“I’m sorry but I just don’t know what to do here—with Grace, River, Ben, I’m so angry, so upset, and confused. I really don’t want to talk about them right now.”

Aerie walks over to where my phone lays broken on the floor and picks it up. “Well, you don’t have to worry about them calling you because you no longer have a phone.”

To avoid tears, I mumble, “Well at least I won’t be checking for calls that never come.”

I stand up and head for the table. Serena jumps up, grabs my arm, and shouts so I can’t ignore her, “Dahlia, grow up. You slapped him and left him standing there.”

I turn to her in shock and scream back, “I know I did!”

“Well what did you expect?” Then taking a breath, she says in exasperation, “Dahlia, you need to get your shit together.”

“I know I shouldn’t have left him there, I get it, but I also know we both needed time to calm down.”

Serena rolls her eyes at me and says, “Your decision.”

“Well my decision right now is to eat this Chinese food and have a drink. Then I’ll worry about what to do next.”

Serena stands there shaking her head and Aerie just looks at me not knowing what to do with me at this point, and I get it because frankly, I don’t know what to do with myself, either.

So I do the only thing I can right now—I grab the bottle of vodka. Ripping the plastic off, I unscrew the top and take a long chug. Then I wipe my mouth with my hand as I endure the burning sensation traveling down my throat. Serena stands there with her hands on her hips. She’s completely no-nonsense just like her brother, but I try to set that thought aside.

“Fuck, Dahlia, I have cranberry juice and limes in the car, could you wait a minute?”

“No I can’t. I don’t care about mixers right now. I just want to stop thinking about all this madness.” Lifting the bottle in the air I make a toast. “Here’s to making dumb decisions and not always being able to own up to them.” With that, I burst out laughing and then start crying. I take one more sip from the bottle.

Both of my best friends come over, Aerie grabs the bottle and says, “Here’s to never being able to keep a boyfriend because you’re just too damn picky.”

I raise my hand as if holding a glass and say, “Here’s to not being picky, but to waiting for Mr. Right.”

After she downs a healthy dose of vodka, she hands the bottle to Serena. Serena takes it and holds it in front of her. “Here’s to being a shitty parent. May your sons never get into the kind of trouble that you can’t help them out of.”

What? I look at Serena and know this isn’t the time to ask but I wonder what’s going on with Trent. I need to comfort her so I raise my imaginary glass again and say, “Here’s to moms who do everything they can to help their children.”

It’s now that I realize these women have their own issues. And I should have been there to help them like they’ve helped me. How do I not even know what’s bothering them?

I grab the bottle and make another toast. “Here’s to always listening to your friends and understanding their issues.”

Once all of our feelings are out there, we spend the rest of the afternoon eating Chinese and drinking what’s left of the 750ml bottle of vodka before we all pass out. The three of us are careful only to talk about Serena and Aeries’s lives and never say the name Ben or River.

Chapter 8

Into the Nothing

Ben’s Journal

I spent the morning pressing a bag of ice to my lip—nursing my wound and my pride, too. I didn’t expect that pu**y to go all Rambo on me. Maybe I should have taken him more seriously. Either way, he got a few good ones in, but so did I. I’m confident that pretty boy is at least sporting one black eye.

I knew Dahl wouldn’t go straight to him after the argument I witnessed them have. That’s not her MO. Whenever we argued we both always needed space to calm down before discussing issues. I thought she would be at the beach, so I wasn’t surprised when I drove by our house and saw her car there. She must have been thinking of me, and all the years we shared together. That’s evident just by where she ended up.

I stood on the front porch for at least fifteen minutes trying to figure out if I should go in. Instead, I decided to revert to the way I won her back the only time we ever broke up. I grabbed a piece of paper from Mom’s car and left her a note. I know she’ll know it’s from me the minute she sees it. Hopefully, it will be enough to convince her to call me. I don’t care if I have to leave a million notes—if that’s what it takes, I will. She has to spend time with me, it’s the only way I can get her to see I’m the only one for her.

Chapter 9

Blurry

Hours later I awaken, sore, aching, and sprawled out on the oversize sofa with Aerie as my pillow and Serena as my blanket. The overhead lights are on, but do nothing to help me focus. It’s pitch-black outside and the streetlights are on so it has to be late. I try to lift my head but the thudding sensation that kicks up at the movement makes my pulse race and my stomach turn. I gag down the bile inching its way up my throat, but all that does is make the taste in my mouth even worse.

Looking around at the Chinese takeout containers, I find an opened water bottle. As I sit up to drink it, I try not to disturb Aerie or Serena and scoot carefully off the couch. My head is pounding, but my heart feels like it has lost its beat. The rage I felt toward River has dissipated and I’m left with the awareness that we need to talk about what happened this morning. Yes, I was mad at him for not telling me what he knew, but Grace asked him not to. I get it, and I’m ready to talk now, I just hope he is.

When I walk through the house I can’t help picturing how I was in the years after Ben died—all alone. It breaks my heart to think about how isolated and alone I felt. How my grief overpowered any feelings of hope. I wish I could go back and wipe away those years and the toll they took on me, but I can’t.

