The Reason I Stay (32 page)

Wanting the safety of my home, and as much distance from him as possible, I turn to leave.

“Don’t walk away, Lexie.”

The bone chilling tone in his voice compels me to look over my shoulder. I see a deep frown between his brows, and the fingers that were on my arm just seconds ago dangling above the gun on his hip and my stomach drops.

My feet are glued to the ground. I fist my hands, and tense my muscles to hide the shivers taking me by storm. I focus my eyes on his. The son-of-a-bitch smiles, and brings the hand that was hovering over his weapon to the back of his neck.

“Okay, we’ll just talk for a little bit, okay? You needn’t be afraid. You’re my sparkle; I’d never hurt you.”
Says the idiot who just reached for a gun.
My lack of a death wish is the only thing keeping me from flipping him off.

He takes a deep breath before speaking again. “I’ve been worried about you for the past few months. You don’t know what you’re gettin’ into with that city boy. You’re a nice girl, and you got dazzled by a good lookin’ fella. I get that, Sparkle. And it’s okay. You’re like your momma in that way.” I lock my jaw, because not only is he trying to come between Matthew and I again, but the dumbass is comparing me to my mother. Perfect. Without noticing my reaction, or maybe just flat-out ignoring it, he goes on. “But I really think you ought to break up with him, Sparkle. He ain’t a good guy. He’ll hurt you, and I need to protect you.”

Are you shitting me?

I only realize that the words left my mouth when his eyes narrow, and he exhales forcefully with anger. Knowing that those were some of the last words I should be saying to to a creep with a gun, I take a deep breath and try to retract them. “I mean . . . thanks for your worry, Ky, but I’m okay. I can take good care of myself, and Mathew is nothing but a gentleman to me.”
Unlike you, who punched me in the face. Twice.
I bite on my tongue to assure those words stay safely inside my brain.

He shakes his head as he moves closer to me, and brings a cold finger to my cheek. As much as being touched by him repulses me, I refrain from shying away from his touch. His thin lips pull up in a smile, and his other arm comes up between us.

Clasped between his fingers is a brown paper folder, similar to the one I’ve seen him go through while he ate pie at the diner. His gray eyes move from it to my face, as if he’s telling me to take it from him. Reluctantly, and without taking my eyes from him, I do.

His smile widens. “This isn’t much, but I think it’ll be enough for you to see the truth.”

I frown, and my eyes narrow as I look down at the folder in my hands and see
Mathew I. Rogers
written in Kyle’s messy cursive on a white tab.
The hell?!

Before my eyes bounce back to his face I see his hand hovering over his gun again, so I keep the curses I want to yell at him inside my mouth and force my lips to smile. “Thanks for the worry and the trouble, Ky. I’m a bit tired, so I’m gonna go home now, okay?”

He takes a deep breath, and nods. “It’s cold. Let me give you a ride, Sparkle.”

Fuck to the hell no!
“You know how I like walking. No need to worry yourself.”

Kyle sighs, but nods. He tells me he loves me, wishes me a good night, and turns around to walk back to The Jukebox’s parking lot.

Finally, I can breathe. Despite my desire to trash it, I clutch the stupid folder to my chest, and on shaky legs start jogging toward my house.

The moment I close and lock my door behind me, my legs give out and I fall to the floor, hyperventilating. The papers fall from my hands as I hug my bent legs, and bury my head between my knees.

It’s hard to tell how long I stay in that position, but judging by the amount of fear inside me, I’d say it’s a while. When I finally regain control over my weakened body, I stretch my neck and open my eyes. I see that the papers inside Kyle’s folder have scattered across the floor. Hating the mess, I go about picking them up.

The first thing I collect is a stack of stapled papers. The first one is a police background check of Matt with a date stamp of the Monday after Tanie’s party. The day after Matt punched him. As much as it worries me that Kyle was investigating him, it doesn’t surprise me. Kyle has always been vindictive. For that reason, I can’t stop myself from smiling when I see that the page contains absolutely nothing. No record whatsoever.

“Suck it, creep,” I mutter to myself.

I flip the first page and start looking at the other papers. They’re all reports of car accidents involving Matt. There are six altogether, and each contains some sort of public or private property damage. I frown, thinking it odd, but when I consider that Matt used to drive a sports car, a Maserati, I see that the potential for damage of someone who likes to drive fast is vast.

I place those papers inside the folder of nonsense, and crawl on my knees to reach for another sheet lying a few feet away. Instead of another police report, this paper was printed from the Internet, and is an article from a Seattle newspaper. The headline reads,
Model Loses Leg in Car Accident.

I frown, not understanding why he would put this in a file with Matt’s name on it. And then I start to read, and my heart pounds faster.

In the early hours of Sunday, February 16
th
, paramedics and firefighters were called to a car accident involving model Lea Simmons, 23, and famed playboy lawyer Mathew Rogers, 24.

The couple was in Ms. Simmons’ car, returning to Downtown Seattle after attending a birthday party for Mr. Rogers at a friend’s home in West Bellevue, when the vehicle flipped four times before crashing against the side of the road. Authorities informed the media that the accident was caused by low visibility due to heavy snow.

Mr. Rogers suffered a concussion and several minor bruises, and is reported to be doing fine. As for Ms. Simmons’ condition, information is still scarce, but authorities report that her left leg, which was propped on the dashboard of the vehicle at the time of the accident, was crushed and severed upon impact. The following statement was released by Mr. Rogers’ office this morning. “Mathew is devastated by the accident and Ms. Simmon’s injuries. The Rogers family is helping Ms. Simmons in this difficult time, and will continue to support her through the challenges ahead.”

