Chasing Aubrey (14 page)

Chapter 23

Nearly another week passed without much fanfare. I didn’t go out of my way to do much, but I wasn’t holed up in my room either. Skye forgave me for my wretched self-pity and we were able to joke about it now. Things with Skye were actually incredible. It was amazing how much we had in common and how similar our sense of humor was when we’d never known each other.

I definitely understood that ‘long-lost brother’ saying now. Even though I never knew about her and she grew up never knowing me, we clicked so easily like we’d always been family. It was really nice To have that camaraderie. I learned more about her every day. She was super smart and, now that she was applying herself, that reflected in her most recent grades.

I got a call from the assistant principal one day and felt my heart sink. He assured me that everything was fine and he wanted to tell me how impressed he was with Skye’s turnaround. It made me so happy that I was able to help her get her life on track. She was so young and had so many opportunities open to her. I wanted to help in any way possible.

So I tried to pour all of my focus into Skye instead of wallowing over Aubrey. She still crossed my mind more frequently than I would have liked, but there wasn’t much I could do about that except give it time.

It was strange, but I actually missed her. Even though we never spent that much time together, I felt the loss of her presence in my life. I had no anticipation of seeing her again or hearing her wonderful laugh. It left me feeling hollow.

My phone rang and I picked it up, assuming it was Skye telling me she was on her way home. Typically she came home directly after school, but it was Friday night and she’d gone out with a few friends. Not the same friends from the party, she assured me.

“Hello?”

“Hello, Mr. Marx?”

My stomach dropped. I knew that tone of voice. I was just praising her in my head and then I get a call like this.

“Yes, that’s me.”

“This is Officer Donahue; are you the older brother of Skye?”

I sighed; the police? I hoped that she was okay. I hoped that she hadn’t done something
really
stupid this time.

“Yes, I am. Is she all right?” I asked, trying to keep my voice even. I didn’t want to betray the tiny bit of fear that crept into me.

“Oh, yes, she’s fine. She just got herself in a little bit of trouble. I understand that she’s had discipline problems in the past?”

I wondered what kind of trouble she got herself into and felt so betrayed by it. I thought that she’d earned my trust but I was clearly wrong about that.

“Well, yes, but we’ve been working on that since she got here and she’s really turned around… Or so I thought.”

“I see. Well, I’m going to be honest with you, Mr. Marx, we don’t know the whole story, but Skye’s not talking to us. Unless she does, we’re going to have to charge her and I really would hate to do that.”

I frowned and felt a pulsing headache start in my temples. The last time I went to the police station to pick someone up, it was Marcie. I hoped then that I would never have to go back there, but my little sister needed me.

“I understand. I appreciate your understanding Officer. Do you think it would help if I came to talk to her? Maybe I could get her to open up?”

“That would be great, Mr. Marx. I’ll see you soon.”

I hung up the phone and tried to tamp down the boiling rage that I felt building in my chest. Everything between Skye and I had been perfect and now I was going to pick her up from the police station. Was I really so naive to trust her with her friends? I couldn’t wait to hear her side of the story. I wanted to believe the best of her even if the past didn’t quite support that view.

I grabbed my keys, a jacket and my phone and sprinted to the elevator. I didn’t know how patient the cops would be. I was thankful that they didn’t just charge her right away. She was eighteen and any trouble she got into now was going to stick with her for a very long time.

The elevator seemed to take forever to get to the parking garage. Maybe I was just impatient. When the doors opened, I saw the last person I ever expected to see: Aubrey.

I stood there speechless for a moment, unable to remember where I was going or what I was doing when faced with the object of my affections. We stood there for so long, just staring at each other, that the elevator doors started to close. I thrust my arm out to catch them before stepping out of the elevator.

Aubrey took a step back to put a little distance between us and I resisted the urge to close the gap.

“Hi,” she said, her eyes wide and worried. I didn’t know what caused those little frown lines on her forehead, but I wanted to make it go away.

