Starting Over
Teagan
The long road to Raven’s Peak loomed before me. I didn’t want to return, but Mrs. Marks was throwing me a graduation party. Despite the memories I so wanted to avoid, she and the others were the only family I had. I wanted to see them and share my accomplishment with them.
In the years since learning about Kane, I’d made excuse after excuse for why I couldn’t come home. I even went so far as to find summer work in Boston to avoid summers in Maine. I knew Kane was no longer living at Raven’s Peak, but Raven’s Peak was synonymous with him. There were just too many memories there to haunt me. Mrs. Marks had tried to persuade me to visit home, but every time I thought about packing a bag, I couldn’t.
We spoke on the phone all the time. Mrs. T and Mr. Clancy and I exchanged e-mails regularly, but physically going home, until now, had just been too damn hard. I had invited them to come to Boston, but they were older now, so I knew the journey was too much for them. And even knowing this, it still hurt that they never made the trip. Especially since they had made the trip for Kane when he’d moved out.
Even with the perspective of almost four years, I hadn’t bounced back as well as I should have. Simon had insisted I see a therapist, and she helped me realize I wasn’t coping well. I needed closure. I needed to understand how I’d lost not just my boyfriend but my best friend. And until I understood how I could have lost both so completely, I was adrift and afraid that I’d never be able to hold on to another relationship.
If not for Simon, I think I would have done something really stupid once the reality of my life had settled in. I almost flunked out that first year. My focus on my schoolwork had cost me Kane, and I’d almost failed out anyway. Ironic.
Pulling around the circular drive, I slammed the car into park, but I couldn’t seem to get myself to leave it. I didn’t want to go inside, where all those memories were just waiting to bombard me. I wasn’t staying long—a few weeks to get the rest of my stuff packed and then I was gone, back to Boston and my new life. Simon and I were getting a place together and starting a business. Antiques. Mrs. Marks was thrilled with this idea, especially because she loved all things old. Simon’s parents insisted on purchasing us the building we had our eyes on. His father was a retired investment banker, and his mother a very successful event planner. They were very nice people, if a little uptight. But they adored their son. He believed they’d offered to buy us the building due to their lingering guilt about not handling the news of him being gay well. I wasn’t so sure that was the case; I think it was just love for their son. Either way, having that financial burden removed from our shoulders was very much appreciated.
I climbed from the car, then grabbed my bags and headed for the door. As was his way, Mr. Clancy pulled the door open before I’d even knocked. “Welcome home, Teagan.”
I dropped my bags, then wrapped him in my arms. “Hi.”
“How are you doing?” he asked.
“I’m okay.”
“Congratulations—graduating with honors. Mrs. Marks hasn’t stopped bragging.”
It was true, after that first year, I’d dedicated myself completely to my schoolwork and managed to not only pull my grades up but to graduate with honors. I was proud of myself. I did it for myself, and yet I still hadn’t quite found happiness again.
“How is she?” I asked. Mrs. Marks had taken Kane’s defection almost as hard as I had.
A slight hesitation followed my question, and when he did answer he sounded almost curt. Odd. “She’s fine. Come, let me show you to your room.”
“Could I have another room? I don’t think I’m ready to be in there yet. Too many memories.”
Sadness swept his expression, but the other emotion I saw, anger, surprised me. Before I could ask what he was thinking, he said, “I understand. I’ll make up the lavender room for you. Leave your bags at the stairs. Come, Mrs. Marks is waiting for you.”
“I’ll help you make the bed,” I offered almost absently, because there was something I just had to ask. “Mr. Clancy?”
He turned back to me. “Yes?”
“Why did you all go with Kane to help him settle into his new apartment, but no one came with me to settle me into my dorm?”
Pain flashed over his face this time. A deep pain that was startling to see. “Are you okay?” I asked.
His hand shook as he reached for my arm. He started to say something and then stopped himself. “He needed us more than you did. And, honestly, we had the sense you wanted to take that step without us, but, had you asked, we all would have been there.”
