This Much Is True (32 page)

“No.” I shake my head emphatically back and forth. “Tommy loves
hockey
. Hockey’s his sport. And why would Linc get involved with my family? He…” I stop talking when I hear the familiar timbre of Lincoln Presley’s voice. “What the hell?” I stomp past my mom and fly down the stairs ready to do battle. “What are you doing here?” I rage at Linc as soon as I reach the landing.

Linc looks completely floored. It occurs to me that black mascara marks my face. I must look like a freak. All the energy drains out of me at seeing him and at what I must look like. I step back into the shadows of the foyer, while Linc steps forward and grabs my hand.

“When did you get in?” His voice holds all kinds of wonder.

Oh Elvis, I miss you.

“I took a red-eye. Home. Cheaper.”

Not really. No. I flew into a rage at Rob, and I got the hell out of there and came here—home—because I need a break. From all of it.

“Does Kimberley
know
you come here?” I practically snarl when I ask him this. “She would have your head.”

“No. I know.” Linc hangs his head, but then looks back up at me with this pleading sexy smile. “You look like you’ve been up all night.”

His voice is so gentle; it practically coaxes me to strip down for him right there. I can’t move. I’m spellbound by his deliberate gaze.
Oh, God, please don’t do this to me. Please
.

“All night,” I manage to say.

“Hey, Linc. Are you ready to go?” Tommy asks from behind us.

Perfect timing as ever my little brother.

I start to laugh. “Yeah, you’d better get going.” I slip my hand from his. Actually, I
pull
my hand from his ever-tightening grip.

He looks alarmed. “Can I see you?”

“You’re seeing me,” I say.

“I mean…
later
.”

“I’ll call Kimberley and ask,” I say sweetly, and then add, “Wait a minute, you
broke
up with me. So I guess it’s up to me.
Me.
” I shake my head back and forth. “No. I can’t see you later. I won’t be here.”

“Where are you going to be?” He looks uncertain and a little panicked.

“Anywhere but here.”

Tommy is looking at both of us in typical, little-kid bewilderment.

Our faces are inches apart. I can clearly see the gold flecks that I remember so well in his amazing grey-blue eyes. I study him. He’s tanner, thinner. He needs to shave. My mind goes to all these salacious places from the past, when his unshaven face rubbed up against mine, after he’d kissed me in the middle of that first night.

Only one night. Just one, right?
I automatically lick my lips now, and he almost looks scared at what I might or might not do with those. He closes his eyes for a few seconds and opens them when Tommy pulls on his arm.

It’s true. Little brothers don’t understand the divisions that take place between love and hate. Fine lines—these boundary lines—that get blurred and undone with all the torment and passion. And then, there are all those lies that have been told. All the secrets. All those lies. Those lies that have been told and must be re-told, again and again, to keep the lines in place, to keep them from blurring, to keep the lovers from falling forward or falling apart,
equally,
in this case.

My parents enter the foyer.

Why not? Everyone else is here.

Tommy looks confused by the brazen way Lincoln Presley is looking at me. My mom looks hopeful for once, while my dad looks confident as if he has it all figured out. I take my cue from Daddy.

“Well, you’d better get going,” I say airily as I manage to move past Linc before he can react and move swiftly back toward the stairs, towards my dad, towards safety.

“I need to see you.”

There’s this obvious desperation in his voice. It causes me to turn and look at him more closely. I frown.

“You made your choice a long time ago, Elvis. Go play
baseball
.” I break my gaze from his. “Tommy, have a good time. Just be careful and don’t step out from behind the fence.”

“I
know
, Tal,” my little brother says. “Linc told me what to do.”

“I’m sure he did.”

I don’t look at Linc again. I already know my hold on emotional power is about to run out. I can feel it slipping away.

I’m minutes away from another crying jag. It’s moving in on me like a thunderstorm you can see wending its ways toward you. These are dark skies I can’t outrun.

My respite is a shower. Naked, locked in the bathroom, Linc can’t get to me here, at least not physically. He wouldn’t dare, not with my parents downstairs. I strip out of my clothes, sink down to the floor, and rest my weary head in my hands.

Eventually, I look up and the shower spray stings me with its untold power. It matches the rest of me in equal parts—mind, body, and soul—the heartbreak for pretty much everyone right now consumes all of me.

I let the tears fall for the second time in twelve hours when I’m absolutely sure that no one can hear me. I cry until I really can’t cry anymore.

* * *

My breathing is rapid, so I pause in my soliloquy before starting again. “So that’s the gist of it. I’m sorry. I can’t believe he did that. It’s so…so unlike him. Rob usually has it so together. Nika is a piece of work. Believe me, I know. He obviously wasn’t thinking properly. I mean he’s yours. We all know that. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Holly. It’s not fair. And the whole other topic of Linc. Well, I can’t even talk about that. Not even with you. Bad news. Trust me on that. Nothing good there.”

I brush away the dead leaves and tidy up Holly’s grave. It’s the least I can do. I’ve neglected her for far too long. I don’t think I’ve really spoken to her like this, since I found out I was pregnant, even before that. I just shut that part of myself off. I shut myself off from Holly, from the world.

And now? Here I am talking to a dead person buried six feet under. I’m seriously losing it on top of everything else.

Leaves crunch along the path. I keep myself from turning around by digging my fingernails into the palms of my hand—my normal modus operandi for such a moment. I remain perfectly still in my crouched position over Holly’s grave.

Linc or Rob?
Linc or Rob goes the mantra in my head. Who’s it going to be?

