Love Abstract (The Art of Falling Book 2) (23 page)

“You explained yourself just fine last night.” My headache pulses behind my eyes, and I can’t contain the sensation of throwing up as visions of him screwing Genevieve plague my mind. I am in no way equipped, nor adequately caffeinated, to deal with this situation right now.

I’m walking the fine line between hurt and outraged, but I’m struggling not to let him see just how deep he’s cut me.

“
No,
I didn’t.” He takes a cautious step my direction, and I move until my back is flush against the wall. “I know I should have told you ages ago. I should never have let things—let
us
get to this point without you knowing. You deserve the truth. So will you please just hear me out?”

Now he wants to explain everything? Only
now,
because he slipped up in a drunken stupor, do I deserve the truth?

“No. You slept with Genevieve.
My
sister. And after months of being together … of loving you,” my voice cracks as more tears threaten to fall, “you lied, Phoenix. You lied to me for months.”

As far as I’m concerned, this is completely unforgivable. I don’t know how anyone gets over a hurt, a betrayal of this magnitude.

I bend my knees and slowly slide down the wall, curling up into myself when my ass hits the ground. I wait for the floor to open up and swallow me whole like quicksand, but the reprieve never comes. Instead, we stay here in silence, him looking at me, me looking at the floor because I can’t bring myself to look him in the eyes. I’m desperate to shut down completely. And he’s wildly desperate to explain himself. Usually, our silence is the ultimate comfort. But right now, it’s inciting a riot on our relationship.

But I don’t want his excuses. I thought I’d left all of the drama in my life back in Chicago. But apparently, I’d packed it in my carry-on suitcase and lived out of it the past few months.

Phoenix paces our modest living room, chewing on his thumbnail before finally sitting on the couch. He presses the heels of his palms in his eyes and lets out a sound that I’ve never heard before. I instinctively cringe, my heart incapable of handling this situation. It’s obvious that he has regrets.
A lot
of regrets. But I can’t help but think his biggest regret of all is simply getting caught.

“Look, Ivy. The truth has been rotting my soul since I put two and two together and realized Gen was actually your sister. I’ve spent the last few months hating myself. I know I should have told you the moment I pieced everything together. But then everything with Sully happened and then that fucked up wedding and the move. Hell, Ivy! I came to New York for
you.
I followed you here because I knew from day one that it was only you. Don’t you get that? I should never have lied to you. I know I should have come clean ages ago, but there was never the right opportunity.”

The right opportunity? I fucking gave him an invitation to come clean ages ago after the Hailey incident. Clearly he
’
s only been looking out for himself.

“You know it’s really not that hard, Phoenix! How about, Hey Ivy! Once upon a time in a land far, far away I fucked your sister!”

“It’s not like that.” He crosses the room to kneel beside me, but I pull away. The move wounds him, but it’s nothing remotely close to the internal damage I’m trying to nurse.

“It is
exactly
like that,” I bite back bitterly. There’s a fire in my words that match the blaze in my veins. Flames lick my pain and I grow angrier each time he speaks.

“No! Every day I’d wake up with resolve. I’d promise that I would find a way to tell you. I knew I had to say something and I wanted to tell you sooner, but I could never find a way.”

“Well, it looks like you’re a real pro at breaking promises,” I snap back. Phoenix has turned into just another empty promise in my life. This just goes to show that the only one I can depend on is myself. I trusted him not to hurt me, and in turn he was the one to deliver the fatal blow, effectively killing every last piece of my heart.

He ignores my previous comments and continues. “But instead, I did nothing. And it metastasized like a cancer.”

“And that’s the problem with cancer, Phoenix. You do nothing about it and it will eat you alive. It. Will. Kill. You.” I look him straight in the eye, feeling sick to my stomach. “If you had any respect for me or yourself, you would have told me no matter how difficult it was. You swore there would be no more lies, Phoenix. You swore.” I fight the urge to push him away from me. To slap him. To make him hurt as much as he’s hurt me.

I stand and walk next to the armchair on the other side of the room. I’m trapped and I need space. He rises but doesn’t follow me. Instead, he just watches me with sad eyes.

“I knew I would lose you if I told you. And I would eventually lose you if I didn’t. I was fucked either way.”

Is he fucking serious?

“Well, congratulations! You and Genevieve weren’t the only ones who got fucked that night!” I can’t control the rage in my voice. I snatch my phone off of the couch, slip it in my pocket and try to step around him, but he quickly blocks my escape.

“There’s no way I ever could have known that was your sister. It happened ages ago. Please ... can we just talk about this?”

“Seriously? It’s disgusting enough that you slept with my sister. But to add insult to injury you lied about everything! I have absolutely nothing else to say to you right now,” That’s a lie though, what I really want to say is
fuck you, asshole.
But he would see right through that.

“Come on…”

“Phoenix! You slept with the enemy. You screwed my sister and then denied anything ever happened! How do you
not
see that this is an unforgivable crime?”

“Do you have any idea how much it crushed me when I realized what I had done before I ever even knew that you were related to Gen? I cursed my past every damn day. These were implications that I never could have imagined.”

He tells me this like I’m supposed to pity him for having to live with this secret. When in all actuality, he deserves to live with the weight of this burden until the day he takes his last breath.

I fold my arms over my chest and chew on the inside of my lip. When suddenly it hits me.

“Tell me Phoenix … how is what you did any different from what Sully did to me?” My breath is shaky, and anxiety over my revelation takes control. “If Gen was truly as fucked up as you say she was, and I have no doubt that she was wasted in every sense of the word, then you are
absolutely
no different.”

