Insta-Hate (Instant Gratification #1) Page 16

  ***

  Arsen

  I sat in Doc’s office. He called and said he had an emergency and needed to speak with me right away. What could it be? Was one of my clients a serial killer? That would be some kind of Hannibal Lecter shit.

  Papers covered every surface of his desk, and the paper was covered with Doc’s chicken scratch. The inkblot photos were weird. Some looked like octopuses and others like leaves. I wondered what Trinity would think of them? Would Alexandria’s point of view differ from her other personalities? Fucking Fuck. I couldn’t get rid of her.

  The door behind me swung open and Doc walked in. Behind his trousers was a pair of shapely legs in heels.

  I looked up to see Alexandria trailing silently behind him. Standing up, I wheeled on them. “What the fuck is this?”

  Doc stretched an arm out, patting the air. “Calm down. Sit.”

  “I’m not a dog.”

  “No,” he said in a raised voice. “You’re a stubborn ass. Now sit down, Arsen. Alexandria has to explain some things to you. They’re personal in nature and she didn’t want to tell you in public the other night. When you hear what she has to say, you’ll understand why everything happened the way it did. And I can sit in here with you if you aren’t man enough to have an adult conversation, but I’d rather leave the office and let her speak with you privately.”

  I was a damned adult. Gripping the armrests, I blew out a tense breath. “Fine. Go. I’ll listen.”

  “You hurt her, and I’ll cut all ties with your business. Do you understand?” Doc warned.

  “Yeah.”

  Ambushes were my second least favorite thing. The first? The woman settling into the seat next to me.

  ***

  Alexandria

  I sat in the seat next to Arsen, staring forward until I heard Doc pull the door closed behind him.

  “Say what you have to. I need to get back to work,” he spat.

  “Thank you for coming.”

  “I had no choice. Doc lied for you.”

  “I had no choice, either. You didn’t leave me with one after you threatened to involve an attorney and drag me, Meg, and Natalia into court.” She composed herself, smoothed her skirt and then continued, “I need you to listen, Arsen.”

  “Well you have my ears, so fire away.”

  I took a deep breath. “You loved me once, Arsen. We were young, but you loved me and I loved you. People say that it can’t happen, that people can’t find their second half so young. But we did.”

  He snorted derisively.

  “I don’t remember much about high school, but I do remember flashes. I can see me in my cheerleading uniform, like in the picture you gave me. I can see you in your football jersey, whooping and hollering with your friends. Sometimes, I see us at your locker or mine. I can see your Mustang and I can sometimes feel the memory of your lips on mine, your hand in mine. But I can’t remember getting pregnant, telling you that I was having your child, or what happened after that. I have only one memory, and it’s from when Tally was only a few months old. My dad was in it.”

  He stood up and began to pace, pointing his finger at me. “Your dad was an evil son of a bitch.”

  “I know.”

  “He hit your mom. Did you know that? I came over one afternoon and interrupted him. Her face was so swollen and bruised that she barely looked human.”

  I swallowed and asked, “Was that before I got pregnant?”

  “Yeah, right before we found out. He hated me after that, though. He hated that I knew he was an abusive bastard.”

  I gripped the armrests and garnered every ounce of strength I had left, because the following words would lay it all bare. “He did worse things than just hit me and my sister, Arsen,” I said. My fingers shook as I reached for a tissue. “But I am lucky. I’m lucky because my sister remembers, but I don’t.”

  Arsen’s face darkened as anger washed over his features. “No,” he whispered, pausing mid-stride to sit in the chair beside me. “No.” I watched his shoulders slump. He rubbed his palms over his eyes.

  “The only memory I have is trying to protect Natalia from him. We were alone with him and I made him mad. He was trying to choke me in the hallway and I screamed at him. He was mad that you kept trying to come over to see her, because he didn’t want you near Tally. I told him… I told him you had every right to come and see Tally any time you wanted. I told him that he hated you because he was jealous that Tally was yours and not his. That was when Mom and Meg came home, and they heard it. While mom freaked out, Meg snapped. She hit him so hard, he fell down the stairs. As he was falling, he took me down with him.”

