Authors: Alice Tribue
“You should know something,” I say, leaning against the counter.
“What?”
“When I dance with you tonight, you should know that there’s no one else I would rather be dancing with.”
“You don’t have to say that.”
“I do because it’s true. I carry her with me, and I know she’s with me, Mom, because you and Dad have given her to me all my life. You made sure I knew her, but when all is said and done, you’re my mom,” I tell her. I watch with a small amount of humor as she loses her battle with the tears and I pull her to me for a hug.
“You’re such a nut, Mom,” I whisper into her ear.
“I know,” she replies through her sobs. “Okay, go. Go get ready. Your dad wants to see you before you do, though. I think he’s in your old room.”
I kiss her forehead and head upstairs in search of my dad. Like she said, I find him in my room, standing up, staring out the window.
“Dad?”
“Hey, bud,” he says, angling his head toward me.
“Mom said you wanted to see me.”
“Yeah.” He lets out a sigh and pushes away from the window, heading over to me and stopping a few feet away. “I’m not sure if you know this or not, but when you were born and I realized that I was on my own with a kid, I actually contemplated giving you up for adoption.”
I chuckle because I’ve heard this story from Mom before.
“Yeah. What changed your mind?”
“A lot of things, but Em telling me I was a selfish prick helped. Realizing that Keri sacrificed her life for you and I needed to step up and do right by you, and this,” he says pushing a piece of paper in my direction.
“What is this?” I ask taking it from him.
“It’s a letter that Keri wrote to you while she was pregnant. I held on to it, always looking for the right time to give it to you, not wanting to upset you when you were a kid, and the time never seemed right.”
My heart starts to pound double time in my chest. A letter from the woman who gave birth to me, the woman who would have raised me if she’d had the chance. Something is both scary and thrilling about the thought of reading her words to me.
“Well, what’s it say?”
“If you ever wondered what kind of mother she would have been to you, it’s in that letter, Xander. She loved you very much, and if you think it might upset you, you don’t have to read it now. You can hold onto it and read it whenever you’re ready.”
“No. I want to read it now,” I tell him, sitting on the bed and unfolding the letter. The first thing I notice is that she had nice handwriting. It’s strange to hold something that I know she wrote, something that was meant for me. I take a deep breath and begin to read.
Dear Xander,
I wanted to write you this letter so that you would know what it was like and how I felt prior to your arrival. From the minute that I found out you were coming, I knew I had to let you know how much I love you. I knew that I would spend the rest of my life showing you and telling you how much you mean to me. I’ve never been this happy in my entire life because I’ve always known something was missing. A part of me that wasn’t completely full until the minute I found out about you. I’m so excited for the day that I finally get to hold you in my arms.
My heart is filled with so much joy and anticipation for what the future will hold. Halloween costumes and pumpkin picking. Christmas tree decorating and letters to Santa. Easter egg hunts, birthdays, and lots of sports. I promise to do the best I can to give you all of those things and more. You and I will be a family. We’ll always be a family and nothing and no one can ever change that.
So no matter what happens in your life, no matter how many failures or how much success you achieve, I want you to always know how important you are. It doesn’t matter if we’re together or apart; my love for you will keep us connected forever. I never believed in miracles until I found out about you. Now, I believe.
I love you,
Mom
Shit. I stare at the letter for a few moments and my nose stings with the burn of unshed tears. I didn’t think it would make me emotional to read this, but it does. Taking it all in—what she must have been like, what she felt for me, and how badly she wanted me.
“Did she ever get to hold me?” I ask Dad. I don’t know why I ask, but I do. Maybe because I think at least she would have gotten something that she wanted before she lost her life.
“No, bud. She didn’t get to hold you. But you shouldn’t feel bad about that, just be happy. She wanted you to be happy and that’s all that matters. Em and I …”
“You made me happy. You could have gone with your first instinct and given me up, or worse, kept me and did a shitty job at raising me like your dad did to you, but instead, you gave me everything.”
“You trying to make your old man cry?”
“No. Just trying to tell my dad that I love him.”
“Love you too,” he says pulling me in for a hug and patting me on the back. “I’ll let you get ready now. We have to get you to the church in less than an hour.”
“All right, Dad,” I say, watching with a smile on my face as he leaves the room. I fold the letter up and place it on the bed with my suit. I want to take it with me and show it to Chloe later. It’s funny, but Chloe reminds me a lot of my mom, of Emelia. Her kind spirit, her big heart, her capacity for love, and the way she loves me. I think of my childhood, the Halloween costumes and pumpkin picking, Christmas tree decorating and letters to Santa, Easter egg hunts, birthdays, and every sport imaginable. It was just like the letter Keri wrote me, only my family looked a little differently than she envisioned. I say a silent thank you to her; I thank her for loving me, for wanting the best for me, for giving me life. I close my eyes and send her my love and I can almost feel her with me now.
“I hope you’re happy,” I say to maybe no one. “I got everything you wanted for me.”
I take a deep breath and focus on pulling my suit out of the garment bag. Down the hall, I hear my parents’ voices, Dad telling Mom to hurry up and get ready and not take forever. Mom telling him to back off, and then she bursts out into a fit of giggles. I smile at their banter, at their silliness, because they’ve been that way my entire life. I can only hope that Chloe and I have a relationship half as strong as theirs. I can only hope that I can pass that kind of love on to my children someday. That I can tell them how true love is possible, knows no boundaries, and can absolutely last a lifetime.