My vision blurs and tears spill down my face. I can barely see his face blanching in pain through my emotional tidal wave. It may have been a low blow, and sure there’s a strong possibility that Gen was asking for it and Phoenix was simply thinking with his dick but what he did is
not
okay.

He lied.

Point blank.

He lied about it all.

“Come on, Ivy.” His voice is soft. Calm, even. His eyes desperately plead for forgiveness.

My tears turn to angry sobs, and all I see is red. Fury pulses through my veins. And the longer he stands in front of me the more enraged I become. And I welcome it all. Because if I’m angry and livid and pissed, I know I won’t feel the insurmountable hurt.
At least not as much.

I wipe my face with shaky hands and bite my tongue, savoring the dull pain. I take a steady breath and glare at him.

“You and that old best friend of yours,” I begin with a steady, calm voice. “You two are cut from the exact … same … cloth.”

“Don’t be a bitch,” he breathes softly.

An audible squeak escapes me lips. “A bitch? You think
I
’
m
being a bitch right now? I can show you me being a bitch!”

I walk up to him, standing toe to toe and slap him across the face. My palm stings and I can’t control the tears cascading down my cheeks. Phoenix tries to pull me close, but I swat at his chest, trying to push him away. The harder I push, the tighter he wraps his arms around me.

He squeezes me to the point of surrender and I just sob.

Phoenix tucks his face down close my neck and whispers, “I’m so, so sorry.”

You
’
re only sorry you got caught. Lies exist for one reason and one reason only ... to be self-serving. It was never meant to protect me.

“I’m sorry. God, I’m so sorry. Please forgive me. Please. I should have told you from the start. Let’s try to work this out. I love you so damn much, Ivy. Please?” With each apology, he clenches me tightly like he knows I’m slipping through his grasp and he’s doing everything he can to make it stop.

If I don’t do it now, I may never have the strength. But I made a promise to myself a long time ago that I was worth so much more than someone who could cut me on such a deep level. The days of lying are in the past and that any relationship I’m in
has
to be based on truths. I have too much self-respect to allow this …
us
... to continue on any further, especially after he lied to my face.

I take a calculated breath and close my eyes.

“You need to leave,” I whisper, trying to keep my voice strong. “Just get your shit while I’m at work later and go. I don’t care where you run to, but you can’t stay here.”

His arms go limp and he steps away from me in disbelief. Phoenix is heartbreaking beautiful.

“Are you breaking up with me?” He falls to his knees in front of me and I think I hear him gasp “no” before his emotions kick into overdrive and the lament settles in. He wraps his arms around my legs, pleading for me to take back my words.

The question sends chills down my spine and the hair on my neck stands on end. But what he doesn’t seem to understand is that you can’t break up a relationship that was broken from the beginning.

“Well, right now I certainly don’t know what we are … let alone
who
you
are. All I know is that somebody who truly loves me would not have ever—EVER—entertained doing that, kept it a secret for so long and then fucking lied about it!”

Phoenix looks up at me from the floor. “What do you need right now, Ivy? I will do anything. Just don’t leave me.”

It pains me to see him beg like this. Hurt like this. In my former life, I loved to see men beg. But this? This is silently killing me.

“What I need from you right now is some space.” I take a deep breath, trying to steel myself so I cannot be swayed before continuing. “Some space without you in it.”

Guilt nags in the pit of my stomach knowing he has absolutely nowhere to go. But right now I can’t even look at him. And not just because I’m beyond disgusted—but because I know that if I look at him right now I’m going to break.

I divert my gaze out the window.

“Please. Just go…” I whisper.

Phoenix lets go of my legs and stands up in front of me.

“Ivy …” he reaches out to take my hand, but I pull it back, folding my arms across my chest. “Please…”

I don’t say anything and we stand in silence for what feels like hours.

The shrill of my cell phone snaps me from the numbness. I pull the phone out from my pocket and look at the name. My saving grace.

“Hi, Rachel.” My voice is solemn and I grab my purse and head for the door. “Hold on just a second.”

I hit the mute button and hesitate in the doorway and look back at Phoenix in the room.

“I’m going to the gallery for the next few hours. That should give you plenty of time to pack up your essentials. We can figure out the rest of the stuff later on.” The sadness in his eyes is unbearable and pain streaks down his face. “Goodbye, Phoenix.”

Then I do the most difficult thing I’ve ever done in my life.

I close the door.

And I walk away.

ONE LIE.

One lie is all it takes.

One lie will infect your world with incomprehensible doubt.

Shatter all hope.

Destroy all trust.

And ultimately crush you.

One lie is enough to make you question everything. Including your sanity.

Doubt is a mother fucker like that.

Once the truth is unfolded, it will taunt you relentlessly. And while it may not shake the love you share, it’s impossible to have the fullest kind of love when insurmountable doubt exists. It drains you, and you’re left running on empty. Not because of emotional exhaustion or hurt or sorrow. But because you emptied out your soul, giving everything you had to the lie.

The only reason to lie is because you're afraid. And Phoenix had every right to be afraid of what would happen if I found out. But that doesn’t justify withholding the truth. And I hate knowing that he didn't think I was worth the truth. That our relationship isn't worth a foundation of honesty.

Am I overreacting? Perhaps. I’m not an idiot. I get there were other women in the past. But now his past has caught up to us.
Ugh.
And the fact that it was Genevieve?
Double ugh.
But knowing that he fucking lied about it? That’s what is reprehensible.

This entire situation is a total mind fuck and my head hurts as much as my heart. Love should really come with warning labels.