CHAPTER ELEVEN
I pointed down Thatcher’s street—my street—to where I grew up. In the normal neighborhood made of trees and color and life, where kids sold lemonade and then broke down the signs to make ramps to jump their bikes over things. For some reason, it was important to me that they see that area before we arrived in the gated community of Cherrydale North, where various hues of beige, political correctness, and voting on important issues such as tulip placement prevailed.
I waved at the guard, who opened his little window.
“Miss Roman.”
“Robert,” I said, my little nerve endings standing up. He didn’t normally open his window.
“Mr. Blankenship e-mailed that you don’t live at the house anymore,” he said, looking saddened.
That didn’t take long.
“I’m still in the process of moving,” I said. “Not quite out, yet.”
The older man winked at me, and I hoped all my days of chatting with him and bringing him Christmas cookies while Jeremy treated him like gate hardware would pay off. He would let us in as visitors, of course, but that would entail taking down Gabi’s license plate, and I didn’t want that trail back to Charmed.
“He expecting you?” Robert asked.
Then he was there.
“No,” I admitted, looking up at him as clear-eyed and innocent as I could. “But I just need to get a few more boxes we set aside. I’ll be in and out.”
Robert nodded slowly, and I gave him a rueful smile. I’d miss him. He was a little piece of nice and normal in a world of fake and phony.
“I’m gonna miss seeing your face around here, Miss Roman,” he said, and my heart twisted.
“I might have to find my way out here around the holidays,” I said. “I can’t imagine not seeing you in your Santa hat.”
He grinned huge and waved us in, and all my twisty sad feel-goods from Robert regrouped and braided themselves into tiny nooses.
“Wow, you’re walking away from this?” Gabi said, her eyes taking in the big houses in various shades of cream, the immaculate angle-cut yards that no one did themselves, the smell of soft hands and pretentiousness in the air.
“And the first thing I’m doing when I get my own place is painting it red,” I said. “I never want to see a beige wall again.”
My own place.
There I went again, defining it a little more. I knew I wasn’t moving in with Thatcher, and now Jeremy had told the guard that I didn’t live here anymore. It was getting clearer all the time, in a smudged-and-dirty-window kind of way.
Jeremy’s house loomed on the corner. Maybe it didn’t really loom. Maybe that was just my projection. But it always felt to me like it was too much for the space, glaring at all its neighbors for being too close.
My stomach went sour before we ever made it to the curb, as the Cadillac in the driveway did all but shake its finger at me.
“Oh, crap,” I said.
“What?” Gabi said.
“Monster-in-law is here,” I said, rubbing a hand over my face. “We—nope, I can’t do this today.”
“Yes, you can,” Leo said from the back seat. “She has no power over you, especially now.”
“You haven’t met her,” I said. “She makes Cruella de Vil look like Glenda the Good Witch.”
“So be Maleficent,” Gabi said.
“Really?” Leo said.
She craned her neck around. “What? I can throw out movie references, too.” She faced me. “Fight for what’s yours, Micah. Be a badder bitch than she is. He’s right; she has no power over you now. No leverage. So put that dress right in her hands and be done with her.”
“There is no being done with her,” I said under my breath.
We got out and I made it three steps before Deidre Blankenship and her son appeared through the doorway.
“And…showtime,” Gabi said under her breath.
“Y’all hold back,” I whispered.
“I’m sorry, what are you doing here?” Deidre was saying, her three-inch pumps eating up that sidewalk in record time. “You have some nerve—”
“Dee Dee,” I began.
“Don’t even dare to call me that now,” she said as she crossed into my personal space, her well-lined lips curling into a sneer. “That is for my friends and my family. I took you in. I treated you like my own because my son loved you. And you spat in my face.”
I backed up a step, every hair on my body standing up and gearing for bear, but the logical little voice of reason reminded me that I was on their turf. Deidre may be a lofty bitch, but she was a scrapper at her core. Twice, she’d helped her husband rebuild their life and fortune after misfortune hit them. She was no frail flower. She was a mama tiger.
“I understand that you despise me right now,” I said, measuring my words and the speed in which they left my lips. “You have every right—”
“I’m so glad you approve,” she said, speaking equally as slow.
Mama tiger was mad.
