then she sat down across from him,
ignoring the much-too-cheerful newscasters.

“Are you feeling better?”

“Yeah, sure.” He averted his gaze, glancing
out the window instead of at her.

The wall was going up around him again. The
wall she’d broken through two summers ago. That damn thing was
back, all because of one ill-timed run-in with Carol.

“I was worried last night.”

He plunked the soda bottle on the table.
“Don’t do that.”

“Don’t do what?”

“Worry about me.”

“But . . .”

“Karma, I’m not worth it.” He got up and
marched to his bags on the bed.

Anger straightened her back. “Excuse me?” She
stood and faced him. “You’re not
worth
it? What the hell,
Mark?”

He fisted the fabric of his bag. “What I
did . . . last night . . .” For the
first time since they left the benefit, he looked her in the eye.
The pain radiating from his gaze stole her breath. “To you, Karma.
What I did to you last night never should have happened. How can
you stand to be near me right now?”

So that’s what this was about? Last
night.

The
exorcism
.

What did he think? That he’d hurt her? That
she hadn’t wanted to give herself to him when he needed her? That
was what people who loved each other did. It didn’t always have to
be perfect. Sometimes love was ugly, and that was okay, as long as
love was still at the heart of everything they did.

She found her voice as he looked away again.
“That was my choice, Mark.”

“What? To be used and tossed aside like you
meant nothing?” He slammed his bag against the mattress. “You
didn’t
choose
that. I took it from you.”

“You didn’t
take
anything from me! I
willingly gave it!”

His head whipped around. “Why? Why would you
do something like that for someone like me?”

He was talking to her as if they were more
like strangers than an engaged couple, which was really starting to
piss her off. The fact she hadn’t gotten much sleep didn’t
help.

“
For someone like you?
” she said with
irritation, planting her hands on her hips. “First of all,
someone like you
is the man I’m in love with, and I think he
deserves everything I can give him, especially when he’s been
through hell. So quit insulting him, because it’s kind of like
insulting me.” She crossed her arms. “Second of all, I gave myself
to you willingly
because
I love you. Because last night you
needed something different. And sometimes I simply want to be here
for you to give you what
you
need for a change instead of
you always giving me what I need.” She dropped her hands to her
sides, the sleepless night messing with her brain, mixing
everything up. “Ever since Christmas, you keep telling me you’re
not good enough, and I keep telling you that you are. It’s like you
don’t want to believe me.”

He kept his head down, fists closed around
the strap on his bag.

“Do you believe me, Mark?”

His jaw flexed as he closed his eyes. “I
don’t know.” He picked up his bag and turned for the door. “Are you
ready to go?”

Obviously, he was still too deep in his pit
of despair to listen and see the good standing right in front of
him. She understood that. She’d been in similar self-pitying funks
more than once. It didn’t mean he actually believed what he was
saying. Sometimes, when the will had suffered a devastating blow,
it was just easier to wallow in the shit for a while than to
actually climb out of it.

And he hadn’t slept. And he’d been sick. He
had to feel like death. Give him a good night’s sleep and a healthy
dinner, and then he’d be ready to talk more sensibly about what had
happened last night.

“Yeah. I’m ready.” She gave a cursory glance
around the room, turned off the TV, and grabbed her bag.

They just needed to get back home. Back to
the familiar and away from whatever reminder Carol and Antonio had
awakened in him last night. Then they could put this incident
behind them and get back to moving forward.

Chapter 30

One day you will wake up and there won't be any more
time to do the thing you've always wanted. Do it now.

-Paulo Coelho

Mark didn’t talk much on the drive home, and she was
too exhausted to care.

Once home, he disappeared upstairs and
collapsed on the bed while she napped on the couch. She didn’t see
him again until dinner, which was a silent meal of soup and
sandwiches. Then he returned to bed and slept straight through to
Monday morning.

He was up, showered, and out the door by five
o’clock, before Karma had even fully awakened.

That night, he worked late, arriving home
after she was already in bed.

Same thing Tuesday.

And Wednesday.

By Thursday, they’d barely said two sentences
to each other since Sunday morning, and she might have gotten a
total of ten hours of sleep. He seemed to be getting worse, not
better, and Karma had no idea how to break through the
thick-as-Hoover-Dam-and-just-as-tall wall he’d erected between
them.

For the first time, she worried their
relationship might not survive.

She didn’t know what to do, what to say. She
didn’t even fully understand what was wrong. Carol was at the heart
of it, but his behavior seemed extreme for Carol to be the only
problem.

This was something more, but he wouldn’t talk
to her about what that was.

And it didn’t make sense. After all the
confessions about the things he’d been holding back from
her . . . after reassuring her there was nothing
else . . . what could possibly be so bad that Mark
would completely shut her out? It was as if he were preparing her
for the worst. That any second he would tell her he was
leaving.

Just the thought frayed her already fragile
emotions. She hadn’t slept well all week, grabbing only a few hours
each night, and now she was freaking out, paranoid he might already
have one foot out the door. What if he left? Where would she go?
What would she do?

All day Thursday, she paced her office,
restless, unable to focus on her assignments, chewing her
fingernails, which was something she hadn’t done since high
school.

Thursday night, she couldn’t sleep and went
downstairs to watch dismal late-night TV until she nodded off on
the couch around four in the morning.

By Friday afternoon, she’d had enough. She’d
given him five days. Tonight, she would sit him down and force the
issue. Because she couldn’t take this, anymore. They were living
under the same roof but felt more like roommates who merely
tolerated one another than two people who were supposed to be in
love and building a life together.

She wanted her fiancé back. She wanted to
bring to light whatever was bothering him so they could deal with
it and move on. And if they couldn’t? Well, then they needed to
talk about what that meant. Because if he was still hung up on
Carol—and it seemed as though he was—then she couldn’t stay. If he
was never going to get over that woman, her ego couldn’t take a
blow that big.

Dropping her head into her hands, she began
to cry. Her happily ever after was crumbling to pieces, the glass
slipper shattering while she was still wearing it.

A week ago, they’d been so happy. Now, she
was as miserable as when he’d left two summers ago. It felt like
they were coming to an end all over again.

How had it come to this?

* * *

“She’s going to leave me.”

“What?” Rob said.

Mark leaned back in his chair, raking his
hand through his hair, holding his phone to his ear with the other.
“She’s going to leave me,” he said again. “I just know it.”

“Karma? You’re crazy.”

“No.” He sighed, shaking his head. “I’m
fucking it all up, and she’s going to walk.” Of course Karma would
leave. They all left. One way or another, every woman he had ever
cared about left him.

“Is this about last weekend? Are you still
hung up on what happened with Carol?”

Mark stood and paced to the window. “You
don’t get it. You don’t know the horrible shit I did to Karma when
we got back to the room.”

“What do you mean?” Concern laced Rob’s
voice.

“I fucked her.”

Silence.

“And I didn’t just fuck her, Rob. I used her.
I used her like she was nothing more than a whore I’d picked up off
the street. And then I just shut down. I couldn’t even look her in
the eye after that.” He rubbed his palm over his face. “What kind
of asshole does something like that to the woman he’s supposed to
love.”

“Was she upset?”

“That’s the sick part. She seemed okay with
what I did. She said she wanted to be there for me when I needed
her.”