  “No.” Arsen’s face softened and then crumpled along with mine.

  “I didn’t remember her. How could I forget my own baby, Arsen? How could I forget you? Us?”

  His eyes filled with tears and he rocked back and forth, trying not to let them fall. When they overpowered him, he stood and paced. There wasn’t much space. His tears fell, splashing onto his gray button-down and soaking wide into the fabric. They were clear, but those sorts of tears would leave stains. They would scar.

  “Mom left dad at the bottom of the landing. He suffered a stroke. She and Meg gathered what they could and we left. That day, we left him and everything else behind. Mom and Meg put me in the car and grabbed only what they could carry. They took me to a hospital a few hours away. By then, the damage to my brain had been done. It swelled and they had to drill a hole to relieve the pressure. But I didn’t remember anything—not the accident, not even my name. They didn’t know if I’d recover or not, so Meg and Evan took care of Natalia as if she was their own child. Because I couldn’t.”

  He paced, brushing away tears angrily. When he stopped and let out an anguished roar, I flinched.

  “But you need to know that I wasn’t playing a game with you, Arsen, and I’m so sorry that you missed out on her as much as I did. I’d love to introduce you to your daughter if you’d like to be a part of her life, but I refuse to do it if you plan to meet her once and never come around again. I won’t hurt her. She’s been through too much.”

  He stared at me. “She has? My God, Lex.”

  “I’m okay. I’ll be okay.” I stood up on trembling legs. “I’d like for you to meet her alone at first, if that’s okay.”

  “Yeah. Of course.”

  “But if you think that your girlfriend is more than just that, we can introduce her to Natalia soon.”

  He swallowed, raking his hands through his hair.

  “Okay.”

  “I moved. We live in a little house in Hoboken now.” I handed him a card with my new address and phone numbers. “You can text when you have time to meet us.”

  “Can I right now? Can I see her now?”

  I smiled. “Tally’s in school, but she gets out for Christmas break on Wednesday and won’t have to go back until after New Year’s. We can meet up one day during her break if you want. You can stay as long as you’d like.”

  He smiled slightly, accepting the card. “I… Thank you. And I’m sorry about your Mom. I’m sorry I wasn’t there, and I’m—”

  I interrupted him. “Everything is okay, Arsen. Just let me know if you want this.”

  “Thank you,” he said, wringing the paper in his hands.

  I nodded and left him in Doc’s office, hugged Doc in the hallway, and walked out of the building feeling torn in two, but somehow mended at the same time.

  TWENTY-NINE

  New Beginnings

  Alexandria

  I sent my manuscript to Margaret, who in record speed, responded that she would be honored to find a home for it. I gave her permission to shop it and signed a contract with her for the title: All the Missing Pieces of Me.

  Writing that story was how I coped after I regained the one memory that would change my life forever. I wrote night and day, pouring my life and soul onto the page and watching the screen as the dark font swirled into letters and phrases, lyrical and pai
nful.

  Curtis (also known as Curtis from speed dating) texted to see if I wanted to get together for lunch. I didn’t text him back. Running was one thing, but lunch implied something more. Lunch wasn’t safe. And right now, I couldn’t dive into anything, even with someone as nice as him.

  Arsen was coming over at five o’clock to meet Natalia. It was Christmas Eve and Tally and I were busy baking for dinner the next day when he rang the doorbell. I told her about him and asked if she’d like to meet him. She simply shrugged and said, “Sure. You’ve been a cool mom so far.” That was the first time she’d called me that, and I damn near broke down in front of her.

  I answered the door, my apron covered in flour. Tally ran to my side and peeked from behind my arm, which held our door open. Arsen stood there in jeans and a button down shirt, his cologne wrapping around me like a lost lover. He crouched down and smiled at Tally, extending his hand. “Hi Natalia. I’m Arsen.”

  She stood behind me, but extended a hand to him. “I’m Tally.”

  “It’s nice to meet you.” He smiled, taking her in.

