Crushed Page 13

  I tried to ignore the fan made petitions fans wanting Ryan Alexander and Katie Williams to get back together. They missed their ‘golden couple’ and wanted to see them plastered on the pages of their favorite magazines again. Ryan gave a few interviews where he was quoted as saying he just wasn’t “feeling a connection” with Katie. When asked if he would ever be ready to settle down his response was “when she finds me I will.”

  And I still hated him for sleeping with her. But I still loved him. I was with Alex, but I was married to someone I would have given anything to be with for forever. I missed him everywhere I went. I would see him, his smile, hear his favorite songs play on the radio, the ones that he would belt at the top of his lungs to make me laugh.

  When I would sit down to eat dinner, it was usually take out. Alex didn’t cook much, I missed Ryan’s cooking. Alex would dote on me and make sure I was eating, but he didn’t feed me the way Ryan did when he noticed I wasn’t eating. I didn’t want to be babied, but there was something sweet and loving about the way Ryan would coddle my on occasion. Like I was his most prized possession and he didn’t want anything to happen to me.

  Lacey and Jason didn’t mention him. I tried to not ask much after a while. I would go over and see Mason, sometimes Alex would come, but he was usually busy with the club. They would give me “he’s okay” answers and then start talking to one another like I wasn’t there. I started to feel like they resented me, like maybe I was the bad guy or something. So I stopped going by.

  I went 2 weeks. I didn’t call Lacey, I didn’t stop over and I didn’t think they would notice. That was until she came over to Alex’s pissed off one day. “Where have you been?” She yelled at me, dragging Mace’s baby carrier with her, he was giggling and kicking his chubby little legs when he saw me.

  “What do you mean?” I asked her stepping aside so she could come in

  “I mean, I have not seen or heard from you in 2 weeks, I thought you might be dead or something. Your new boy toy kills people for a living, and while I love Alex I think I might love you a hell of a lot more.”

  She pulls Mason out of his seat and holds him out to me. I gladly take him while he claps his little hands together

  “There’s my favorite boy in the world, are you being good for your mommy?” I said loading kisses on his chubby cheeks

  “His mommy has been worried about her sister, so he told me we needed to come and check on her.” She leaned over and kissed Mason’s other cheek “Tell her, tell Auntie how worried we have been about her.”

  I looked at her, and sat down with Mason still in my arms “I know you guys blame me, I just wanted to give you all some space, I didn’t think you would really mind.”

  “What the hell are you talking about, blame you for what and when in my whole life have I ever sent you away. Even when I was mad at you?”

  I stopped, bouncing Mason on my knee a few times before I responded

  “Listen, things have been really weird between the 3 of us since I came back from New York, I know originally you took my side on the Ryan thing, but it feels like you and Jason really don’t want to talk to me. I come over and I ask about him and you change the subject with an A and B conversation. I mean I don’t understand what changed, but I can feel it, whatever it is when I am there and I just feel unwanted. It’s no big deal I mean he’s Jason’s brother so I totally get it.”

  I looked down, not willing to see her face. I didn’t want to see her confirm all of my fears that I was going to lose my sister over this whole thing.

  “First of all, I am not mad at you, and I don’t blame you. Second of all I think Jason has missed you more than I have, I am so busy with the baby, he misses you coming by to help him out with stuff and playing with the baby so he can have sex with me without fear of a screaming Mason in the middle. Lastly, there are things we know... Things I can’t tell you about because they are not mine to share, but know that we don’t hate you and we are not choosing sides.”

  They aren’t choosing sides? Who said anything about sides?

  “What do you mean sides?” I asked

  “Nothing Em, don’t make me do this, I promise anything else you want to know I will tell you, I would never hide anything from you, but this… This isn’t mine and you need to wait until Ryan shares with you.”

  “I haven’t talked to Ryan in about 2 months. He has moved on, clearly there is nothing to share Lacey, it’s over. He’s done. Let’s drop it okay?”

