Love Nouveau (27 page)

My mother pulls her sweater set tighter around her arms. She’s acting like my presence in this confined space makes her uncomfortable. “We need to see about getting you out of here today. There’s still so much to do before the rehearsal dinner tomorrow night and you need to be helping your sister with the last minute details, not caged up in here like an injured animal.”

Are you fucking kidding me?

My life has been thrown upside down without a safety net and she has the audacity to act like
I’m
the inconvenience. Never mind her blatant concern for my health and wellbeing. Surely she can’t be serious, but the stoic look on her face tells me otherwise. I’ve been walking through a nightmare with my eyes wide open the past few days and Genevieve’s wedding is the least of my concerns. For once,
just one fucking time
, I would like for something to be about me and not my sister.

As if on cue with my thoughts, Genevieve appears in the doorway, blowing over the top of her styrofoam coffee cup. Her hair is pinned up in a perfect messy knot and her designer ivory sundress screams here comes the bride. I want to claw her perfect little face off.

“So what’s the plan? We’re busting you out of here today, right? You still have to learn how to bustle my dress. And I need your help rearranging the seating chart to accommodate a few late guests. People can be so rude sometimes,” Genevieve says.

Her comment is humorous and the irony is not lost on me. Her self-centeredness is not a shock at all. I don’t have the energy to tell her where she can shove that bustle because having both her and mother in the room with me has put me on edge.

“I don’t know. The doctor should be here soon with my latest labs,” I reply sweetly. I know it would take a miracle to be released today, and I find relief knowing that I have at least one more day of reprieve here in the hospital. I close my eyes and silently wish my mom and sister out of my room and out of my life.

When Phoenix emerges from the bathroom, he senses my unease and returns to my side, tucking a loose strand of hair behind my ear.

“Do you want some water or anything?” he asks, ignoring my family. I can see how deeply he cares for me with his knowing glance.

Any frustration or anger I’ve held for this man has washed away. The tenderness in which he touches me tells me everything I need to know, giving me strength and reassurance. He’s not going anywhere and I don't want him to.

I shake my head no. “I’m okay.” I examine his face a little more closely. He looks like hell. “You must be exhausted. Why don’t you go back to your hotel and get some sleep for a little while?” I whisper, recognizing that he needs some rest. But while he’s wearing his weariness on his face, I selfishly don’t want him leaving me alone with my family. I say a silent prayer, begging him to stay.

“I’m not going anywhere without you today.” He gives my hand an encouraging squeeze.

This man.

This man is my savior.

He can sense my desperate need to keep him here by my side and he’s refusing to go. With all of my recent screw-ups, what have I done to deserve him?

A sharp knock on the door breaks our focus, and I watch Sully strut in and wrap his arm around Genevieve’s waist, pulling her in for a kiss.

“Hey, babe,” he croons. “Can you believe parking is fifteen bucks an hour here?”

Standing at the edge of my bed, Sully’s eyes flash recognition then horror when they finally register on me. He studies my face intently and I watch his Adam’s apple protrude from his neck as he swallows hard.

This is the first time since that night in Madison we’ve actually laid eyes on each other, the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle firmly fitting into place.

Phoenix looks from Sully to me and then back to Sully again. Phoenix’s face shifts from concerned to wild and outraged and protective in a single blink. He mutters a string of profanities underneath his breath and squeezes my hand so hard that I start to lose circulation in my fingers.

The air in the room shifts again and discomfort oozes from Sully’s every pore. I swear I see him cower for one fleeting moment.

“Hey, you okay?” I ask Phoenix, tugging back on his hand. I need him to look at me. I need him to calm down. I don’t know what is going on in that head of his, but he has to chill out.

Phoenix continues to glare at his friend. He clenches his jaw and I notice a sheen of sweat over Sully’s brow as he shifts his weight back and forth nervously.

“You know, I really want to be wrong about this, Ivy.” He looks to the window before pushing the heels of his hands into his eye sockets, opening his mouth in an angry muted scream. The uneasy feeling apparently justified.

“What do you mean?” I tug at his shirt, trying to bring his attention back toward me.

