Sidelined (13 page)

I
t’s official. I’m batshit crazy.

I must be. Not twenty-four hours ago, I was a pissed-off mess after Mitch turned up at my door. Now, I’m sitting in my front room, waiting for him to come over. Invited.

Because dammit. I have to know what he needs to talk about that would warrant him coming around here like nothing happened between us. Like we broke up only yesterday. I have to know what’s so important that he needs to fuck with my head.

He has—screwed with my head. Seeing him has set off a whole barrage of feelings I thought I’d long buried. And perhaps that’s the problem: I thought I’d buried them. What I never considered is that you can bury things deeper and deeper, but sooner or later, someone will dig them up. Whether it be bones, treasures, or feelings. Eventually, what gets buried must get discovered.

I don’t love him anymore. I know that much, at least. Even if that’s all I have to hold on to in this conversation, it’s better than nothing. I also know that I have no desire to pursue anything past this conversation. That ship sailed long ago and took all my fucks about love with it.

That said, I’m not over what he did. How am I supposed to be? He betrayed my trust in the most heart-wrenching way. Three years, and he threw it out the window. Yes, we might have been on a kind-of break while we both took some time for end-of-year exams. But that wasn’t new. We’d done that since we’d met in high school. We always took exam time apart because we couldn’t focus on studying when we were together.

Turns out I was the only one interested in studying that year. Well, schoolwork, that is. Unfortunately, Mitch was all too interested in studying the inside of my cousin’s vagina.

I run my fingers through my hair and blow out a long breath. Five minutes until he’s supposed to be here.

Apprehension coils in my lower stomach, tightening my muscles almost painfully. God, I feel sick. What am I doing? Talking to him,
in my apartment? The one we shared?
Am I crazy?

Wait. I already established the answer to that one. Yes. Yes, I am crazy. I’m fucking loop-the-loop insane.

The problem is that, as well as the bad stuff, I also remember the good stuff. Like how he’d record every episode of Gilmore Girls so I wouldn’t miss it if I was working, busy with schoolwork, or out with the girls. Like how he’d always make sure there was cookie dough in the fridge when my period came around—except, he never quite nailed the week, so the cookie dough was a permanent addition to our kitchen.

Little things. Little things I miss. Not from him, but just in general. From anyone. The security of knowing there’s someone to hug when you go to sleep and that someone will be there in the morning, too. Of knowing there’s someone to curl into when shit gets complicated or you’ve had a bad day. Of knowing there’s someone who’ll come around just because you’re feeling down.

My buzzer rings and I stare at it. Oh shit. Here we go.

I press the button. “Yeah?”

“Mace? Let me in?” Mitch asks.

Swallowing hard, I press the button to release the main door. My hand hovers over the handle to my apartment, and I briefly consider not opening it. I’ve completely revamped the apartment and bought new furniture since I kicked him out, but still.

Three knocks at the door, and I open it slowly. “Mitch.”

“Can I come in?” he asks, his shoulders slumped.

“That’s why I called you,” I mutter, stepping back and opening the door wider.

He walks past and stops between the living room and kitchen. I shut the door as he looks around, taking the space in.

“You redecorated.”

“Yep.”

“It looks good.”

“Thanks.”

He turns to me, his brown eyes so light that they’re barely even brown at all. “How are you?”

Okay. No. “Look, Mitch. I didn’t call you for a friendly catch-up over coffee. Quit the goddamn small talk and explain what you meant yesterday.”

He shoves his hands in his pockets. “Can I sit down?”

Great. That means he intends to stay a while.

“Sure. I guess.” I motion toward the sofas and sit down.

He moves to mine, but I point at the other one. He gets the message and swiftly changes direction.

“Talk,” I demand.

“You know Suzie had the baby, right?”

“Couldn’t not.” I smile tightly. “Oh, thank Aunt June for the pictures of her, will you? They were really fucking appreciated.”

“Mace, baby…”

“I’m not your fucking baby, Mitch. I told you that yesterday. Now, spit it out or get out.”

“All right.” He scratches his forehead and leans forward. “Before Daisy was born, Suzie admitted she’d slept with someone else right before me and she didn’t know if I was Daisy’s dad.”

I blink. What? “So…why…” I swallow. “Why did she tell you that you were?”

“I don’t know. All I got was that I’m the more ‘stable’ of the two, so she told me what she wanted to believe was true.”

“Well. That’s a shitter, huh?”

“No kidding.” Mitch pauses. “I told her we were getting a DNA test, because I wasn’t going to raise a baby that wasn’t mine.”

“There goes stable,” I mutter.

“I’m not a fucking hero, Macey. She tricked me into telling you about that mistake by telling me I was the dad.”

“Oh, nice to know you had no intention of telling me,” I snap.

“I didn’t mean it—”

“Are we at the point of this conversation yet? Because it’s wearing me the hell down.”

“Right.” Mitch takes a deep breath. “After Daisy was born, we did a DNA test and got the results back this week.”

I swallow.

“I’m not her dad.”

I stare at him. “What?” The word leaves me on a whisper.

“I’m not her dad. The other guy is—if she was telling the truth about there only being one other guy,” he explains.

My hands tremble, and I get up. I stroll into my kitchen, grab the bottle of tequila Jack got yesterday, and swig. “Why are you telling me this, Mitch?”

“Because…I don’t know, Mace. She tricked me into telling you—”

“And you think that matters? That she tricked you?” I yell. “What you’re really saying is that you didn’t have the fucking balls to tell me, Mitch!”

“All right, I didn’t!” He stands. “I was so fucking afraid of losing you even though we were on a break—”

“Oh, so that’s okay, too, huh? We were on our usual exam-time break so we could both pass, but it’s okay because you thought the better examination was the one you could conduct inside the walls of my cousin’s vagina, yeah? Because we were only half together, it makes it fucking okay?”