  When she turned and ran back to the kitchen, Arsen stood awkwardly on the doorstep until I waved him inside. “Come on in.”

  “Thanks,” he said, stepping into our new home, looking around at the mess of new furniture and old boxes we hadn’t emptied yet.

  I looked down at the flour coating my apron. “We’re messes, but I thought that if she had something to do, it might help.”

  “Doc?”

  “Yeah. He’s been a huge help through all of this.”

  Arsen nodded, looking around the room. He shrugged off his wool coat and I pointed toward the hooks beside the door. “I would take it, but I don’t want to get it filthy.”

  He smiled and said loudly, “Something smells good.”

  “We’re making cake and pie!” Tally shouted from the kitchen.

  “My favorites,” he said back.

  ***

  Arsen

  Our daughter was beautiful. Her eyes were a combination of mine and her mother’s. She was skinny and loved to bake. She poured ingredients into a large metal bowl as Alexandria handed them to her, mixed them up with a wooden spoon, sneaking licks off of it when Lex wasn’t watching, and then stuck the spoon back into the mix. She grinned and I winked at her.

  “You look like a movie star,” she told me as she stirred the chocolate cake batter.

  “I wish I were a movie star. What do you want to be when you grow up?”

  “An Egyptologist,” she said, concentrating on eliminating the lumps of dry ingredients.

  “Wow. That’s very specific.”

  “I like mummies,” she said, shrugging a small shoulder. “And gold.” She looked like Lex before she dyed her hair blonde in the tenth grade. I couldn’t stop looking at her.

  Lex came into the room wiping her hands on her apron again.

  “What’s next? I want to pour it!” Tally yelled excitedly.

  I watched the two of them working together and trading questions and answers. The kitchen wasn’t large, but there was a lot of counter space. And though it was mostly coated in flour and sugar, there were mugs lining the backsplash of white tiles. At her apartment Lex said she had a thing for funny mugs, but either she was hiding her collection, or she’d become a mug hoarder in the past few months.

  “He sees your mugs,” Tally whispered loudly. Then to me, she announced, “My mom likes mugs. Even stupid ones that don’t make sense. Like the fox mug.”

  “What does the fox mug say?” I smiled.

  “’Zero’. Then it has a picture of a fox on it. It’s stupid because of course there are zero foxes inside the mug. Foxes are too big to fit inside it. It might as well say ‘zero elephants’.” Tally stirred the globby mixture in her bowl happily while Lex’s face turned crimson.

  “I didn’t realize you paid such close attention to my mugs, Tally bug.”

  “Oh, I do.”

  Alexandria eased toward the refrigerator and pushed a mug back farther so the picture couldn’t be seen. It looked like an elf or something Christmassy. “Good to know,” Lex told her. The most insane part of the entire evening came after we ordered pizza. When it was delivered, we munched on pepperoni and sausage, drank Cokes, and laughed at nothing and everything. There was no awkwardness, no long moments of silence or anxiety on any of our parts. We just fit.

  When Lex went into the kitchen to refill Tally’s drink, Tally moved her plate next to mine. “Aunt Lexie, who’s my mom now, says you’re my dad. I don’t think she knows I know, but I’m a spy and I earsdropped when Mom was talking to Aunt Meg, who used to be my mom. She told me you were an important friend, but that she’d tell me you were my dad or let you tell me.”

  I blinked. “Wow. That’s complicated.”

  Without skipping a beat, she nudged me. “Tell me about it, Dad.”

  Dad? She called me dad. My heart stopped for a second and then I... I was breathing again.

  “I call Evan ‘Dad’ sometimes, too. It’s confusing.” I bet it was.

  “That’s fine, Tally. Whatever you’re comfortable with.”

  “Mom thinks she shouldn’t tell me until she’s sure you’re going to be around. Are you moving or something? We just moved here. This house has the best playhouse out back. I’ll show it to you later if you want to see it.”

  I smiled and took a big bite of pizza. As Lex came back into the room, I winked at Tally. “I’m not going anywhere. And I’d love to see the playhouse later.”

