The Beginning of Us (140 page)

“I know you’re going to be a good father.”

He smiled and looked over at me. “I appreciate you saying that. I hope you know that I would do anything in my power to keep you and our baby safe. Ivy isn’t going to hurt us, as long as we stick together.”

“You think Rafe helped her, don’t you?” I think I had the same feeling. My visit with him must have sent him off the deep end. I don’t know how he knew Ivy was inside, but together they were going to be a difficult force to be reckoned with. “I know I do.”

“Yeah, it had to be him. He knew where we lived. Maybe Ivy freed herself again. Who the hell knows. Either way, I’m sure they are together. She’s going to need someone on her side for when she makes her next attack, if she even gets the chance to do it. Hopefully they will hop on a plane and never look back.”

“As long as they don’t steal our baby, I could care less.”

He let go of my hand and reached over to place his hand on my belly. It was the first time he’d done something like that and I was taken back by his actions. “Nobody is ever going to take our baby. We made that baby out of love. Fuck your sister and her head games. She’s just pissed because she’ll never have what we have.”

“I just want to not have to watch our backs every five seconds. It would be great if she ran off with Rafe and never came back.”

“I hope so.” He pulled my hand up and kissed it. “I am really happy, Will. I know I lost my temper in the hospital. It just caught me off guard. I knew you couldn’t have just gotten pregnant, which could only mean you lied about having the abortion. I don’t blame you, though. I was a fucking douche for what I did to you. I should have been honest the whole time. I hate that you even considered that to be your only option.”

“At the time, I just wanted to be free from it all. You and Ivy hurt me so much. Everything I ever believed about my sister had been this lie. I couldn’t handle it. My parents disowned me and I thought you were just playing with my head. Nothing made sense.” That was the lowest time in my life.

“I know. I feel like shit every day. I think I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to make things up to you. I know I won’t give up until I have your complete trust. It means everything to me. You mean everything to me.”

“I feel the same way about you. I just wish there was an easier way for us to be together. I mean, you have to admit that this really sucks. I want to believe that everything is going to be okay, but it’s hard when it all just keeps going so wrong. Now my crazy sister is out there somewhere, planning her next move on destroying us. I won’t be able to sleep until I know she’s put away somewhere. She needs to be put into a mental institution.”

“Right now, my main concern is your safety. I want to get you home. We’re going to stay in the main house and turn the alarm on tonight. Nobody is going to hurt you.”

I liked that he was being so bossy. When it came to me being safe, I needed all the help I could get. “Does she know the code?”

“Hell no! I kept it a secret so I could go somewhere and she couldn’t bother me. Besides, the owners change it every time they leave.”

I couldn’t help but smile. It felt good to know we could go somewhere and be safe from her wrath. “What if she sets the house on fire?”

He shook his head. “The alarm company reports fires. Stop worrying. You’ll be fine. If it bothers you this much, tomorrow we can pack a bag and go somewhere. We’ll just drive until we get tired. Hell, we can drive until you see a place that you’d love to raise a baby in. We can start over there and never look back.”

Selling me on running away wasn’t getting old. The more he mentioned it, the more it seemed like a great idea. “Okay.”

He pulled over the car. “Seriously?”

I nodded. “Yes, seriously. This has all gotten so out of hand. I wanted my family back, but now I just think we’d be better off if we got out of this place. I hate everything about this place.”

He leaned over and kissed me. “So, it’s settled? Tomorrow morning we’re getting the hell out of here and starting our new life together?” He ran his hands through my hair. “I need to stop by the bank and close my accounts. We can live off the cash until I get situated with a new job. If it’s okay with you, I want to tell my parents the truth. I know you want to leave everything behind, but I think they’d be on our side. I can show the diary if I need to. Since I’ve only worked for my dad, it’s important that we are on speaking terms. I need to be able to support us and I can’t do that if I don’t have a good job. There’s a chance that my dad may even let me work remotely and stay with his company. I may still have to travel, but you can always come with me.”

