Cole agreed with a nod, never taking his eyes off of me. He was looking at me the way he did when he left Maggie’s house a month and a half ago. Tears prickled my eyes at the memory, but I held them at bay. It’d been a month and a half since I felt his lips on mine. A month and a half of sleepless nights, wondering if he’d been thinking of me as much as I thought of him. A month and a half of wondering what could have been. A month and a half of kicking myself for being insecure about a long distance relationship.
By the time Aubry and Cole walked back to us, Bobby had given me his number, and I apologized to the guys for the scene I had caused. They all laughed it off and told me it had been fun. I was much more sober though, and quite frankly, very embarrassed. Sasha didn’t say anything as she stood in the corner. She didn’t have to. She had accomplished what she wanted and would forever be known as “that skank”—to me at least...and to Becky, of course.
“Blake, please talk to me,” Cole pleaded before I left the party.
“I have nothing to say to you,” I replied quietly. “I’m sorry I came here.”
He grabbed my elbow when I tried to walk away. “Please don’t. Please don’t be sorry you came here. I wish you would’ve told me you were coming,” he said sadly as he dropped my arm from his hold.
I glared at him. “Why? So you wouldn’t have fucked Sasha tonight? You would’ve waited until tomorrow night instead?” I spat. I knew I had no right, he wasn’t mine anymore.
He cringed. “Blake-” he said as he grabbed my arm again.
I pulled my arm roughly away from him. “No. Just. Don’t. I’m glad you’re doing well. I really am. I won’t be back—ever.”
He gaped at me. “Baby, please don’t say that. I don’t want you to not come back. I’m sorry,” he pleaded quickly.
“Don’t call me that,” I said through gritted teeth. “And I don’t want you to be sorry. There’s nothing to be sorry for.”
I walked away and got into the waiting cab to find Aubry already passed out inside. Cole was still standing in the street with his hands tucked in the pockets of his jeans. He was looking somberly at me, his broken eyes matching my heart. As we started to drive away, I lowered my window.
“Have fun with your skank!” I said loudly. His eyes were glistening as he shook his head in defeat.
The next morning Aubry and I headed back to the airport, and I was glad to leave the sad memories behind me. I knew they would haunt me for a while—if not, forever. Her hand on his ass. Her teeth on his neck. Him wrapping her in his arms as he kissed her neck. The sounds they were making as they had sex. I shuddered at the memory and brushed myself off disgustedly. The worst part was that out of all of the memories I wished I could erase, the most prominent one was the pain in his eyes as I left him. Fucking Cole...
The night we got back home Aubry told me that Cole had given him a letter to give me. I told him to rip it up and throw it away. I didn’t want to read it now—or ever. Months later I wondered whatever happened to that letter, but I never asked Aubry.
Chapter 17
Present
It’s been a couple of months since our meeting with Mark, and Cole still hasn’t met his parents or even let them know that he’s alive. He and Aimee are taking time to get to know each other better, which has been great for them. If anybody were to see them in the street, they would never know that they hadn’t seen each other in so many years. I’m not sure if it’s because they’re siblings, or the fact that they’re twins that makes their bond so unique. It’s almost like they picked up where they left off twenty-one years ago, it’s an incredible thing to witness.
Aimee moved in with us when the lease on her place was up, but she and Aubry are looking for another place. When she first moved in and realized just how paranoid I really was—between my locked doors, alarm system, and my three-knocks-on-the-door code—she thought I was a little crazy. Even after knowing what happened to me, she doesn’t completely grasp what happened to me. I don’t blame her. I don’t think many people can understand it or fully believe it; it sounds like an episode of NCIS or something.
The recurring nightmare hasn’t come to me in a while and I know I should be happy about it, but it’s really bothering me. It’s not that I want to remember my mother lying in blood, but I want to remember the faces. The faces of the killers. Cole keeps asking me to see a therapist. He promises it’ll help to talk about what I remember. I went to a therapist for years, though. It only helped me because they gave me something to help me sleep. I just need to remember. When I remember, I’ll be fine. When I remember, I’ll move past it. I started keeping a box of memories. In it, I have the photos Shelley left me and her last letter. I also have a timeline that I’ve been working on and a diary that I’m using to write my memories in.
Recently, Cole and I have been discussing buying a house together. I know it’s a big step, but I also know that it’s not something we’ll regret. He thought it was hilarious when Aimee told him that their parents live across the street from the house from Home Alone. He keeps telling me that it’s a sign. I don’t think I should remind him what the plot was in that movie. Every Sunday we go house hunting, which can be pretty fun sometimes. We’ve driven by a couple of adorable-looking town homes in the city, but he says the yards are too small, and they all have stairs. It’s a big issue for me—the stairs.
“Remind me again why it is that you hate stairs?” Cole asks one afternoon as we’re driving by some big two-story homes.
“I hate the build-up of emotions related to them,” I say before I bite the inside of my cheek, waiting for him to start laughing at how stupid that sounds.
He chuckles and grabs my hand as we stop at a red light. “Baby, they’re just stairs. They don’t have emotions!” he says as his eyes twinkle at me.
I take a deep breath and shift my body to face him. “They’re not just stairs. Have you ever seen a movie with a one-story house? Stairs are a big deal. They’re such a big deal that you never have a scene of a girl walking toward her prom date without her walking down the stairs first. You never see a bride stroll through the hallway in her wedding dress. You always see her walk down the stairs. You never watch a scary movie where the main character doesn’t run up the stairs to get away from her attacker. In my case—in real life—I walked straight into my attacker. After I walked down.the.stairs. There is no way I want to own a house with stairs. No way.” The amused look in his eyes vanishes as he looks at me for a long moment before nodding his head once and continuing to drive. I let out a sigh of relief and turn to look out the window as one house catches my attention. It’s a white colonial style house with a pink front door and it’s beautiful. Too bad it’s two stories.
It’s dead winter and I swear, I’ll never get used to this weather, even though I’ve lived here my entire life. I think it’s a little strange, until I look around and see herds of people bundled up like pigs in a blanket. I am on my way to meet Cole for lunch at a little Irish restaurant in Michigan Avenue. As I’m walking—and trying not to slip in the icy street as I curse myself for wearing heeled boots—I spot a man among the pack of hungry vultures that work in corporate America. He’s looking right at me and it makes me cross my arms over my chest. He has short blond hair, almost shaved bald, and is very big. Something about the way he’s sneering at me makes the hairs on my arms stand up. As I’m approaching where he’s standing, I notice that he has two different color eyes. One is dark—black almost—the other is blue, I think.