He wasn’t wrong that I’d wanted to take that step without them. After learning that Kane wasn’t joining me for a few months, I’d made the decision to try to make it on my own, needed to know I could. But I didn’t agree with his comment that Kane needed them more. Kane was way more self-sufficient than me. And then the thought popped into my head: What if he hadn’t been as careful with Doreen and had gotten her pregnant? My stomach twisted painfully, and I wished I’d kept my mouth shut.
“Never mind,” I whispered.
Mr. Clancy shook his head. A heaviness fell over him that hadn’t been there before.
I wanted to cry—the idea that Kane could have a child, a family—I just wanted to cry. Instead, I put on my game face and pushed my ugly thoughts away, because they really could just be ugly thoughts. I didn’t know anything about Kane’s life now. Mrs. Marks was waiting. She was sitting in the reading room, a pretty room done completely in white embossed wallpaper, with pastel-toned furniture and dark walnut floors.
“Teagan, you’re home.” She stood to hug me. Even in her late seventies, she still moved around like a woman half her age. “How are you?”
“Okay.” Miserable, heartbroken, and sick in the stomach at the possibility that Kane had a child with someone else.
“We’ve missed you. Staying in touch through the phone and e-mail is wonderful, but it isn’t the same as face-to-face. I know why you stayed away for so long, though I wish you hadn’t.”
“It was too hard to come home. Even now, it hurts being here.”
“I . . . about Kane.”
“Please. I don’t want to talk about him.” I really didn’t need to know any more than the basics. He’d found someone else and moved on. Enough said.
“It’s just, oh, Teagan, I wish you knew everything.”
“I don’t care to know everything. He moved on, and that’s what I’m trying to do. Please, Mrs. Marks, it’s hard enough being back here. Putting Kane front and center in my thoughts is going to make this so much harder.”
She nodded in understanding but looked conflicted, angry.
I changed the subject. “You look pretty. Is that a new dress?” I asked.
“New for me.”
Mrs. Marks wore only vintage, didn’t like herself in anything made after 1930. Her salt-and-pepper hair was always pulled up in a Gibson Girl–style bun, and her feet were always in small heels of some kind. I’d asked her about it once, and she replied that life was short and so one needed to live each day to the fullest. She loved heels and, though she never really had a cause to wear them, she wore them anyway. Remembering the conversation I’d shared with Mr. Clancy about Mrs. Marks’s brothers, I understood her desire to live each day like it was her last.
She gestured to a chair and waited for me to sit before she followed. Mrs. T appeared, wheeling a tea tray.
“Teagan.”
“Mrs. T.” She hugged me for so long, and her eyes searched mine when she pulled back. But it was when she pressed her hand to my cheek that I nearly lost it. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed being home until that moment. Mrs. T stepped back and immediately busied herself with making the tea.
I was happy to see Mrs. T and Mr. Clancy take a chair, but the feeling was tempered by the odd atmosphere in the room, which I attributed to the glaring absence of Kane. Even Mrs. Marks seemed affected, uncomfortable or maybe nervous. Her hands twisted in her lap, and her focus shifted a few times to the sofa where Mrs. T and Mr. Clancy were sitting. And then she said, “So tell us all about this idea of yours for an antique shop.”
Two nights later, I couldn’t sleep with the memories pushing to get in, to be remembered. And, while trying to hold them back was exhausting, I still couldn’t find sleep. The party earlier had been lovely—Mrs. Marks and the others had gone to a lot of work, but celebrating without Kane felt wrong. And I knew I wasn’t the only one to feel it. He didn’t even come home to celebrate my achievement, even though he had been more excited for me than I had been when I got my acceptance letter. How thoroughly he’d removed himself from my life. What I found even more unbelievable was how he had distanced himself from Mrs. Marks and the others. Avoiding me I understood; it hurt, but I understood. Knowing how much Mrs. Marks and the others loved him, I thought it seemed cruel for him to distance himself from them too.