  She gave me a thumbs up and made her expression blank as Lex walked back into the room.

  “You two doing okay?” Alexandria asked, her expression worried.

  “Yep,” Tally and I answered simultaneously. Then Lexie became suspicious, her eyes narrowing as we burst into laughter.

  ***

  Alexandria

  On Christmas Eve, after Tally was asleep, I eased her gifts from the closet and slid them beneath the tree. Then I lay awake all night wondering if she still believed in Santa Claus, imagining Meg and Evan doing the same all of these years and wondering if they would miss her in the morning when the boys woke up. Of course they would. But they would still see us. They would be here in just a little while. I wondered if my mother had done the same thing; shopped and hid the gifts to give us a little bit of magic in light of a hellish home life.

  I wondered how Arsen would spend this day. With family? With Cynthia? Were things getting serious between them? She was still around. They’d been paired, he said. He was ready to settle down, to have a family. How would this work? If they got married and had children, would he forget about Natalia? I couldn’t imagine forgetting someone on purpose, simply because life got busy or complicated.

  When I stepped out of the shower at six a.m. and made my way to the kitchen, flipping on the lights, there was a soft knock at the door. I gripped the robe I was wearing over my pajamas and unlocked the deadbolt, easing the door open. Arsen stood on the small porch in his wool jacket, the cold breeze running its fingers through his dark hair. He held two to-go cups of coffee. “I didn’t want to miss Christmas morning, if that’s okay.”

  My heart melted. “That’s more than okay. Come in.”

  I took the coffees from him, and he shrugged his coat off and hung it up. “Is she awake yet?” he asked.

  “Not yet. I can wake her if you have other plans.” Please say you don’t have other plans. With her.

  “I do, actually. Cynthia’s parents invited us to a Christmas dinner, but I’m not picking her up until early afternoon.”

  “Of course,” I said, giving a fake smile as my heart cracked in two. “I’ll wake her up. She’ll be excited to see you again.”

  I heard him settle onto the living room sofa. Tally had wanted leather, and this leather was a little squeaky. It would wear over time. Hopefully.

  In Tally’s room, I shrugged out of my robe and finger-combed my hair again before smoothing my plaid pants and t-shirt. Ugh
. My shirt said, ‘T-Rex wants a hug’. Lame. But I liked lame, apparently. I embodied lame lately.

  Tally was cocooned in her blankets with only the tip of her nose peeking out. I pushed on the small button. She stirred and then giggled. “Did you boop my nose?”

  “I did. It’s Christmas morning. Not that you’re interested in prese—”

  She leaped from the bed, ran down the hallway, and almost skidded into the tree. The leather groaned and Arsen caught her before we had to take a Christmas trip to the ER. “Easy there!” he laughed.

  Tally squealed and jumped up and down. “There are so many presents! Are these all for me?”

  I smiled at her, and she responded by more bounces up and down. With a wink, I told her, “Better check the tags just in case.”

  Arsen settled next to me on the couch. I whispered to him, “So I may be overcompensating for the Christmas gifts I didn’t give her in the past.”

  “Me too,” he admitted, pulling a small package out from behind his back. It was small, rectangular, and reeked of electronics. Okay, it didn’t actually smell, but I could swear it was an iPad box. He pulled out another cube.

  “Where are you keeping these?” I looked around his back. Arsen grinned as Tally tore into her gifts in a frenzy of wrapping paper and bows.

  He cleared his throat. “Open this,” he said, handing the cube to me. “It’s for your addiction.”

  “But I didn’t get you anything.” I was an asshole.

  “It’s not much. Just... I know you have a mug fetish.”

  I scoffed. “I do not have a mug fetish.”

  “You do.” He glanced toward the kitchen to emphasize his point. “And I like it,” he added.

  I unwrapped the cube and opened the lid. Inside sat a mug with an inkblot that was shaped exactly like the dick inkblot in Doc’s hallway. Around it were the words: ‘I swallow’.

  Laughing, I tucked the naughty mug back into its box and held it close. “Thank you.”

  He produced a second cube.