“Tally?”

Rob.

I mete out the disappointment like a steady drumbeat that’s tearing at my soul.
Of course.
Only Rob has a private plane and pilot who can fly him anywhere at a moment’s notice. Only Rob would think to come to Holly’s grave site because the only other person who visits more than I do is Rob Thorn. I’ve seen evidence of him, here and there, over the past few years on my infrequent visits. The love notes he leaves and the flowers he brings. Someone trims the grass and pulls the weeds from around her headstone or arranges to have it done.
Rob.
It’s not like my parents are mentally together enough to perform these loving rituals. My parents wouldn’t hang out here or swing by regularly with Tommy in tow.
No. It has to be Rob.

“I loved her so much,” he says.

I look up at him. He swallows hard in a vain attempt to control the sadness that inevitably crosses his handsome face. “I know.”

“I’m just…I’m just trying to move on.” He sighs deep, and I close my eyes for a second and feel his deep pain as if it is mine.

“I know.”

“Do you?”

I open my eyes, jolted to the present by the hard look on his face and the unexpected anger clearly directed at me.

He shakes his head side-to-side. “I want to hate you so much. I want to get a rise out of you so bad. I want you to
see
me, Tally Landon. I want you to forget
him,
but you never do. You
waste
yourself on
him.”

He clenches his hands at his sides. He looks like he wants to wrap them around my neck and press hard. A part of me wants him to do just that—choke the life out of me—press out all this pain and guilt and heartbreak.

“I just want it to stop. I don’t want to feel this way anymore,” I say.

He steps towards me and roughly pulls me up to him in one smooth motion. I fly into his arms, and he grabs my hair and keeps me there. There is no question about Rob Thorn this time. My mind registers that we’re standing directly over Holly’s grave and he is crushing me to him and trailing his lips along my neck, and I want him to. We fall to the ground, and he covers my body with his. We’re desperate now—desperate to erase the memories of Holly and of Linc and, maybe, even of Nika. I willingly take up these betrayals and so does Rob. We take up where we left off almost a year ago when there was still this question about this forbidden longing for what might have been.

All these needs.

I need to forget. He needs to remember.

We forge an alliance right there in the cemetery, where Holly’s ghost must surely watch. He undoes the front of my coat and blouse and then my jeans while I grab at his clothes. We’re desperate to feel each other’s skin and bodies on this inevitable collision course so we can discharge all these raging needs within us—of us—once and for all.

We forget the cold and the damp and the dead. We find warmth in each other. He’s inside me within minutes, and I’m too ready for him to stop and consider any of this. He goes deep and fills me up in all these surprising ways. We both cry out at the unexpected pleasure even as we share in the indescribable pain between us. No one else knows but the two of us what it’s like to go on without Holly.
Survive without Holly. Live without Holly.

I feel this endless sorrow for all of them—Holly, Linc, Cara. People I love the most. I look into Rob’s beautiful blue eyes, and he gazes back at me. He gives me solace that no one else has before; it’s different from Linc. Rob’s here. Perhaps, he always has been.
Rob’s here. Linc isn’t.

I make a conscious choice, and my mind, body, and soul give way to Rob in this brief stolen moment.
I take him. I steal him.

Our voices echo back to us among the trees and the granite and the dead. All judge but none speak. I’ve forgotten how much I need this.
I need sex. I need this.
And Rob’s different from Linc in enough ways that I already know I’ll survive this—all of this—because of Rob.

Peace, elusive peace finds me here. I feel like I might be able to breathe again, maybe even as long as tomorrow.

We finish slowly; look disheveled, and become shy but still revel in the awe of it all. We share this almost inconceivable wonder as we look at each other. Various pieces of our clothing have been cast aside in those first frenzied moments of need.

A few onlookers from the other side of the cemetery now glare in our general direction. I hang my head in shame but look over at Rob and eventually return his smirky smile with one of my own.

“I’m not sorry,” he says.

“Me, neither.”

It’s true. It feels good to say it. It feels good to have someone there to hear it and believe me.

There will be no judgment between us. It’s all on us and no one else, not Holly, not Linc, not even Nika.

My breath gets steady, and I stare at him as he holds my right hand and fixes my hair with his left. That’s when he tells me, nothing happened with Nika, and I believe him. I breathe a shaky sigh of relief. It’s short-lived because betrayal lurks inside my heart now—for Holly and even Nika and for what might have been with her and Rob. It divides and conquers me in that moment.
It. The distrust.
I push it all way down. Then guilt arrives and I take up the battle with that, too. I’ve betrayed Holly. I’ve betrayed Linc with all the lies. And now
this
, after all this time.

Seeking salvation, I gaze at Rob and it comes to me:
Our union, however imperfect, is perfect.

It’s that simple.

We are lost when we’re apart, but almost found when we’re together.

And, we can’t go back.

We can never go back.

That’s life’s lesson for today
.

Rob knows my secrets.

Rob knows my lies.

And he doesn’t quite hate me because I remind him enough of Holly.

Within a few hours, we convince ourselves that being together is enough and that this is right. We hold hands when we finally leave the cemetery. I don’t even turn around to say one last good-bye to Holly, even though I now hope to never return here.

On some level, I’m too ashamed of my betrayal of her.

On another level, I’m too afraid of breaking the connection with Rob Thorn.

I’m too afraid to discover the truth behind our union and of seeing Lincoln Presley’s disenchanted face when he learns of it; because this much I do know all lies eventually unravel and reveal themselves.

* * * *