I couldn’t believe he was just willing to give everything up for me. It was like he had no regrets when it came to our future. I felt the same way, so it made my decision so much easier to make.

“I’ve wanted to be with you since the day you walked into my classroom. I’ve loved you for almost that long. All I want to do is be with you. I want to raise our baby and spend every single moment knowing we finally got to have the happy ending that we always should have. I know it took us a long time, but we’re together and nothing is going to tear us apart. As long as I have your love, I don’t need anyone else’s approval. You’re all I’ve ever needed, Stoshua Wheeler.”

We kissed each other slowly, not paying any mind to the fact that we were pulled over on the side of the road in a little development. People probably thought we were teenagers, making out in the car so our parents wouldn’t see.

“When we get home, I’m throwing all my shit in trash bags. We should just leave tonight.”

My heart was beating so rapidly. I didn’t have to think twice. “Let’s do it!”

He pulled away from the curb before I finished the sentence. “The sooner we get out of here, the better!”

Stosh turned the corner to drive down his long driveway and stopped the car. In front of us, surrounding the little pool house, were police officers. He turned off the car and we sat there as they approached.

One officer held up a megaphone. “Stoshua Wheeler and Willow Green, step out of the vehicle with your hands in the air!”

Stosh looked over at me and reached for my hand. I could see the fear in his eyes. “Do what they say. Don’t tell them anything.”

“I’m scared!” I was already crying.

“It’s going to be fine. My parent’s will have us out by the end of the night.”

We were being surrounded and running out of time. We didn’t have a plan for this. In fact, this was the end of the road. My plan had backfired and now I couldn’t see that light at the end of the tunnel. All I saw was pain.

Chapter 21

Claustrophobia

The police waited for me and Stosh to climb out of the car before they slammed us against it and handcuffed our hands behind our backs. Stosh kept his eyes on me the whole time they were reading us our rights. I was trying not to cry, but being arrested for the first time wasn’t exactly exciting or something that I ever wanted to happen in my life. I was petrified. Neither of us belonged in jail.

Sure, kidnapping my sister and pretending to be her could be construed as illegal, but my intentions weren’t. Ivy was the bad person in all of this. Surely, there had to be some kind of justice in it all.

But there wasn’t.

Wherever Ivy was, she wasn’t handcuffed or looked at like she was a criminal. No, she was probably pretending to be broken up about her husband sleeping with her sister. I’m sure she had everyone eating out of the palm of her hand.

As much as I wanted to focus all of my anger on my sister, I was brought back to reality when I was shoved into a cop car and separated from Stosh. I watched them putting him in a different vehicle. There was no way out of this mess now.

Stosh had been right all along. We should have just left. There wasn’t anything left for us in this town except jail time.

Once I was booked, they took me to a temporary holding cell. The particular area I was in was just for women. A couple girls, who looked my age, were in the same cell with me. I could tell from what they were wearing that they were prostitutes. They looked me up and down and started to talk to each other like I hadn’t even been there. I sat down on a bench and began to sob.

My life was messed up. I was pregnant and sitting in jail.

My life couldn’t get any more complicated.

At least, that was what I thought.

A couple hours after being there, a guard came over and led me to another room. I had hoped that I was being bailed out, until I saw my mother sitting at the table. I sat down across from her. “Hello, Mother.”

She looked so furious with me. “What do you have to say for yourself? Do you realize that you’ve made a mockery of this family?”

“It isn’t what you think.” How could she think that I could do something so wreckless? I’d always been the responsible one.

“It doesn’t even matter what I think. You kidnapped your sister and pretended to be her so that you could steal her husband. What kind of person would do such a terrible thing? What do you have to say for yourself?”

I shrugged and looked down at the table. People had carved all sorts of things in the wooded top. “I have nothing to say.”

