“I’m telling you this for the last time. Stay away from him, or everything I’ve said will become a reality. Do you understand me?”
I understand you’re a cruel human being. I understand just how little you really care about me. I understand you’ll do whatever it takes to get what you want, even if it means your only daughter suffers in the process.
“Yes. I understand. Are we finished here?”
I push myself up from the chair in front of her desk without waiting for a reply. I turn and walk away, ignoring her when she says my name as I keep moving right out the door of her office, down the hall into the foyer, and out the front door.
A few hours later, as I stand in the living room of the guest house staring over at the stables, my mother’s words won’t stop ringing in my ears.
Meredith has been sitting on the couch ever since I walked through the door, grilling me about what happened when she found me in the office and I’ve tried to brush it off, but she’s not buying it. She’s not buying anything I’ve tried to explain away to her since she’s been here.
“I don’t understand why you won’t just talk to me, Shelby,” she tells me softly as I turn from the window and look over my shoulder at her.
How can I explain anything to her when she’ll never understand? She never liked Eli all that much when we were together and happy, and she definitely didn’t like him after he left me that note and I had the accident. Trying to explain to her that I’ve stayed here in Charleston, never moving forward because of him and the debt owed to my mother, will never fly. She’d want me to pack up all my things and on the next plane out of here, not because she’s controlling like my mother, but because she loves me and would lose her mind knowing all the things I did to protect a man who hurt me.
“There’s nothing to talk about, Mer. It’s just hard seeing him again when I thought he was gone,” I explain, looking away from her and back out the window so I don’t have to see the sadness on her face and she won’t see the lies on mine.
I didn’t tell her about the kiss and I didn’t tell her about the things he said to me, but I didn’t need to. Meredith could always tell my state of mind just by looking at me. Being curled up on the floor of the office with red, puffy eyes was a dead giveaway that my state of mind was not good. Coming back here to the guest house after listening to a lecture from my mother, to find her waiting up for me on the couch, was even worse. On top of all of this, I’ve been hit with an onslaught of guilt after that kiss with Eli. I know I didn’t instigate it, but I also did nothing to stop it. I lost myself in that kiss, I craved it, and I needed more, knowing full well that I had a boyfriend waiting for me back in the ballroom. A man who loves me in spite of my not being able to return his feelings fully, one who is always there for me and has never broken my heart.
“Is he really worth all of this?” she whispers. “Is he really worth your happiness?”
I try not to jerk in surprise at her words. I’ve never come right out and told her my reasons for working for my mother and her hundreds of charities, for starting a relationship with Landry when I kept him at arm’s length for so many years. But Meredith is my best friend and she knows there’s a reason I suddenly changed my tune on everything I believed in and fought against for most of my life. I know I’m a horrible person for not confiding in her, but I don’t know what else to do. How do I tell her I gave up my life for a man who threw me away, just because I know, deep down, he’s not a bad person? How do I explain to her that I’m doing everything I’m told for a woman I despise?
I hear Meredith push herself up from the couch and walk across the hardwood floor until she’s standing right next to me as I stare off into the distance at the stables.
“I know you loved him and I know you feel like you lost everything after the accident, but you didn’t, Shelby. You could have still come to New York. I would have done everything I could to help you find another way to be happy so it didn’t come to this,” she tells me softly, bumping her shoulder into mine.
I love her for caring about me so much but it kills me at the same time that I can’t be honest with her. Meredith is a pit bull and she’s protective of me. If she knew the things my mother has threatened me with, the things she’s threatened Eli’s family with, she’d march out of this house and chew my mother a new asshole. She’d call her father even though she can’t stand him and she’d chew his ass out for his association with my mother. She’d never be able to keep quiet about something like this and it would ruin everything. My mother would make sure it would ruin everything and then where would I be? I would have sacrificed five years of my life for nothing. She’d ruin Eli and she’d ruin his family and it would all be for nothing.
“You know New York would have never worked if I couldn’t dance.”
Meredith scoffs and I turn to see her shaking her head.
“You’re the only person who thinks you can’t dance. When was the last time you tried?” she asks.
“Seriously? I have pins and screws in my bones and half of my thigh is missing. How exactly do you think I’d try?” I fire back, trying to keep the anger out of my voice.
We’ve had this argument a number of times over the years. She always refused to believe the doctors when they told me I’d never dance again. She always blamed my mother and thought she had something to do with this, but that’s one thing I know for sure she didn’t touch. I’ve seen the x-rays, I have copies of the MRIs, and I’ve met with enough specialists and physical therapists over the years that I know it’s impossible. Barely a day goes by without my leg hurting in some way and that’s just with me walking around doing office work. I’d never be able to withstand the grueling work of a professional dancer. Meredith knows this and I’m so tired of fighting about it.
I’m so tired of keeping everything inside. I’m so tired of not being able to scream and cry and rage at the unfairness of everything. I’m so tired of being this person who just doesn’t care about anything, and after what happened tonight and Meredith’s insistence that I talk, I’m finding it harder and harder to keep everything bottled up inside.