  She stared at me for several moments before she opened and closed her mouth several times wanting to say something but thinking better on it each and every time. She leaned forward and placed her elbows on her knees and whispered quietly to me

  “He’s barely holding on Emmalyn. I have never seen a grown man cry like that, but I have a feeling nothing is going to compare to what he will be feeling when he finds out his baby is growing inside of you, and you are in a relationship with his best friend. I don’t blame you for dating Alex, he’s in love with you too, but we both know you love Ryan just as much as he loves you. Some really fucked up shit has gone down, and Ryan is to blame for a lot of it. I won’t take his guilt away and lie for him, he fucked up and everyone knows what he has to hold for blame. But, you are married to him still, you are having his baby. You need to stop being this naïve girl, thinking that you will just get to move on and be fine. You are not fine either, you aren’t. So make some changes and if you choose to end it with Ryan for forever, I will support you, but he deserves to know about the baby and Alex.”

  I didn’t understand why the baby and Alex would change anything, he still cheated on me. I knew I had to tell him about the baby, but I wasn’t ready yet. I knew it was selfish too, but I earned that. I married him and he promised me things and in a moment of doubt he threw it all away.

  “I will tell him when I am ready Lacey, but thanks for tossing all this shit at me and making me feel like it’s my fault poor Ryan is a little sad. I am sure he has plenty of girls around to fix that.”

  She stood up quickly

  “He hasn’t been with a single fucking one, he’s been living at our house Lacey! The only time he leaves is to go to work. He fucking mopes around acting like a boy who lost his puppy. I am telling you, he’s a wreck.”

  “I’m sorry he feels that way.” I said looking down at the top of Mason’s head. The buy fell asleep against my chest, his little hand down on my growing baby bump

  “I wanted to be with him for forever. I love him so much, more than anyone or anything before, maybe even more than Daddy, but he made his choices and I can’t let them go. Please don’t ask me to let them go.”

  She knelt down beside me and rubbed my arm, careful not to jostle her sleeping son in my arms

  “I wouldn’t dream of taking this away from you, I think this pain is a growing experience in a really fucked up way. You kind of need it to realize where you stand, but just know that I know so much more than you do, and I am asking. No begging you not to shut the door on him until you know more.”

  She didn’t have time to say anything else, because two seconds later Alex came through the door. He was really nice to her but I think he knew we were talking about Ryan. “Hey Lace.” He said, kissing me on the cheek as he came through. She looked up at him and back to me and frowned a little. Alex loved me, like really loved me, and he was a good guy and there was NO drama in being with him. I don’t understand why she wouldn’t want me to have someone like that.

  “Hey listen, come by for dinner tonight, it will be like a double date. Mason will want more time with his Auntie anyway, he’s going to be pissed when he wakes up and sees you aren’t here.” Lacey says, already buckling the baby into his car seat

  I looked at her. Didn’t she just tell me that Ryan was living with them?

  Alex was heading upstairs to take a shower and said his goodbyes to Lacey and a sleeping Mason before looking at me “I’m game if you are babe, let me know when I get out.”

  I
looked at Lacey “I thought you said Ryan is at your place?”

  “He is, but he works tonight, so you can come over and hang out.”

  I looked at her, “fine” I said. I was nervous to be at her house, but I did miss out hangouts.

  Chapter 30

  Alex and I headed over Lacey and Jason’s about 2 hours later. We did a cook out and hung by the pool. I missed swimming here, it was so closed off. Ryan was putting in a pool for me before the whole NYC thing, and Alex didn’t have one so I had been missing out a ton. Especially pregnant.

  We had cheeseburgers, but I couldn’t imagine eating anything heavy so I nibbled on some crackers and veggies. Lacey brought me out some French dip to go with it, and I had to slow myself down because it was so good and I didn’t want to be sick.

  We were sitting around all laughing, the mood was really light. Jason and Lacey seemed to be really okay with Alex being here. Yes he was their friend as well, but Ryan complicated that a bit.

  Mason had been sleeping in his playpen just inside the patio doors where it was cool. I started feeling a little sick so I excused myself to head to the bathroom. Lacey told me to use the guest bathroom because theirs was being remodeled to fit a bigger bath tub.

