An (Almost) Perfect Love Story (Love Story Book Three) (23 page)

“What, this isn’t living up to that ideal for you?” I snapped. The fear and confusion and sadness were fast giving way to anger.

“That’s what I’m asking
you
!” he shot back. “Because you sure as hell don’t seem at all excited about the fact that we’re supposed to be getting married in less than three months.”

“I’ve had a lot on my mind, okay, Chris?”

“I understand that. I know that things have been hard for you, and I think I’ve been pretty damn supportive—”

“Yeah, you’re always so
supportive
,” I sneered. I sounded just like my mother talking about Daddy, but I couldn’t stop myself. I was suddenly sick to death of Chris’s patience, of the way nothing ever ruffled him, of the way he was always so even-keeled. For reasons I couldn’t even explain, I wanted to break through his calmness. I wanted to
fight
.

“What does that mean?” he asked, his voice low.

“It means you never have a damn opinion on anything!” I yelled, my temper finally snapping. “It means you make me decide
everything
.”

“You’re one to talk, Ash. You’ve let your mother plan every little thing regarding this wedding. Have you had an opinion about any of it?”

I knew he was right, but I couldn’t seem to stop myself from firing back. “Yeah, well maybe I’m letting her plan things because I get no help from you.”

“That’s ridiculous! You know I would help you with anything you ask.”

“I shouldn’t have to ask! You should just help me!”

“With what?” he asked, throwing up his hands. “It seems like you don’t give a damn about this wedding. Since the day we looked at those dress magazines, I haven’t seen you show the slightest interest.”

“Then why haven’t you said something until now?” I asked, feeling close to tears. An image flashed through my mind of my father, sitting quietly in his recliner while my mom and Allison had a screaming match in the kitchen. How many times had I witnessed a scene like that? How many times had he just sat around while she made the decisions that would affect our family? He’d been so strong yesterday, demanding a divorce. If he’d shown some of that strength a little earlier, would they have ever gotten to that point?

“How am I ever supposed to know what’s going on in your head, Chris?” I asked, my voice breaking. “God, it’s like nothing ever bothers you, nothing ever upsets you! You’re always so…so damn
nice
.”

“You’re losing it,” he said slowly. “You’re actually getting mad at me for…what? Being too nice? Being too calm? Are you kidding me right now, Ash?”

I wanted to hit him, wanted to burst into tears, and I wasn’t even really sure why. I felt my hands shaking again, and I shoved them into my pockets, looking at the ground and trying to take deep breaths.

“Listen, Ashley, I love you, but this isn’t good for either of us. I think you’re too upset about your parents for us to be planning a wedding right now.”

My head snapped up. “What?”

“I think you’re under too much pressure, you’re too worked up. I think we should postpone.”

“Are you…are you breaking up with me?”

“No,” Chris said, rolling his eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous—”

“Oh, now I’m ridiculous?” I felt the blood rushing through my ears. Panic had gripped me at his words. Panic that he would leave me. Panic that I was messing up the best thing in my life. But somehow, mixed in with that panic, was the desire to keep pushing, to keep fighting. What was
wrong
with me?

“Ashley.” Chris closed his eyes as if fighting for patience. “Please calm down. I want to marry you. I wouldn’t have asked you if I didn’t. I just think it might be better for you if we slowed it down a little. Wait until things calm down with your family.”

“I know what you’re doing, Chris,” I said, my voice shaking. “You’ve been looking for an excuse for ages, haven’t you? You couldn’t wait to abandon this whole marriage idea.”

“Stop it.” Chris’s voice was low and almost dangerous sounding. It was strange to think of Chris as scary. Yet he had the power to hurt me worse than anyone else in the world. “I’m not going to let you do this,” he continued. “I’m not going to let you push us into a fight because you’re scared and you’re hurt.”

He turned around and grabbed his coat, heading for the door.

“Don’t you dare leave!” I yelled. I knew I sounded crazy, knew I was practically raving, but I couldn’t seem to stop myself. “If you leave, we’re done, Chris.”

