Everything Changes (37 page)

“I’m a hypocrite? Oh Christ,
Rowan!” He pushed away further from the truck pacing the concrete and then
stopped suddenly and looked directly in my eyes. “You…you have no idea what
this is like for me, you have no fucking clue. To see you with that guy
with…with his hands all over you and to have you ignore me. You—” He stopped
suddenly, his words hanging between us.

“Why do you even care, Parker?
How do you think it felt to see you with Kayla?” It was such a shitty thing to
say because he was never
with
Kayla.

“What are you doing with him?”
He trembled, ignoring my comment about Kayla, moving closer to me again. “You
don’t love him…I see it in your eyes. You love me and you know it. I know every
time he kisses you, you’re wishing it was my lips on you, my tongue tasting
your skin.” His breath blew across my face, sweet as the day I met him, but
there was anger there too. I could see what he was trying to do.

Backed against the truck, I had
nowhere to go. I started to stammer. “I’m…I’m trying…to move on. I can’t do
this with you anymore. At some point I have to have a life of my own where I’m
not sucked back into this. I can’t…”

“Bullshit! It’s all bullshit,
Ro!” His rough voice echoed through the parking lot. “You’re with him because
he’s there for you. He’s safe, he’s easy. You don’t have to try with him.
You’re with him because he fits in your world because you think he’s what
you
think is good for you. You’re with
him because, someone, anyone is better than having nothing. You’re with him
because you’re scared, scared of being with me and scared of what that would
mean,” he said, staring at me, his breathing heavy as his words crashed over
me.

The truth was out. He knew
everything. He saw through all my bullshit excuses and bared the truth I
couldn’t speak, wouldn’t speak. So many times I had wanted to ask him what his
problem was and why he called me. I wanted to ask him why I was strung along
for so long and forced to move on with my life behind his back. This had just
as much to do with him as it did with me.

“I am not scared!” I lied
through clenched teeth, my eyes blurred, my skin prickling at his words. The
truth stung but I refused to acknowledge it. “Everything changed, that’s what
happened. Everything changed and you know it! You made me do this. You are just
as much to blame in this shit.”

“I know what exactly what
you’re doing.” Parker snorted, his current lifestyle and the amount of alcohol
he consumed evident in his bloodshot eyes. “I used to do it. You’re trying to fill
the void, trying to keep your mind off of me.
 
I did it with racing for years. I know…because I did exactly what you’re
doing now. I know because I’ve only ever felt whole with you. You feel this
unbearable ache that you can’t get rid of. I know because I feel it too.”

“You’re just jealous that I’m
not moping around after you.” I threw it out there just for spite. “You’re
jealous that I’m not hanging on your every word like Kayla did. You’re jealous
that I don’t want you.” It was probably the biggest lie I had ever said to him
and the rage in his eyes told me he knew it.

“Jealous?” Parker’s eyes
flashed with uncontrolled anger and shock. “Yes, I’m jealous. Crazy fucking
jealous that I can’t even see straight! But I’m also not going to stand back
and let you make the biggest mistake of your life because I know you feel this
too...” he motioned between us “...you do want me, and that’s why you turned to
him to try and forget me. But you can’t. I won’t let you.”

“Parker, we can’t do this. I
can’t do this. You don’t feel that way for me.” I heard his breath catch as the
words fell from my lips. “You think you do, but you don’t.” I was trying to
find something that would make him stop but I couldn’t. “If anything, these
last few weeks proved that.”

“How can you think that? Don’t
you see it, Ro? The blood that runs through my veins, the air that fills my
lungs, it belongs to you. It’s only ever be you for me.”

“Parker…” I breathed as though
I was trying to squeeze every last breath from my body and not feel what I was
feeling right then.

“If I would have known that I
would find you with Sean…” a regretful sigh ran through Parker when he shook
his head “…if I…” his eyes squeezed shut, and he gave up trying to sort through
his words and walked away.

“Parker?” I called after him
but I knew he was done.

He was good at the walking away
thing these days, and I was good at letting him.

He appeared like he was going
to walk home so I let him and drove to Addy’s house.

I told her everything that had
been said between Parker and I and the fact that I was freaking out that Parker
had seen through my lies.

Addy
rolled her eyes, not seeing the significance in
my situation. It might have had something to do with her bathing a flailing,
slippery child, but I refused to admit that. The way I saw it, she wasn’t
listening.

So since she wasn’t going to
listen to me, and I didn’t want to go home in fear Sean would be there and I
would be forced into telling more lies, I grabbed a beer from their fridge and
sat in their hot tub.

I must have been in there
twenty minutes, staring at the stars, loving the jelly feeling that was
overtaking me when their backdoor opened and Justin emerged chuckling. That
wasn’t so unusual because Justin and I had on more than one occasion sat out
here and talked well into the wee hours of the morning. What was unusual was
the fact that he didn’t know I was out here, and Parker had showed up. Maybe he
was looking for some brotherly bonding, but I was kind of pissed he ran to the
same place I ran to, and then there was the obvious setback. I was stranded in
their hot tub.

Glancing around, I had two
options: make myself known and walk inside or listen to their conversation. I
was starting to get light headed from the heat and the alcohol, so I chose to
stay.

I really began to sweat, but
there was nothing I could do. I was stuck. I had all these visions of me dying
in that hot tub from dehydration, but at least I would know the truth as to
what Parker was really thinking.

Staring at the bubbles around
me, I carefully listened to them, thinking about how awkward it was that I was
hearing this conversation.