  The guest room was exactly the same as when I left it except it was covered in my stuff. The king size bedspread that was on Ryan and I’s bed was now draped on the king size bed. There were photos of Ryan and me from our wedding day and a few from when we had Mason at the house in frames along the bed side table.

  On the table there was a journal with a label on the front. “All the shit I should have told her.”

  I wanted to open it, I wanted to see what he had to say. I couldn’t. It wouldn’t change the things that had happened and I had to be strong. I had to stop all this doubt bull shit.

  I went into the bathroom and came back out... Looking at the bed, I noticed that there was a bunched up clump under the blanket. I lifted it back to see what it was and noticed it was one of my T-shirts that I wore around the house when we were having movie night. I lifted it up and noticed that it smelled like me, he had sprayed it recently with my favorite perfume.

  He was sleeping with my shirt.

  God.

  I walked out of the room. Back outside to where Alex and Jason were standing at the grill talking about a car that Alex was working on at the club. Lacey and I started talking about my pregnancy and getting off the morning sickness medication. I was nervous about doing it. I had lost a few pounds and I didn’t want to risk getting sick again and losing more.

  All of a sudden the patio door opened and Ryan came walking out with boxes of car parts stacked up so he couldn’t see over them.

  I leaned over to Lacey and said “I thought you said he wouldn’t be here?”

  She leaned back “he wasn’t, he had to work he said.”

  I wanted to run. I had nowhere to go. He would notice me if I moved. I looked back at him. He looked really good. His arms look even more muscular than they were the last time I saw him. He must really be working out. His hair looked a little longer than I was used to, but he still had that scruff. That I loved so much.

  I glanced up and saw Alex looking at me. He had a confused and slightly fearful look in his eye. As soon as Jason walked over to Ryan to help him with the boxes, Ryan noticed Alex.

  “Hey Alex.” Ryan said. Not overly friendly, but not icy either. “How are you?”

  Lacey whispered to me “Um Em, he doesn’t know you and Alex are living together, just a heads up.”

  Oh shit.

  Where the hell did he think I was all this time? He probably assumed I dipped into savings and got a place, but if he really knew me he knew I wouldn’t do that. He knew I wanted to use that money for something important.

  Alex looked back at me. Unsure of what to say to Ryan who was asking him a ton of questions.

  Ryan followed his line of sight and when his eyes landed on me sitting at the table, they widened in shock

  He didn’t say anything for a few minutes. He just stood there and watched me. I saw his eyes flicker with so much emotion, anger, sadness and despair. I nodded to him in hello and gave him a brief smile.

  He walked towards Lacey and I and took a seat across from me.

  “Hey Em, um. How are you?”

  He seemed nervous, like I wasn’t his wife that he had cheated on a few months ago. Like I was a stranger he just met. Or like I was the woman he loved and missed and didn’t know what to say to her. But I still didn’t like it.

  “I’m good, how are you?”

  We sat there chatting for like 20 minutes about random things. He told me he took a smaller scale role with a movie company. He didn’t want to take on a whole lot right now. He said he wasn’t doing much press but that he had in the beginning after the “show” ended. He was careful when talking about it all. Like it would somehow make me go running if I was reminded that he had once worked on a TV show where the lead actress was a sweet beautiful girl, but in a crazy plot twist obsessed with him. I knew he had feelings for her as well so I didn’t want to talk about it either.

  We were sitting there for a while. Jason and Alex came and sat down. Alex closer to me, and Ryan would look at Alex through the corner of his eye every now and then to see what he was doing. I could tell that he didn’t like that he was sitting next to me.

  I tried to pay attention to what Lacey and Jason were talking about. Alex and Ryan started talking about Jason’s truck and a new part it needed.

  All of a sudden I felt this light flutter in my belly. At first I didn’t know what it was, but then it continued to happen, I put my hand on my belly and looked over at Lacey. It was my baby kicking. The very first kicks.

  “Oh my God Lacey.” I said with so much excitement I looked over at her, and she looked down at where my hands were. A smile brightening her face at realization. She leaned over and put her hands on my stomach. Happy tears were building in her eyes.