Climbing from bed, I pulled on a robe and headed downstairs. I was just passing the large terrace doors that overlooked the ocean when I noticed a light on the water. A light that appeared to be coming from the island that Kane and I had often snuck off to. Anger filled me. The intensity of it was surprising. Had Mrs. Marks sold her island? Even so, how dare someone claim that land? It was Kane’s and mine, even though those dreams had died long ago. Without even a conscious thought, I grabbed a flashlight, flew out of the house and ran down to the small boat docked on the beach.
The engine moved me across the water and, even though it was dark, as I got closer I realized the light was for a house—a house built on our spot. I wanted to rage. Why couldn’t things just be left as they were? Why couldn’t I have that one private reminder of Kane and all that he had been to me? I knew I was being unreasonable, but I didn’t care.
Driving the boat right up onto the shore, I climbed out and stalked to the house. As I approached, I heard a crash, followed by muffled swearing. I knocked on the front door, and a woman in her midtwenties answered. She was pretty, with long blond hair and green eyes that looked annoyed or maybe overwhelmed.
“Can I help you?”
What could I say to her? Get off. This is my land, not yours. I just stood there, staring at the woman living in a house that was built in the exact place where Kane and I had first made love. Embarrassed by my behavior, I started to turn away, and then I heard another curse, and this time there was no mistaking that voice. My breath froze in my throat as I pushed into the living room—it had been tossed. Had there been a fight? A movement caught my attention just as a man stepped into view. His black hair was long and messy, falling over his shoulders. His strong jaw and upper lip sported a five-o’clock shadow that had been allowed to grow an extra few days. Wide shoulders, flat stomach, and narrow hips—the body of man. The room pitched, and I felt my vision dim around the edges. Kane. There was no recognition on his face at the sight of me, but that barely registered, because in that moment the most profound sense of anger tore through me, like sharp talons sinking into my flesh.
“Kane. What a pleasant surprise. I thought you moved away, so eager to be free you left in a hurry, severing all ties in the process.”
Shock flashed over his face. “Teagan. What are you doing here?”
A coldness settled over me when I heard the hardness in his voice. He was calling me Teagan still. Moving back from him like I’d been burned, I just stared, unable to understand the coldness that was directed at me.
“Shouldn’t that be my question? You’re the one who took off.”
As he looked at me, his eyes, those beautiful eyes that had only ever looked at me with love, were not even bothering to connect.
“Why are you back?” Bitterness rang in my tone.
“Always loved it here, never intended to stay away for long.”
“And me, did you plan on seeing me again? You may not have wanted me anymore, but we were friends once. There was a graduation party earlier today. Couldn’t bother to get your ass up to the house to see your onetime BFF?”
“Thought it’d be easier this way, a clean break. We didn’t want the same things.”
I couldn’t get my brain around any of this. The man standing before me, who looked like the boy I loved, was not at all the boy I loved. “We got engaged, seems to me we were pretty much on the same page.”
“Look, Teagan, we were kids—scared and alone and we grew attached. Some would probably say too attached. You were already pulling away from me. You felt it as much as I did. What we had was great for what it was, but it wasn’t real love, it wasn’t lasting love. It was just young love. I realized that after we were separated for a while, so yeah, I wanted a clean break.”
The memory of my conversation with Camille flashed in my head, and how I had struggled to make sense of what was not understandable in the days that followed. I had been right. Kane had thought I had moved on but he had also felt guilty because he had moved on too. “You told me never to leave. Forever, remember?”
“At the time, I felt that way. I don’t anymore.”
Luckily my walls were solid fucking concrete ’cause I felt nothing, but I did want answers. He owed me that. “What changed? You bought me an engagement ring.”
“That was what changed. Seeing the ring, the permanency of what I was doing, a lifetime with one person: the only girl I ever knew, it made it real and I realized I didn’t want that.”
“Is that her, Doreen, your girlfriend?” I couldn’t even look at the woman who was silently witnessing this nightmare. Was there a child here somewhere? That thought penetrated the wall—nearly doubling me over in pain.
His next words destroyed me. “My wife now.”
Another crack in the wall, a sob ripped from my throat; I couldn’t have stopped it even if I’d wanted to. “So it wasn’t that you didn’t want a lifetime with just one woman, you just didn’t want a lifetime with me. You didn’t want me.”
