Avoiding Responsibility (44 page)

"Ramsey," Parker pleaded softly. She sincerely felt for the girl. Poor thing had no idea what she was dealing with.

Ramsey paused contemplating his options before sputtering angrily hating that he had to do this. "Look it just has to do with the
wedding
alright," he snapped. His eyes shifted to Parker whose own mouth had snapped shut. He could gauge her reaction as she tried to look at anything but him. He just hoped that Lexi couldn't see through her mask of disappointment and regret.

"Oh God," Lexi cried, "can we not talk about the wedding?" Lexi shuddered at the thought of Jack's wedding, period. She did not want to hear anything about it. She did not even want to think about it. She didn't miss the sneaky look that passed between Ramsey and Parker, but she didn't want to know what it had to do with the wedding. The last thing she wanted to know about was wedding.

"See I told you it was the last thing you wanted to talk about and that I wasn't going to bring it up," he said sliding a hand through his hair and letting out a relieved sigh. It was true that they had been spending more time together because of wedding preparations, but he hated that he had had to exploit Lexi's weakness about the wedding to avoid taking responsibility for the real reason.

"Whatever," Lexi said dismissively, "I still don't understand why you had to lie about the other stuff. You know my past and how important trust is to me. How do I know you didn't lie about anything else? How do I even know you care about me?" Lexi didn't like stating that last statement. It made her feel incredibly weak and vulnerable. Her heart was in his hands at that last comment. She cared about him deeply. In fact, she knew that she loved him. It terrified her to put so much into one person only to not know where her future was taking her. She thought they had been on some sort of path, but his lying certainly made it clear that he had other things in mind. He couldn't even trust her with his past. How could he trust her with his future?

Ramsey looked at Parker as if this were all her fault knowing that it was only partly the case. The majority of the blame landed on him for deceiving Lexi into believing she was his first true love. Now she didn't even believe that he loved her all, because he had lied about loving someone else before her. He felt like an idiot. "You know how I feel about you," he said earnestly moving towards Lexi to reassure her. He would do anything to reassure her of his feelings. Lexi took a hesitant step back countering his movements. She wasn't prepared to be in close proximity to him.

"Yet you lie," she breathed shaking her head at his advance.

"It wasn't intentional for me to lie to you about it," he groaned miserably.

"Unintentional lying?" Lexi asked rolling her eyes. "That's rich."

"No, come on. I told you that Parker and I don't discuss this stuff with people. Well usually not," he said sliding his eyes towards Parker. She had broken that trend. It had been an unspoken truce between them that neither would divulge information about it anymore. It hurt them both too much to discuss it, and she had done it anyway. "Anyone who knew we were together knows better than to bring it up and the details were suppressed. Tell her Parker," he barked demanding her assistance in convincing his girlfriend that he cared about her that he wasn't a complete liar. Parker was the one who had broken their rules. Ramsey hadn't even seen it coming.

Parker sighed and sank into one of his cushioned chairs as if resolved that she had to remain for the remainder of this conversation. She knew what he had said was true and that she had more or less gone behind his back to tell Lexi the truth. She still felt justified in it. Even if she had told Ramsey that they should tell her about what happened, he wouldn't have listened. Once he got an idea in his head about how things were going to be that was it, but she did have to agree with him. "We really don't tell people."

"You told me," she said defiantly.

"I thought you deserved the truth. I could see where Ramsey's head was with you and couldn't hold it in. I didn't want your world to come crashing down around you…like mine did." Parker bit her lip anxiously before continuing. She knew Ramsey wouldn't be pleased with her statements, but at least it confirmed his story that they didn't talk about these things. "But honestly, I haven't told the whole story to anyone in a very long time and Ramsey I doubt has ever told anyone."

"Well fine you don't normally tell people about it, but did you have to lie?" Lexi questioned him. "Couldn't you have just told me that she existed so I wouldn't be blindsided? Why did I have to hear her side first?"

