Don't Ask My Neighbor (20 page)

Thirty ½

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You Had Your Chance

Kennalyn

“ISN’T THERE SOMETHING YOU NEED TO tell me?” he asked walking out of Jelani’s office behind me.

I stopped. Damn! I was hoping to shelve this conversation until I got home. It had already been a long day, but Parker was right; there was something I needed to tell him. Actually, it was something I should have told him a long time ago. I turned with both hands clasped near my lips and my eyes closed, as if I were saying a quick prayer.

“I needed to protect you.”

“From what?” he barked. “Nigel had already left, and he had taken Keaton with him. So what exactly were you protecting me from, Kennalyn.”

“I know that. But I made that decision before I found out from Nigel that Samantha had already told him about Kirk. You said it yourself, if she knew you were involved in this set up, she would destroy you. I wasn’t going to let that happen. You were already close to me. I couldn’t let you get close to Felicia, too. It was for your own good.”

“So you don’t work in the field?”

“I don’t. I had my phone off every time you called. That’s why I only returned your calls when I was home. I had to do that for this to work. You have to understand.”

“I don’t have to do shit. You lied to me,” Parker said, sounding hurt. “And you knew this?” he asked, turning to Ryle who was still standing at Jelani’s office door, but remained silent.

“I told him a few weeks ago, but honestly, he already knew. Parks, keeping my double identity from you was for your own good,” I said, grabbing his hand. “I’m really, really sorry. Can you please forgive me? I didn’t do it to hurt you.”

“I know you didn’t,” he said, releasing his hand from mine, and throwing them around me. “I never told you thanks for inviting Nigel and Keaton over for dinner last week.”

“You’re welcome. But I didn’t do much persuading. You two belong together. Besides me, no one else is going to put up with your crazy ass, except for him,” I said, laughing.

“You’re probably right. I didn’t realize how much I missed Keaton until I was holding him in my arms again.”

“Hey, Parks?”

“What?”

“You can go ahead and admit that you missed Nigel, too.”

He held me away from him and smiled. We began to walk towards the elevators, holding hands as if we were on a date that just ended. We stood outside the doors and waited for the elevator to arrive after Parker pressed the down button.

“I love you, Kennalyn. Or is it Felica? Oh, hell. Who are you going to be when you wake up tomorrow?”

We both laughed.

“It’s Kennalyn. Kennalyn Covell. No more Felicia Hailey.”

We stood in silence as the elevator doors opened. We stepped inside the elevator car and stood to either side. As the doors closed, Parker began to laugh.

“What?” I asked, curious to hear the joke he had inside his head.

“Where the hell did you get a damn name like Felicia Hailey?”

I didn’t respond because I couldn’t stop myself my laughing.

_________________________

I WAS TIRED WHEN I WALKED into the house, but not too tired to walk into the kitchen and pour a glass of wine. I couldn’t think of a better nightcap. Cody and Alexis were with Gage for the weekend, so I had a few days to recover from the craziness. I drank, thinking about the outrageous night I’d just had. Samantha’s mother Joyce showed up with a few bombshells of her own. I sent her the invitation because I wanted her to see the woman her daughter turned out to be, little did I know she was well aware of the damages she’s caused. Looking back, Samantha was never too fond of her mother. Sure Samantha blamed her father for the strained relationship she had with her mother, but something tells me it was more than that. I didn’t expect to see Joyce since she never accepted my calls when I attempted to confirm she was still attending. We didn’t talk too often, and especially not after I told her about Samantha’s deliberate action—or inaction—as her father hung in the closet. That night, I told her about how Samantha broke up my family. I remembered Ms. Garrett’s exact words: “Are you going to just let her get away with it?” I would always hear the comment echoing in the back of my mind. That was all I needed to put the wheels of revenge in motion.

             
I remember sitting in the back of that cathedral, listening to my best friend take a vow to love the man I’d vowed a few years earlier to spend the rest of my life with. I had held up my part of the bargain to forsake all others, which was more than I could say for Gage. I thought about his phone call that night when he told me he had left Samantha standing at the altar because he just couldn’t go through with it. I remembered just sitting in this place with the phone to my ear, and then hanging up when I’d heard enough.

             
I hadn’t spoken to Samantha since she walked into my home on the night I’d planned on celebrating my anniversary with my husband and told me he was cheating on me with her. I didn’t speak to her again until Felicia met her, and the way she greeted her showed how cutthroat and deliberate Samantha could be, though I already knew that.