I felt it, even with how hard I had barricaded it in, my heart split open and I was bleeding out, my whole world collapsing around me. My happy memories of the past crumbled to dust.
“You promised me this house, our world away from the world. We made love, fumbled through it, right under where this house is built. Was the memory so repugnant to you that you had to cover it up? You weren’t just my boyfriend, my first love, and my best friend—you were my family. I lost my family once, and it hurt like hell. Didn’t think anything could hurt worse, but I was wrong. Every happy memory I have since coming here is with you, every single one. You can have those memories now, because I don’t want them. I don’t want to remember you, because in remembering the good, I’ll be forced to relive the bad.” I started for the door. “Don’t worry, you won’t see me again.”
His last words to me felt like a knife to my heart. “No, I won’t.”
I stopped moving, my head dropped in mourning for the life I had still secretly hoped would come to pass, but now I knew that it never would. Lifting my head again, holding it high, I walked from his house. The thought of walking into the water, and not stopping, was so tempting it terrified me.
The sun was starting to rise when I finally made it back to the house. Mrs. Marks was waiting for me.
Shock had set in but I was furious too. Mrs. Marks had wanted to discuss Kane when I first arrived and considering the news, she should have fucking insisted I listen. “He’s married and living in our house and no one thought to tell me that?” She looked shattered in response, almost as destroyed as me, but I was too angry to care. “I can’t stay.”
“I know, dear girl, I wish it didn’t have to be this way.”
Her voice cracked and tears slid down her cheeks but I was dying inside so her pain didn’t penetrate my own. I packed my bags and called a cab. That afternoon I was back in Boston.
Simon pulled his door open and, at the sight of me, he grabbed my arms. “What the hell happened?”
“I saw Kane.”
“Fuckhead. Come in.” He grabbed my bags and dropped them on the floor before dragging me to the sofa, since my legs weren’t working right. I understood now the odd tension at home—they all knew that Kane was living our dream with someone else and no one told me. I thought he hadn’t bothered to come home for my party, but he had been home, right there in walking distance, and yet he had made no attempt to see me. Anger was giving way to the familiar gut-wrenching pain that never seemed to ease.
“What did he have to say for himself?”
“He’s married.”
“What?”
“And living in the house we had talked about building.”
“I say again—fuckhead.”
“Simon, no one told me. I discovered that fun fact all on my own.”
“Jesus.”
On the flight home, pushing past the stunning betrayal from those I held most dear, I could think of nothing but how different Kane was. The boy I loved was gone, the man in his place was bitter and cold. It was this more than anything that churned my anger and my heartache. What the hell had happened to change him so much? “I’m angry and I’m hurt and there’s a part of me that feels nothing. What happened to the boy I grew up with, the one who laughed and teased, the one who was so kind to everyone? That boy’s gone. And I honestly don’t understand why. He didn’t want a life with me, fine, but he pushed me out of his life completely. He was so cold, so unfeeling. There was nothing in his eyes. The warmth and sparkle that I so loved seeing was gone. His eyes were dead.”
“I’m so sorry, Teagan.”
Jumping up from the sofa, I reached for my phone. Mrs. Marks answered on the first ring.
“What happened to him?”
“Teagan?”
“What happened to Kane? Why is he so different?”
She hesitated and I knew she knew more about Kane than she was saying, even more than the crushing secret about his wife. “Tell me, damn it. I have a right to know. The man living in that house is not Kane. He’s altered. What the hell happened to make him that way?”
“Sometimes people change.”
“Bullshit.”
“Language.”
“No, seriously bullshit. Kane, the big-hearted Kane, as you’ve said yourself. Where is that Kane?”
“I don’t know.”
“And you’re not alarmed that he’s so drastically different? What do we know about his wife, except for the fact that she has changed him so completely? Relation to Mrs. T or not, who the hell is she?” And then a thought made me worry. “Do you think he’s on drugs?”
“I think he needs time to deal.”
“With what?”
“Whatever happened that’s changed him.”
“Do you know what happened?”