  I remembered then that we were not alone. I looked at Ryan who had a confused and interested expression on his face. The table was high enough that he couldn’t see my belly and he didn’t know where Lacey was putting her hands. But Alex did. He gave me a quick grin. I wanted to grab his hand and show him, but Ryan was sitting right there. Ryan whose baby was kicking inside of me for the first time. Ryan who didn’t even know said baby existed.

  “What’s going on?” he asked his brown furrowing in confusion

  I didn’t know what to do. I was looking at Lacey Jason and Alex, all hoping someone would step in and make an excuse but I knew, I just knew there was no way.

  Alex stood up “We need to get going, I have to stop by the club first and sign something for dad and we’ve had a long day.”

  Ryan stood up “What do you mean we, why does she have to leave too?”

  He was looking at me to answer, not Alex

  “Ryan, I am staying with Alex, we are dating.”

  Ryan’s face turned red. He looked at Lacey and Jason like he was waiting for one of them to deny it. When neither of them did, he got up and threw his chair backwards.

  He stormed towards Alex. Alex stood tall and got right in Ryan’s face. Ryan was a bit taller and had more muscle, but they were both bright red and I knew that this would not end well. Ryan looked at him “You were my best fucking friend and you moved in on my wife?” He screamed

  Alex looked back at him “she came to me when you fucking cheated on her, don’t give me your victim bullshit. I told you I would take her if you fucked up and you did. Big time that shit is on you.”

  “You have no fucking right to her Alex, she’s mine.”

  Alex laughed “I’m pretty sure when I was fucking her this morning you were the last person she was thinking of. She’s not yours anymore.”

  Ryan reached back and punched Alex. So hard Alex flew back a few feet.

  I stood up quickly to Alex’s side.

  I glared at Ryan “how dare you treat him like this, y
ou have no idea what he has done for us. You cheated on me Ryan. You broke every vow we made when you slept with that woman. Don’t you dare blame him?”

  “What do you mean us?” Ryan asked but as soon as the question left his lips I stood up and his eyes flew down to my form fitting top showing the 4 month pregnancy bulge.

  “Oh my God.” Ryan said, he stumbled backwards.

  I said nothing

  “Oh my fucking God.” He said again

  “You’re having a baby with him?” he asked me, anger rising in his voice

  “Are you?” he asked a second later when I didn’t respond.

  I looked at Alex and then at Lacey and Jason “I don’t have time for this, what a fucking joke. What a total and complete waste of the last year of my life. Let’s go Alex.”

  I walked past Ryan, who grabbed my arm “how could you do this to me, to us. You have no idea what I have been doing to make this right.”

  I yanked my arm free. “I will go to a lawyer next week and draw up divorce papers. You are such a heartless idiot.”

  I didn’t stay behind and listen to his words anymore. All I could hear was him screaming. He was hurt.

  I was hurt more. Yes I slept with Alex, but not until a few weeks ago. We had been living together for over a month and Ryan had made no attempt in getting in touch with me. I was already 3 months pregnant at that point. How could he really think that I would be so heartless as to sleep with a man and make a baby while I was still married to him? Explaining it to him was useless. This couldn’t have gone worse.

  Chapter 31- Ryan

  My list of “What I should have told Emmalyn when I had the chance”

  When I bought the new house, it was still furnished after the last couple. They lost their child, a toddler to a car accident. I remember my realtor sharing the story. They had to move on. Everywhere they went they saw their little girl’s smiling face, heard her laughter in each room, it was too much. When I moved in I redecorated room by room. I wanted to do it though. I had a designer and some help, but I did most of the work. The last room I was going to do was the nursery. It felt sad painting it over and taking all the stuff that belonged to this dead girl away. I had this thought one day that I could take all the stuff away, but leave it as a nursery. I didn’t know what for. The night that I came home after meeting you, I walked by that room and thought of you. I thought of you having my babies and it was the scariest fucking thought I ever had. I just met you there was no reason under the sun to be thinking about you and children. But I left the nursery as is. I felt this crazy connection to you, one that I thought was just made up in movies to drag romance viewers to their knees, but I felt it with you. I wanted you, and I couldn’t change that room.