27 Truths: Ava's story (The Truth About Love Book 1) (13 page)

I search for his bio, needing to know more about him, more about what makes him tick, but there isn’t anything except his time with Burning Souls. You would think someone would have dug in deeper, but apparently, no one has.

T was not himself today, and I can’t help blaming myself. But he’s not a child. He shouldn’t have been rude to Liam, or Luke for that matter.

My phone rings, and Harper’s name pops up. I answer immediately.

“Everything okay?” I ask.

“No, T is all out of sorts, and he is never out of sorts. Never.”

“What sort of sorts?” I ask.

She laughs. “He’s got a disease, and apparently, his ailment is—”

I sigh. “G.A.D.”

“Could you call him so Maddox doesn’t have to talk him out of moving back to England again?”

“Again?”

“Yeah.” She yawns.

“Harper, what’s his story?”

“What do you mean?”

I reiterate, “Where is he from? What’s his background?”

“Well, I think you should ask him, but not tonight.”

“Why?”

“Hold on,” she says, and I hear a door shut. “Quickly, before Maddox hears me … He doesn’t know his father, and his mother moved to India when he was fifteen. T was basically on the streets from as far back as he can remember. Even when he did have a place to live, he hustled to eat and buy clothes. He and his mom lived in those low-budget weekly rental hostels when there was money. When there wasn’t, they slept in a car.”

“Are you certain?” I ask.

“He had no one.”

I don’t know what to say or how to respond.

“That’s what I meant when I said be careful with him. He’s an awesome guy. Piper loves him, and we trust him explicitly, but he does try very hard to distance himself unless he feels useful or needed.”

“That’s awful.”

“He and Maddox are so close, Ava. They are so similar in so many things, but the difference is Maddox had Brody, Emma, and the girls. T got thrown directly from having nothing to having it all, and he can’t always accept that he deserves it. And he does. My God, he deserves so much more.”

“He overstepped today.”

“Then tell him that,” she says softly.

We say good-bye, and I hang up with Harper to dial T.

He answers, saying my name.

“I’m mad at you.”

“I’m pissed at you, too,” he slurs.

“Last night, I promised not to lie to you, but I didn’t promise to tell you everything in my past.”

“I told you I wanted to know everything.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Which one do you love?” he demands.

“Love in what sense?”

“Love is love, Ava,” he says as if it is an absolute.

“No, love is not love, T. It’s not. I grew up with them. I love them both. Liam has been and always will be as loved by me as Harper is. Luke is very different.”

“Which one are you fucking?”

“The last person I slept with is you. You, and that was...” I pause. “T, I can’t give you details or answers without breaking promises to myself. I am not in a relationship with either, but I love them both.”

“What if I tell you I won’t allow it?”

“Then I will tell you that you’re missing out because all those things I said last night are true. This morning, I woke to the sweetest thing anyone has ever done for me, and that same person made me feel worse than I already did about … Well, I told you I was going through some things, and you made those things worse.”

“I won’t let them hurt you.”

“One of them has never hurt me and the other never will again. But you, I believed what you said last night, and the message you sent this morning was heard loud and clear, and I was happy, T. I was happy and excited, but now … Now I’m tired and am going to bed. I’m sorry you feel like I betrayed you, but you had no right to do what you did today, and you did it in front of
everyone
. Two people know about the things you figured out today. Now I am certain more do. You hurt me today.”

“You hurt me, too.”

“And I’m sorry for that, but I am tired of hurting. Good night, T. Sleep well.”

He doesn’t say a word. He simply hangs up.

If there were any tears left for me to cry, I would, but there are none.

I walk into my apartment, dropping my keys and bag on the entry table before sitting on the chair to the left to pull my feet out of my Heritage High boots. I place them on the boot tray so they don’t drip and stain the hardwood floor. Tonight, I am having dinner with my mother, and I am secretly praying her new husband Robert doesn’t show up.

I walk to the fridge and grab a Greek yogurt to tide me over until I leave again in an hour and a half.

