Someone I Used to Know

chapter Twenty-One

Adley


“Seriously, Hannah!” I barked with real anger, climbing back to my feet from where I’d just hit the ground. My volume was quite a few decimals higher than necessary for my dorm mate, who was just a couple feet away, but near decapitation by stiletto boot will do that to you.

“What?” Her big brown eyes blinked up at me innocently, honestly perplexed by my irritation.

I let out a sharp exhale though my nose. It was unable to escape through my clenched teeth.

I would have had more respect for her if she had been faking her ignorant act, but unfortunately, Hannah really was that clueless.

Finally, I relaxed my jaw and sighed as I retrieved the flying shoe and tossed it back to her florally-inspired side of the room. Deep down I knew I really wasn’t angry at her. It was the Christmas holiday in general that was causing my sourness, and Hannah in her childish snowman sweater, was just an easy target.

“Sorry everything’s a mess,” she apologized, placing the boot in the no-pile.

She wasn’t wrong. A semester’s worth of possessions – hers and mine – were strewn about the room: bras draped off light fixtures; clothes lining the floor as thick as carpet, disguising the linoleum floor; stacks of used, frayed, over-highlighted books hidden in the rubble like booby-traps waiting on us to stub our toes on. The closet, all the while, was clean, stripped bare of its proper possessions.

“I’m sure you’ll be happy to have me out of your hair and the room to yourself for a while.”

Usually she would have been right, but her impending departure loomed over me like a dark storm cloud. For the first time, in a very long time, I didn’t want to be alone. The holidays had never felt so large, so heavy, so unmanageable before.

I did have another option. Cam had sent me a plane ticket home and a pass to the Hollywood premier of The Girl in the Yellow Dress. It was one of the four invitations to the premier I’d received. I hadn’t been terribly surprised by the predictably courteous one from the studio, or the one from Madeline, but Georgia’s kind, hand-written invitation had been a little out of the blue.

I kept them all in a neat pile on the right side of my underwear drawer. Sometimes, I’d forget they were there, and I’d just stand there, staring at my opportunity to escape the North Carolina weather and my loneliness. I couldn’t do it though; I couldn’t see him.

In the few weeks since I’d seen Madeline, Fran, and Alfred, the rumors had turned from a possible relationship brewing between the movie’s leads, to sparks flying with his dialogue coach. I remembered Fran mentioning he liked giving her a hard time. The situation seemed all too familiar. He’d liked teasing me in the beginning, too.

Maybe, I’d been right about his affections all along.

“Um, why do you have the first chapter of The Girl in the Yellow Dress sealed in an envelope?” Hannah poked her head up from a messy pile. She held the thick stack of folded papers in her hands. The envelope laid discarded, torn open, on the floor beside her, and I could still make out the smudged ‘Just read it’ scrawled on the top.

“Wait, you’ve read the book?” My mind tripped over the revelation.

“Duh,” she said, rolling both her eyes and a strand of curly blonde hair. “Who hasn’t?”

“You’ve just never said anything,” I stuttered, baffled by her blasé attitude. Most people aware they were sharing a roof with someone who’d had an international bestseller written about them might be inclined to mention it. Hannah had never given a single indication she’d known anything about my past.

Her vacant stare settled on me blankly. “Why would I tell you that I’d read some book? Are you like in a book club or something?”

My eyes widened. She couldn’t be serious, could she? I studied her a minute longer. Yep, she was dead serious. Hannah didn’t have a clue that I had anything to do with the book. If I wasn’t so happy to avoid having to fill her in, I would have been offended for blondes everywhere, including myself.

I shook my head, trying to clear it of any air-headedness that might be floating about, contagious, and fought my way back to the original point of the conversation.

She stood, shaking off debris, and came towards me, clutching the papers. My eyes zeroed in on her hands.

Why had Declan sent me pages from Cam’s book?

“Just read it,” his message had instructed. But what could he possibly have to tell me using someone else’s words?

Hannah was carrying a bomb; I was sure of it. That envelope was never supposed to be opened. I was a deer standing frozen in the headlights of their doom.

She stubbed her toe on some unseen obstacle and stumbled the rest of the way to me. Cursing, she thrust the sheets into my unwilling hands, so she could sprawl across my bed, clutching her foot as she howled.

I wanted to drop them – to throw them away. I knew that once I saw Declan’s message hidden in Cam’s words, that I could never un-see it. More than anything, I wanted to hold onto my ignorance, but against my will, my eyes turned to the page, and I read.

To the girl in the yellow dress,

I remember the first time I saw you. You were incomparably beautiful – the perfect nose, perfect smile, perfect pouting, pink lips – but even your perfection could not explain what made you truly exquisite.

I coveted you instantly, in your shining yellow dress –

But you were not mine to keep.

I wish love was enough. I could love you until there was nothing of me left, until I was reduced to nothing more than pencil shavings and old scraps of paper. You deserve more than that though.

My sweet, beautiful daughter, in your sunflower, yellow dress, one day I hope you’ll understand.

As I stare down at you, I know the truth. I see you swathed in happiness, bathed in the love of your parents, and I know this is right. This is where you’re supposed to be. This is your home, just another thing I cannot give you.

There is one thing I can give you though, something that is already yours, even if you don’t know it.

There is someone you deserve to know. I can already see so much of her in you. She’s in the sharpness of your eyes and the gentle sigh of your breath.

She was a ballerina, and sometimes when she danced, I forgot to breathe. She had all the wrong kinds of strength, and the kind of beauty she always forgot to appreciate. She was smart and funny, if you knew the right way to look at her jokes. She loved sleeping late and being right. She loved the beach at night; candy that turned her mouth red; and her family…

But most of all, more than anything else in the world, she loved you.

Her name was Adley Adair, and she was your mother.

Little girl in the yellow dress, this is the story of how much she loved you.

I wasn’t the girl in the yellow dress. I never had been.

The truth had been there all along. What sweet irony that I’d spent so much time thinking the world didn’t know anything about me at all, when they’d known the story better than myself.

Cam had seen her, touched her; maybe, even held her. He’d broken his promise. Jealousy burned like sandpaper against my raw skin. He had the strength to walk away.

I’d been wrong.

I let the knowledge wash over. I was wrong.

I waited for it to bite me, to sting me with shame…

But all I felt was exhilaration, freedom; the texture of air exploding in my lungs. It was relief. It felt like I’d been holding my breath for years, weighed down underwater by the pressure tied to my feet. For the first time since I’d found out I was pregnant, I could breathe again.

Cam had made his own decision. He did what he had to do, whether it was for the best or would cause him pain. He had honored our daughter, not by achieving his dreams, but by allowing the past to become a part of him. All I had done was wallow inside an unmoving bubble for three years.

Cam’s words, hidden in plain sight all this time, and the truth stored within them, had come from Declan. Even without speaking a word, thousands of miles away, he could still make me come back to him.

It wasn’t my turn to make decisions anymore. I’d lost all credibility. It was my turn to feel, to act…to go home.