“Well maybe I’ll be strong enough this
time.”
Danny shook his head.
“I think we both know that’s not going
to happen.
Just stop this,
already.
You’ve finally come back
home and maybe now there’s a chance to make things better, heal our family.
Get away from Jake Novak before
everything goes to shit again.
Please, Raven.”
“I need to go,” she said, turning away.
“I’ll be here if you decide to come back,
Raven.
I’m not going anywhere, but then
again, you already knew that.”
Raven started to run, to the limousine.
She needed to get away from the
memories, get away from her family and the secrets and recriminations.
She needed to distance herself from her
sad mother, resentful brother, and dying father.
She got to the limousine and the driver
let her in.
She thanked him and then slid into the
cool darkness of the big car as he shut the door.
The driver got in front and started to
pull away from the house.
Raven
forced herself not to look back, not to watch and see her mother or brother
watching her leave.
She held back tears as if her very life
depended on it.
Jake was sitting across from her, legs
outstretched, drinking from a tumbler.
It looked like he was drinking scotch or whiskey.
She could faintly smell it.
“That was informative,” he said,
swallowing and grimacing a little.
Raven stared out the window as they left
her street.
“Was it?”
“Yeah, it was.”
She looked at him, knowing he was angry,
even though he was hiding it fairly well.
“I can’t thank you enough for helping my father, Jake.
I can’t ever repay you for saving his life.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Jake said, waving
her off.
“The way you left me in
the dark about your little video is payment enough.”
She’d known this was coming, but she was hurt
just the same.
“I didn’t purposely
keep you in the dark.
I had no idea
that the video was going to come out.
We got that stuff scrubbed from the
internet
four years ago and had a court injunction against anybody putting it up
anywhere.”
Jake looked at her like she was
crazy.
“Didn’t it occur to you that
this could happen, and the affect it would have on me if it ever did?”
The effect on him.
That was what mattered.
Raven licked her lips.
“I’m not ashamed of dancing a little at
a party when I was seventeen.
It
was stupid, but I did nothing wrong, Jake.”
“It doesn’t matter what you think,” Jake
said, his eyes widening with anger.
“It matters what everyone else thinks and says.
Already their spinning their stories
about you, Raven.”
She threw up her hands.
“Isn’t that the point?
I was bullied because of my perceived
slutty behavior.
Those people made
up lies about me.
That’s
the point.
I was bullied and I became one of those
losers you made fun of with your comments.
This could be your chance to show you’ve really changed, to come out and
stand up for me.”
“No,” Jake said, shaking his head.
“The point is that you left me spinning
in the wind.
I asked you to tell me
about what happened in your past.
We could’ve planned for this, gotten out in front of the story and spun
it to our advantage.
But you lied
to me—“
“I never lied to you, Jake.”
Her voice was shaking.
“You might as well have.
You lied by omission.
You lied by keeping important details to
yourself, details that would’ve changed how I handled everything.”
Raven stared at him with uncomprehending
frustration.
“You’re a hypocrite,”
she said.
“Careful.”
Jake took a long sip from his tumbler.
“Don’t say anything you’ll regret later,”
he murmured.
“It’s true.
You’re a hypocrite.”
His gaze moved from the glass he was
holding, to her face.
He studied
her.
“That’s a bold statement from
someone in your position, Raven.”
“I don’t give a fuck about my position,”
she told him.
He laughed.
“That much is obvious.”
His laughter enraged her.
“What’s obvious to me is that you needed
a body double to satisfy your little sexual kink.
So you found me.”
Jake had been about to take another sip
from his glass, but his hand stopped in mid-motion.
He looked at her again.
“What did you just say?”
“You heard me,” she continued.
“I went online this morning and found
pictures of Peyton.
I’d never seen
her before.”
Jake’s expression darkened, his eyebrows
lowered.
“Don’t talk about
her.
Not now.
Not ever.”
“I’ll talk about whoever I want.”
Jake set his glass down behind him and
folded his arms.
“Fine, Raven.
Let’s put everything on the table.
Let’s lay it all out there.”
For some strange reason, Raven found that
he was still turning her on—the way he looked sitting there, the
expression on his face,
the
very challenge of
him.
She hated that Jake Novak
could make her feel so angry and so completely in need of him all at the same
time.
“Admit that you used me,” Raven said.
“In what particular way?” he asked.
“You used me because I look almost
exactly like Peyton looked.”
Jake’s jaw set and his eyes
hardened.
“There’s a resemblance.”
“That’s why you chose me that night at
the party.
Tell me now, admit the truth
Jake.”
He nodded once.
“Everyone has a type,” he said.