“I know that he’s been through a great deal, and, when he’s ready, I’m sure he’ll reach out to you. You are still his best friend.”
“You do know. He told you, but he won’t tell me. I’m tired of trying to understand when no one is offering me a damn thing. Take care of him, Mrs. Marks.”
“Teagan?”
“I’m sorry, but I just can’t do this anymore. Now I’m the one who needs time.”
“You will come home.”
“My home is here in Boston. Thank you for everything you’ve done for me. Good-bye, Mrs. Marks.”
I hung up before she could reply. It was time to move on.
Looking around the space that would one day be Simon’s and my antique store, pride burned through me. Six months after I’d severed all ties with my past, I was finally healing, and a huge part of that was due to this store. The building was much like the TARDIS—bigger on the inside. When the contractor started work, his crew discovered walnut floors under the carpeting. Why someone would cover hardwood with carpeting, I didn’t know. The load-bearing columns added a nice touch to the open space. Simon was working with the painter on custom colors, because apparently there was a science behind the colors used: colors that soothed, excited, and even encouraged people to buy.
I had tapped into more than half of the money my parents had left me between my schooling and the store, but I really did believe we were going to be a success. Simon had a real knack for finding treasures. He was a natural salesman, and we both genuinely loved antiques.
Checking my watch, I called to Simon, “I have to go. Meeting Erik.”
“Okay. Have fun.”
Erik and I had met at the local coffee house, both of us coming in at the same time for our morning coffee. It took him a month to work up the nerve to say hi. We’d been to dinner countless times, which had evolved to where our relationship was now—great sex, dinner optional. I enjoyed his company. As much as I had healed in the past six months after learning that Kane had married, it had been four and half years since Kane had ended us, and I was still unable to commit to someone. I could admit to myself that I was broken and suspected a part of me always would be.
Hurrying home, I showered and dressed in one of my flowing skirts and a Lycra top, slipped on my sandals, and pulled a brush through my hair. Erik had offered to pick me up, but I didn’t want to give him the wrong impression. This was fun, this was sex, nothing more.
He opened the door of his apartment dressed in faded jeans, a tee, and bare feet. Erik looked comfortable and sexy as hell. “Hey.”
“Hi.”
“Come in.”
I liked his apartment—dark walls, masculine furniture, sparse but nicely done.
“You want a glass of wine?” he asked.
In answer, I pressed myself against him, my mouth finding his. His arms immediately wrapped around me and pulled me close. His tongue pushed into my mouth, tasting me with a thoroughness that left me weak. I liked sex. It made me feel—for just a little while, I was content.
“I’ll take that as a no.” He lifted me into his arms and carried me to his bedroom. Dropping me on his bed, he looked wicked. “I’ve been thinking about this since the last time I saw you.”
In answer, I lifted my skirt and spread my legs.
Two hours later found me on the floor searching for my panties. Erik rested back against his pillow, his arms behind his head, his eyes on me. “Stay the night.”
“I can’t.”
“You mean you won’t.”
Finding my panties, I pulled them on before the search began for my bra. “Where’s the fire, Teagan?”
“There isn’t one. I just like sleeping in my own bed.”
Silence met that as I continued to find my clothes and get dressed.
“He really did a number on you.”
Everything inside me froze with those words. He wasn’t wrong, Kane had destroyed me, but I thought I had been better at hiding it.
“You gonna leave me some money on the dresser?” He was only partly teasing.
Guilt moved through me, because I didn’t want to hurt him. I liked him, but I couldn’t give him more of me, because there really wasn’t any more of me left. I settled next to him on the bed. “We talked about this. I’m not looking for a commitment.”
He brushed his finger down my arm, and I was sure he was going to tell me he didn’t want to see me anymore. He surprised me.
“I won’t call you. You want to see me again, you know my number.”
Leaning into him, my lips brushed lightly over his. “I’ll call.”
And I did. For six months, we had fun, but he wanted more, and I was unable to give it to him. As much as I liked him, my heart could not be reached. Kane had done that to me—irrevocably changed me—but life went on, and so did I.