“Hi,” I answered.

“Tanner, can we talk?”

My heart clenched in my chest. I wanted this for so long and now was not the time. I looked at the keys in my hand and looked back at Aubrey. As much as I wanted to give her the chance to explain herself, I needed to deal with Skye first.

“I’m sorry Aubrey… or whoever you are, I don’t have time for this right now.”

I ran to my car, already feeling a pit of regret form in my stomach. I couldn’t leave Skye stranded though and Aubrey had already trampled all over my heart. Maybe she didn’t deserve another chance.

Who was I kidding? Of course she did. I just had to do this first.

In hindsight, I could have asked her to join me or to wait for me, but in the moment, none of those things occurred to me. I was in protective big brother mode and nothing was going to stop me from coming to the rescue.

I got to the police station and my heart was still racing. I was sweating and anxious. I couldn’t stop all the thoughts in my head. I couldn’t forget Aubrey’s crestfallen look as I dashed off. I couldn’t stop wishing that I had been able to hear her out.

I saw Skye talking with an older officer and they seemed to just be joking around. It certainly didn’t look like a formal interrogation or anything.

“Skye!” I called from across the building as I walked through the metal detector.

She perked up and waved cheerfully at me. I was confused; I thought she was in trouble.

The older man introduced himself as Officer Donahue, the man I’d spoken with on the phone.

“So, what’s going on?”

Officer Donahue frowned.

“Well, we caught this one with some stolen merchandise. She consented to the search of her belongings.”

“I didn’t steal anything,” Skye chimed in.

“Which we believe,” the Officer replied with a pointed look. “But she also won’t tell me who she was with so that we can catch the actual culprits. We have some surveillance video but it’s a little grainy. She refuses to help us identify anyone.”

“Skye, regardless of whether you stole anything or not—”

“I didn’t!”

“Okay, but regardless, you have to cooperate with the police. You’re protecting these people but those things got in your bag somehow. Do you think they would protect you?”

She frowned and picked at her nails absently.

“I know you’re afraid of being a bad friend if you help the cops, but they’re the shitty friends for putting you in this position. You can do better than them.”

She looked up at me with tears in her eyes and I had to give her a hug.

“People in this city suck,” she cried and I hugged her closer, petting her hair gently.

“If I snitch on these guys I’ll never have any other friends.”

“That’s not true. I’ll be your friend.”

She rolled her eyes at me, but I saw the hint of a smile play at her lips.

“Seriously though, those guys are douches. You never leave your buddy to take the heat for something.”

She sighed and looked at Officer Donahue.

“Okay, I’ll tell you their names.”

After a short interview and a signed statement, Skye was free to go home with me without a blemish on her record. I was so relieved that she came out of the whole event unscathed that I nearly forgot about my run-in with Aubrey.

“So, Aubrey came to see me today…”

“What?! Really? What did she say?”

“Uh… nothing? I never gave her the chance to say anything, I was rushing out of the door to get you.”

“Shit… I’m sorry, Tanner. I probably ruined your relationship forever.”

I tried to laugh it off.

“If it could be ruined that easily then it wasn’t really supposed to happen anyway.”

She nodded and sank back into her seat without saying another word. I think she felt guilty about everything but I didn’t want her to. I just wanted her to be able to choose her friends more wisely. That would be enough for me.

The next morning we got up early to make our favorite crazy buffet-style breakfast. For a girl so tiny, Skye could
eat
. She regularly had a pancake stack twice the size of mine. I wasn’t quite sure where she put it all, but I found it amusing. I also enjoyed our little bonding time in the kitchen. We always made a huge mess and then did something outrageous like arm wrestling or Rock, Paper, Scissors to decide who cleaned it up. It was nice to be settling into a routine with her even if other aspects of my life were a little crazy.

We finished up and Skye started to clean immediately.

“What do you want to do this week to decide who cleans? Chutes and Ladders? Sudoku? Jump rope?”