“I fucking hate this Sean guy,
man,” Parker said, completely dejected, as they sat on the edge of the deck
about ten feet from the hot tub. “How could you let her be with him?”

“Are you talking to me or that
beer in your hand?” Justin asked him. “Do they usually respond to you?”

“They might, maybe, but I was
talking to you,” Parker clarified with a small laugh. “Give me some brotherly
advice. Should I walk away?”

“Parker,” Justin reached out
clapping his hand over Parker’s heavy shoulders. “I will give you the same
advice I have given you for the last four years when it comes to Ro…if you love
her,
show it
.” Justin slowly shook
his head, seeming as confused about why we couldn’t just get our shit together.
“You have it in your head that you can’t have her completely. You always have.
Without knowing it, you never let her in because you’re afraid that if you do
let her have you completely in all the ways she already does, that you’ll hurt
her like Dad.”

“I asked her to stay with me.
How much clearer could I have been?”

“You may have asked her, but
you didn’t see what it was doing to her.” Justin gave him a look that I
couldn’t make out “She was following you around all over the states and then
left to continue her life without you when you were too busy. That’s not a life
for her. Rowan wanted more and at the time, you couldn’t give it to her. It’s
not anyone’s fault, it’s just…the lifestyle you had.”

One thing was certain. Justin
was smarter than I ever gave him credit for.

“What am I doing?” Parker
asked, looking up at Justin. “Why can’t I just get my shit together?”

Justin shrugged taking the beer
from Parker. “It’s hard to say, but your life hasn’t been easy and you have a
way of blaming yourself for everything that went wrong with our parents and now
Rowan. It wasn’t your fault. Well…” Justin laughed lightly, his back shaking
with the motion “…Rowan is your fault but you couldn’t see what you guys were
doing to each other.”

“Do you think I fucked up too
bad?”

“No… Ro doesn’t love Sean.”

Damn him. He saw right through me too.

Parker stood, his body swaying
again, and Justin reached for him. “Let’s get you to bed, man.”

“What are you doing?” a voice
whispered from the lawn when the door closed behind them.

My head shot around to find
Addy
there holding a towel, amused. “Why you little peeping
tom.”

“Shut up,” I snapped, reaching
for the towel. My body felt like it was made of goo. I could barely put one
foot in front of the other and ended up crashing on the floor in Bryce’s room
because Parker had passed out on the couch.

Addy
set me up with a blanket and pillow. Before she
left she took a deep breath and any reservations she had about me being stupid
vanished as a sympathetic expression softened her face. “I never wanted to see
you two end up like this.”

Without answering, I nodded
knowing that anything I said wouldn’t matter. She was my best friend and only
wanted the best for me and her brother-in-law.

“You guys are meant to be
together.”

I looked up at her standing in
the doorway. The hall light provided me enough light to see her face, and I
felt the tiniest bit hopeful that maybe she was right. “You think so?”

“I know so.”

Lying in a room full of plastic
dirt bikes and checkered flags, I realized I had solved absolutely nothing. If
anything, I felt like I had made things worse, but I was relieved that
Addy
believed everything would turn out right.

CHAPTER 23

Rowan Jensen

Roost

Flying dirt kicked up
by the rear tire of a motorcycle is called a roost.

July
23, 2002

Sean had gotten back from Alaska with his dad and
I avoided him. Instead, I invaded Justin and Addy’s new house the week before
my wedding and told Sean that it would be better for us to have some time apart
before the wedding.

This was also my way of getting some space from
my mom who was making me crazy. She was convinced it was my graduation again
and couldn’t understand why I was getting dress fittings and looking at cakes.
This was why I wanted something normal and stable. For as long as I could
remember, things were always changing. I was constantly reminding my mom what
day it was or convincing her that she just washed that glass or whatever. That
was why I couldn’t have Parker. I needed something normal. Sean was normal, and
that was what I convinced myself of.

And then there was my dad. He was just as bad and
kept giving me these stupid looks that said, “I know you’re about to make a
mistake,” but refused to actually speak the words.

Justin sat down beside me on the couch as I
watched Bryce attempt to steal his chips. Justin picked him up and cuddled him.
“What’s with you and my brother these days?”

“What are you talking about?”

He handed Bryce over to
Addy
who set some chips and salsa in front of us and then went upstairs to put him
down for a nap. As soon as Bryce spotted her, he cuddled her to which made her
sigh in contentment. She really was a good mom.

“What I mean is…he showed up here the other
night, drunk, and told me some things I don’t think he wanted me to know.”

I pretended not to know that they had spoken.

“And that was?” I started shoving chip after chip
in my mouth to keep from looking too obvious that I was in love with Parker and
marrying Sean and that I heard them talking last night. I thought for sure
Justin would see right through me. I was a lying sack of shit these days.

“I’m not going to say what he confided in me.” He
sighed, looking towards the television. “You really broke his heart though.”

“I know.”

“I don’t think you do know because if you did…”
he raised his eyebrows at me “...you’d see that while you broke his, he broke
yours just as much.”

He’s more intuitive than I gave him credit for.

“I don’t—”

“Rowan, you can’t marry Sean when you’re in love
with my brother,” Justin spoke softly as though he didn’t want anyone to hear.
“It’s not fair to anyone.”

Addy
made
her way back downstairs and then brought out the chicken she’d made.
Conversations drifted, and I was thankful not to be talking about my fucked up
situation. It made me sick any time I thought of it. Night after night, it
gnawed at me. I was making the biggest mistake of my life.

Addy
gave
me looks all night, like she wanted to say something too but didn’t. I knew her
thoughts.