Since I have been back to my home in the city, I have been exhausted emotionally and physically. Thomas took a red-eye out of Ithaca hours after our phone conversation. He didn’t text, didn’t call. He simply left. I tried to call, and I tried to text, but they were never answered or returned.

Harper told me to give it time. I told her I wasn’t giving it anything. I was chalking it up to yet another mistake on my part.

Luke seemed to have flipped a switch. He seemed … happy, comfortable, like he was actually enjoying his time home for the first time in seven years. On New Year’s Eve after Dad’s birthday dinner at Harper and Maddox’s and Piper had gone to bed, we all went to Jade and Ryan’s. All of us laughed as we watched old videos of our families at parties, on vacations. And, of course, there was me in a pink tutu and a crown, and Luke was as much a man as he is today.

He has always had that way about him: always the protector, always seeming to think of others. The difference between then and now is the light. The sparkle that was once in his blue eyes, the one that drew you to seek him out, is now gone. I couldn’t help thinking I had something to do with that.

I tossed aside the crown and tried to grow up too damn fast, and when I did, it took his light with it. That feeling—that reality—broke my heart just as much as he broke mine on Christmas.

When Logan and I left that night, I hugged Luke as I always did, and he hugged me back more tightly this time—I think, anyway. I don’t know what is real and imagined in the story of Luke and me anymore, and that is one hell of a pill to swallow.

I broke us. I broke that little girl who was as much a princess in her head as she was treated by all around her, and in doing that, I broke that sweet, protective knight. I will never forgive myself for it. Not ever.

He left on New Year’s day, heading to Fort Bragg, and then he was off on another mission in the Middle East. I pray for him, and not the version of him I had imagined would be mine someday, but the version of him that was truly mine from as far back as I can remember.

In allowing myself to imagine us together forever, I stole the beauty in the reality of what we were: a knight and a princess, friends, and yes, family.

I sit in the window overlooking the city, thinking about the truths about love for the millions and millions of people in just this small area of this world, and it crushes me.

I set the yogurt down and grab the journal Jade gave me, deciding I would write the truths about love today.

Love is brutal. Love is beautiful. Love is broken. Nine words and my tears have found their way back to me. Three truths, and I can’t eat. How can one word mean so many things?

T was wrong! Love is not just love. With him, I could have gotten through this. He was wrong about not hurting me, too. Damn him.

I reach up, tempted to pull the deflated smiling sunshine balloon I hung in my window down. It serves as a reminder of the last time I felt true joy in my heart, even when I was at the lowest point in my entire life.

Hope.

I decide to leave it since the sun hasn’t shined in days. I am sure I lack in good old vitamin D. I can pretend it’s the real sun, just like I pretended my love for Luke was real love.

I get up and toss my half-eaten yogurt in the garbage and sob. I sob because of who I am, who I was, and who I convinced myself I could be. I sob so hard I make myself sick.

After throwing up, the dry heaves begin, and after they stop, I climb in my bed and fall asleep.

***

Mom’s call wakes me. She is in her car outside of my apartment.

I throw my hair up in a bun as I shove my feet in my boots. Then I grab my coat and purse and ride down the elevator as I use my phone’s selfie mode to wipe the smudges of mascara from under my eyes.

I look like hell as I get in the car, and when I see Robert, I feel sick again. God, how could she go from Dad to that son of a bitch?

“60 East, 65
th
street,” Robert tells the driver.

“Ava, you look well,” Mom says, her nose stuck in her tablet. When she looks up, she looks like she could die.

“I feel lovely,” I say, sitting back in the leather seat.

She looks at Robert. “How about we head to the Spotted Pig?”

As she says it, I look in my mirror at my splotchy face, wiping makeup off my face. I can’t help laughing.

Over the past few years, my mother has changed in a big way. Her cracks don’t mean a damn thing to me, but mine, they send her to the … moon.

“The Red Moon on West 54
th
has amazing sushi,” I say, smiling brightly.

Her lips turn into a straight line.

