If I Break THE COMPLETE SERIES Bundle (65 page)

“Is she coming for dinner tonight?’ I ask, the thought almost making me dizzy. His best friend is coming. Who knows who else they’ve invited.

“Not likely,” he says, pressing his lips together. I imagine she wants to sit down and break bread with the wife of the man she’s in love with as much as I want to sit down with her.

“I’ll let you get to your nap,” he says, leaving the room. I nod before he shuts the door and let out a deep breath. I look at the bed once more before sitting on it. It’s really comfortable. I fall back, look at the ceiling and wonder if this my new normal. Am I doomed to: trying to be polite, not seeming intrusive, walking on eggshells, afraid of asking what I want to know, or afraid of knowing too much? Because the more I get to know him, the guiltier I feel that I wish, more than anything, to see Cal. And gosh, I already have enough to feel guilty about.

I’
ve been holding my breath in forever. It feels like I’ve been on a rollercoaster all day, my stomach going up and down, my heart speeding up and slowing down. When we stood in front of the horse yard, I intended to apologize to her about the ring tone thing with Jenna. To ask her what I could do to make things easier for her, but, for the first time, standing there with her was easy. I didn’t want to ruin it. I wanted things to stay how they were, but part of me wanted to push the invisible boundary, the wide line drawn that’s keeping the appropriate distance between us. To see how close I could get to it without going across. To be closer to her. To see if she noticed I was crossing the line. I think she did and she backed away. I wanted to make up for earlier, for the lie I told. I just wanted to try to make her feel better and that backfired too.

I don’t think I made her feel better at all by telling her I
want
to remember, then asking—well, I didn’t technically ask. I wanted to, but deep down, I tried to stop the words from coming out. But she knew and she wasn’t afraid to answer. I was afraid to hear the answer, but her answer was as loud as anything I’ve ever heard and it was terrifying. I want answers but not the ones she’s going to give. I want the
easy
answers, the ones that will make this less complicated, the answers that mean I’m not hurting anyone. All her answers won’t make things easy. They’ll just produce more questions, hard ones, and I have enough of those.

The most puzzling thing of all is how I seem to notice things about her, little idiosyncrasies, that I don’t usually notice about other girls this quickly. How she grabs her wrist when she’s nervous. How she looks up at the sky when she’s thinking. How she bites her bottom lip when she’s fascinated with something. How she bit it the entire time she saw the wall of, pretty much, my entire life.

After I destroyed my room, my mom took it upon herself to create a collage of all the pictures she found. I guess she knew what I didn’t. Lauren has probably never seen any of these. Cal doesn’t seem like the sentimental type to have shown her. Especially seeing the way her expressions changed with each one, like she was taking in little pieces of me as she looked at each one, even if it looked like she was going to vomit when she saw the one of Jenna and me. I hate going to the banquets and conferences for her dad. They’re all boring and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t like me. If she tells him about this, I’m sure his campaign to get rid of Chris will have a lot of support behind it. Not that Jenna needs much more of a push, but she’s texted and I need to call her. I head down the stairs and hear laughing and a commotion. Lisa has arrived and she’s holding Caylen. Standing next to her is my other best friend, Aidan. They’re both staring at Caylen in amazement.

“Scott, you have a fuc—
freakin’
kid. And she looks like your twin!” he says.

“Dude what are you doing here?” I ask excitedly.

“I thought I’d surprise you but you definitely one upped us.” Lisa laughs.

“Aren’t you a pretty little girl,” Lisa says, playing with Caylen.

“I’ll take her while you guys catch up,” my mom says, taking Caylen from Lisa.

“It’s so good to see you, Aidan,” she says, giving him a pat before she scurries off to the kitchen.

“Chris, you’re a dad. When you told me the other night it didn’t really sink in, but holy shit!” Lisa says, pushing me in the chest.

“Yeah, I heard you guys started getting wasted without me. Is that anyway to treat a solider coming home?” he says, punching me in the arm. The double-teaming has started already.

“Is her mom here?” Aidan whispers, looking around.

“Is Jenna here?” Lisa whispers.

“Her mom’s upstairs taking a nap, and I haven’t talked to Jenna in about a week, other than the occasional text. It came today, so that’s a good sign” I say hopefully.

“You don’t really think Ice Queen is still going to marry you?” Aidan laughs in disbelief.

“She’ll still marry him and just guilt-trip him his whole life,” Lisa says to Aidan.

“Want to put money on it?” Aidan retorts.

“Name it.”

And for a minute, you’d think I wasn’t even in the room. “Uh, this is kind of my life you’re placing bets on,” I interrupt them.

Aiden turns toward the kitchen and yells,” Mrs. Scott, whatever you’re cooking smells de-licious!”

“It’s your favorite. Lasagna,” she calls back.

“I can’t wait!” he says, completely ignoring me.

“Wait. You’re not staying for dinner,” I laugh but I am very serious.

“You guys suck at welcoming me home. Since when can’t I stay for dinner?” he asks, amused.

“Since there’s a girl here he doesn’t want you to embarrass him in front of,” Lisa says, nudging him.

“Wife to be exact, right?” Aidan nudges her before crossing his arms.

“I’m glad you guys think this is so funny.” I’m a little offended but I expect this from them.

“It’s better to laugh than cry buddy,” he says, putting his arm around my shoulder.

“So really, what the hell is going on?” Aidan says, tossing around one of Caylen’s alphabet blocks.

“Lisa didn’t fill you in?” I sigh.

“I did but he doesn’t believe me,” she says.