             
I finished the last of a second glass of wine, put the glass in the dishwasher, and then made my way upstairs, taking off my pumps and carrying them in my hand. I removed my phone from the small clutch purse and dialed his number.

             
“Hello, baby.” I was happy to hear my father’s voice.

             
“Hello, Daddy.” I sighed.

             
“Is it over?”

             
I was glad to answer that question. “Yes, Daddy, it’s over. You can have these identities back. Felicia Hailey, Nicolas Hailey, and Alexandria Hailey are all yours,” I said, sitting in the middle of the stairs.

             
“How are you going to make the transition back to Kennalyn Covell?”

             
“I’ve begun that transition. I’ve already come clean to one of the partners in the firm. He’ll take care of everything on his end. As for the kids and school, I’ll take care of that on Monday. I remember what you told me, so it can’t be that difficult. And they already have this phone number, should they want to call you for verification. It helps to have your father working in the United States Marshals Service.”

             
“I’m just glad Samantha got what was coming to her.”

             
My father said exactly what I had been thinking all this time. I had destroyed Samantha’s relationship, but I still had to repair the one I had with Campbell. I guess now you know my reason for keeping my true identity from Campbell and Parker was to protect my father. I knew they would have many questions, and I wasn’t sure how much I would be able to lie to them. Now I know it wouldn’t have been that hard. I wondered how long before loneliness would set in, since I no longer had Felicia or destroying Samantha to keep me occupied.

I started my walk upstairs again. Temptation to dial Campbell’s phone number set in, but fear that he wouldn’t answer kept me from pressing any numbers that would connect me to him. In the bedroom, I tossed my pumps in a corner across the room and then sprawled across the bed. Exhaustion had finally set in, and this time I wasn’t going to fight it.

Secretly, I had always promised myself if the opportunity presented itself to help bring pain to Samantha, I would do so with a smile on my face. Ryle’s proposal did nothing but remind me how pathetic a person the woman I once called my best friend was, and all I could feel was sorry for her. I had to let go in order to move on, but the only way to let go was to become Felicia Hailey. That was the only way I could think to not let my desire for payback consume my family and me. Revenge was important to me, but not important enough for me to lose my family or myself, even though I may have lost Campbell and the life I wanted to build with him as a result of that desire. 

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Chapter 1

Patrick…

Here Comes the Pain Again

“I slept with a knife under my mattress. I had made up my
mind. I was going to use it the next time he showed up in my bedroom door, posing as if he’d been invited. I didn’t know where I was going to stab him, but I was not going to stop until I was sure he felt the very pain I felt because of him.”

“And how did those thoughts make you feel?” Dr. Kendrick asked as she finished the last set of notes on her leather-covered notebook.

Men had just about the same hatred for psychologists they had for a routine visit to the doctor’s office. The last thing we wanted to hear was the regret in our doctor’s voice as he shared some bad news we had been avoiding, or to admit to a total stranger that something was wrong with us. Dr. Aiden Kendrick was no stranger. I was surprised I had gotten so comfortable with her so fast after only one month and three weeks—seven sessions, to be exact. She had been carefully vetted. If I were going to trust my feelings and secrets with any other woman, I had to know something about her other than the degrees that sat framed and proudly displayed on the off-white wall behind her desk. Though there were some exceptions and limitations, I knew the privacy and confidentiality laws protected me.

“Mr. McKay, are you still with us?” Dr. Kendrick questioned when I failed to respond. 

“I’m sorry, Doc. What was the question?”

“Those thoughts you had about harming your father, how did they make you feel?” Dr. Kendrick repeated.

She had crossed her legs and rested her chin on a fisted right hand, her elbow pressing into her leg, just above her knee. She listened intently, and kept her focus on me. She had eyes the color of a coconut shell, and I avoided looking at her as often as I could.

“I mean, it was either kill him or kill myself, right?” 

“And was that a thought that often crossed your mind?”

I knew she wasn’t going to agree with my previous statement.

“And I’m referring to you hurting yourself.”

“I don’t think I ever thought about that. I mostly wanted to kill the visions I saw whenever my eyes were closed. For a long time, I slept awake, my eyes staring into the darkness of the night. I didn’t know what else to do. That was when the thoughts came. Yeah, I hated that they occupied my mind-space, but the thought that my first sexual experience was with my father did so many things to me. What it did most was drive me crazy. Lucky for him, I never got a chance to enact that plan.”

“Lucky for us!”

“What do you mean, Doc?”

I lifted my head and looked into those very same eyes I’d been avoiding.

