I Hear...Love (A Different Road #2) (4 page)

There was no turning back. I felt victory over finally doing what I had longed to do for so many years. I had finally done something right.

When I was done, the bottle of water fell from my hand, and the remaining liquid poured into my lap and onto the wooden floor.

I didn’t have a single ounce of regret.

I laid my head down on the cool, wooden floor and closed my eyes with a smile on my face. I knew that when I woke up, I’d see my mother’s beautiful face and the love I longed to see again in my father’s eyes. As I drifted off to sleep, the gurgling and the screaming . . .

Finally . . .

Stopped.

It wasn’t silent, though.

The dreadful noises I fought with for two decades were drowned out by a piercing, loud, wailing sound of ringing in my ears. It was so loud it felt like my brain itself was ringing inside my skull.

The next thing I knew, I started violently throwing up. I didn’t care. I threw up all over the floor and all over myself. The vomit was endless. It was so relentless that I couldn’t get a breath in between vomiting.

I don’t know if it was a hallucination or wishful thinking, but the last thing I think I remember is the warm feeling of River’s hand slipping into mine.

Everything . . . was suddenly right.

The sounds of death and self-worthlessness were finally gone, and that feeling I adore so much when River put his hand in mine, calmed me. I couldn’t help but feel like River was holding my hand into death, passing it to my mother in heaven.

But my life didn’t end that night.

The sounds of my parent’s dying, the guilt, the sadness, and self-hatred, all returned the second my eyes opened in a hospital room the next morning.

I laid there for days in a catatonic state. I didn’t know if I was happy I was still alive, or if I was mad at myself for, yet, another failed attempt. One thing I was sure of is that I didn’t see my mother’s beautiful face or my father’s adoring eyes. But, for a fraction of a second, the voices did stop. Did I want that back?

After I was released from the hospital, I was placed directly into a strict rehab facility by River, and I felt as if I no longer had any human rights. I was forcefully medicated for what they said was severe depression, put on a strict diet and exercise program, and I had mandatory daily counseling sessions. But, as time went on, I slowly stopped fighting the counselors and for the first time, I actually started listening. For the first time, what they were saying wasn’t annoying hot air and it started to help. I was given the tools I never knew existed to help cope with the noises in my head.

Along with continued medication, diet, music in my ears, and weekly counseling sessions, the thing I fell in love with most was being turned on to yoga.

Yoga became my saving grace.

Practicing yoga brought my mind, body, and spirit together into a calm, rejuvenating place inside myself. There’s no other experience quite like it.

Every day before the sun comes up, I take my yoga mat out onto the back deck with the peaceful, calm ocean as my foreground and do at least one hour of yoga. On bad days, after River gets home from work, all I have to do is slip my hand into his, and he leads me into his home gym where we do yoga side-by-side, usually while Joss makes dinner. I’ve even started to teach Joss and her best friend, Nina, some basic yoga moves.

I recently started working for River at our family owned company, Mason Group, as the receptionist. Yes, I know it’s not a very glamorous position at a company I own a third of. I actually insisted that I start as the receptionist. I’ve never taken an active role in Mason Group, and I didn’t think I was entitled to, or deserved a corner office and a prestigious title straight out of the gate. I wanted to earn River, Stephen, and the other employees’ respect and trust.

River, Stephen, and I hold equal shares in the company. It wasn’t always that way. We thought my father’s best friend and attorney, Sebastien, held the majority until a few months ago. As it turned out, after River hired a PI to investigate, he was lying. He drafted a separate will and made it seem like he owned the majority of the company until River turned thirty. It also turned out that he was never supposed to raise my brothers and me. We had an aunt, which we had never known about, that was supposed to raise us. Upon my parent’s death, Sebastien killed her so he could get his money grubbing hands on the Mason fortune. I can’t let myself think about the fact that a woman, a family relative, was supposed to raise us. I just can’t go there. I think knowing in the end that my dad’s best friend ultimately stabbed him in the back, is what makes me keep friends at an arm’s length.