I got that. I hurt her baby, who was now standing behind her with his arms folded over his chest. I embarrassed him. I embarrassed her. Something in the squinty eyes told me it was more about the latter.
Fight for what’s yours, Micah.
“Look,” I said, putting my hands on my hips to portray that I was not going to be steamrolled. “I had the dress cleaned, and it’s in the car. You can try to sell it.”
I pulled the pouch from my pocket and moved around her to press it against Jeremy’s arm. He grabbed it on reaction, but then looked like he regretted the move.
“What’s this?” he said, his first words so far.
“The ring,” I said softly, not wanting that part to be harsh. It had nothing to do with Queen Bitch. “It’s yours.”
The look on his face was stony. I knew that expression. It meant that nothing productive was happening today. We may as well leave. But Gabi and Leo were hovering somewhere behind me by the car in their pretend relationship, and I wasn’t giving up in front of them without a fight.
“I’m only here to get what’s mine,” I said.
“Nothing here is yours,” Deidre said, stepping between us again—making me back up yet again.
Shake it off, Micah.
“I’m sorry, this conversation doesn’t involve you,” I said. “This is between me and Jeremy. Can you please take a potty break or something?”
“I said,” she repeated, ignoring me, “that nothing here belongs to you. You walked away from it all.”
“Oh, I beg to differ,” I said. “I didn’t come here wearing a potato sack and a smile. I have things here that belong solely to me.” My blood was rising to the surface and rushing through my head, and that little voice of reason wasn’t talking loudly enough. “One of which was my car, but I found out yesterday that your son tricked me.”
“Tricked you?” she sneered. “Who tricked who into an obnoxiously expensive wedding that she didn’t even show up for?”
Breathe.
No.
Be the badder bitch.
“Please,” I fired back. “That wasn’t even my wedding, and you know it. That was a business party that you designed, orchestrated, and paid for, dressed up with some vows and a cake for entertainment. Nothing about that event was my idea. Or anything I desired. A one-armed monkey could have shown up in that dress to marry your son, and no one would have been the wiser.”
“A monkey would have been more qualified than you,” she said, inching closer, her eyes raking over my appearance. “Blinging you up didn’t change the blood. Three days, and here you are, dressed like a classless street whore again. Didn’t take you long to find your roots, did it?”
“Didn’t take you long to put him back on your tit, did it?” I spat back.
Pow.
The slap across my left cheekbone was quick, stinging, and starburst inducing. And everything after that was a mix of slow-motion gasps and warp-speed action.
My left hand came up as if some internal launch button had been pressed, and it suddenly didn’t matter who was on the other side of it. The pop across her cheek sounded just as powerful.
The shock in her eyes as she lunged at me was almost worth getting hit.
There was yelling and shuffling of feet around us, people grabbing at us, but Deidre Blankenship, high and mighty matriarch that she might be, had one singular primal focus. For once, we were on the same page.
“You little bitch!” she screeched, grabbing my T-shirt with both fists, taking my bra straps with them and snapping one of them as she ripped my shirt.
“Get off me!” I yelled, shoving her free, just as a flailing hand came across my mouth. I reeled, and that was it. I rushed her, just as strong arms wrapped around my middle like a vise, lifting me off my feet.
“You can’t hit my mother!” Jeremy was yelling, his face red and angry as he wrapped his arms around hers to keep her still. She wasn’t having that.
“Let go of me,” she said through her teeth, spit flying.
“She hit Micah first,” Gabi yelled. “She hit her twice!”
“I’ll rip your slutty little ass to shreds!” Deidre screamed. “Nobody talks to me like that!”
“Shut up, Mother,” Jeremy muttered, struggling to hold her.
“Would you be still?” Leo said against my ear, his squeeze tightening around me.
My heartbeat was so loud in my ears that I barely heard him. But I felt the words against my skin. I took a deep breath to calm my heaving ones, and swallowed hard. Jeremy and his mother were still bickering but I nodded.
“Please put me down,” I said, my jaw tight.
“I’m holding your shirt on,” he said against my ear again. “Care to take over?”
I looked down to see Leo’s right hand propping up my left boob with a flap of T-shirt material and severed bra strap, an angry, almost bleeding line of a welt from her fingernails across the top of my breast.