“Hey you had your one-on-one with him. Can we get some guy time?” Aidan says tightly.

“You mean stupid time,” Lisa says, rolling her eyes.

“So this girl’s going down on me and her mouth is...”Aidan starts excitedly.

“Eww eew eww! I’m going!” Lisa says, leaving in a playful huff.

“Let’s go out back,” Aidan says, and we cut through the dining room, head to the back porch and sit on the steps.

“It’s good you’re back. I’m glad you made it home safe,” I say genuinely. Aidan’s always been the type to live on the edge but was never one for authority even with his dad being in the army. We never thought of him as being disciplined enough to join the army, but when his dad was diagnosed with lupus, I’d bet Aidan enlisted for him.

“Don’t start going all crybaby on me,” he says, pulling out a pack of gum from his jeans pocket.

“How was it over there?” I say, taking a piece of gum from him. He’s still a “Big Red” guy. I didn’t even know they still made it.

“I’m home, the details aren’t so important, right?” he says with a wide smile as he rests his elbow on his knee. “Besides, while I’m off the deep end, it’s like you’re floating in it,” he gives me a nudge and I sigh.

“You’re a fucking dad, man!” His excitement is apparent and I sigh but can’t help smiling.

“How does it feel? I know you always wanted enough kids to fill a stadium,” he says, frowning at the idea of it.

I chuckle. “It didn’t feel like anything until I saw her. Now it’s real. I have this little person with my DNA that I’m responsible for.”

“When Lisa told me, I was like screw that. You need a paternity test. But it’s pretty obvious she’s yours. Like a little girl version of you…it’s kind of creepy actually,” he jokes. At least I think he’s joking.

“So DID, that’s pretty messed up man,” he says with a sigh.

“You think?” I ask.

“Really, all the signs were there.” He stands up and stretches. “Like pieces to a puzzle but no picture on the box to guide you.”

“Really, Dr. Grunnel,” I say, rolling my eyes at his supposed psychiatric expertise.

“DID isn’t all that uncommon a condition when you come home from combat,” he says in a serious tone. “Along with all the other glorious perks,” he says, his tone returning to normal.

“The thing I don’t understand is, from what I’ve researched, the cause is usually a traumatic event. So I can understand why soldiers are high-risk but nothing’s happened to me to cause this. It’s like this guy came out of nowhere,” I say, standing now too.

“Or maybe you don’t remember,” Aidan says solemnly. The thought has crossed my mind. I don’t know if I’d want to remember something so traumatic it’d cause my personality to break.

“If something happened, this Cal guy knows. He knows a hell of a lot more than I do,” I say, noticing the anger in my own voice.

“That’s what he has on you. He knows everything you don’t,” Aidan says. I think back to my earlier conversation with Dexter and his insinuations of the damage Cal can do to my life.

“I need to know what he knows,” I say, almost to myself.

“If I knew why he existed and am able to deal with it, I wouldn’t need him.” I say adamantly, and Aidan puts both his hands up.

“Let’s not go that far. I’m not a psychiatrist or anything but my understanding is ‘alters have a purpose or use’, if there were no need for him he wouldn’t exist,” Aidan shrugs.

“I don’t
need
this guy.”

“Well somewhere in there,’ he points to my head, “begs to differ,” he says, and I swat his hand away.

“Soo…the kids mom,” he says, leaning on the railing with a sneaky smile on his face. This is what he brought me out here for.

“This is why you aren’t staying for dinner.”

“Your mom made my favorite thing in the entire world. I haven’t had a home-cooked meal in months. I’m staying for dinner, just come to terms with that now.” He laughs.

“One to ten, where’s she scoring?” he says, standing in front of me. I push him and he pushes me back.

“Come on!” he laughs, and I put him in a headlock. In less than a minute we’re wrestling on the porch.

“She’s either a one or a ten. You’re putting up too much of a fight,” he says, out of breath.

“Wow, we’re back to being 12 huh?” I hear Lisa say, amused.

“One or ten,” Aidan says again, gripping my neck tighter. I manage to elbow him in the stomach and he lets me go.

“Your mom says cut it out,” Lisa says before rolling her eyes.

“Whose white Audi is that outside?” he asks, and I sigh.

“It has to be Caylen’s mom’s,” Lisa adds matter-of-factly.

“If she is a one, who cares with a car like that,” he says as we head back into the house.

“Mrs. Red, Chris says I can’t stay for dinner,” Aiden’s whine reminds me of when we were kids.

“Of course, you can stay. Chris, why wouldn’t Aidan be able to stay for dinner? I made his favorite,” my mom says, frowning at me.

“I just…you know this is Lauren’s first dinner with us. Aidan can be a lot to handle,” I say, trying to give my mom the hint.

“But Lisa gets to stay!” Aidan says defensively.

“That’s because I’m not an ass,” Lisa quips.

“Yeah, you’re an animal of an entirely different species,” he says.

“Jerk-off!” Lisa pushes him.

“My mom is right here!” I say, shooting them a glare to shut them both up.

“Sorry Mrs. Red,” Aidan says.

“Me too. He brings out the worst in me,” Lisa says guiltily.

“I think Lauren would want to get to know the people that are important in your life.” My mom smiles at me and I grumble.

“Aidan, please try to be on your best behavior,” my mom says, patting him before returning to her pot. We all head into the living room and sit down.

“Seriously Aidan. Don’t be a jerk. She’s been through a lot,” I say seriously.

“She’s driving an Audi. I doubt she’s been through all that much.” Aidan chuckles.