She removed her glasses and held the tip of the earpiece in her mouth, briefly, and then she spoke, “I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to meet such a remarkable young man.”

She had made a grown man blush, but I kept it inside. She replaced her glasses on her face, picked up the signature ballpoint pen she had rested on the inside of her binder and continued. “You said he was being released in three days. How does that make you feel?”

“Besides wishing they had given him life, I don’t think I feel anything.”

I got up from the milk-white sofa and walked over to a bay window I had been staring through for over a month now, when my eyes weren’t closed. I stood preoccupied with the childlike fascination with an innocent woodpecker that had visited on more than one occasion.

“That man ruined me.”

“How so?” Dr. Kendrick asked.

“Look at me. I’m not here because I got it all together.”

“But you’ve done something right in the ten years since you’ve admitted your father raped you.”

Dr. Kendrick sat with her pen gripped loosely between her teeth. She fixed her glasses that slid down closer to the tip of her nose.

“Why? Because I can count the number of men I’ve screwed over, or women I’ve lied to on one hand?”

I turned and rested my behind on the window’s edge, almost sitting. I folded my arms across my chest. Dr. Kendrick glanced at her watch.

“Well, Mr. McKay, we have about five minutes left in our session. Why don’t we pick up from here next time?”

Dr. Kendrick placed the pen in the fold of her notebook and closed it. She removed the glasses from her face, reached for the pink leather eyeglass case and snapped it shut after folding the glasses neatly inside. Before responding, I slowly walked over to the chair and sat with my hands clasped between my knees.

“So, I’ll see you week after next Thursday?” I asked.

“Same time, same place, Mr. McKay,” Dr. Kendrick confirmed.

She walked over and stopped in front of me. I looked in Dr. Kendrick’s eyes because this time I had no choice.

“I wish you had come to see me sooner. We are going to get through this. I know this isn’t easy for you, but you have taken some great steps. I’ll see you in two weeks. If you want to come back sooner, I’m sure we can clear some space in my schedule for you.”

“Thank you, Doc.”

As Dr. Kendrick turned to leave, she gave me a warm, tight hug. It was something I hadn’t felt in a long time from someone who barely knew me. It was something I needed. As I reached for the doorknob and pulled the door opened, Dr. Kendrick called out to me.

“May I ask you a question?”

“I’m bisexual, Doc.”

She smiled at my admission.

“That wasn’t the question I had in mind, but thanks for being so forward. I wanted to know if you ever blamed yourself.”

I wasn’t sure how I was going to respond. I stood quietly and thought about it. My heart was pounding. I hadn’t shed a tear since I met Dr. Aiden Kendrick, but my first tears were quickly forming in the corners of both eyes. Without a sound, I allowed the tears to stream down the sides of my face. I did nothing to stop them. As if someone had stolen my feet from beneath me, I slowly slid down to the floor and sat in a stoop with my head between my knees, attempting to hide the shame I felt every time I looked into the mirror. When I looked up, Dr. Kendrick was stooping next to me. She extended her hand across my back and cradled my shoulder. When I felt her embrace, I lifted my head and rested it on her left shoulder.

“I…I…”

The words struggled to escape my mouth.

“It’s ok, my dear.”

It seems Dr. Kendrick went from therapist into mother-mode as she began stroking my head.

“We don’t have to discuss it now. Whatever you felt was normal.”

“I…I…” I stuttered.

The words were still nowhere to be found. I wanted to tell her and get it over with.

“Listen, Patrick. Look at me.”

Dr. Kendrick took her hand and lifted my head gently.

“This can wait until our next session, and if not, then just know that it’s something we have to discuss, though not until you are ready. It’s obvious you’re not.”

I didn’t respond. We sat in silence, and I took the time I needed to regain composure before driving home. Dr. Kendrick stood up, extended her hand, and helped me to my feet. I felt like a kid. We hugged again and Dr. Kendrick held the door open for me to leave.

Our walk down the hall towards the elevator was surrounded by silence. One side of the wall was decorated with framed replicas of Van Gogh and Picasso paintings. The blue painted wall, which was supposed to provide a sense of calmness to the visitors of this state-of-the-art office building, did little to settle my rattled nerves, but I knew I had to pull myself together.

“Listen!” she said as she took my hands in hers, “don’t forget to call me if you need to talk.”

“Thanks, Doc. I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

I pressed the down button on the elevator. The door opened immediately.

“I’m sure you will be, too,” she said in an assuring voice.

She stood facing the elevator doors, watching them close me in.