“I’ve got it, don’t worry about it.”

That stopped me in my tracks.

“Wait, what? Why?”

She didn’t look at me as she was loading dishes into the dishwasher.

“Because you have somewhere to be.”

“Where’s that?” I asked, not remembering any obligations.

“Aubrey’s big race is today. Don’t you want to be there?”

I did. I wanted to see her race again. Hell, I just wanted to see
her
again. Maybe we’d get a chance to talk. I could explain what happened the day before, she could tell me her secrets and we could live happily ever after.

Yeah, right.

More like I would go there, she wouldn’t want to talk to me at all, and I would come home to drown my sorrows in a bottle of scotch.

Skye turned her vibrant hazel eyes in my direction, the same ones I saw in the mirror every day. She cocked one eyebrow in a challenge, daring me to deny how much I wanted to be there.

I sighed, knowing that she wouldn’t believe me even if I were a better liar.

“Yeah, I do.”

“Exactly. So go. I’ve got kitchen cleaning on lock.”

I hesitated, looking for an excuse not to go. I was nervous. I didn’t know what was going to happen and that terrified me.

“Are you sure?” I tried again.

“Get your ass out of here. Don’t make me tell you again.” She waved a spatula at me like she was trying to swat me out of the house.

I held up my hands to ward off her attacks and backed out of the kitchen towards the elevator. She wasn’t going to give me the chance to second guess myself. She wasn’t going to afford me the luxury of self-doubt. She was pushing me out of my own house into an uncertain future.

Chapter 24

Race day finally arrived and I would have done anything to make time go backwards. I had to accept that this was how my life was going to be. Tanner didn’t want to talk to me, which I completely understood. Tomorrow was my wedding and this was going to have to be my last race.

To make things worse, I was going to have to lose this race. On purpose. It went against everything in me to even
consider
throwing the race, but I didn’t really have a choice. I’d already lost Tanner; if I won this race, I was going to lose everything else, too. As much as I cared about my racing career and my record, this race wasn’t worth losing everything. Besides, my record wouldn’t matter much after today anyway. I wouldn’t be back to this track.

That realization hit me like a ton of bricks. This was my last day of freedom and even then I was being blackmailed. My chest felt tight and I had to push back the rising tide of tears that threatened to betray my cool demeanor.

I looked out over the crowd. There were a lot of people in attendance, probably more than I’d ever seen here. All week Twitter had been blowing up, hyping my re-match with Rex. I didn’t pay much attention to it and I never responded to any tweets. It wasn’t fun anymore. Someone had already taken all of the fun out of the race when they forced my hand.

I scoured the crowd more closely, hoping against all hope to see Tanner’s familiar face amongst the sea of strangers. I didn’t see him, but I really hoped he would show up. I knew that yesterday he had no interest in talking to me, but I hoped that was just the shock of seeing me. I hated to think that my chances with him were ruined forever. He always managed to surprise me even when I thought there was no hope. I just wanted one last surprise. One last chance before the wedding to tell him everything. Tomorrow it would be too late.

The officials inspected my car as they did before every race. Qualifying runs were in full force. One racer after the other sprinted down the strip hoping that their time would be good enough to proceed. With the headliners, it was more of a formality. There was no way they would disqualify me for a bad run after all of these people came to see me.

Everything seemed to happen too fast and in slow motion all at the same time. I felt like I was trapped underwater, unable to catch a breath, unable to react to all of the things going on around me, but that didn’t stop the world from turning. Things were still happening all around me even if I was detached. Every time I looked at the time, I realized that my internal clock was drastically off-kilter. I thought five minutes passed when it was really thirty. I thought an hour had passed when it had only been ten minutes. Everything seemed off.

I didn’t get my familiar adrenaline rush that I normally got on race days. There were no butterflies, no anxious nerves. Just a deep pit of dread deep in my stomach. I felt like the accused preparing to face the executioner. There was no way out of this horrible day and even once this day way over, tomorrow presented a whole new nightmare.

