The Trouble With Before (30 page)

“YOU LOOK LIKE
you’ve lost your best friend.”

I turn around and see Lauren wobbling toward me. She’s so big she wobbles now, but she’s still as beautiful as the first day I saw her. She sits next to me on their couch in front of their ridiculously huge TV. Chris is sleeping, and Ms. Red and their daughter, Caylen, are at the park. A trip I’d usually take with them, but today I feel weird, as if I’m in someone else’s skin, restless but tired. It’s been a month since I lost my other best friend, when she packed up and moved out, when she rejected me.

Every week since that week, when Lisa basically called me a fucked up womanizer, I haven’t been doing the things I’ve normally done. I do a good job of pushing my thoughts down, and ignoring the piece of me that feels like it’s missing, but I detect Lauren has a sixth sense about matters of the heart.

“I’m good. Lost a bet on the game,” I lie with a shrug.

She frowns at me. “What type of bet was it?” She eyes me knowingly but plays along.

I let out a big sigh, stretch my legs, and scratch my head. “A pretty big one.”

She nods. “Well, you have to play to win, right?”

“I don’t think I should’ve bet at all. Now she doesn’t want to . . . the-the team,” I correct myself.

She giggles. “You want to just tell me what’s going on, because I know as much about sports as I do cooking and I’m probably not going to be able to keep up with the analogies.”

I grin. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

She looks at me with a frown. “
I
wouldn’t believe you . . . ?”

I laugh and nod, then let out a deep breath. I’m not the type to try to hide or sugarcoat stuff, so I decide to lay it out there. “I think I’m in love with Lisa.” I wait for her face to screw up in disbelief or disgust, but she only smiles. “You’re not shocked by this at all? Not even a little bit?”

She shrugs. “Should I be?”

I scratch my head. “Are you psychic?”

She lets out a little laugh while rubbing her stomach. “No, but Gwen told me that she’s staying with you and she thinks you’ve gotten pretty close again. I mean, you guys have known each other for years, so it’s not the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”

I let out a deep breath.

“It’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever fucking heard.”

We both look behind us and see Chris scowling at me, his arms crossed. Lauren looks at me quickly.

“You and fucking Lisa?” he asks angrily.

Shiiit. I definitely didn’t need him to hear this, and it’s not something I want to discuss with him at all. Chris is probably the only person in this house who doesn’t know that Lisa’s been staying with me, or that she’s been seeing Willa.

“Are you serious?” he asks.

“Babe, can you not—”

He glares at her. “Can I not what? Wonder why my best friend is saying he’s in love with my father’s whore?”

I take a deep breath and clasp my hands together. Lauren looks at me sympathetically.

“I feel like I’m living in the twilight zone. My mom’s cool with Lisa, and now you’re in love with her.” He laughs angrily, condescension radiating off of him.

“I’m not talking about this with you, man,” I tell him, trying to maintain my composure.

“No, I want to talk about it! When did this happen? Is this why you’ve been MIA the past few months?”

“This really isn’t our business,” Lauren interjects.

“Yeah, it is. He’s sitting in my house talking to
my
wife about how he’s fallen in love with a chick who ruined
my
family!” he shouts.

“Ruined your family?” I laugh. “Your family looks pretty intact to me. Your mom and dad are still together, you have a little sister running around, an you’re expecting twins. Lisa lost everybody!”

“Who did she lose? She still has you, my mom is at her beck and call, and even Lauren seems to be on Team Lisa, right, hon?” he asks sarcastically.

“You’re being a real jerk right now!” Lauren shouts at him.

“Oh,
I’m
the jerk? Excuse me for being the one who just so happened to be affected by all of this!”

Lauren rolls her eyes at him. “If Gwen could move past this, why can’t you? No one is asking you to be her friend again, but do you have to be so horrible? She’s Willa’s mother. Can you just try to be civil?”

His lips are pressed together. “No, I don’t think I can be.” He turns toward me. “You chose her before.”

I wave him off.

“No, you did. When she told you what happened, you should have told me, but you didn’t. You hid it and let her slap me in the face with it!” he shouts at me.

I look at Lauren, who swallows hard. She shouldn’t be around this. I get up to leave the room.

“I’ve never forgotten about that,” he says.

“I see that now,” I say flatly.

“If you want to be with her, leave us out of it,” he says coldly.

I look at him in disbelief. “What? You’re making me choose?”

“No, he’s not,” Lauren says quickly.

“Yeah, I am. It’s her or us. If you want her to be your family, that’s fine, but you can’t have it both ways.”