"Lexi I told you I don't have an excuse. This is what Parker and I always did. We didn't tell people what happened. Parker was the only one who ever told and she always seems to get there first with her distorted version of reality," Ramsey grumbled. Lexi could tell just by the reactions of both parties that they had argued about this before and rather often.

"My reality isn't distorted," Parker sputtered looking up from where she was seated. "I was there. I actually know what happened. You weren't even there for everything…"

"Because you left! We argued and you left. How could I talk to you about it?"

"Ancient history," Parker said with a sad shoulder shrug.

"And you told her you miscarried," he spat at her his anger bubbling up again.

"Ramsey I did," she moaned a tear rolling down her cheek at the mention of her lost pregnancy. She sounded as if she had said this same thing many times. Lexi wondered how many times she had tried to convince Ramsey that she had miscarried. She wondered if Parker actually had. She just didn't know.

He shook his head in disbelief. "And you believe her?" Ramsey asked turning on Lexi.

Lexi didn't know if she truly believed Parker's side, but she was even more uncertain about Ramsey. "She's not the one who's been lying to me from the beginning. I don't see why I should believe you?" she told him. "Does an abortion that sent you over the edge sound any more plausible in your story?" Lexi asked crossing her arms over her chest.

"Can't anyone else see the truth but me?" he demanded turning around in a quick circle his arms out before him as if pleading with an unseen audience.

"What's the truth?" Lexi asked harshly. "It's hard to when you've lied about so much else."

"Did she skim over the parts about Bekah's involvement?" he asked taking the argument back to day one. He had never been able to put the pieces together properly at first. He realized suddenly one day quite some time ago that it was because he had been missing a piece. Bekah's involvement was the trigger, and he knew that Parker hadn't told Lexi that.

Lexi looked at Parker whose face had gone as white as a sheet. "She told me she would save me the details," Lexi said knowing for some reason that it was the answer Ramsey had been expecting.

Ramsey gritted his teeth in an attempt to keep his anger in check. Of course, she had skimmed over the details. Parker still refused to see what she had actually done. She held herself together behind a wall that he had never been able to break through. "Did you ever wonder why she wanted to save you the details?"

"No, I just thought it was personal. I didn't really know there was a connection."

"I understand why you didn't see it to begin with," he growled a man possessed. She could see it all over him that he had been obsessed with this very issue at one point. The look of figuring out what had happened that week had taken him over, and he hadn't been content until he had figured everything out. "It took me a long time to finally realize what had happened in that week."

"Ramsey," Parker pleaded her voice shaking with every syllable. "You put the pieces together wrong. They didn't happen that way." By now Parker's body was trembling just at the very thought that he was going to bring up his idea of what had happened between them. That had been the most traumatic experience of her life, and him treating it so cavalierly in front of her made her nauseous.

"What are you trying to say?" Lexi asked.

"Parker saved you the details of my sister going over there and convincing her to get rid of the baby," he stated stoically.

Lexi couldn't help it, she gasped. "No," she murmured not wanting to see what was in front of her. "You think she did that? You think that about your own sister?" She had to ask. She hated Bekah, but to do that against your own brother who she loved. Lexi found it hard to believe.

"After everything you know about Bekah, you somehow can't believe that she would do that?" Ramsey asked in disbelief.

Lexi thought it over. She didn't have a good opinion of Bekah. In fact, she thought Bekah was one of the worst person she had ever met. She despised Bekah. But this even seemed low for her.

Yet, Lexi knew how Bekah operated. No matter how much she loved her brother. No matter how close their bond was, she still only worked one way. She did whatever directly benefited her. Lexi knew that she was like this first hand. She had only invited Lexi down to meet her with the intention of destroying her relationship with Jack so Bekah could have him all to herself. So how could this benefit her? How could her convincing Parker to have an abortion benefit her?

Lexi just couldn't draw a connection. This was Parker's best friend. They had known each other since childhood. It was her brother's baby. Granted, it was a baby that he didn't know about until it was too late, but still…this was going to be Bekah's niece. Why would she just get rid of it?

