“Oh yea? You perfectly fine living a fucking lie, princess?”

“What are you talking about, Brian? I’m so sick of your stupid goddamn games!” I scream at him in frustration. I can’t do this with him. The wounds are still too fresh and too painful.

“I wasn’t the asshole playing games all of these damn years. It was that piece of shit that you decided to make your fucking husband.” He spits the words out at me with such contempt.

“I swear to God if you say one more thing about him I’m going to start throwing shit at you,” I scream. I can’t take any more of him trashing Dan, especially when he isn’t here to defend himself.

He laughs, and it just pisses me off more than I already am. “Let me tell you what happened that night.” He sits down and looks at me waiting for me to follow. I do it only in hopes that it speeds up the process and gets him out of here faster.

He takes a deep breath like he is trying to calm himself down. “I was at the house and pissed off that you left to go see him. I texted you to tell you to come back and spend the last night you had with me. I fucking missed you already and you hadn’t even left. When my phone dinged I thought it would be you saying you were coming over, but it was something I never expected. A break up text. You went on about how we needed time apart, you needed your space from me and that was the main reason you were going away for the summer. I couldn’t fucking believe it. I called you but you wouldn’t answer me you just kept texting me and telling me to leave you alone and shit. I told you I was coming over to see you, that if that was how you really felt I wanted to hear it in person. That’s when the picture came. The fucking image that has haunted me every day since I saw it.”

He stops and leaves me on a verbal cliffhanger.

“It was a picture of you, the only person I ever trusted, ever loved, in the arms of someone else. Dan and you were lying together under some damn blanket and kissing. When I saw that shit it fucking broke me. I was so fucking mad I threw my phone at the wall and it shattered. I drank until I couldn’t see straight and didn’t even know my own name. I woke up in the morning and realized I had one more shot to see you. It was still two hours before you had to leave so I went to your house. I pounded on your door until your dad finally opened it. When I told him I was there to see you the fucker just smiled at me and told me you had already left with Dan to have breakfast and go to the airport. As far as I knew you threw me away like a piece of fucking garbage.” His face twists like just remembering what happened is causing him pain.

I’m speechless. I have no idea how to respond to him. I texted him like crazy that morning, trying to see him before I left, feeling abandoned by the person I loved. Dan broke us up? He must have deleted the messages he sent. He kissed me? He took advantage of me when I was asleep.

An overwhelming sense of betrayal settles over me. How could I have not known? Am I that bad a judge of character? My husband, the one person that swore to love and honor me built our bond and marriage on a lie. Tears form in my eyes for so many different reasons.

I look back up at Brian not knowing what to say to him. What can you say in this situation? “None of it was true.” I whisper still in shock and disbelief.

“Yeah, I kind of figured given your reaction, Jules. Back then I thought you just decided that I wasn’t good enough for you, to give you what you were used to having.”

“I told you so many times that stuff never mattered to me,” I whisper not feeling as brave and confident as I had a few minutes ago.

He gets up and sits next to me. His hands tangle in my hair as he lifts my head and looks in my eyes. “I know that, but I let my fears take over. I was always scared I wasn’t enough for you. You were my entire world, Jules, and I felt like I didn’t belong in yours. I believed it because it was my worst fear, but I never stopped loving you.”

His mouth moves to connect with mine. I get lost with him for a minute, and it feels like nothing has changed, like we are still two kids who are crazy in love with each other. When his tongue skims the line of my lips it zaps me back to reality. I pull away from him.

“We can’t do this. I can’t do this, not right now at least. Honestly, I’m not sure if I can ever do this.” I can’t look at him as I say this.

“What are you taking about? I still love you as much as I did back then, in fact I love you even more. I know you still love me, I can see it in your eyes. There’s nothing stopping us now.” I can hear the plea in his voice and it’s killing me.

I stand up needing to distance myself from him. “No. I’m not ready. My husband just died, Brian. He was murdered.”

“Yea and he was a fucking liar, Jules.” The contempt and anger are back in his voice.

“That doesn’t mean that I didn’t love him! The pain is still there, Brian! It doesn’t just disappear because I find out that he did something really shitty years ago!” I’m so conflicted right now. I hate what Dan did to me, to Brian. That doesn’t erase the last almost six years of loving him.

“You’re really serious?” He stands up and stands in front of me.

I nod my head. “I just can’t do this right now.”

His eyes fill with anger and pain. It kills me knowing I put it there.

“Fine. Fucking be naive, and let him control us even after he’s dead.” He walks past me and a second later I hear the door slam.

I sit down on the couch and run my hands through my hair.

This shit is so fucked up.

Chapter Fifteen

Julia

I hear the door open and close, silently thanking God that Lacey could come over. My head is a fucking mess right now and I have no idea what to do. She sits down next to me throwing a bunch of stuff on the table. When I look up and there is a ton of candy and two bottles of wine, I wrap my arms around her. It’s been hours since Brian dropped the bomb that he did and I don’t feel any better.

“You’re a life saver.”

“I know, now let’s talk about the cluster fuck your life has turned into.” I laugh. Lacey has never had a knack for subtlety. “What are you feeling?”

“That’s just it, Lace. I have no idea how I’m feeling about Brian. Do I love him? Yes. Do I miss him? Yes. Do I wish we would have figured this shit out years ago? Yes.” She rips open the bag of Doritos and looks back up at me like I’m a damn soap opera she is caught up in. “Then there’s the other side. Can I just forget that I ever loved Dan because he did a fucked up thing? No. Can I forget the hell I went through after Brian? No. Can I just throw all my inhibitions out the window and jump into something with him? No.” I look over at Lacey and she is still eating the damn chips and watching me. I’m really starting to feel like a freak show attraction. “Can you say something?”

She shakes her head and starts to laugh. “Girl, you need to go on Dr. Phil, ‘cause this shit is fucking unreal. I mean this is made for TV shit right here.”

“You’re not helping.” I snatch the bag of chips from her laughing at the expression on her face.

“Listen, babe, I can’t tell you what to do. I know that’s what you’re looking for, but only you can know what’s right for you. I know you can’t forget all of the shit that happened that summer, and the way you felt but it has to help to know none of it was real. Right?”

“See that’s just it. It is real. It was hell. It might not have been Brian’s fault, but the pain is all the same. I know what it feels like to lose him. Say I decide to be with him, then it doesn’t work, I couldn’t do that shit again.”

“I know, I was there. I’m just saying maybe you need to think about it, babe. You always said how much you loved him, you have obviously been drawn to him since he’s gotten back. Maybe it was meant to be.”