He stopped a foot away from the door, and I heard him sigh. Without turning he said, “I’m going to ignore that, Ashley. I’m leaving so you don’t say something you’ll regret later. Please try to calm down. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

And then he was gone, leaving me shaking in my living room, wondering what in the hell I had just done.

Chapter Twenty-three

I’m not sure how I made it through the next day at work. I kept reminding myself that it was a short week—with Memorial Day coming up, we’d be off on Friday and the following Monday. Add in my sick day the day before, and I only had to get through three days. Three long, excruciating days with kindergarteners when all I wanted to do was hide away in my room.

The kids, predictably, were hyper on Tuesday. They were excited for the four-day weekend coming up and still keyed up from having a substitute the day before. I knew I was in danger of being grumpy with them, so I did my best to simply tune out their behavior and focus on my lesson plans.

When I got home, I went straight to bed, burying myself under the duvet. Emily had left a note that she was at work and she was sorry she missed me the night before. In all honesty, I was glad she was gone. She would know something was wrong as soon as she saw me, and I was in no mood to talk about what had happened.

I must have fallen asleep because I was startled by the ringing of my cell phone and the sudden darkness of my room.

“Hello?” I croaked.

“Ashley? It’s Ryan. How’s it going?”

“Oh, peachy, Ry,” I said, sinking back into my pillows. “Everything is great.”

He chuckled. “That good, huh?”

I sighed in response.

“Let me guess,” he said. “You’re in a bubble bath with a glass of wine right now.”

“Close. Hiding under the duvet and wishing I had a glass of wine.”

“Are you going to stay in tonight then?”

I had completely forgotten it was a boot camp night. Suddenly, I wanted nothing more than to get out of the apartment and go spend an hour with the punching bag. My bed felt too hot, the duvet too confining.

“No,” I said, sitting up straight and pushing the duvet away. “I’m going to go. I want to get out of the house and think about something else.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure. A workout actually sounds really good right now. If I stay here, I really will go for the wine, and I can’t be hung over with kindergarteners in the morning.”

“Good point. All right, well, I’m up for it if you are. But we’ll have to drive separately. I’m still at work, and I was just going to go from here.”

“Okay,” I said, glancing down at my alarm clock. I only had twenty minutes to get out of the house and over to the gym. “See you there.”

I scrambled around the room, gathering up workout clothes from my laundry basket and searching for my shoes. I headed for the living room, pulling my hair into a messy ponytail. “Emily?” I called. “Em, you here?”

There was no answer. She must have still been at the PT office, probably finishing up her paperwork. I scrawled a quick note under the one she’d left me earlier, letting her know where I was and telling her that I’d missed her, too.

I made it to the gym right at the start of class. Tate was dividing everyone up into smaller groups. “You’re late,” he told me, but he was smiling.

“Sorry,” I said. “What’re we doing?”

“We’re going to work on some individual goals today,” he said. “Some of the other trainers are going to help out and lead us in small groups.”

“Sounds good,” I said, distracted as I looked around the room for Ryan. He didn’t appear to be there yet.

“I’m taking a group outside to do some running,” Tate was saying. “You in?”

I turned my attention back to him. “Wait, what? Running? Outside?”

He laughed. “Yes, outside. It’s a totally different experience from the treadmill. You should give it a try.”

I raised my eyebrows at him, skeptical. Though I was a much better runner now than I had ever thought I could be, I still had never found any enjoyment in it—a fact I bemoaned to Tate every time he made me get on a treadmill.

“Really,” he laughed. “I have a feeling you’ll enjoy it much more if we get you out and off the machine.”

When I still didn’t agree, he shrugged. “You could always stay in here and work on your box jump…”

“Fine, I’ll come,” I said. Maybe it really would be good for me, to be outside pushing myself. I obviously needed to get my mind off of all the drama in my life.

We set off with a group of four, plus Tate. It became evident to me very early on that the other three in the group were avid runners. They pulled ahead of me in no time, and all seemed to instinctively know the same route around the local neighborhood.

“They’re in the runners’ group,” Tate admitted when I mentioned this. “They all come out on Saturdays to train for the marathon.”

“Great,” I said. “You really thought being left in their dust was the way to get me to fall for running?”

