My sister.
My friend.
My pseudo mother.
“I think the heart wants what it wants and when you know, you know. There’s no magical timetable for falling in love, Alyse. I fell head over heels for Gray the first time I saw him, even though I tried hard to resist his charms.”
“Sometimes I don’t think it’s real, you know,” I tell her, my voice low.
“Yes, I do know,” she answers just as softly. I sense those secrets I know she’s hiding coming closer to the surface.
Our gazes hold for a minute in solidarity. It’s time to spill my secrets again, but this time it will be easier.
“I have so much to tell you, Libs.”
“Me too,” she replies.
I take a deep breath and start my story from the beginning. I tell her about Beck. I tell her about our mother and how our father kept her away. I tell her about the baby I lost. I even tell her about my summer fling with Asher when I was seventeen, which makes her laugh.
Two more glasses of wine and half a box of tissues later, I get one last confession off my chest, so I can start this year completely free. Free from burdens. Free from secrets. Free from bitterness.
Free to be completely happy.
“I’ve had a lot of resentment toward you, Libs.”
She swallows and her eyes water again. “I know, Alyse. I’m sorry.”
“I’m trying to let it go, but when you left I felt abandoned. Again. I needed you more than I ever had and you were just…gone.” Telling a person you love that they’ve disappointed you is gut-wrenchingly hard. Let’s face it, who really likes confrontation? But it’s far better than letting that resentment fester deep inside until it becomes cancerous, permanently tainting your relationship.
Rising from the couch, Livia walks to the window. It’s snowing, and while I hate the cold and snow, from this height I have to admit the white flakes floating down from the heavens above are peaceful and beautiful. A complete contradiction to how I feel right now.
“I didn’t leave you, Alyse. I…saved you.”
“Saved me? From what? How could leaving me save me?”
Livia finally sits back down, takes my hand, and reveals yet another bizarre chapter in this fucked-up story that’s become my life. She tells me how our father “sold” her to pay his debts, but that the monster really wanted me. She tells me how she was beaten, raped, and lost her baby. She tells me how she almost didn’t make it out alive and how Luke/Grant (confusing) saved her.
When she’s finished, I almost wish for oblivion.
For years I’ve had it all wrong.
For years I’ve believed the worst of every person who’s ever loved me.
For years, I’ve believed I was never good enough.
Every person I thought didn’t fight for me or love me enough to stay, sacrificed everything for me.
Everything.
Except for one. My father.
He didn’t sacrifice enough.
Chapter 44
Asher
I’ve been on cloud nine for more than a week now. And if you tell me that sounds like a chick thing to say, I will tell you I don’t give a flying fuck. Within twenty-four hours, I went from thinking I’d lost the only thing that mattered to me to somehow, someway getting her to agree to spend the rest of her life with me. Me, the guy who has more personality flaws than I can count. I’m still in disbelief she said yes.
I am the luckiest goddamn man on the face of the planet. I will never take a day with her for granted. I feel like I’ve waited my whole lifetime for her. In many ways I have.
What Alyse has been through is unimaginable. She’s a strong, determined, loyal, and loving woman despite her rough life, but I will do everything in my power to keep her from suffering another day for as long as she lives.
And what Livia went through to save her is almost too horrific to comprehend. I owe her everything, my heartfelt apology being the first thing. She sacrificed more than one person should have to because of the love she has for her sister. I have absolutely no doubt I would not be with my soon-to-be wife had it not been for her selfless act. Alyse had just been through something so traumatic that there’s no way she would have survived the hundred kinds of hell Livia had to have endured. I’m ashamed at the horrible things I’ve thought about her all this time.
I hear the chime of my phone and grab it off my nightstand, smiling. Alyse is out with Livia, Addy, and Kamryn for a few engagement celebratory cocktails, insisted on by Addy, and I have little doubt I’ll be the recipient of a mind-melting blow job in about an hour.
Alyse and Addy have quickly become good friends. I’m glad. Alyse has so much to give and anyone who is let into her very small inner circle is precious to her. I guess I also have to accept that both Cooper and Beck are in that circle, like it or not. And for the record, I don’t fucking like it. At all. But I’m dealing, until I can figure out a way to shove them out permanently. I guess I’m not making too much progress in the jealousy category, but I am trying.