I actually don’t remember too many details about my childhood, until about the age of sixteen. There are little bits of details here and there, but sometimes I don’t know if they’re real or if I made them up in my head. I know it sounds strange, but there seems to be a really huge, blank space in my memory. I sometimes wonder if it’s best left that way. They say your brain closes the door on certain memories to protect ourselves. But if that were true, why can I recall the day of the accident like it happened yesterday, in vivid, graphic detail?

Saturday morning, my eyeballs pop open, and like every morning, they immediately find the clock sitting on the nightstand. I don’t know why I bother to look at it, really. It’s always between 4:30 and 4:45. Today it’s 4:37 AM. I remove my headphones from over my ears and set them next to the clock. I roll out of bed and stretch my arms over my head while bending from side to side. I slip on my yoga outfit, grab my headphones, rest them on my neck, then head to the kitchen. I start a pot of coffee and dig the ingredients out of the refrigerator to make a power kale smoothie.

I blend all the ingredients and take the first delicious sip, then set it on the counter. I grab the ends of my headphones off my shoulders to place them over my ears, when I hear a scratching sound at the front door. It’s not uncommon for River to come into the pool house and start my coffee for me. Like me, he doesn’t sleep much either. If he hasn’t come in to make coffee, that means he’s still in his room. I’ll start my coffee, then go to the main house and start their coffee. But River has a key, he generally uses that and doesn’t scratch on the door.

I pull the white curtain away from the windowed door and see Sadie sitting directly in front of my door with her tongue lolling to the side, waiting patiently. Her beautiful eyes come up and fix on my face. Her whole body wiggles with excitement, she gets off her hind legs and stands, then wags her tail excitedly back and forth.

“Sadie, what are you doing here?” I ask, opening the door.

Her cute little head cocks to the side as she puts her tongue in her mouth. I bend down in front of her and run my hand from her head to her rump. Her tail starts swooshing on the deck as her mouth opens, and she pants with her tongue hanging out. If I didn’t know better, I’d think she was also smiling.

“Sadie!” I hear called from down the beach.

I recognize that call from last night.

I stand up and walk to the railing with Sadie hot on my heels. I see Cooper a few houses down with his hands cupped over his mouth frantically yelling for Sadie.

“Sadie!” he yells again, over the sounds of the ocean.

“Cooper!” I yell back, waving my arms over my head to get his attention, but he can’t hear me over the crashing waves.

He starts to jog as he continues to yell out her name. I yell one more time while Sadie starts barking. His attention finally turns towards us, and his face lights up when he sees Sadie is safe and sitting next to me. Her tail happily whips against my leg as Cooper climbs the stairs.

When I agreed to take this job and moved across the country, my boss assured me I would never have to work on weekends. Yet, here I am busting my ass to get into the office by six in the freaking morning for an emergency, multi-hour, overseas, conference call on what looks like a beautiful, sunny Saturday morning.

I left my dog sitter a message last night to see if she could come in today and let Sadie out while I’m gone. She only comes Monday through Friday, and I’ve never left Sadie alone all day before.

I woke up this morning to a message on my cell saying she’s in an out of town wedding this weekend and can’t come. Now I’ll have to try and figure out how to leave in the middle of an important client conference call.

I grab a stale bagel from the opened plastic bag on the counter and shove it between my teeth, while I look for my car keys through a mound of mail and paperwork scattered about on my counter.

“Sadie!” I call, muffled, with a bagel in my mouth.

She’s usually not more than a few steps away from me, but when I look around, she’s nowhere to be seen. I mean, if I go to the bathroom and don’t shut the door all the way, she’ll nose her way into the bathroom with me. I can’t even do my business alone without her face in my lap, or her curled up on the floor by my feet like a tiny Chihuahua. At first, I thought it was gross. But seriously, what does a dog care and sometimes it’s nice to have someone to talk to, even if she doesn’t talk back.

