His eyes are on me as I fall apart. I know he can’t see it, but all my hopes and dreams of growing old together with the man I love are climbing into that bag with him to be given to someone else.
“Is it because I’m not as thin as I was?” I ask him, my voice shaking. “I can join a gym, buy new clothes—”
“Ivy, God . . . no. You’re beautiful, and I still love you. It’s not that at all.”
I shake my head slowly back and forth as I try to grasp what’s happening to us. “I just don’t understand what I did wrong.”
He takes a few steps closer to me. “You didn’t do anything wrong, I swear to you. I didn’t plan it, and I wasn’t looking for it. Actually, she kinda reminds me of you when we were young. She’s happy and carefree. I like being with her and not having kids screaming and fighting, or on the other side of the bedroom wall, blasting video games and music. I’m sorry.”
“You wanted kids, Paul. They make noise.”
“I know that. But come on, Ivy. We had Macy when you were eighteen and I was nineteen. We were way too young to have a baby. We never got to enjoy ourselves or each other. And as soon as she was able to be by herself a little bit and not need one-hundred percent of your attention, Tommy came along. I guess I want to have fun for a little while, while I’m still young.”
“You should leave now.” My voice is dull, lifeless. I refuse to look at him. I’ve had enough. His resentment toward his own family is making me hate him, and I want to inflict some sort of bodily harm on him.
He hesitates for a moment and then just turns and leaves. His footsteps pound down the stairs, and the front door squeaks opens, then closes. His car door slams and then backs out of our driveway, the headlights flashing across the bedroom windows.
And he’s gone. Just like that.
I sit on the bed, staring at the wall in a daze, until the sun comes up, wondering what the heck just happened.
Chapter 2
Lukas
Insomnia is a bully of the worst kind. Pushing me. Shoving me. Laughing in my face. Waiting ’til I feel safe and then kicking me in the skull. I fight back, but we all know how this story goes—the bully wins.
So I lay awake, staring at my cathedral ceiling and feeling uncomfortable in my own bed. Not just because I can’t sleep, but because there’s a chick next to me that I know I’m never going to sleep with again. I want to love her. I should love her. She’s cute with a banging body and long silky black hair with blue highlights. Her eyes are like fucking sapphires, and she has a giggle that sounds like a demented elf. She’s a musician, like me, so she gets me. She knows when to stay and when to go away, and she sucks me like I’m a cherry lollipop.
There’s just one thing that’s wrong.
Rolling over toward me, her lips press against my cheek. “You’re so much nicer in bed than Vandal ever was.” I feel her lips turn into a smile as she snuggles against my shoulder.
Yup. That’s the thing that’s wrong—she slept with my older brother a few times. Actually, I’m pretty sure sleeping wasn’t involved at all while he had her tied to his bed being vandalized, as he so nicely puts it. Even though I’ve tried, I just can’t get that out of my head. I don’t want to be second choice, or get my brother’s leftovers. Who would want to always be compared to his brother? I don’t want to be with a woman that Vandal has seen naked and violated. I want someone that’s just . . . mine.
I sit up, slowly untangling myself from her, and try to find my clothes in the dark room.
“Where you going?” Her hand lands on my back, her voice drowsy as she fights off sleep.
I turn toward her, dreading that I’m going to upset her, but I feel like the band-aid ripping approach is probably best.
“Rio, I can’t do this anymore,” I say softly.
“Do what?”
“This. Us.”
Bolting up, she holds the sheet against her naked chest. “Why?” Her bright blue eyes darken.
“I really like you. You’re one of my best friends . . . it’s just not going past that for me. I wish it was.”
Her usually pretty face falls into a sad frown. “Lukas . . . I love being with you. Maybe we just need some more time. Don’t think about it going any further, just let it happen.”
I slowly shake my head. “I won’t do that to you.” Standing, I pull on my jeans. “I’m sorry. The last thing I want to do is hurt you.”
“That’s what I love most about you,” she says wistfully. “You’re the only one that actually cares and doesn’t treat me like a toy.”
I hate that my brother has boned every chick within a hundred mile radius, and I hate myself even more for not being able to move past it.
She crawls across the bed toward me, her long dark hair forming a silk curtain over her tits. “Lukas, it’s all right if you don’t love me. I can deal with that. Really.” Hope and desperation taint her voice, and it upsets me to hear that in her. She’s so much better than that; she just doesn’t know it yet.
Picking her clothes up off my bedroom floor, I place them next to her so she can get dressed. “It’s not all right with me,” I say. “And you deserve more. Don’t settle, okay? You don’t have to. The right guy will come, trust me. And he’s going to be lucky as hell.”
“I doubt it,” she replies, slipping her shirt over her head.
“I’ll wait in the living room for you, and I’ll take you home.”
“Lukas?” Her soft voice stops me before I get to the bedroom door. “There might not be a right one for any of us. Maybe that’s just a myth, ya know?”
Maybe so, but I believe in the mythical and have faith in the legends of time. Fantasy drips through my veins. It’s what’s kept me alive.
Chapter 3
Ivy
If someone had told me a few months ago that my husband was going to leave me for another woman, I would have laughed in their face. To say I was completely blindsided would be an understatement. While Paul got to move in to a nice new condo, buy new furniture, date a pretty young woman, and start a new exciting life of fun with the bubbly, younger-me clone, my life turned into a mess of stress and confusion. It seems unfair to me, that he’s the one who did something wrong here, but I’m the one suffering. Having to tell our seven-year-old son and seventeen-year-old daughter that their father moved out was the worst thing I’ve ever had to do. How convenient that Paul didn’t have to see the shock and devastation on their faces or answer their endless questions.
Having Paul in the house again a few weeks after he officially moved out to pack his things was another slam to my heart. He left almost everything that I mistakenly thought held meaning to us, or might hold some kind of sentimental value to him—wedding pictures, vacation pictures of us with the kids, and souvenirs from trips we took. He left paintings and decor items that we picked out together, even silly things we had from our first dates when we were in high school. I can’t understand why he wouldn’t want anything from our life together, as if he intends to just forget we were ever a couple.