Lauren stands, looking between us. “You don’t mean that.”

“I do. If you want to be with her, if you think she’s worth it, then stay away from me and stay away from my family,” he says quietly.

“Dude, seriously? You’re my brother,” I say with a disbelieving laugh.

He looks away from me. “Yeah, and I thought she was my sister.”

He storms out of the room, and Lauren looks at me, her face full of sympathy.

“He doesn’t mean it. He’s just been having a hard time lately,” she says quietly.

I sit on the couch in disbelief. My best friend has just given me an ultimatum, and it’s pretty ridiculous. Lisa doesn’t even want me, but for him to do that . . .

“I just want what you guys have,” I tell her quietly.

“Well, if you’re familiar with our story, you know it wasn’t easy.”

I groan. “They’re both fucking nuts.”

“You really love her?” Lauren asks.

I think about her question and how Grams said if you love someone, you’d go to hell and back for them. I should have fought like hell when Lisa started hiding behind into her new self-deprecating façade. She was trying to push me away. She’s still afraid to let herself be happy.

“I do. I love her. I’m in love with her. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for her,” I say, the realization hitting me like a ton of bricks.

But in an instant, it’s as if a weight’s been taken off of me. I love Lisa so much that if I have to walk away from my best friend for her, I will.

Lauren smiles. “Well, you go deal with your psycho, and I’ll go deal with mine.” She grins at me before wobbling off in Chris’s direction.

And I’ll go find my girl, even if I have to drag her from hell kicking and screaming.

Dear Brett,

I’ve thought about how to write this letter to you a million ways. I hope this is one way that doesn’t read terribly. First, I’d like to say thank you. Thank you for being there for me when I didn’t have anyone. You always saw the good in me when I didn’t see it in myself. You gave me the opportunity to start over, but I should have fixed the last chapter in my life before beginning a new book. I want you to know that I love you, even if you can’t find it in your heart to still love me. I’ll never forget what you did for me, and who you were. I wish I could have been the woman you saw me to be, but I was not. I am so sorry that I hurt you, and I do want you to know that while I was with you there was never anyone else. I made the guy I told you about . . . I don’t even remember what I named him . . . completely up. I was pregnant with our child. A child that I will think about everyday, who didn’t make it to this world, but will always live in my heart. I do believe you would have came around and been a great father. I know that one day you will be. I hope you find it in your heart to forgive me. Today I am working on being a better woman, and when I am you will be a big reason for me accomplishing that.

I DON’T KNOW
what hell is like, but living with Evie and Jack must be pretty damn close. The first couple of days were the worst, seeing what my mom has become, how Jack rules the house like a king with an iron fist. Seeing his smug grin when I returned. The worst part is that they love to argue and have loud, disgusting sex afterward. The good thing about that is the sex doesn’t last long, and this past week, Jack hasn’t been around much.

Each day I’m here, I have to remind myself why I left Aidan’s, even though being there without him was pretty much like hell. His missing presence was swallowing me whole. I missed him more than I ever imagined missing anyone, and it was because I’d pushed him away. This time, I can’t blame another person or circumstance; it was all me.

Maybe I’m back here because it’s a pretty good form of punishment. Handing over six hundred dollars to the disgusting human being my mother calls a husband made me want to vomit. The way he looks at me when she’s not around makes me want to vomit. The way she’s been trying to act as though we have an actual relationship since I’m paying her rent makes me want to scratch out my own eyes, but I put up with it because at least I can’t hurt anyone here. No one cares enough about me for my actions to even be on their radar.

I have enough money saved that next month, I’ll be good to move and get some actual furniture. Being so miserable here has given me enough time to finish my novel too. The longest month of my life. It still sounds weird to actually have written a novel. It’s really done. I found a few critique partners online who gave it a thumbs-up after my third draft. The biggest criticism I got was a request to change the ending so that Katie, the main character, doesn’t screw up her life and run off to California with a man she knows she doesn’t love. They want her to keep her daughter and develop her relationship with her sparring partner/best friend. If only I could rewrite life so easily.

Writing has been good for me. Dr. Marella, the counselor I’ve been speaking with, says it’s a much better outlet than drinking or locking myself away. It’s helped me get clarity on mistakes I’ve made. It turns out, I tend to blame people for the mistakes I’ve made, and I use those people as excuses to keep making them. She’s suggested I work on my relationship with Evie—we’re civil now, so that’s a step forward—and most importantly, Dr. Marella says I need to forgive myself.