I quickly look in her food bowl and she hasn’t touched one bite of her breakfast. I spit the bagel out of my mouth onto the counter and run from room to room calling her name.

She’s not in the house!

I run to the back door and find it open. I didn’t leave it open, did I?

I run back to the kitchen and grab her leash off the hook, then sprint outside shouting her name. I hope she’s just down at the beach greeting the early morning treasure hunters. But she’s nowhere to be seen.

“Sadie!” I frantically yell, as my heart plummets to my feet.

She’s never run away before.

I jog down the beach yelling her name, then I hear someone faintly calling my name. I look up and see Kate waving her hands over her head at me from the deck of River’s beach house. I immediately smile at the sight of Kate and start to jog toward her house. As I climb the stairs, Sadie greets me at the top step. I give her a stern look, and she puts her ears down.

“Sadie,” I chastise in a low growl.

She lays down and puts her head between her front paws and whines, while she looks up at me with innocent eyes.

“Sadie is such a sweetheart. She came over to say good morning to me,” Kate says with a smile.

“Sweet my . . .” I start to say, but don’t finish. “She about gave me a heart attack when I couldn’t find her this morning. Now I’m going to be late for work, and I don’t have anyone to let her outside today. Come on, Sadie, let’s go,” I say, patting my hand on my thigh.

But she doesn’t budge.

“I can watch her,” Kate volunteers with a smile.

Sadie instantly lifts her head and cocks it to the side looking at Kate. She stands on all fours, then looks back and forth between Kate and me.

“I couldn’t impose on you like that,” I tell her, then Sadie lays down.

Sadie’s ears go down, then she stands up and put’s her nose in Kate’s hand.

“Sadie can be pretty insistent about the things she wants,” Kate says, running her hand over the top of Sadie’s head.

“Yes, it seems lately, she is,” I reply. “Are you sure you don’t mind? I feel like I should insist that you really don’t have to, but I’m kind of in a pickle here,” I finish.

“A pickle?” she repeats, then giggles.

The sound of her giggling almost makes me forget that I’m going to be seriously late if I don’t leave now.

“Here’s her leash,” I say, holding it out for her. “Now, you be a good girl, Sadie,” I say to Sadie, wagging my finger at her.

“Sadie and I will be just fine. Won’t we, Sadie?” Kate insists, looking down at my dog.

“She didn’t eat her breakfast this morning. Here,” I say, digging my keys out of my pocket. Duh, I’m such an idiot, they were in my pocket the whole time. “My house is just two doors down. Sadie can show you the way. Feel free to let yourself in. I mean, if you think she’s hungry,” I continue.

“Great!” she says, taking the keys.

“Oh, I just need my car key off of there,” I say, taking them back. I twist the key off the ring and hand the rest back to Kate. “I really need to get going. How about I take you out to dinner tonight as a thank you for watching Sadie?” I ask. Her face immediately fills with what looks like terror. I wish I had more time to figure out what that’s all about, but I really need to go. “Sadie, you be good, no running off and playing with people friends,” I call, as I head down the steps.

The entire drive to work, all I can think about is the fact that I’m going to dinner with Kate tonight. As I park my car in my designated parking space at work, a thought dawns on me. My house is a complete mess, and I really hope she doesn’t go into my bedroom because I’m pretty sure I have dirty underwear on the floor. Or, is it in the bathroom. Shit, I hope she doesn’t have to use the bathroom. I only pick things up on Monday morning, because that’s when a cleaning company comes. Every other day of the week my house looks like a true bachelor pad.

The conference call lasts four painstaking hours, followed by a six hour meeting to discuss the plan of action for the potential client. I pull into my driveway at four-thirty and race through the house into my bedroom. I look around the floor and take a breath of relief when I don’t see my dirty underwear on the floor. I guess all those years of my mother nagging me to pick up my dirty clothes off the floor finally kicked in.