Crushed (15 page)

Alex
and I headed over Lacey and Jason’s about 2 hours later. We did a cook out and
hung by the pool. I missed swimming here, it was so closed off. Ryan was putting
in a pool for me before the whole NYC thing, and Alex didn’t have one so I had
been missing out a ton. Especially pregnant.

         
We had cheeseburgers, but I couldn’t imagine eating anything heavy so I nibbled
on some crackers and veggies. Lacey brought me out some French dip to go with
it, and I had to slow myself down because it was so good and I didn’t want to
be sick.

We
were sitting around all laughing, the mood was really light. Jason and Lacey
seemed to be really okay with Alex being here. Yes he was their friend as well,
but Ryan complicated that a bit.

Mason
had been sleeping in his playpen just inside the patio doors where it was cool.
I started feeling a little sick so I excused myself to head to the bathroom.
Lacey told me to use the guest bathroom because theirs was being remodeled to
fit a bigger bath tub.

The
guest room was exactly the same as when I left it except it was covered in my
stuff. The king size bedspread that was on Ryan and I’s bed was now draped on
the king size bed. There were photos of Ryan and me from our wedding day and a
few from when we had Mason at the house in frames along the bed side table.

On
the table there was a journal with a label on the front. “All the shit I should
have told her.”

I
wanted to open it, I wanted to see what he had to say. I couldn’t. It wouldn’t
change the things that had happened and I had to be strong. I had to stop all
this doubt bull shit.

I
went into the bathroom and came back out... Looking at the bed, I noticed that
there was a bunched up clump under the blanket. I lifted it back to see what it
was and noticed it was one of my T-shirts that I wore around the house when we
were having movie night. I lifted it up and noticed that it smelled like me, he
had sprayed it recently with my favorite perfume.

He
was sleeping with my shirt.

God.

I
walked out of the room. Back outside to where Alex and Jason were standing at
the grill talking about a car that Alex was working on at the club. Lacey and I
started talking about my pregnancy and getting off the morning sickness
medication. I was nervous about doing it. I had lost a few pounds and I didn’t
want to risk getting sick again and losing more.

All
of a sudden the patio door opened and Ryan came walking out with boxes of car
parts stacked up so he couldn’t see over them.

I
leaned over to Lacey and said “I thought you said he wouldn’t be here?”

She
leaned back “he wasn’t, he had to work he said.”

I
wanted to run. I had nowhere to go. He would notice me if I moved. I looked back
at him. He looked really good. His arms look even more muscular than they were
the last time I saw him. He must really be working out. His hair looked a
little longer than I was used to, but he still had that scruff. That I loved so
much.

I
glanced up and saw Alex looking at me. He had a confused and slightly fearful
look in his eye. As soon as Jason walked over to Ryan to help him with the
boxes, Ryan noticed Alex.

“Hey
Alex.” Ryan said. Not overly friendly, but not icy either. “How are you?”

Lacey
whispered to me “Um Em, he doesn’t know you and Alex are living together, just
a heads up.”

Oh
shit.

Where
the hell did he think I was all this time? He probably assumed I dipped into
savings and got a place, but if he really knew me he knew I wouldn’t do that.
He knew I wanted to use that money for something important.

Alex
looked back at me. Unsure of what to say to Ryan who was asking him a ton of
questions.

Ryan
followed his line of sight and when his eyes landed on me sitting at the table,
they widened in shock

He
didn’t say anything for a few minutes. He just stood there and watched me. I
saw his eyes flicker with so much emotion, anger, sadness and despair. I nodded
to him in hello and gave him a brief smile.

He
walked towards Lacey and I and took a seat across from me.

“Hey
Em, um. How are you?”

He
seemed nervous, like I wasn’t his wife that he had cheated on a few months ago.
Like I was a stranger he just met. Or like I was the woman he loved and missed
and didn’t know what to say to her. But I still didn’t like it.

“I’m
good, how are you?”

We
sat there chatting for like 20 minutes about random things. He told me he took
a smaller scale role with a movie company. He didn’t want to take on a whole
lot right now. He said he wasn’t doing much press but that he had in the
beginning after the “show” ended. He was careful when talking about it all.
Like it would somehow make me go running if I was reminded that he had once
worked on a TV show where the lead actress was a sweet beautiful girl, but in a
crazy plot twist obsessed with him. I knew he had feelings for her as well so I
didn’t want to talk about it either.

We
were sitting there for a while. Jason and Alex came and sat down. Alex closer
to me, and Ryan would look at Alex through the corner of his eye every now and
then to see what he was doing. I could tell that he didn’t like that he was
sitting next to me.

 
 I
tried to pay attention to what Lacey and Jason were talking about. Alex and
Ryan started talking about Jason’s truck and a new part it needed.

All
of a sudden I felt this light flutter in my belly. At first I didn’t know what
it was, but then it continued to happen, I put my hand on my belly and looked
over at Lacey. It was my baby kicking. The very first kicks.

“Oh
my God Lacey.” I said with so much excitement I looked over at her, and she
looked down at where my hands were. A smile brightening her face at
realization. She leaned over and put her hands on my stomach. Happy tears were
building in her eyes.

I
remembered then that we were not alone. I looked at Ryan who had a confused and
interested expression on his face. The table was high enough that he couldn’t
see my belly and he didn’t know where Lacey was putting her hands. But Alex
did. He gave me a quick grin. I wanted to grab his hand and show him, but Ryan
was sitting right there. Ryan whose baby was kicking inside of me for the first
time. Ryan who didn’t even know said baby existed.