The first thought in my mind when I read this is
what the fuck?
That is also the second, and the third. In fact, those three words stay in a loop inside my head for a while. I reach for another piece of paper and start reading without thinking.

This one is from a tabloid.

In the wake of recent reports regarding the single car accident involving Seattle-native model Lea Simmons and lawyer Mathew Rogers, speculation has risen about whether or not weather and road conditions even played a factor in the brutal accident, which resulted in the amputation of the model’s left leg just above her knee. Those suspicions are in great part due to natural forces always being the cause behind Rogers’—a known wild child, prone to wrecking cars, bars, and women’s hearts—infamous misfortunes.

For the naysayers, here is some data:

Police reports blame last year’s “accident” on a deer crossing the street, when Rogers lost control of his car and went through a yard before colliding with the front of a house in Georgetown. And this past September, when his vehicle collided with a street pole and left nearby residents without electricity for a few hours, it was reportedly due to slick roads and heavy rainfall. And most recently, snow was the reported cause of the accident involving Simmons.

No case was ever filed against him. However, with only so many natural disasters available to take the fall, we wonder what Rogers will come up with next.

I put the paper in my hands into the folder, and reach back to the stapled reports. My eyes search for the causes, and I notice that, as the tabloid reported, each accident has a natural or accidental cause behind it: snow, rain, wild animals, a tire that blew, hail, and finally oil spilled on the road. Although all of it could in fact be a real big coincidence, I see the tabloid’s point. It’s all very fishy.

I pick up another Internet-printed newspaper report. This one announces Lea Simmons’ first public statement.

Exactly one month after her tragic accident, Lea Simmons’ has released the following statement through her reps:

“Lea is doing well. She was fitted for a prosthetic leg, and is focusing hard on her rehabilitation. She would like to thank her longtime friend, Mathew Rogers, and his family, for their invaluable care and support in this difficult time, as well as her fans for all the messages and love they’ve been sending her through her social media sites. All of it has given her strength and hope to cope with her reality and push through.”

This was her first statement after the tragic accident that cost her one of her legs, and her fast-rising career. Despite her kind words toward Mathew Rogers and his family, Mathew hasn’t been seen around Seattle since he visited her with his father, prominent lawyer Dennis Rogers, the day after her amputation. The young model and the lawyer have been close friends since their high school years.

Rumors of a relationship between the handsome duo has stirred the Seattle social scene for a long time, but in the past couple of years, when Mr. Rogers started accompanying Ms. Simmons to LA and NYC for her fashion week commitments, those speculations became even more prominent. Despite sightings of the dashing lawyer with several different women, these rumors were never confirmed or denied.

I can’t tell which is more difficult to swallow: the words I just read, or the various photos that follow it. In them Matt is hugging, dancing with, walking next to, and whispering in the ear of a gorgeous redhead whom I’ve seen gracing the cover of a few magazines throughout the years. Either way, the combination is bombastic, and leaves me breathless in the worst way possible.

I lean my back against the front door. I take shallow breaths and close my eyes, desperately trying to keep the tears from spilling out. My efforts, however, are pointless. All I can think is that this can’t be true; Kyle is a jealous idiot, and a liar who made this up to tear Matt and I apart. But no matter how many times I repeat those words, I know they’re just my feeble attempt to remain calm and sane.

The truth is that I can’t fathom that my loving boyfriend, the man who’s been living in my house, sleeping in my bed, and making love to me every fucking night for the past eight months, would keep such an important part of his life unshared with me. But then flashes of conversations we’ve had start playing like radio inside my mind.

“You were the first person to ever make me feel bad about being an asshole.”

“I’m good at keeping my shit together when I’m drinking, but not always.”

“Have you considered that maybe I became a lawyer because I wreck bars? So I could dig myself out of my own shit?”

“I’m just too close to a case the firm is working on, and Dennis thought it would be best if I took some time away.”

I feel like the inside of my throat has been coated with sandpaper, my lungs filled with lead, and my brain melted into gelatin. I can’t swallow, I can’t breathe and I can’t think, and though all of that is incredibly uncomfortable, the worst feeling of all is the pain in my heart. It’s like a grenade blew up inside my chest, leaving me broken and hollow and dead.

Without even realizing that I’m standing up, I clutch the file against my chest and take wobbly steps toward the kitchen. I pick up Matt’s bottle of Jack from the cupboard and take it with me to my bedroom.

“No, Matt can’t be like that,” I mumble to myself between gulps from the bottle’s neck, and tears that form without sobs. “He’s not like Kyle, who keeps secrets and then lies to get his way. He’s not like the idiot that killed Leigh, who didn’t care about the people he hurt. He’s not a coward like my mother, who ran away because she couldn’t take responsibility for her actions. And most importantly, he’s not like Damian, who manipulated Leigh into thinking he was a good guy so she’d stay with him.”

I take my clothes off and replace them with my warmest pajamas. I sit on my bed and drape the covers over my body, but they do crap to warm the cold that seems to spring from the depths of my soul. My eyes stay fixed on the wall in front of me as I continue to speak, becoming more and more incoherent with each pull from the bottle. Even as I fall into a whiskey-induced sleep, tears continue to form, and fall from my eyes.