Blair

Every time I exit the kitchen I refuse to look in Jake and Sadie’s direction. How can he bring her here? How can he think that after everything she did I would be okay with this? Like I could just forget the lies she told, the way she screwed Nate, most likely while I was in the next room, as if it was nothing.

I busy myself with my section. Thank god they aren’t in it. I think had that been the case I would have faked an illness or worse, quit.

“Break time,” Carol holds out her hand to me, “give me your orders and take an extra five.”

“I’m fine.”

“It’s a good thing I’m not gullible. Now go.”

I hand her my pad, turn around and walk right back through the door I just exited. I should have moved to some foreign country and changed my name, I swear. My past and all the things I want to forget are showing up here to haunt me. I’m being crazy, I know, because I wouldn’t take back the fact that now Izzy has her daddy, but for one damn day I want a drama free life.

I push open the back door and step out into the alley, breathing in the warm air. There is a small grassy area where Wilber had a picnic table placed just beneath a small awning for his employees to escape to when we felt the need to get out on our breaks. I find my way over to it, sit down and rest my head onto my arms folded before me. Closing my eyes tightly, I try to see the good in what is happening. Only the harder I analyze it the more irritated I become. He had so many chances to tell me it was Sadie in the hotel room next to his, only he left those details out.

“Blair.” My body freezes as I keep my head down in attempt to hide my reaction. I can hear her feet shuffling against the gravel of the alley. “I didn’t come here to cause you any trouble.”

“Then why did you come?” I spin around to face her and instantly notice how different she looks. I think before I was blinded by my anger and all I could see was the strung-out girl who had betrayed me. Her hair is shorter now, bobbed in a cute style that frames her face and her cheeks look fuller, healthier even.

“I didn’t want to at first. I told Jake it would be a mistake and that you’ve already been through enough.” I can’t be fooled this time by her sincerity. It was all lies before, and I’ll give her this, she is a great actress. “He showed up at the clinic to pick me up with my things already packed for the trip.”

“The clinic?”

“Rehab. I spent an extensive amount of time in and out of one treatment facility after another once you and Whitney left.” She looks down and shame fills her features. I’ve known her long enough to recognize her need to settle herself. “Then Jake and Lark found me—”

“Who’s Lark?”

“The guy inside with Jake. He calls him Farris, Detective Farris maybe, but they’re all the same person.”

I nod, giving her the go ahead to continue. I’m not sure anything she says will make me hate her less, but I feel so defeated at this point that I wonder if letting her get it all out will just make it all go away somehow.

“They found me in my apartment, hiding in a corner, paranoid and strung out on whatever it was the guy I’d just met in a bar had fed me. It was my lowest point and honestly, in that moment I just wished for it to end. I wanted to close my eyes and never open them again.” I look down at the ground before us as I will the tears I feel pooling in my eyes to go away. “I don’t want your pity and I don’t expect your forgiveness.”

“Then what do you want, Sadie?”

“I just want you to know I was so far gone during the time that I hurt you, that I don’t think I could comprehend right from wrong. All I could see was my chance for the next high and it didn’t matter who gave it to me, or what I had to do to get it. But I am sorry it was you that I hurt in the process, because you never deserved that. You were always so good to me, you and Whitney both.”

She takes in a deep shuddering breath as she looks to her side.

“I guess I just came out here to tell you that Jake and I have never been more than friends. He is the person that forced me to see that I needed help and then him and Lark made sure I got it. I don’t want the things I did to you to come between what the two of you could have.”

“He’s Isabelle’s father.” Her gaze finds mine once more. “There is nothing else between us.”

“I think you know that’s not true, without me or anyone else telling you so.”

“What I do know is that you willingly led me to him, you helped him get me to that bar. Then you played along while he pretended to have feelings for me, while he led me to believe that I was safe with him.” She tries to speak but I cut her off. “Then I was assaulted outside of Miller’s by his brother, while you were off getting high somewhere and he was—”

“Getting the crap knocked out of him by his father’s men as he tried to get to you.” Her abrupt interruption surprises me. “He sat in a dark room, staring into the eyes of men with guns, wondering to himself if he could survive a gunshot long enough to get to you and hide you someplace safe. Even from the beginning all he ever wanted was to make sure that they didn’t get to you. It was why he took the job in the first place, so that he could be with you and try to find the answers they needed.”

“And in the end, they still got to me.”

Sadie stares at me, my words hitting a place deep inside her as she shifts the weight of her body from one foot to the next.

“He’s not like them. I knew from the beginning that he had the best intentions when it came to you. It’s why I helped him. I was trapped in Gabe’s world, I knew how he was. Their father wanted Gabe to go to you and not give in until he got what they wanted.” Just the idea of that makes my stomach turn. “Believe me, Gabe doesn’t play nice.”

I watch her as she rubs at a space on her arm and I can’t help but wonder how she knew those words to be true.

“Why didn’t you just tell me, Sadie?” She could have warned me. “All you had to do was warn me of who they were, of what they were after.”

“Because if I did, neither of us would have walked away.” The depth of her words hits me hard. “I’ve witnessed the ramifications of crossing the Gunthers. I may not have wanted to know, but they made sure I understood what they could do if I didn’t cooperate. As hard as it was to hide the truth, it was even harder to imagine them hurting you.”

I shiver at the thought.

“I won’t ask for your forgiveness, but I will ask that you not punish Jake for the wrongs of his family. He’s thought of the day he’d find you again since you left him on the street that afternoon. No matter how much he pushed, I never told him where you’d gone. He found that out on his own.” Friends in high places…I remember Warren telling me that very thing. “All he wanted then was you, and all he wants now is you and Isabelle. He wants his family, Blair, because the two of you are the only real one he’s ever had.”

Sadie doesn’t wait for me to argue or agree. She doesn’t wait for me to tell her all the reasons why I can’t give him what she’s asked. Instead she turns and walks away, leaving me alone with my thoughts, alone with my doubts and even my regrets.

“Is she asleep?” I step into the living room and look out the front window as I nod in response. “Wanna talk about it?”

“What’s there to talk about?”

“Jake.” Just the sound of his name manages to tie the knots I have in my stomach even tighter. “And the reasons why you keep insisting that you don’t feel for him what he feels for you. Or how about why you keep telling yourself that all he is to you is the father of your child, a piece of your past you left behind when we moved out of the city? Or we could talk about the fact that you are lying to yourself and it pisses me off.”

I turn around to face Whitney as she stares back at me with the determination I only see when she has reached her limits.

“For days, weeks even I have watched you battle this thing in your mind. I’ve watched you bury yourself with worry, fight what you truly want, and I used to say that when we were in Chicago I’d seen you at you saddest, but I can’t say that anymore.” I sit on the chair and hang my head, taking in one deep breath after another. “You’re lost, Blair, because you are denying yourself something I know in your heart you want.”

“I can’t forget—”

“Don’t forget,” she interrupts me, “but forgive. He loves you and he loves Isabelle. I’m not saying jump in head first without caution, but I am telling you to stop holding onto the past. He is here, and his entire family is in prison because he stopped at nothing to ensure they ended up there. My god, Blair, he became a cop in the end. He is a good guy. You have to stop punishing him and yourself for what took place. He is here for you and for Iz. Give the guy a chance to prove to you that he isn’t the man we both imagined him to be.”

“I’m scared.” The confession makes my throat burn with emotions I keep fighting.

“I know.” Whitney stands and moves toward me as she kneels on the floor in front of my chair. “I just think you’ve lost enough already. Why lose this chance at happiness too?”