If I Break THE COMPLETE SERIES Bundle (176 page)

“What about you? Want to talk or eat another piece of candy?” I ask.

He gives me a sad grin. “It’s my dad.”

My heart starts to pound. “What wrong?” I ask, trying to contain the desperation in my voice.

“He-he’s been walking around like zombie again,” he says.

I feel my insides tighten.

He shakes his head. “He was doing good. He was being himself again, the dad I missed. I heard my mom talking to my aunt. She’s worried about him.”

I can see the worry in his eyes. “Everything’s going to be okay. Your dad loves you guys more than anything.” I know my words are truer than he knows.

He nods. “Yeah, but…”

Instead of finishing, he takes out two more bite-sized Snickers, and we eat them together, and a little piece of my soul crumbles from knowing that my best friend is hurting because of me. At the same time, a little piece of my heart becomes alive again because I know Will is hurting just as I am. But when he’s hurting, everyone else is hurting. I don’t want to hurt anymore. I want to be fixed, and we can fix each other.

I can fix Will.

T
he house is empty. Gwen is gone, escaped to my stepsister Clara’s house. She’s hired Gwen to help with some decorating, so Gwen’s staying in Chicago to finish up the job. Chris is over at his friend’s house, setting up for someone’s birthday party, I think. I hear a lot these days, but it’s all jumbled together. It’s better that way. I try not to think because thinking reminds me of what I’ve done, what I’ve let happen to me.

I’ve become that guy, that terrible stereotypical man who’s cheated on his wife, who’s betrayed his family with a younger woman, and I hate myself for it. I hate myself because I was weak and let it happen. I hate myself because there is no tangible reason as to why I’ve been unhappy. I hate myself because being with her made me happy, made me feel alive again. She brought me back to my old self, but my old self would have never done anything like this.

My old self loved Gwen with every part of him every second of the day. My old self would have died before hurting Gwen. My old self promised he’d protect her from the pain he caused her so many years ago, that she’d never have to experience it again.

The smartest thing I’ve done in the past year was walk away from Lisa that night, and I didn’t do it until after she’d given me her body willingly, unselfishly, and made it mine. I took her each time knowing that I took a piece of her with me when I left. I saw it in her eyes even when she tried to hide it. I hid from myself that each time I left, I left a part of myself with her.

She looked at me with her big, wide eyes full of tears and told me she loved me, and I couldn’t say it back. I felt terrible—I wanted to be able to say it back more than anything. She wouldn’t have understood that would have made things worse. If I’d said those words, it would have made everything worse, intensified things that much more. I care about her, I crave her, I want her, but love… I can’t love her the way she needs me to. You can’t love two people at the same time, and even in the state I’m in, my heart belongs to Gwen. It’s ridiculous, I know, because I shouldn’t be able to cheat if I love Gwen.

I’ve grown selfish. This year has made what I want come first—my priorities have shifted. It’s been two weeks since I’ve had Lisa, and I miss her. Like an addict, my withdrawal turns me into an asshole. I just have to detox, forget about her, learn to handle things the way I should have in the first place, not like a fifteen-year-old boy with a boner. I have to get back to who I was, fall in love with my family again. Maybe we should go on a trip. We all need a vacation, especially before Chris starts school. I have to let Lisa go. She deserves more. I don’t want to ruin her. She got a shit deal with her dad, and I’m already adding to her view that men aren’t worth shit.

I’ve been staring at the inventory book, but my mind keeps jumbling everything together. I shut it—I’m not getting anything done tonight. I head to the kitchen and grab a beer, then decide to get the Whiskey I have hidden under the sink instead. The one good thing is I haven’t used alcohol as a crutch. The last thing I need is to be a guilty asshole alcoholic. But today I’ll give myself a pass since I’m here alone and won’t have to look at the hopeless stare Gwen has given for me the past few days.

When the doorbell rings, I’m a little dizzy, the bottle of Whiskey half empty from when I started. I might have overdone it… I make my way to the door, and when I open it, she’s there. The light on the porch illuminates her face, calling attention to her bright, seductive eyes, her plump lips. She’s like a tempting angel. She’s breaking the rules. Rules that she made up the first night after we crossed the line and she said we should have rules to keep things from getting messy, from going bad. One of the rules was for her to never show up here for me, that we’d never be in my house alone. Maybe she doesn’t know I’m here alone. But she has to know Chris isn’t here, and Gwen’s car is gone.

“Can I come in?” she asks. It’s cold out, freezing. Her cheeks are red. She doesn’t have a hat or scarf on, just a coat that really should be classified as a jacket but has fur around the hood.

A little voice in my head says, “Walk her to her car. Tell her you’re sorry you ruined her life and she’ll find someone who makes her feel the way she says she does with you and who can love her how she wants, how she deserves.” But the other parts of me win out aided by the whiskey. I step aside and watch her pass. We stand in the kitchen.

