NEXT TO ME (A Love Happens Novel Book 1) (13 page)

And she was starting with her mama.

Seeing Sam was unavoidable unless she locked herself in the house and bolted the shutters closed, not answering her door when he came knocking. So she’d left his house this morning and quickly packed a bag, closing her place up and pulling out of the driveway less than an hour later, knowing full well he wasn’t going to take her brush off lightly. His repeated phone calls since then proved it. The intermittent messages had gone from a simple,
Ali, where are you, babe? Call me back.
To an irritated,
Answer your phone, Ali. Now.
To his latest message, laced with anxiety and left an hour ago.
Call me, Ali-cat. Please. I’m worried. Just... I won’t push. Just let me know you’re okay. Okay?

Ali had never even intended to give him her phone number. Sam had seen her cell phone on the kitchen counter one night and grabbed it, entering himself as a contact without thinking twice. He’d then quickly tapped her into his phone, putting her on the spot when he asked for the number. The next day, when he’d surprised her with a call in the middle of the afternoon, wanting to know her stance on Thai food and horror flicks, she was glad that she had. It was a habit he’d continued and those random calls made her feel important. These calls did, too.

Which was why, when she finally stopped at a roadside motel just outside of Albuquerque a few hours later, she called him back. Lying in the queen size bed, the cheap sheets and wool blanket rough against her bare legs and the neon orange
vacancy
sign filtering through the worn out, plaid curtains, she dialed his number. He answered on the first ring.

“Ali? Damn it, are you okay? Where are you?” His voice was raspy, tired.

“I’m okay.”

“Where are you?” he said again, when she didn’t elaborate.

She sighed into the phone, knowing she couldn’t lie to him anymore. “I’m in New Mexico. I’m going home to see my mom. I just stopped to sleep for awhile.”

“Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you answer your phone? And why the hell are you driving all the way to Chicago?” He asked the rapid fire questions as if he thought she might hang up at any moment.

“I’m going to Oklahoma.” Her breath hitched, loud even to her ears. “I’m not from Chicago, Sam. I’m from Oklahoma.”

He didn’t respond and Ali braced herself for his reaction. When he finally spoke his voice wasn’t angry, it was detached. “Are you in some kind of trouble, Ali? Are you really okay?”

“No...” Huffing out an impatient sound, she shook her head. “I mean no, I’m not in trouble. And I’m trying to get to okay.”

The silence was heavy. Finally he said, “Are you coming back?”

Turning her head into the pillow, she squeezed her eyes shut, not sure if he was asking her if she was coming back to California or if she was coming back to
him.

Either way, she answered honestly. “I don’t know.” And when there was no response on his end, she couldn’t bear it. “Goodbye, Sam.”

Pressing the phone off, Ali laid there in the lumpy bed of the seedy motel, the loud sounds of semi traffic from nearby Interstate Forty penetrating the thin walls and single pane window, but she didn’t hear it. All she heard was the sound of Sam’s silence.

***

Windshield time. That’s what her daddy always called it. When a guy—or a gal—wanted some time to themselves and a change of scenery, or just needed some space to chew on a problem weighing down his mind, the best cure according to him, was windshield time. And as she drove along the flat plains of Oklahoma, the fields dotted with wildflowers and the pastures dusty with red dirt, Ali realized just how right he’d been. She took in the familiar countryside with interest, sweet memories of her childhood coming back to her in wonderful bits and pieces. And right alongside them, was the unpleasant memory of her last time home.