“What’s
going on?” he asked his brown furrowing in confusion

I
didn’t know what to do. I was looking at Lacey Jason and Alex, all hoping
someone would step in and make an excuse but I knew, I just knew there was no
way.

Alex
stood up “We need to get going, I have to stop by the club first and sign
something for dad and we’ve had a long day.”

Ryan
stood up “What do you mean we, why does she have to leave too?”

He
was looking at me to answer, not Alex

“Ryan,
I am staying with Alex, we are dating.”

Ryan’s
face turned red. He looked at Lacey and Jason like he was waiting for one of
them to deny it. When neither of them did, he got up and threw his chair
backwards.

 He
stormed towards Alex. Alex stood tall and got right in Ryan’s face. Ryan was a
bit taller and had more muscle, but they were both bright red and I knew that
this would not end well. Ryan looked at him “You were my best fucking friend
and you moved in on my wife?” He screamed

Alex
looked back at him “she came to me when you fucking cheated on her, don’t give
me your victim bullshit. I told you I would take her if you fucked up and you
did. Big time that shit is on you.”

“You
have no fucking right to her Alex, she’s mine.”

Alex
laughed “I’m pretty sure when I was fucking her this morning you were the last
person she was thinking of. She’s not yours anymore.”

Ryan
reached back and punched Alex. So hard Alex flew back a few feet.

I
stood up quickly to Alex’s side.

I
glared at Ryan “how dare you treat him like this, you have no idea what he has
done for us. You cheated on me Ryan. You broke every vow we made when you slept
with that woman. Don’t you dare blame him?”

“What
do you mean us?” Ryan asked but as soon as the question left his lips I stood
up and his eyes flew down to my form fitting top showing the 4 month pregnancy
bulge.

“Oh
my God.” Ryan said, he stumbled backwards.

I
said nothing

“Oh
my fucking God.” He said again

“You’re
having a baby with him?” he asked me, anger rising in his voice

“Are
you?” he asked a second later when I didn’t respond.

I
looked at Alex and then at Lacey and Jason “I don’t have time for this, what a
fucking joke. What a total and complete waste of the last year of my life.
Let’s go Alex.”

I
walked past Ryan, who grabbed my arm “how could you do this to me, to us. You
have no idea what I have been doing to make this right.”

I
yanked my arm free. “I will go to a lawyer next week and draw up divorce
papers. You are such a heartless idiot.”

I
didn’t stay behind and listen to his words anymore. All I could hear was him
screaming. He was hurt.

I
was hurt more. Yes I slept with Alex, but not until a few weeks ago. We had
been living together for over a month and Ryan had made no attempt in getting
in touch with me. I was already 3 months pregnant at that point. How could he
really think that I would be so heartless as to sleep with a man and make a
baby while I was still married to him? Explaining it to him was useless. This
couldn’t have gone worse.

My
list of “What I should have told Emmalyn when I had the chance”

When
I bought the new house, it was still furnished after the last couple. They lost
their child, a toddler to a car accident. I remember my realtor sharing the
story. They had to move on. Everywhere they went they saw their little girl’s
smiling face, heard her laughter in each room, it was too much. When I moved in
I redecorated room by room. I wanted to do it though. I had a designer and some
help, but I did most of the work. The last room I was going to do was the
nursery. It felt sad painting it over and taking all the stuff that belonged to
this dead girl away. I had this thought one day that I could take all the stuff
away, but leave it as a nursery. I didn’t know what for. The night that I came
home after meeting you, I walked by that room and thought of you. I thought of
you having my babies and it was the scariest fucking thought I ever had. I just
met you there was no reason under the sun to be thinking about you and
children. But I left the nursery as is. I felt this crazy connection to you,
one that I thought was just made up in movies to drag romance viewers to their
knees, but I felt it with you. I wanted you, and I couldn’t change that room.

I
love you

I
have always loved you.

I
wanted forever with you.

Tonight
I find out that you are having a baby with a man I called my best friend for
years. A man who I loved as my own brother. You were supposed to be mine, I
fucked up so many times. So many times. I thought I needed to keep my job, I
thought I needed to climb the top, to show my father that his years of hate,
his years of telling me I would never be nothing, that I was nothing were
wrong. When I was in NYC he told me that he would have you killed if I didn’t
leave you. He didn’t want me to be happy. All I ever wanted in my whole life was
to be happy, and to have that happiness with you. I didn’t know it was possible
to love like that until I met you and to hear him say I might have to live in a
world, where you face wasn’t the first thing I saw every morning. I couldn’t
bare it. I took a chance in hoping that you would still find a way to forgive
me that you could believe that I had nothing to do with what happened in NYC,
well not totally but I was wrong. I was going to find a way to take him down,
so I would never have to worry about you being hurt by him again.

I
didn’t sleep with Katie by choice. I was drugged. It doesn’t change that it
happened, but it wasn’t something I would have chosen. I told you that one day,
that I had feelings for her. I was spending more of my day with her than with
you. She was sweet and funny and she always talked about wanting to have a love
like you and I. At the time I thought she was just trying to be friendly, but
then the flirting started, then the comments about being married doesn’t mean
you can’t still try other people out. I didn’t want to think that she was
capable of trying to sabotage what we had. I wouldn’t have chosen to be in a
relationship with her if I hadn’t known you, she still wouldn’t have won my
heart. That was created just for you. It will always belong just to you.

Even
though yours belongs to someone else, and my dreams for you and I belong to him
too.