Enzo called me over and I took a deep breath, sighing as I exhaled.

“Are you ready for your qualifier, Aubrey?”

I nodded, still wishing there was a way to make things different. I hated not being in control. I fought so hard to build my life in the way I wanted without upsetting anyone and now it was all blowing up in my face.

I remembered what Mari told me: It was time to pay the piper. I couldn’t expect to have my cake and eat it forever. At some point, I had to make a sacrifice and accept things for what they really were.

I just hated that the sacrifice I was making seemed to be
everything
that made me me.

In less than twenty-four hours I would be Mrs. Chester Westmore. That thought alone made my gut clench with panic. I wasn’t ready to be married. I especially wasn’t ready to be married to a stranger. I
definitely
wasn’t prepared to marry a stranger like Chester. The few brief encounters I had with him and his family were enough to make me despise him and his antiquated views of gender roles. He thought that there were “appropriate” interests for his spouse and anything else was going to be “discouraged”, whatever that meant.

I could already tell that Chester was going to be a controlling husband, intent on breaking my will to make me his poseable little display piece. I hated to tell him, but my parents had been trying to do that for decades. I finally felt my resolve slipping, though. I put everything I had into being my own woman and it was all for nothing. I was still going to in up in exactly the situation I had tried to avoid for all of these years.

What was the point in wasting any more of my energy fighting it? This was obviously how things were meant to play out for me.

I climbed into Minerva and patted her dash gently.

“One last run baby,” I whispered, trying to keep the emotional quiver out of my voice.

I strapped my seat belt on and gave the officiant a thumbs up.

The light turned red.

I was no longer Aubrey Red. I was no longer Elise Van der Poole. I was simply going to be an extension of an ambitious man, like another arm. I wasn’t going to be my own person. I was just a tool for my husband to use as he saw fit. When it was convenient to have a wife attend a fundraiser or charity event, I would be there. When I wasn’t convenient, I was sure that I would be forgotten.

Yellow.

My hands clenched the steering wheel, slick with sweat. No matter how badly I wanted to stop time, it was going to keep marching forward. No matter how badly I wanted to postpone this weekend, it was going to happen. I was terrified of what my life was going to become. It was going to be full of meaningless encounters, shallow parties and manipulative friends.

I tried to drown my own thoughts out by focusing on Minnie’s rumbling engine. I still felt oddly detached from the whole situation, as if I were looking down on the scene from somewhere else. I couldn’t accept that all of these things were happening to me. It was sad enough when it happened to someone else, but now I was the one facing it. I was the one cornered with no way out.

Green.

My reaction time was a little slower than usual. Without the adrenaline coursing through my blood stream, my senses were a little dulled. Still, I took off like a shot down the strip.

Almost immediately I realized something wasn’t right. The car was shaking and I watched the needle of the temperature gauge creep up and up. The finish line was nearing. She could make it. I would take a look under the hood after the run.

The needle kept inching upwards and smoke started to escape from under the hood. I knew this wasn’t going to end well. I tapped the brakes, deciding that the qualifier wasn’t worth destroying my car.

Nothing happened. I pressed frantically on the brakes and realized that they were shot. It was like all of my fluids drained out of the car at once.

Without panicking, I threw the car into neutral in hopes of cruising to a stop. Unfortunately, Minnie had plans of her own.

There was a loud pop as one of the back tires blew out and the car spun out of control. I tried to correct the course, but smoke was billowing from the hood obscuring my vision. I had no idea which way I was facing and the car wasn’t slowing down nearly quick enough.

With a huge jolt the car stopped. I’d hit something. A wall maybe. The front end was crunched, the windshield was shattered and the interior of the car filled with smoke. I tried to get my seatbelt off, but I was pinned. I was running out of air, desperately coughing as I tried to free myself. I could feel the heat of the flames creeping closer to my trapped body before everything faded to black.