“I… We weren’t together, Mace.”

“We weren’t apart!” I yell, shoving my finger at him. “We are not Ross and Rachel, Mitchell! There is no ‘We were on a break!’ This is not a damn sitcom. There is no fucking excuse for your behavior. Nor is there any excuse for you dragging your ass here to tell me the kid isn’t yours. What? You think now I’m going to forgive you and fall back into your arms?”

“I…I don’t know.”

“You fucked my cousin, Mitch. You betrayed my trust and threw away three years of commitment and love. You. Fucked. Everything. Up.”

“I know, baby.”

“Call me that again and I’m going to scoop your balls from your body with an electric whisk.”

Mitch runs his hands down his face. “I just… I wanted you to know the truth. That’s all.”

“I don’t care,” I say softer. “We’re over, Mitch. We have been for a long time. And that was a choice you made.”

“I still love you, Macey. Just as much as I always have.”

“I don’t care.” This time, I whisper. “I don’t care. You don’t get to love me anymore. You broke my heart.”

“I know, and I’m sorry. Shit.” He moves to me and cups my face. “You never let me tell you that. I’m sorry, Mace. I am. More than you know.”

“Are you sorry you did it or sorry you had to tell me and lost me?” I lift my eyes to his. “Which is it, huh? Because there’s a big-ass difference.”

“Sorry I did it,” he answers wisely, although maybe not entirely truthfully. “If I could change it, I wouldn’t have done it.” He rests his forehead against mine and inhales sharply. “I wouldn’t have done something that would have led to losing you.”

“Get out,” I whisper.

“What?”

“Get out,” I repeat, stepping away from him. “I can’t talk to you anymore.”

“Mace…”

“No, Mitch. Nonnegotiable. You can’t come storming back into my life after a year then drop a huge-ass bomb on me accompanied with a declaration of love and an apology and expect me to be okay with it. I’m not. So get out.”

“That’s fair,” he says quietly, moving back to the door. “Can I call you?”

I turn away from him. “Does it matter what I say?”

“No. I’ll call you when you’ve had some time to process all of this. Okay?”

No.

“And, Mace? I do mean it. I am sorry. I do love you.”

I don’t say a word as he opens the door and walks through it, leaving it to close behind him.

I stay standing, staring at the wall, so many feelings consuming me right now that I can barely breathe through the weight of them. Anger, confusion, frustration, bitterness, and betrayal. One after one, they hit me with the force of a tsunami making contact with land for the very first time.

I’m shaken to my very core. The disbelief of his return combined with his words ricochets throughout my body until it does nothing but burn every bit of me it touches.

I feel numb, yet I can still feel every inch of the pain making itself known once again. The reality attacks me almost brutally, and the weight of it bears down on me until I’m close to being crushed by it.

I grab my keys from the side table in the hall and run downstairs. Once I’m in my car, I start it angrily and head toward Corey and Leah’s place. I drive far too aggressively, beep my horn too loudly, and take corners too sharply. But I don’t care. I can’t care. Right now, I need my best friends.

I pull up outside the house after the painstakingly long drive and bang on the door until someone answers.

“Macey? Are you all right?” Corey’s brow furrows.

“Is Leah here?”

“No, she’s at her mom’s with Ryann. Something about a movie audition. What’s up?”

“Fuck!” I slam my hand into the wall. “Thanks.”

“Macey!”

I wave over my shoulder and get back into my car. The drive to Grace’s house takes only a few minutes, and I punch in the gate code in harshly. When the gates open, I tear up the driveway before stopping quickly and getting out.

I knock on the door—this time, more patiently but just as loudly—until Grace answers.

“Macey,” she says cheerily. Her smile drops when she looks at me properly. “Honey, what’s wrong?”

“Corey said Leah and Ry are here. Are they?”

“In the front room,” Grace says as she steps to the side.

I kick my shoes off in the hallway and walk into the main room. Leah and Ryann are talking excitedly about something that makes no sense to me right now, but they stop when Grace clears her throat. Slowly, my two best friends turn to me.

“Mace. He came?” Leah whispers, and I know Jack told Corey and Corey told Leah.

I nod slowly.

“And?” Ry prompts.

I shake my head and cover my mouth with my hands. My legs feel weak, and it’s like there’s a bomb of emotion inside me ready to explode with devastatingly painful consequences.

Grace guides me to the sofa and sits me between the girls. “Let it out, honey,” she whispers with a kiss to the top of my forehead.

Her words open the floodgates. As the words fall from my lips, tears escape my eyes and trail down my cheeks. My heart hurts painfully because everything I thought I knew is wrong. Totally wrong. Even down to the fact that he admitted that he wasn’t going to tell me.

All that proves is that the guy I thought I loved isn’t the guy I loved.

I loved a total bastard, one who thought it was acceptable to sleep with someone when we were taking a break. How many more times did he do that? How many other girls did he sleep with when we were on a break?

As my friends wrap their arms around me, I realize that today has done one thing—it has reminded me that the only men you can trust are your father and your brother and the only relationships worth fighting for are the kind I have with my girls.

Everything else is a crockpot full of shit. Love is a bullshit fantasy made up by storytellers and dreamers to trick us into believing that happily-ever-after exists when, in fact, real life is full of far more villains than Rapunzel or Cinderella ever had.

“Men are bastards,” Ada, Leah’s aunt, proclaims when my tears quiet down.

I look across the room at her. “Hear, hear.”

“But not all of them are bastards all of the time,” she says, looking at me. “Just like women are bitches, but not all of them are bitches all the time.”