Danny had hated Oklahoma, of course. Ali had only come home once during her entire time with him, early in their relationship, when she had been blindly in love and proud to have him meet her parents. He hadn’t taken two steps out of the airport doors before he’d pompously declared the entire state as low-brow Shitsville. It wasn’t nearly as civilized, as sophisticated, as he was. And during the entire visit, he had bitched incessantly about the constant dust, the arid heat, and the uneducated hick’s that had chosen to live in this God forsaken place. His words, not hers, and it was one of many things that made Ali question what she could’ve possibly seen in him. They were two people from vastly different worlds and it was a fluke they had ever crossed paths in the first place, during her senior year at NYU. A few friends had convinced her to go to a party at some unknown yuppie’s apartment in Tribeca and then unceremoniously ditched her in favor of the recreational drugs laid out like a buffet on the bathroom counter. Sitting outside on the historical building’s cold limestone steps, she’d been huddled inside her cableknit sweater, counting the paltry amount of cash in her purse as she waited for a cab she couldn’t afford to show up, when the door opened behind her. She glanced up to see a classically handsome guy with a practiced smile, sandy brown hair and a gold pinkie ring. Ali should have turned tail and run at the sight of that pinkie ring. But instead, when he’d pointed to his camel colored, wool coat that likely cost more than her monthly rent and charmingly told her Bloomingdale’s made a similar option in her size, she’d smiled at the clever comment, too bewitched by his slick haircut and even slicker words to notice the snobbish undertone. They’d spent the next several hours in the corner coffee shop down the block, Danny telling her about his new position as an associate lawyer in a prominent law firm uptown, and about the four bedroom, single-family home he’d recently purchased in the highly sought after, affluent town of Greenwich, Connecticut.

And how he’d been searching for a girl just like her his whole life.

Ali had fallen head over heels for his suave sales pitch, thinking she’d found her one true love. When he had proposed three months later, with a dozen red roses and a two-carat solitaire that was bigger and more beautiful than any piece of jewelry Ali had ever seen outside of the JC Penney catalog, she’d counted herself one of the lucky people and thanked God for it everyday.

No matter how many times Ali racked her brain, she couldn’t recall a single clue during those first three months, not one red flag, that he had violent tendencies. Or any other tendencies that had shown themselves later on. But Danny was a master at hiding his real self and he had fooled her but good. And, as he’d told her many times during their marriage, it wasn’t as if he had ever actually beaten her up. For some sick reason, he was aware that throwing an all out beatdown on her was going too far and the fact that he was able to reign himself in helped to clean his conscience, she supposed. Smart man that he was, his favorite moves tended to be a sharp punch to her ribcage, because the bruising was easy to hide, or a quick bitchslap, most effective when Ali least expected it and therefore, couldn’t brace herself. She could count on two hands the number of times Danny had hit her in the six years they’d been married and according to him, if you did the math and averaged it out, it didn’t add up to all that much. To Ali, of course, it was ten times too many and she’d been planning to leave him long before the certified letter from an estate lawyer had arrived, on a snowy Tuesday the week before Thanksgiving. An elderly and childless—and apparently, wealthy—great aunt on her father’s side had recently passed away. Ali’s life had changed that day, as anyone’s would if given the same bounty, but what she hadn’t realized at the time was that it would literally save her life, as well.

Before that month was over, she had opened a secret bank account with a mind boggling balance that would allow her to divorce Danny without financial worry and start the new year fresh, putting the nightmare of her marriage behind her. She’d made a calculated mistake, though. One Danny made sure she never forgot.

It was only a few weeks later when, early in December, they’d attended his firm’s annual black tie holiday party, looking the very picture of a perfect couple. Danny worked the room with his smooth wit and false charm, while Ali made small talk with the other lowly wives, quickly growing tired of their materialistic chatter and watching the clock until Danny thought it appropriate for them to leave. Had to keep up appearances, he’d said, but a headache had Ali searching for him early in the evening, checking the lobby and conference rooms first before heading down the long corridor lined with executive office suites. Finding his prestigious corner office door ajar, she pushed it open, whispering his name softly. And there was Danny, standing in front of his polished mahogany desk with his perfectly tailored tuxedo pants around his ankles and a junior associate kneeling in front of him, head bobbing like there was no tomorrow.

Ali was shocked at Danny’s brazenness and embarrassed by the graphic sexual display before her, but she wasn’t surprised. In fact, it explained much of his puzzling and disturbing behavior, of his internal struggle that somehow manifested itself into domestic violence. Her mouth snapped closed and she immediately turned around, walking back to the party without saying a word or making the scene that some would expect a wife to do after catching her cheating husband in the act. A half hour later, Danny returned to her side, calm and composed, as if what she’d seen had been a figment of her imagination. Neither said a word on the awkward ride home, but Ali’s mind reeled. The key to her freedom was in hand and considering the scene in his office, surely Danny didn’t want to be married to her anymore than she to him.

After the hour long drive to Greenwich, she said as much once they walked into their sparkling white kitchen. “Danny, how long have you felt this way? And why didn’t you tell me?”