Alice Tribue lives with her husband and two kids in New Jersey. She has a bachelor’s degree in communications and is currently working on her master’s degree. She spends most of her free time reading, writing, and when the weather permits, sitting on the beach sipping a margarita.
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Dear Awesome Readers!!! I can’t tell you how excited I am to share this book with all of you and how grateful I am that you made the choice to read it. Without that kind of support I wouldn’t be able to continue to do what I love so much to do. Your messages, excitement and words of enthusiasm mean the world to me. THANK YOU!
To all of the bloggers who are always so kind to me. I could not do this without you and I truly appreciate all that you do.
Anji Albis, Jenn Smith Gaffney and Stephanie Locke, Thank you for all of your notes, suggestions and honesty. You are by far the best beta readers EVER!
Stephanie Locke, you know I love you. Your friendship means the world to me. Whether I’m up or down I know that I always have you to talk to and for that I’m so grateful.
Jenn Smith Gaffney, Thank you for always helping me. For your brutal honesty, for being the best book signing assistant and for making me laugh. You truly get my brand of evil.
Whitney Williams…I don’t have anything to say because I hope that by now you know it all. Thanks for letting me laugh, cry and just be myself…F.L.Y!!!
By Alice Tribue
Available Now!
PROLOGUE
It’s time to have my ceiling painted,
I think to myself. These are the things my mind notices while I’m stuck in this position. It’s amazing the things your brain wanders to when you’re bored out of your mind. When I get tired of the view, I close my eyes waiting for it to be over, seriously hoping that it’ll only last a minute or two more. I do my part, wrap my legs around his waist, and cry out my phony sounds of pleasure.
“Yes, oh God, Collin.”
“Fuck, yeah.” I cringe when his hot breath hits my neck. This doesn’t happen to me often, but when my mind isn’t in it, I can’t do anything to get me there. Sessions like these are never enjoyable—not for me, anyway.
He uses me as a receptacle, thrusting away until he fills me with his unwanted ejaculation. Then he rolls over and tells me how amazing it was, and how I’m the best fuck he’s ever had. I’m just thankful for it to be over.
It’s always the same, exactly the fucking same. A man gets comfortable, he thinks that he has you, believes that you are so in love that you would never walk out the door, and then you meet the lazy alter ego of their former self. You know the one you actually met and wanted to fuck? With this new guy, there is no flirting, no kissing, and no foreplay. He just climbs on top of you, inserts dick, and there begins the most uneventful few minutes of the day.
I lie here panting, pretending to be basking in the afterglow of post-coital bliss. He’ll never know that I’m faking; he doesn’t care enough to figure it out. My award-worthy act continues as he gets up and walks to the bathroom to relieve himself. Then, and only then, do I reach over and check my cell phone. Instantly, I’m on alert—three missed calls and one voicemail message.
“Victoria, it’s Macy.” Her voice is shaky, and I can tell that she’s been crying. “I need to talk to you. Please call me back as soon as you get this.”
It’s strange to get a call from her because she’s not one of the needy ones. I delete the message and call her back; she answers on the first ring.
“Victoria?”
“Macy, are you okay? What’s wrong?”
“I had a scheduled appointment with Conrad, things just- I can’t… Victoria, can you just please come see me?” The desperation in her voice is evident, and it fills me with anxiety.
“Yes, Macy, I’ll be there in twenty minutes, okay? Just sit tight.”
“All right.”
Hopping out of bed, I run into the bathroom to clean up just as Collin is coming out.
“I have to run out,” I tell him while walking past.
“Where are you going?”
“I just have to take care of something at work.”
“Of course, what else is new?”
His sarcasm pisses me off, but I say nothing. There’s no time for another tedious argument about the hours I keep. I focus instead on cleaning up and throwing on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. The quicker I get out of here and to Macy, the better. I put my hair up in a loose ponytail, take a quick peek in the mirror, and exit the bathroom.
“Don’t wait up,” I toss out to Colin once I reach the bedroom door, trying my hardest not to slam it on my way out.
When I finally make it to Macy’s, I find a situation that does nothing to control my foul mood. In fact, it only intensifies it.
***
No one understands what it’s like to be me. To have grown up being the girl who everyone talks over, the one who no one listens to, because they can’t hear what they don’t see. I made myself invisible out of necessity, and I did it long enough that by the time I no longer needed to, I didn’t know how to stop.
The long-term effects of that are still there because, even now, even after the success I’ve achieved, when I think about it, no one really knows me. They never see the real me…they see only what I allow them to.
In my youth, I was timid… In adulthood—I’m not the kind of woman who you fuck with, not even a little. I’m the kind of woman who would take a baseball bat to your knees if you even tried. I’ve developed a low tolerance for bullshit over the years because I’ve seen it all. Trust me; I’ve seen it all. Living in a city like New York, there’s not much that you don’t see. But there are things that I haven’t witnessed just as a spectator, and I’ve actually lived them. I’m not new to pain, betrayal, hurt, violence; I’m not new to a shitload of things and because of this, I’ll do what I have to do to protect myself, my interests, and the people I care for. There is no shame or guilt in that; it’s what makes me who I am.