Tate just laughed. “You’re doing great.”

After a few more minutes, I was huffing and puffing and, worse, bored out of my head. “Sorry, Tate. I’m not sold. This feels lame to me. Maybe if I had headphones or something.”

“You’re thinking about it wrong,” he said, shaking his head. “Headphones will only fill your mind with something else. Think about this as a time to listen to what’s already in there. It’s just you and the road, you know? Clear your head and focus on each step at a time, what your body’s doing.”

I tried, I really did. But as night set in and the quiet settled around us, I couldn’t clear my head. Over and over again, I went through the fight with Chris, the way I had felt myself pushing him away and had felt completely powerless to stop it. Why?

I could hear my mom’s voice in my head, her telling me that Chris was like my dad. Was I trying to push him away because I thought, deep down, that she was right? Or had I simply been spooked by what my parents had gone through? Why hadn’t I just told Chris what had happened? If I had explained about the affair, about how messed up and scared I was feeling, he would have understood.

Yet, according to my mom, that was part of the problem, wasn’t it? That guys like Chris and my dad were
too
understanding. What had she said?
No passion.

“Well,” Tate said, a moment later, “I don’t know what you were thinking about there, but it sure seemed to help. You just ran a nine-minute mile.”

“I did?” I gasped. I hadn’t realized I was going any faster. My normal rate on the treadmill was around a ten-minute mile. I couldn’t believe I was really capable of doing so much more.

We had returned to the doors of the gym, and I bent over, trying to catch my breath. Tate patted my back, his hand lingering. “You did great, Ashley. I’m proud of you.”

I knew I should have been skeeved out by his hand on my back—particularly as he transitioned from patting to a gentle rubbing motion. There was absolutely no reason for him to still be touching me. And Ryan had warned me to watch out for him. But I couldn’t help but be comforted by his touch. Everything had been so crappy lately—that simple human contact felt great.

“Thanks,” I said, straightening. “And thanks for taking me out.”

He held the gym door open for me. “It was my pleasure.” As I passed through the doorway, he leaned down, so his face was close to mine. “I like spending time with you, Ashley.”

I stared up at his beautiful face. It wasn’t like being close to Chris—my tummy didn’t flip and my heart rate didn’t speed up. In fact, I didn’t really feel anything. But he was really, really good-looking. And I couldn’t help but feel flattered.

“You do?” I asked stupidly.

He grinned. “I do. In fact, I was thinking we should go grab some food after this. You know, recharge a little bit. What do you say?”

“Uh, I’m not really, um,” I stammered. Being flattered was one thing, but agreeing to see him outside of the gym was something totally different. I headed for the stairs to the workout floor, trying to think of a way to turn him down.

“I know a really great smoothie place nearby,” he pressed. “We could go get protein shakes, rebuild the muscles.”

We had reached the workout floor, which was nearly deserted. Most of the class had already left. I looked frantically for Ryan, hoping he had shown up, knowing he would come over and save me.

But Ryan was busy. I spotted him, finally, on the other side of the room, standing with Chase. He was laughing; their heads close together. Too close. As I watched, he rested his hand lightly on Chase’s chest and whispered something in his ear.

I felt a sudden swell of rage. At Ryan, for so blithely throwing away the good thing he had with Brian. For my mother, for what she had done to my dad. Even for Chris, though I wasn’t sure why. I was the one who was messing up. I was the one I should be angry with.

Maybe there’s hope for me yet
, Ryan had said on Sunday. Or maybe there wasn’t. Maybe he would screw up every good relationship he would ever have. If people like my parents couldn’t even make it work, what chance did anyone have? I felt a swell of recklessness swoop through me. It was almost like feeling free—like I had nothing to lose.

“Yeah,” I heard myself say. “A smoothie sounds great.”

Chapter Twenty-four

I rode to the smoothie place with Tate in his sporty-looking red Volkswagen. I had planned to drive myself but realized, when I got to my car, that I had locked the keys inside.

“Should you call someone?” Tate asked, clearly disappointed.

“No,” I said, the reckless feeling not yet waning. “I’ll deal with it later. I just want to get out of here.”