“You did this, didn’t you?” Phoenix seethes at Sully, animosity winning the war of emotions. His friend says nothing. Does nothing. Just shifts his eyes to the floor. “You sick son of a bitch.”

“Hey, calm down.” I pull on Phoenix’s hand. “What’s your problem?”

Phoenix rises defensively on his haunches, and I find myself frightened by his reaction. What the hell happened to cause him to go off the deep end?

“I knew it,” Phoenix says to himself in disbelief. “Why don’t you tell Ivy what you did to her? Why don’t you explain to Ivy and her family and her sister—
your fiancée
—why we’re here right now?”

What the hell? What does he mean? Did what to me?

Stunned, my mom and sister look at one another in confusion, trying to paint the answers.

“Excuse me?” Genevieve snaps defensively, moving to stand in front of Sully.

I steel myself and challenge him. “Phoenix, I haven’t seen him since the night we first met. In fact, I’ve never even been formally introduced to him as my sister’s fiancé.”

My eyes shift to Genevieve, offering her a quiet apology for the scene unraveling before us. Her eyebrows rise inquisitively as she drops her jaw, realizing that I’ve met her dashing groom before today.

“Come on, Sul,” he spits. “You remember meeting Ivy before, don’t you?” Phoenix moves Genevieve aside and gets up in Sully’s face, a predator sizing up its prey.

His reaction makes me second-guess myself. Maybe Sully has no clue who
I
am, after all, we were all pretty drunk that night, but that look he gave me when he first walked in. It was one of guilt. Of knowing. Of recollection. Of…

“Are the pieces finally falling into place for you? Genevieve told you Ivy had a miscarriage, right?” Phoenix is practically screaming now as he enunciates each word slowly so they sink in. “A. Mis. Carr. Iage.”

“I fail to see what this has to do with him, Phoenix,” I say pragmatically.

“CJ? What is he talking about?” Genevieve shoots me an anxious look. I can’t tell what Genevieve is thinking, but she looks like she is about to kill me. Sully and Phoenix’s eyes are locked in a heated stare down, silently challenging each other, neither of them backing down.

“Ivy was there that night. In Madison. The weekend of your bachelor party. You practically introduced me to her,” Phoenix spits at his best friend. “Don’t pretend like you don’t know what I’m talking about. I know you brought the roach with you that weekend. I suspected it all along. I told you
no.
And I tried everything I could to keep her protected from you and your fucked up antics. And somehow …somehow you still managed to fuck everything up. I said no! I actually like her, Sully!” he shouts violently.

The weight of Phoenix’s declaration sits upon my chest. My mind can’t get there fast enough. I watch as Sully’s eyes grow wide, piecing the puzzle together, two steps ahead of everyone else. He opens his mouth to say something.

“Just what are you insinuating, young man?” my mother barks at Phoenix.

“Jesus, you are such an asshole,” Phoenix says, shaking his head in disbelief, still ignoring my mother. By his hip, I spy Phoenix’s hand stretching and contracting into a fist. One by one he pops each of his knuckles as anger boils through his chest.

“What the hell is he talking about, CJ?” Genevieve asks again cautiously, tugging on his arm.

“Your fiancé!” Phoenix shouts. “The night I met Ivy, he drugged
your
sister.
My
… my …” He can’t finish his thought, defining what I am to him. Phoenix rakes his hand down his face as my insides tumble like the melee of a washing machine. I swallow the rising bile as my pulse quickens to the point of nausea.

“Tell the woman you’re about to marry what you did to her sister while she was passed out,” Phoenix dares him. “Tell her!”

I wince as he shouts.

Sully’s silence is his confession.

We all sit there in stunned stillness, trying to process the implications of what was just said. All eyes are on Sully as we wait for some kind of response. Something to be said to prove Phoenix wrong. I
need
him to be proved wrong. The thumping of my heartbeat deep within my ears gets louder, faster, frenzied, and I feel like I’m going to throw up.

My mind recalls a conversation I had with Phoenix where he told me how Sully would go to all lengths to help his friends get laid. Paying a prostitute for his cousin, slipping drugs to a girl at a bar for his brother. I never would have guessed that Sully would be capable of drugging unsuspecting girls and that I would be involved in his fucked up charades.