She tapped her fingernails on the table. “I’m not leaving here until you explain to me why you felt it necessary to do the wreckless things that you’ve been up to?”

“I didn’t do anything that she didn’t deserve. He was mine first, Mom. She took him to spite me. She is a liar! Ivy started all of this.”

I was so angry at her for not listening to a word I was saying. I needed her support. “Your father and I have discussed your future with our family. We think it would be best if we gave you some money and sent you on your way. I think it’s best that you go back to where you were living and have a life there. “

I reached out for her hand, but she pulled away. “Mom, please. Don’t abandon me. I never did anything wrong. I’m the one who is being taken advantage of, not Ivy!”

She shook her head and began to rub her temples like she did when she was frustrated. “I just don’t know where we went wrong with you. We gave you everything you could possibly ask for. You went to a good college. What could your sister possibly have done to make you this bitter toward her? Do you have any idea how much her marriage means to her?”

“Mom, you’re not listening to me. Ivy isn’t the person you think she is. She’s manipulative and out to destroy me. She doesn’t love Stosh. Did you see what she did to his head? She could have killed him.”

My mother stood up. “Enough!” She leaned in, but didn’t sit back down. “Willow, I came here today to try to reason with you, but you’ve left me with no other options. I am not posting your bail, because I feel that the best place for you is in here. If and when you do get out, I’d appreciate if you left town quietly and you stayed away from Stoshua. He doesn’t need to be involved with you. Am I making myself clear?”

I was sobbing. My own mother was giving up on me. I couldn’t believe it. I looked right up at her and gritted my teeth together as I talked. “I will not give up Stosh! We are in love and nothing you could possibly do would change that.”

“We’ll just see about that.” She waved for the guard and left me sitting there. I felt abandoned. It was disastrous to think that I was sitting in jail while the real psycho was out planning her next path of destruction. I knew what she was going to do next and there was nothing I could do about it.

I spent the night sleeping in a ball on a small cot. The mattress was probably just as hard as the cement floor below it. I tossed and turned and cried most of the night.

For someone that had never been in trouble for anything, having a criminal record just didn’t sit well with me.

Still, with both of us behind bars, I highly doubted that some guardian angel was going to swoop in and save the day. I was shit out of luck.

My arraignment was horrible. Not only did my parents attend, but my sister was right there with them. I plead not guilty.

Sure, I’d held her against her will, but she’d done just as bad of things to me and was still walking around.

I saw her smiling when they walked me back to jail. I thought my mother was going to bail me out, but I had no such luck. She hadn’t had a change of heart and with my psychopath twin standing next to her, I knew I didn’t have a chance in Hell at ever being free.

I spent my second night in a cell without sleep. I couldn’t understand how I had let myself get so consumed in this plan of mine. Stosh had been right to worry. I was exactly where he’d said I’d be.

I missed my old, carefree, life. I missed my friends and the job that I had to give up.

When people are at their record low, they must consider a lot of things, because that is exactly what I started to do. I considered telling my mom that I would give up Stosh. I could leave town and somehow move on.

Anything was better than a term in a place like I was currently in. I wanted to be free. My baby couldn’t be born behind bars. He or she deserved a chance at a good life. I deserved that chance too.

Leaving Stosh would be the hardest thing that I would ever have to do. He’d never stop looking for me. I knew that now. There was no way he was going to give up on me. The more I tried to reason with myself, the more upset I became. The only way out of this jail cell was to leave my heart behind.

I didn’t know if it was even possible, or if I really wanted to try. So many people had been hurt. So many hearts were broken. Even though I wasn’t directly the main cause, I still played a part in it. I hated myself for it.

At least I didn’t have much longer to talk myself out of loving Stosh.

I made bail that evening. Without knowing who had come to my rescue, I grabbed my personal belongings and headed out to meet whoever it was. Stoshua was standing there waiting for me. He had a bouquet of flowers in his hand and looked like he hadn’t sleep in a week.