“That’s not exactly breaking news.”
“Except that you pick a certain type of
girl so you can punish her, control her, and make her pay for the sins of your
dead fiancé.”
After she’d said it,
Raven was struck by just how harsh it sounded.
A muscle in Jake’s jaw flinched, but
other than that he was completely still, his
eyes
locked on hers.
“That’s a theory.”
“It’s true.
We both know it’s true.”
His lips tightened.
“And you liked every minute of it,” he
finally uttered.
“That’s beside the point—“
“No,” he said, his lips curling into a
strange grin.
“That’s the entire
point.”
“You didn’t care if I enjoyed it or
not.
The fact that I liked you was
basically irrelevant.”
“That’s interesting phrasing,” Jake said,
shifting in his seat.
He looked up
for a moment.
“That’s very
interesting phrasing.”
“What did I say?”
“You said you ‘liked’ me, as in past
tense.”
Raven sighed.
“Don’t twist my words.”
“I’m not twisting anything,” Jake
said.
“I’m just pointing out what
you’re actually saying.”
“You never felt anything real for me,”
Raven said, “so how can you have the nerve to point out that I said ‘liked’
instead of ‘like?’
At least I actually
felt something for you.”
Jake just stared at her.
His expression was unreadable.
“You have no idea what I feel,” he said
softly.
They looked at one another for a long
time, neither speaking.
Time seemed
to draw out, become elastic.
“No, I don’t,” she said, finally.
“And that’s your fault, Jake.
Not mine.”
“You’re trying to distract me from
focusing on your behavior, and your lies,” Jake said.
“You’re trying to put me on the
defensive so that I conveniently forget about the fact that your whole scheme
just blew up in my face.”
“It’s not my fault—“
“It is your fault!” he yelled.
His voice was so loud that Raven cowered
from him.
He seemed to realize that he’d lost his
composure.
Jake grew silent,
looking away from her, turning his body away as well.
“I didn’t plan any of this,” Raven said,
feeling hopeless and empty.
“I
didn’t want to make things worse for you.
I thought I could help, but I guess I didn’t think any of it
through.
Everything just happened
so fast.”
“It sure did,” Jake said, still not
looking at her.
“Maybe it’s best if I go back to Boston today,”
she said, hoping against hope that he’d tell her not to leave.
She was praying that maybe Jake would
come up with a way to salvage the situation.
Even if it meant more
punishment—she’d gladly have taken whatever he wanted to give her, if
only they could stay together.
“Yeah, I think you’re probably right,”
Jake replied.
“This doesn’t seem to
be working out, does it?”
Raven wanted to take it all back, rewind
the tape,
explain
things better.
She wanted to tell him everything, but
now it was too late.
She’d been
afraid to deal with her past, she’d kept putting things off, and so her past
had come back to bite her once again.
***
Back at the hotel a few hours later,
things only got worse.
Raven was in Skylar’s hotel room.
Sky’s parents were in their own suite,
so it was just Raven with her now.
“I met with the doctor this morning,”
Skylar said almost immediately after Raven entered.
“It’s cancer.”
Raven swallowed, her eyes welling
up.
“What else did the doctor say?”
Skylar shrugged.
“She said that based on the size of the
mass, they don’t feel comfortable doing surgery.
They want to schedule me for chemo and
radiation as soon as possible.”
“Oh, Sky, I’m so sorry,” Raven said, and
hugged her.
For the moment, all
thoughts of Jake and the disintegration of their relationship were pushed to
the back burner.
“I’m okay.
I knew this was coming.”
Skylar broke away from Raven and sat
down on the couch, curling her feet up next to her.
She held a pillow across her chest.
“What hospital are you going to go for
your treatment?” Raven asked her.
“I don’t know,” Skylar told her.
She looked disturbed for the first time,
her brow furrowing.
“Of course I’d
rather be in Boston, near my apartment.
I miss my kitty.
I want to
be home.”
“Then we should get you home,” Raven said
firmly.
“It’s not that simple.
Treatment’s going to cost a lot of
money, and I’m not sure what—if anything—will even be
covered.”
“We’ll figure something out.”
Raven crossed the room and sat down in
front of the couch, on the floor, grabbing her friend’s hand.
“We’re in this together, Sky.
I’m going to be with you every step of
the way.”
“I can’t ask you to do that,” Skylar
said, her jaw trembling a little.
“You don’t have to ask me.”
They both fell silent, smiling at one another
ever so slightly, acknowledging the fact that they loved one another without
having to say it.
And then came a knock at the door.
“Probably my parents,” Skylar
sighed.
“I told them I needed to
take a nap, but they’re worried.”