I grabbed my shirt and held it to me, and Leo set me down and let go of my boob. Another save. Another thing I’d never live down.
“Oh, my God, your cheek is turning purple,” Gabi said.
“Your mother ripped my clothes, Jeremy,” I said, my voice shaking with rage. “She cut me. All I want is to pack up my stuff and get the hell out of here, and I get all this?” I let the flap of shirt go, and me and my scraped-up boob were out there for the world. “I could have her arrested for assault,” I said.
“Our lawyer will sue you!” Deidre yelled.
“Your lawyer is my friend,” I said, completely pulling something out of my ass. “I had drinks with her last night. Good luck with that.”
Jeremy wasn’t listening. He was staring past me at Leo.
Great.
Round two.
“You,” he said, his jaws flexing madly. “I know you.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, man,” Leo said, brushing off his shirt like I’d been covered in sand or something.
“He’s with me,” Gabi said, sidling up to Leo and looping her arm through his. “What’s your deal?”
“Jeremy!” I yelled, making him look at me. I pointed fingers back and forth between us. “Pay attention! This has gone very badly for you,” I said. Be the badder bitch. Even when you’re spouting absolute bullshit. “You can thank your mother for that.”
She yanked free of Jeremy and straightened her clothes, sticking that hoity-toity chin up in the air like that would pull her dignity back.
“You need to let me come in and pack up,” I said. “I own two suitcases, and not that many clothes. What doesn’t fit I can put in garbage bags. I brought my own. I have some knickknacks that should fit in a plastic tub I brought. I also got that tapestry when we went to Italy and I’d like to keep it. And the coffee table and curio—”
“You can’t be serious,” Deidre sputtered, stepping forward.
I stepped two to her one. “They. Are. Mine.”
“They were her mother’s,” Jeremy spoke up. Well, finally.
“I’ll have Thatcher come by for them with his trailer,” I said. “Now—can we get this over with? You can follow me all over the house—I don’t care—but I’d really like to change my shirt if you don’t mind.”
“Fine,” he said, turning back to the house, but then looking at his mom. “Go home.”
“What?” she said. “You aren’t—”
“I will call you later,” he said, his voice tight. “Please go home.”
In a huff, Mama Blankenship got in her overpriced car and sped down the street, and Jeremy gave Leo another look over his shoulder.
I got the bucket and the dress and the bags from the car and walked into Jeremy’s line of vision. I didn’t want him studying him too closely.
“Let’s go.”
“Do you need help?” Gabi asked.
“She can come,” Jeremy said, his back already to me. “The faster you’re out of here.”
“Hot diggety,” Gabi said. “This place have a bidet? I always wanted to see one in person,” she added on a whisper.
I glanced back at Leo, his sunglasses back in place, sitting against the hood of the car, arms folded over his chest. Good God, he looked like something out of a movie. He gave me a single thumbs-up, and I knew he was fine hanging back.
I felt it as soon as we walked inside. Not familiarity like you would expect after living in a place for two years. Not homesickness. Not sadness over knowing I was leaving it behind.
Cold.
I felt cold.
Emptiness and a sad waste of a beautiful house that never felt like a home. The belongings I laid eyes on looked out of place, as if they’d just been sitting there all this time miserable and waiting to be rescued.
How had I not noticed this before? Or maybe I did and just couldn’t put a name to it. All I knew, as I wandered around looking for things, is that I couldn’t wait to be out of that house. Even knowing I was going back to a room with no kitchen or bathroom—I couldn’t pack fast enough.
Gabi hit my closet after I put on a new shirt, and filled the suitcases. I filled the plastic tub with my personal items and knickknacks, a few coffee mugs and plates and cutlery I’d come there with. A skillet I never used anymore because Jeremy’s was better. And a garbage bag full of books I’d forgotten about but was in no way leaving them there for him to throw away.
In thirty minutes, we were done. The wedding dress garment bag was draped over Jeremy’s recliner, and it gave me a sick satisfaction to know he’d have to physically move it to sit. I looked down at the two suitcases, the tub, and the trash bag, and was struck with how small my life had become. With how much my world had shrunk within his.
Nothing in the garage would be mine. But—
“I have stuff in my car,” I said, my voice trembling. I gave Jeremy the most hate-filled look I could through the hot tears building there. “Can you unlock it so I can clean it out?”