Then it hit her. It felt like a light bulb had been turned on in her mind. She knew exactly how Parker getting rid of her baby niece would benefit Bekah. It would safe her reputation and the reputation of her family. Bekah would never want to be involved in anything that was scandalous…anything that could somehow come back to be directly related to her. It didn't matter what damage emotionally this would do to her brother or Parker. It didn't matter how this would ultimately destroy their relationship. It didn't matter that she would lose her best friend…or at least the easy relationship they had once had. All that mattered was what irreparable damage this would do to her family's status. All she could possibly think about was how this would affect her in this situation.

Lexi knew Ramsey must have come to this same conclusion. He knew Bekah better than anyone else. For some reason it seemed more logical than any of the other things that had been confessed all night. Bekah was a big enough bitch to convince her own best friend to get rid of her own brother's baby without telling him to save the Bridges name.

"She did it for herself," Lexi murmured softly seeing it clearly.

"How did you come to that same conclusion?" Parker asked standing a bit too quickly. She wobbled heavily on her two feet as she stared slack jawed at Lexi.

"Because it's the only thing that makes sense," Ramsey responded.

"It doesn't make sense. Why would I lie about this? I know what happened. I was there," Parker told him. "And you weren't."

Ramsey shook his head despondently. "Let's not have this argument again Parker. Please. I know I wasn't there. I know I made mistakes, but not anymore or less than you did. Can we please drop it?"

"How could you even look at her again once you figured it out?" Lexi asked in disbelief that he could still be a devout brother.

He shrugged getting that knowing look in his eye. "She's my sister. She might have done some terrible things, but I love her. How could she have known what this would have done or that I would have ever figured it out?"

Lexi thought it was incredibly short sighted to believe that Bekah didn't know what it would do. Bekah played a game. She wove her web and typically knew exactly where the pieces would fall. Then again, Lexi was a bit jaded about Bekah's involvement in any scenario.

"Well," Lexi said spinning on Parker, "I guess since I know about as much truth about that situation as you both can agree on, can you at least tell me that he hasn't lied to me about anything else? Do you know if he's lied to me? You two have been awful chummy since you got back to town. I'm sure you would know something."

Parker gave Ramsey a knowing look before quickly turning away. "I…I don't know."

"You think I can't see what's going on here? I see the looks between you two. I'm not stupid," she yelled at the both of them. "I've done a lot of stupid things before and I've lied and I've made mistakes, but this is just different. I've come clean about my past, about everything. I've put it behind me. And to think that you don't even have the decency to do the same…to even tell me about it. To try and hide it behind silly looks that you two pass between each other. Well I've had enough!"

Ramsey ran his hands through his hair unable to believe that this was really happening right now. After everything he had gone through to get to this point, everything was slipping so easily out of his fingers. "I lied about something else," he admitted.

"What?" Lexi cried sinking into a chair in disbelief. "After I stood here and yelled at you for however long, you still held something back from me. What? Have you and Parker been seeing each other behind my back? Have you been cheating on me just like you cheated on her?" she asked throwing her hand out in Parker's direction.

"I never cheated on Parker," he gasped out his head looking into Parker's hurt face. "Did you tell her I cheated on you?"

"No, Ramsey, I didn't," she said hating this conversation more and more. She had kind of implied that he had cheated on her, but she hadn't come right out and said it. She knew it wasn't the truth that he hadn't done it, but that night still hurt her to think about. "I swear. I would never make that mistake again."

"I never cheated on her," he bellowed. "Never!"

"Oh you just got drunk and had naked women in your apartment who…what did you say?" she asked Parker. "Would suck your dick at a snap of your fingers?"

"You said that Parker, really?" he asked shaking his head side to side slowly as if he couldn't believe his ears. "After everything you still can't get over that night. I told you nothing happened. It was for Brad and Jason. Why can you still not believe me?"