Opening the front door to leave, I notice Ben’s keys hanging on the hook. Why had I never gotten rid of them? I shake my head and walk out into the coolness of the night. When I approach my car I see there’s a folded piece of paper on the windshield and I know instantly it’s from Ben. The note is folded the same way as all the other notes he had ever left me—and he left me an abundance of them during our short three-month breakup when I thought he might be cheating.

I open the note and read the short but to-the-point message.

I’m sorry. I miss you. I love you. Let me talk to you.

Ben

Bitterness rushes through me. Is he kidding me? I am not going to forgive him. He made his choice, he left me alone, and now that I’m happy he thinks we can just go back to the way we were. Well we can’t. And even if we could . . . I don’t want to. I love River and that’s something I would never change.

In fact, I know what I have to do—I have to cut my ties with him. I rip the bottom half of his note and shove the other half inside the kangaroo pocket of my sweatshirt. Opening the car door, I search for a pen, and then write a brief note to Serena telling her to make sure Ben knows this house is now his. It hasn’t been ours since he chose to leave. He can’t have me, but he can have our house.

I walk back into the house and lay the note on the entryway floor and anchor Ben’s keys on it. As I leave, I hear the wind chimes and I know this is the last time I will be walking out the door of this house. It’s not my home anymore, it’s not our home anymore, it’s simply Ben’s. My home is in LA and that is where I’m heading.

***

I spend the drive home trying to figure out the semantics of not telling versus lying, of trust versus forgiveness. I know River’s lie of omission wasn’t out of malice or spite but out of his overwhelming need to protect me. Ben’s lie wrecked me, changed me, and left me alone. River’s omission did none of those things. So maybe I can look past this, I think I can, actually, and I just hope I can still trust him. Why is facing our issues so much harder than escaping?

Xander’s Mercedes is parked close to the steps leading to the front door when I pull into the driveway. It’s one in the morning and I’m surprised he’s still here; he’s usually so uptight about getting up early for work.

After parking the car in the garage, I walk up the stairs and notice a huge hole in the wall next to the door. When I see the key we keep above the doorframe laying on the ground, I wonder what happened. The door is unlocked and as I enter the kitchen, I can see Xander passed out on the couch, his shoes still on, his arm slung over his head, and a half-empty bottle of Patrón on the side table. His shirt is untucked and his skin is exposed. Grabbing my concert T-shirt quilt from the hall closet, I pull it close to me for a moment, and then head back to the living room. Covering him with the blanket, I notice a hint of a tattoo down the side of his torso I never knew he had. I set the liquor bottle on the counter and turn the lights off before heading to the bedroom.

I’m a little apprehensive about seeing River. We haven’t talked all day. Since we got together we’ve never gone this long without talking. I’m not even sure anymore who was actually angrier. Me at him for not telling me he knew it was Ben’s shooter that attacked me, or him at me for having gone to see Ben.

When I see that he’s not in the bedroom, I’m a little surprised. Everything is how I left it, just messier. My wedding dress lies flat on my hope chest, with the garter and pearl earrings nestled on top of it. I put everything there so I could easily slip back into the dress and get ready again. Originally, I thought we’d be returning from Grace’s later that afternoon. I hang it in my closet, having no idea when we will be getting married. The thought makes me a bit uneasy, so I seek solace by walking over to the glass doors. I look out into the night, at the beautiful view of the Hollywood sign that I love so much. I’m not sure why; maybe because it represents hope.

As I stand here looking out, a fleck of light catches my eye and I see him immediately. He’s sitting in a chair down by the pool just staring into the darkness. Opening the door, I pause to admire him; his long lean body, his always-messy hair, and I wonder if I really want to address our issues right now.

Taking a deep breath I walk the many steps down to where he’s sitting and I know he must hear my approach. He sits there, one leg propped over his knee, leaning back, and sipping a beer.

“You decided to come home. I wasn’t sure you were going to,” he says without even a glance in my direction.

“River, of course I came home. Of course I did. I just needed time to calm down and figure things out. Get my head together.”

“Hmm . . . funny, I’m not sure ‘of course’ can be assumed in any conversation we have from now on.”

Taking another sip of his beer he adds, “And what do you mean you needed to figure things out? You needed to get your head together? I thought we did those things together, but I guess I was wrong.”

“River, I was mad and . . . ,” I start to explain but stop. He won’t even look at me and I know I need to get his attention before we continue talking.

“You can’t finish your thoughts. You could earlier. Should I help you? You’re mad at me for not telling you, but I’m not going to apologize for that, Dahlia. I had my reasons. But the next time you decide to slap me after meeting with your ex-fiancé, maybe you could at least stick around to listen to what I have to say.”

“I’m sorry that I slapped you. I shouldn’t have done that. But I trusted you and you kept something important from me. How can I trust you won’t mislead me again?”

Shaking his head he hisses, “Come on, Dahlia, you know you can trust me, I’ve never lied to you.”

“I didn’t say you lied, I said you didn’t tell me. But you also allowed me to believe I was attacked by some random stranger. I know Grace asked you not to tell me who he was, but you really should have.”