He was looking at me differently. The stone face was gone, and it was like he was trying to work out a puzzle.
“Was your life here so bad?” he asked.
Oh, fuck to the fuck, we were going to do this now.
“Your mother just attacked me, Jeremy,” I said. “What does that tell you about my life here?”
“You said I was on her tit, Micah,” he said with a disgusted look. “What did you expect, a hug?”
I wiped at my face and under my eyes. “Okay. Fair enough.”
“We had some good times,” he said.
“Yes,” I responded.
“So, what happened?” he asked. “Seriously, if it’s not someone else, then what happened? And when?”
“We should have never gotten engaged,” I said, hating how the words blurted out. I didn’t want to hurt him. I was ungodly mad at him, but I didn’t want to be mean. “I should have never moved in here.”
“What?”
“It was better back then,” I said. “You were still controlling, but I had my own place, my own things—”
“Oh, the control again,” he said, clasping both hands on top of his head. “It’s back to that.”
“Yes, it’s back to that,” I said. “And since you remember the conversation—”
“Like there was just one?” he said.
I blinked and realized just how right Gabi had been that day telling me I’d made the right decision.
“And since you remember those conversations,” I amended, “then you should realize that we would not be having this one, in this room, with my stuff in bags, if you would have paid any heed to what I said.”
He shook his head, and I knew he hadn’t heard any of it. As usual, he used my talking time to formulate his next sentence.
“I told you I loved you the night before,” he said. “I did that to be romantic.”
I frowned. “Do you hear yourself, Jeremy?” I scoffed. “You have to say I love you to be romantic? That should have been something we said every day. Every night.” I stepped closer to him. “Do you know what it made me think? It made me try to remember the last time we’d said those words.” I shook my head. “I couldn’t.”
“So you blew a whole lifetime together over words?” he said, arms flailing.
And there we were again, him driving, taking a detour, forcing me along with him. Not this time. Not anymore.
“Love isn’t about words,” I said. “And I’m done with this. Can I get in my car you screwed me out of?”
He turned and grabbed keys off the hook I never hung them on. I hated that hook. It looked stupid. My keys always went in my bag. Well, there was an argument he didn’t have to have anymore. Score one for him.
“Where did you meet that guy outside?” Jeremy asked, striding to the garage door and hitting the button to unlock my car. “Did you know him before now?”
I passed by him, ignoring his question, and tried not to break down as I laid eyes on my beautiful little Mustang. Sitting there. Waiting for me. Looking out of place like everything else and waiting to be rescued, but I couldn’t come through on that one. I laid my palm against the cool metal and silently apologized for having to leave it there. Which would normally be a crazy thing for me to do, but lately my crazy rankings were so high that it fell closer to average.
I didn’t have much in there. Some personal things in the console, a cross hanging from the rearview mirror, an umbrella in the back seat, and a yoga mat I never used in the trunk. I grabbed it all through a haze of angry tears and marched past him.
Never again would I blindly trust anyone.
“You didn’t answer me,” Jeremy said, following.
“I don’t care,” I said, dropping it all into another garbage bag that Gabi held open.
“What’s his name?” Jeremy said, his voice acidic. “He looks like someone from a long time ago.”
A long time ago? Well, good, then he wasn’t figuring out that Leo was the motorcycle dude sweeping me out of Cherrydale. Oh, except—
“He used to live down south near where you did. And his brother might have worked for your dad. Other than that, I don’t know what to tell you,” I said, grabbing everything I could hold while Gabi pulled both suitcases. I didn’t want to make a second trip. I needed to get away from this soul-sucking place as fast as I could.
“Micah.”
I glanced over my shoulder as I shuffled awkwardly through the door.
“Bye, Jeremy.”
When I got to the car, Leo was talking on his phone down the sidewalk. Animatedly. I’d know that angry-man body language anywhere. I couldn’t really hear the conversation, but I caught a “What the fuck” that was pretty clear.
“Everything okay?” I asked, as he ended the call without a good-bye and shoved the phone in his pocket.
“Always,” he said, but he stared unseeing at nothing down the street.
I remembered what he’d told me about his brother, and a messed-up conversation with him could certainly cause an expression like that.
And I could mind my own damn business.