“How
dare
you, you piece of shit!” Genevieve shrieks. She charges at Phoenix and starts slapping him across his face and chest.

Phoenix grabs her wrists with force and stares right through her. The look he gives dares her to keep challenging him, to think of the implications of what is happening. He says nothing, gently pushing her to the side.

The next thing I know, Phoenix unleashes a guttural sound and my mom is trying to pull him off of Sully, but Phoenix is just too angry. Too strong. Too overcome with hatred. I watch his shoulder snap, throwing the weight of his body into his childhood friend’s cheek. His nose. His eyes. He continues drawing his fist back, pummeling into his face over and over and over again.

I’m not sure whose it is, but blood covers Phoenix’s knuckles and it stains Sully’s shirt. The scene unfolding around me is complete chaos. I can’t think over Genevieve’s wails as my mother tries to calm her. I can’t breathe with the gravity of this situation on my chest. I can’t process with this truth infecting the air. The room has become a whirlwind of motion, emotion and sound. And here I sit in the middle of it all, the quiet one, the eye of the storm.

I have no concept of how much time passes before security finally rushes into the room and pries the pair apart. Genevieve fumes as she casts daggers at me eyes and coddles CJ. In an unsurprising move, my mother is right there beside her, inspecting the damage done to the groom.

I look at Phoenix as his chest rises and falls rapidly. His wild eyes soften at the sight of me. Tears fill my eyes, blurring his image in a kaleidoscope of color. I want to tear his face off as my mind races with too many unanswered questions. But I know he’s just fucked me over on a level I never imagined possible.

“Why?” Why what? I don’t know. I don't even know who I'm addressing with my question. I just … I just can’t process Phoenix’s accusation.

“Ivy,” Phoenix says with a pained expression, “I was only trying to help.”

Help?
What he is doing is certainly not
helping
me. For the past few months, he has led me to believe that we had something real. Something not based on lies. A legit connection. But all this time he knew, or at the very least suspected that Sully had done something to me the night we met, and he never said a word.

Who the hell does that?

If he has been harboring this shit the entire time, how can I even begin to trust him with anything else? Is Hailey really who he says she is? Is
he
really who he says he is?

Is nothing sacred anymore?

Well, fuck Phoenix and the righteous horse he rode in on.

“You think you can come in here and expect me to be okay with all of this? Expect me
not
to hate you? You can’t come in and save me, Phoenix. I’m not a fucking princess and I most definitely don’t need rescuing. Especially not from you,” I bite back, seething acid. “You are unbelievable. Just get out!”

The security guard grabs Phoenix and removes him from my room and presumably the premises. I can’t stand the sight of him right now.

As he leaves, Phoenix gives me a tearful, apologetic look. He understands that, truth or not, he has hurt me on levels unfathomable. The pain within his eyes could write volumes. I feel numb as I watch him walk out of my room and out of my life.

Sully … CJ … Cortland … whatever the hell his name is, has brushstrokes of blood painted across his jaw and chin and nose. A piece of living art in front of me, features rearranged in Cubist fashion. A Picasso, to be precise. The pretty boy isn’t so pretty anymore.
Good.

“That means you, too!” I hiss at Sully in disbelief.

The shuffling of his feet sounds like a death march toward the door.

My heart lurches at the silence in the room. My mother and Genevieve exchange a mortifying look. The one thing Phoenix never wanted was to bring me pain. But for the truth to be told, the pain is inevitable. His heart aches for me, and mine for his, but my mind spits in his general direction as rage sets in.

Phoenix knew. He fucking knew. He admitted he suspected Sully had done something and he never once said anything. What kind of despicable human being does that? The asshole kind, that’s who. I feel my veins surge with anger and hurt, then my insides fall through my body and to the floor when I recognize the look on my family’s faces is one of contempt.

“You slept with him?” Genevieve gasps, tears filling her eyes. “How could you?” Her eyes plead with mine.

Of course she believes that I’d do this intentionally. That I would bring this upon myself, upon her. That I would find a way to fuck things up beyond repair. Genevieve is so far beyond delusional that she is incapable of registering what all of this actually means. That her beloved husband to be isn’t who she thinks he is. That he’s a rapist.