“Yes.” He doesn’t even blink as he says it.
“Did you have something to do with his death?”
“Absolutely.”
“Do you know about the contract I was forced to sign? The one that someone already bought, ergo, bought me?” My voice is small even to my own ears as I say that, but I need to know. To John’s credit, he holds my gaze and doesn’t look bothered, as if we’re talking about the food we had for dinner.
“Yes,” he finally says. “I’ve known about it for a while.”
“Your son told you?”
“He did, yes.”
“Well, since you two gossip like third graders, please tell him that the contract was already bought and that I’ve been waiting for years for the perve that bought me to come for me. I even have a lovely gift for whoever it is.”
And I do. I bought a holster the week after Julian broke into my apartment. I mean, I’m still learning how to shoot but I do know one thing now. Knives. And I always keep on my body at ALL times.
“I’m sure he already knows,” John says clearing his throat. “But as I was saying about Paris. I thought we made a nice, even cute little family. You, Julian, Liam, Nancy and me. I thought we could work as our own unit, that if there was the kind of will we both had, we could make it work. But she never wanted to have kids because she knew she would get sick one day soon and also there was one other little thing that happened on the trip.”
He looks at me then, the suspense building.
“Did… did I do something wrong on the trip?” I whisper. I have no idea why I’m whispering.
“It wasn’t just you, Mia,” John says kindly. “You were dancing in the ballet studio I used to rent out for Nancy when she was in Paris and Julian was watching you from the shadows. I mean, he was about seven or eight, I don’t remember but he was watching you with this look in his eyes that even years later, I only see when he’s talking about you.”
Julian.
“I know you didn’t want to talk about Julian but your journey in life was sealed that afternoon in that ballet studio,” John says.
“Why, what happened?”
“You two kissed.”
Holy shit!
“Wait, what?”
John lets out a small chuckle. “Don’t get me wrong, it was innocent enough, but I know my son. When we finally went back home, he told me that he was going to marry you.”
It’s at this point that tears dry up and I’m no longer comfortable.
“What exactly does that mean, John when I saw the contracts Courtney had for Roxy Bishop to marry Julian? If they are the same as the ones you and that she-beast signed, then…”
“Then yes, they’re irreversible, but Mia, Julian is not married,” John says. “His name is not on those contracts.”
“But… but I saw them,” I mutter. “Roxy even confirmed it.”
“I’m sure they were told Julian but it’s actually Liam.”
Okay, at this point, I’m running out of Holy Shits to react with in this conversation.
“Liam?” I repeat like a parrot. “And what does that even mean?”
“It means whatever you gather from it,” John says getting up now. “In these past four years, I’ve watched my son move Heaven and Earth, do the impossible just so he can be with you.”
“But he’s not!” I cry, my heart cracking all over again. I guess the numb glue didn’t work. If only they had Gorilla Glue for broken hearts. “He’s not with me and as far as I’m concerned, he never will.”
John opens his mouth as if to say something, but he closes it. Instead, I watch as he pulls out something from his pocket.
“I won’t tell you how to live your life or how to deal with everything’s that hurled at you, but you should know, when Nancy and I saw the kiss between you and Julian, she looked at me with this look on her eyes… then she looked at you.”
“What did she say?”
“That the future had a better chance than we did,” he says softly. “And that we had to step aside and let it.” He puts down a black envelope on the coffee table between us, then he steps back. “I hope one day you understand that for me to step aside and keep my promise to Nancy, some changes had to take place. I’m sorry it takes long but not even I have control over it. Either way, I hope you find it in your heart to fight for what’s always been.”
Then, he’s gone.
Liam and John leave Massachusetts the next morning. I had to convince my mom to go with them because I needed an extra day to finish packing the last of the stuff I have before I leave, but really, I needed the extra time to figure out what I wanted to do next.
Career wise, I know I’m headed to Med-school. Somewhere along the way during my time at MIT and all the re-runs of Grey’s Anatomy I’ve watched just to relate to the level of pain in that show in some way, I decided I want to be a neurosurgeon.
I’ve been accepted to top med-schools all over the country, but I still haven’t made a decision as to where I’m going next. I have no idea why I’m waiting but I know it has something to do with the black envelope John gave me.
I grab it, the urge to tear it open right there at my fingertips. I’m about to do it when my phone buzzes with an alert that my Uber is downstairs.
I grab my bags, give my cute apartment one last glance then I leave with my heart heavy.
Maybe I held back because I thought Julian would come for me, especially after listening to what Cole and John said. Or maybe I was deluding myself like I sometimes do.
So, in the spirit of graduation, I close the door behind me, drop the keys in my Landlady’s letter box, together with the rent she refused the last two years while I was here.
She was kind, always leaping to do above and beyond, but I don’t like the whole ‘I like you so much, you don’t have to pay rent here’ thing she had going on. It freaked me the fuck out.
On my way out the building, I spot a trashcan I remember Charlotte. One of the RACK girls, retched in after a night we drank like you wouldn’t believe. Yes, we somehow kept in touch over the past four years, but they never dropped their knack to just randomly show up. The last time though, Kendra wasn’t with them.
I walk over to the trashcan, grab the black envelope and rip it apart before I throw it in.
If Julian loved me, he wouldn’t have abandoned me like this
By the time my Uber drops me off at the airport, I make sure I have my Kindle paperwhite which has all the books I one-clicked but never managed to read yet.
I have my snacks ready, my Airpods are charged and I’m all checked in. I even score a free upgrade!
Thanks universe!
I sometimes have days like this, when I think I’m normal. That nothing happened to me and I’m just a regular girl trying to be positive and fool myself into thinking I’m doing just fine.
But the thing about pretending is, when you over do it, push will definitely come to shove, sooner or later and when you inevitably go crashing, you’ll fall so fucking hard, the pieces you were trying to glue back together will shatter even further.
And that’s me.
I know I’ve been trying to hold on to parts of me that still somehow work. Sometimes, I wrap my own arms around myself and fold into a small ball under my covers just to try and abate the cold chill that still hasn’t lifted from my bones.