Calmly removing his monogrammed cufflinks and setting them on the marble counter, he raised his brow at her sudden question. “Tell you what, dollface?”

As if he didn’t know what she was talking about. “You don’t have to hide it, to me or anyone else. You should live your life openly, as you were meant to. And I’m not mad, either. But we need to talk about this. Air out the details.”

“I think you may have gotten some bad aspirin. How many pills did you take?”

“Danny, don’t play dumb or try to deny it. I saw you. I know that you’re—” The last word never made it past her lips. His punch was lightning quick, the hard pop to her mouth shocking her, sending her backwards, her black Jimmy Choo heels no match for the slippery porcelain floor as she lost her balance. Trying to brace her fall, she landed hard on her backside, her elbow hitting the tile with a sickening crack as blood filled her mouth.

Danny stood over her instantly, spittle collecting at the corners of his mouth as he leaned down and yelled, “Don’t you dare speak that word in my house! Do you hear me, Alexandra? Never! I will not allow it!”

Ali stayed down, shock reverberating through her body. Breathing shallowly through the white hot pain in her elbow and the alarming urge to vomit, she swallowed the vile tasting blood and bit back her tears, knowing if she made a move to stand he would get even angrier. It was better to let him wind down first, not that it mattered. She couldn’t stand up if she wanted.

Straightening his disheveled shirt, he stepped back to lean against the counter, head hung and breathing heavy, staring at her as if she was his mortal enemy. “Don’t bother crying,” he said flatly, gingerly rubbing his right fist, “that hurt me a lot more than it did you.”

This is how it usually went. He got his one smack in, expelling whatever demon that drove him to do it, and then he would calm himself down with deep breaths, as if he’d just sprinted a mile. And then he would walk away like it was no big deal. Unbelievably, considering the circumstances, Ali felt empathy for him in that moment. Now she understood why, in his own strange and twisted way, he lashed out. His fight was with himself and his urges, not with her, but he was either too stupid to see it for what it was, or too callous to care. Ali was nothing more than a decoy and the realization, along with the major step she’d taken to cut ties with him, made her bolder than normal.

“I filed for divorce yesterday, Danny.” She tentatively rose to her knees, suppressing a groan as the piercing pain in her elbow intensified, her cut lip stinging. His breath was even, but she was alert for any sudden movements. “You can be who you are now. You can be happy.”

It all happened in the blink of an eye, yet somehow Ali saw it unfold in super slow motion.

His eyes narrowed in cold disbelief and his hand reached out, the sound of metal scraping against metal and the flash of a stainless steel blade her only warning as he pulled the knife from the butcher block next to the stove. She turned, furiously trying to get away, but her feet wouldn’t work, her shoes slipping as she scrambled to stand up and run. Blood pounded furiously in her veins, the beat of her own heart drowning out the sound of his rage. Grasping the edge of the counter, she cried out at the shooting pain in her arm but managed to kick off her heels, pulling herself up just as a searingly hot burn branded her hip. A split second later, Ali realized that Danny had actually cut her.

There was no merciful delay in the pain. No shock setting in to dull her senses or lessen the gravity of her injury. No sweet relief from the oblivion of unconsciousness. It was a balls to the wall pain like she’d never felt before. And even though the pain was great, her fear was greater. For the first time ever, even after enduring six years in a sham of a marriage riddled with random abuse, Ali knew deep in her soul that Danny was capable of seriously hurting her. This was no quick jab to the kidney or slap on the cheek.

She could die in this house, at his hands.

She had run then, rivulets of bright red blood dripping down her leg to splatter over the spotlessly clean floor, Danny bellowing profane threats from somewhere behind her. The snow was ankle deep as she stumbled to a neighbor’s house, covering both the knife wound and as much of her exposed skin as possible, her black skirt as shredded as her flesh. Ignoring the screaming pain in her elbow, she pounded on the door and pleaded for help, the shocked elderly couple pulling her inside, swiftly turning the deadbolt. Danny didn’t bother to follow her, though, chasing her only to the front door before deciding she wasn’t worth the effort. According to the police report, the first officer on scene had walked in with his gun drawn, only to find Danny on his hands and knees cleaning up her blood as it slowly seeped into the pores of the tile, staining it crimson. He hadn’t been trying to hide evidence. He simply didn’t want any blemishes marring the interior of his pristine home.