Logan had a few months where it was very hard for him to deal with my mother’s new life. He was the one who came up with moon face. He also asked that she not breed—and yes, he said “breed”—with Robert because he didn’t think he could possibly love or even pretend to love something that resembled him. She was so angry at him she didn’t talk to him for a month.

Dad laughed for a good five minutes about it before Tessa asked him to help her in the kitchen. When they came back, he asked Logan to try to be accepting of his mother’s new life and her new husband. We both know Tessa put him up to it, and they both knew we knew it, too.

“I’ve never heard of it, Ava. Ashley, it might be nice to try a new spot,” Robert says.

“The Spotted Pig sounds lovely, Robert.” I smile, and he is none the wiser.

When the car pulls up to the curb, Mom says, “Robert, be a dear and grab us a table. Ava and I will be there in a moment.”

Once the door closes, she looks at me. “Are you feeling all right?”

“I’m fine, just tired.”

“Is that why you’re being irritable?”

I can’t help laughing. “Spotted Pig, Mom? Who’s being irritable?”

“I’ve heard good things about it,” she says as if she has no idea what I’m talking about.

“Great. Let’s go, shall we?”

“Just one minute.” She stops me from opening the door. “We received word on New Year’s day that the Republican party is backing Robert in his bid for United States senate. Robert and I would love for you to be part of the team, Ava. It would look wonderful on your resume—”

“I have a job, but thank you,” I say, not wanting a fight.

“Ava, I am asking you to consider. I am also asking you to tell him you’ll think about it when he asks you. And do act like I didn’t tell you in advance.”

“So you’re asking me to lie?”

“I’m asking you to consider,” she says.

“There is no way in hell I will take a job with him or you after what you did to Dad.”

“That company was as much mine as it was his. More so, actually.”

I laugh snidely. “Because Landon said so?”

She narrows her eyes. “Landon knows how hard I worked for the company.”

“Landon is my father’s father,” I remind her. “You and he both fucked my father, who built that company from the time he was a kid, Mom!”

“Clearly, he doesn’t think so, or he would have taken it to court,” she says smugly.

“Trust me, I’ve begged him to,” I snap.

“You what?” she gasps.

“You fucked up, Mom.”

“Ava!”

“No, you did, and he hasn’t come after you because he doesn’t give a damn about money or fighting for what is his. Material things mean nothing to him. Love and family mean everything!”

“No, Tessa Ross means everything to him. Don’t you dare think any differently. And don’t you judge me until you have walked in my shoes, young lady.” She gets out of the car and looks back at me. “Tell him you’ll consider, Ava. That’s all I ask of you.”

At that moment, I despise the woman who gave birth to me. Walk a mile in her shoes?
Pft.

I walk into the Spotted Pig behind her, feeling sick for another reason now. I have to act a part for her. I can’t believe I even try.

Here’s another truth about love: love changes, even the love of a daughter for her mother.

I sit in the corner booth across from old moon face and a woman who resembles my mother. I am miserable, moody, tired, and his face makes me sick to my stomach. As I watch him talk, I smile and nod, and when he asks me to be part of his team, I do what is expected of me: I tell him I will consider it.

I wish Logan were here for me to kick under the table when he was being obnoxious and too … Logan. Or to pass inside jokes and insults back and forth with no one being the wiser.

I wish all my friends who let fate lead them, the ones who went off to college and enjoyed the experience instead of trying to twist fate in the direction they wanted it to go, weren’t so busy “adulting.” I’m truly happy for them that they have found happiness. I’m happy for Liam, Harper, Maxi, and everyone else. Their happiness is true and real, but seeing it, my loneliness and my failure shine so brightly they burn me from the inside out.

“Ava?” Robert says.

“Sorry, what was that?”

He points to the waiter, and I pull my hands away so he can set my plate on the table.

“Sorry.”

“Are you okay, dear?” he asks when the waiter leaves. His question and the sincerity in it shocks me.

I look up at him and nod. “Excuse me, please.”

I rush toward the bathroom, afraid I may cry or get sick in the middle of the restaurant, but a crowd of women is blocking the restroom’s entrance.

“Excuse me.”