“Is it just us?” she whispers.

I nod, and her lips turn upward but not into an actual smile. She begins to take off her coat, and I clear my throat. I see a flicker of anger in her eyes, but she doesn’t stop. I stop my eyes from roving her body, reminding myself I know what’s under her clothes.

“So you’re just done with me now?” she asks quietly.

“Don’t make it sound like that,” I say in the same volume she uses.

“But that is what you want?” She looks at me with innocent eyes, her expression hurt.

“This isn’t good for either of us. Tell me you’re happy. You’re not happy!” I say in a hushed whisper, my tone sharp. I hope she gets my point.

“You make me happy,” she says, looking me in the eye.

“You were happy the last time I saw you?” I ask her sarcastically.

She squints at me. “You’re drunk?”

I sigh. “I’m not drunk. I just had a few drinks.”

But I think that’s a lie because I’m fighting the urge to kiss her, to feel her, to do things I’d never think about doing in this house. It’s off-limits, and I was supposed to be ending this. She runs her hand through her hair, gives me a seductive smile, and walks toward me. I swallow hard and step back until I bump into the refrigerator.

“I’m sorry,” she says, running her hands up my chest.

“Lisa, not here.” But my words are weak, and my body is even weaker. She looks up at me, and I feel my resolve deteriorating.

“I know you want me,” she purrs. Her hands slide down and go inside my pants.“I can feel how much.”

She kisses me, and she does it with everything in her, all her passion, all her love, all her fear. She emotes, giving herself to me in each kiss, in each touch. She loves purely and selflessly, and she makes me feel how I used to with just a kiss. I get lost in her. When our bodies are connected, I forget how old she is, that she’s my son’s best friend, that I’m married to a wife I love.

Before long, I’m inside her, not thinking of anything but how good she feels, how good this feels. I forget that she’s not supposed to scratch my back. I forget that I’m in my house, in our kitchen, with her pressed up against the wall I painted with my wife last summer. I forget that she’s moaning my name loudly in the house I share with my family. I forget all of that until I hear footsteps.

Before I can quiet her, I see my son, his face white, eyes wide and horrified, and I freeze, unable to move. Lisa notices and looks behind her, and she loses all color when she sees him. He’s frozen, shocked, taking in what he’s seeing. I think it takes him a minute to realize it’s real. Time has slowed down.

“Chris,” she shrieks, and her voice wakes us both.

I let her down, and his expression goes from shocked and horrified to angry and disgusted.

“What the fuck?” he screams.

“I-I—” I try to think of something to say.

Lisa grabs her pants and underwear off the floor, and I pull up my own.

“Son, it’s not—” I can’t even get the lie out of my mouth before he runs out of the house. I buckle my pants and chase him. “Chris!”

I hear Lisa behind me. She’s crying and looks as terrified as I feel.

“Go home. Right now. I’ll call you,” I tell her, but she seems stuck. “Now, Lisa!”

She nods, snapping out of her trance, and she runs out the back door.

“Chris!” I yell.

He’s off the front porch, and I run down the steps but stop when he reaches the bottom of the steps. Tears come from his eyes without stopping, and he’s shaking, his face red.

“Stay the fuck away from me!” he shouts, and the look in his eyes stops me in my tracks.

“Chris, just let me explain. Please,” I beg.

“Don’t fucking talk to me. You stay the hell away from me!” he shouts, catching his breath, and I start to cry too. “All these years, all lies. Your moral code, your rules and lectures. You’re a liar. A fucking hypocrite.”

I can’t say anything. What can I say? I open my mouth to tell him I’m sorry.

“I hate you,” he growls.

“You don’t mean that, son. You’re angry. You’re upset.”

He turns away from me. By the time he looks back, he’s different. In an instant, I see the change in him. He’s gone from broken, hurt, and emotional to cold as ice and vicious. A smug grin replaces his devastation.

“I should thank you,
Dad.
You’ve just created the biggest problem of your life.” He gives me a satisfied smirk, one that cuts through me, and I’m frozen.

He hops in his truck, and I wake up. I run toward it, but he pulls off and flips me off as he drives down the street. I go back in the house and splash cold water on my face, take a deep breath, and kick the refrigerator so hard all of the magnets fall off and the door pops open.

I try to think of a way to do damage control, but I can’t think of one. My life is over. It’s going to crumble around me. I don’t have a life without my family, and it hits me like a ton of bricks. All this time, I’ve been searching for myself, what makes me happy, wanting to feel alive. Now I realize that I have no reason to be alive without my family. They’re my everything, and it takes me being on the cusp of losing them to realize it. The realization comes far too late.

I don’t feel alive anymore. I’m dead.