As he walks out of the office, whistling to himself like he doesn’t have a care in the world, I hope and I wish and I pray that Shelby will find the strength I know she possesses to see through this man and what he’s done.
And to someday forgive me for the part I played in all of this.
Chapter 27
Shelby
December 30, 2010
Shelby,
It kills me that I haven’t heard from you. I have no idea if you’re reading these letters and hating me even more, or just throwing them away without looking at them. I don’t want to bother you anymore, so this is the last one I’m going to write. The hardest one I’m going to write, which is why I kept it for last. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I should have been a stronger man and I’ll always regret that I wasn’t. I love you, Shelby. Only you. Always you.
I’d been on edge since you left for the airport for your audition. I knew you’d only be gone overnight and I’d see you again tomorrow, but I still couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling I had when we said good-bye and I watched you walk away.
That nervous feeling became full-blown fear, anger, and panic, settling like a rock in the pit of my stomach when I got back to my apartment and opened up an envelope that had arrived in the mail with no name or return address.
I acted without thinking. I scanned it and e-mailed it to your mother with a threat for her to come clean before I went to the authorities, and quietly seethed in my living room until I got a reply, a few hours after I’d sent it.
Twenty minutes later I was walking into your mother’s office at the plantation, being led through the sprawling home by a staff member, stepping foot over the threshold of a house I was more than welcome to work at, but never good enough to enter.
She dismissed the staff member with a terse nod, walked out from behind her desk and across the room towards me. I held my ground and crossed my arms over my chest, feeling confident that I had the upper hand with this woman who’d ruined my life, my sister’s life, and had done everything she could to make you miserable and afraid of her.
Your mother didn’t speak until she’d slammed the door of the office closed and turned to face me.
“How dare you threaten me,” she seethed.
“How dare I?” I fired back, dropping my arms and taking a step towards her. “How dare YOU. Tell me, just how many dicks did you have to suck to make it all go away?”
Her hand cracked against my cheek before I’d barely gotten the last word out. I’d never wanted to hurt a woman before, but it took everything in me not to wrap my hands around her neck and choke the life out of her for what she’d done to my family. For the pain she’d caused and the hours and weeks and years we’d spent hating the wrong people.
She stared at my face with an open mouth and wide eyes, and for one second, I could almost imagine I saw guilt and shame in her green eyes, the same color as yours, but completely void of your same light and hope and happiness.
“You have no idea what you’ve done by sending that e-mail. No idea what problems you’ve caused by not leaving this alone,” she threatened.
She stalked away from me and went back behind the comfort of her desk, putting distance between us like she instinctively knew my hands were clenched into fists at my sides because it was the only thing that stopped me from hitting her back.
“Your unit’s deployment has been bumped up. You’ll be leaving tonight, as soon as you pack your things and get your affairs in order.”
The blood drains from my face when she speaks in a monotone voice, so cold and uncaring, like she’s reciting the facts to a math problem instead of ruining my life all over again.
“Bullshit,” I muttered.
I knew it was only a matter of time before our unit’s turn to go to war, but we’d been briefed countless times and reassured we had at least a year before that could be a possibility. Plenty of time for you and I to get settled in New York, for me to put a ring on your finger and officially make you mine before I had to leave you temporarily. There’s no way in hell Georgia Eubanks, no matter how much money she had, could make something like that happen so quickly. No fucking way.
“Go ahead and check your e-mail, Mr. James. You’ll find a message from the military confirming what I just told you.”
With shaking hands, I pulled my phone out of my back pocket and opened the e-mail app. Nausea filled my mouth with spit and made me break out in a cold sweat when I saw the e-mail with my orders.
“You need to get out of my daughter’s life and you need to get out now. If you want Shelby to have her silly dreams of being a dancer and your sister to finish college and have a secure future, you will leave and never look back.”
My head whips up from my phone, the sickness rushing through me immediately exchanged for anger once again.
“Are you seriously threatening me right now? Threatening your own fucking daughter? MY SISTER?” I shouted.
“You won’t call Shelby, you won’t text Shelby, and you won’t see her again,” she orders, like I hadn’t even spoken. “You will leave her a note, saying whatever you have to to get her to let go of you and move on and you will forget about everything you saw in that report you so foolishly e-mailed to me. If you don’t, everything I said will become a reality, and I know you don’t want that for anyone. Make the right choice, Mr. James. I tried…my hands are tied…you have no idea what you’ve done…”
With those final words, she sat down in her chair, lifted up the receiver of her phone, pressed a few buttons, and turned her back on me.
I’d come in here so angry and so sure of the outcome, and in just a few minutes Georgia Eubanks had slid the rug right out from under me.
Feeling like I had no other options, not if I wanted to protect everyone I loved, I made the only choice I could, not even realizing it would be the worst decision I’d ever made.
In one final act of defiance, I grabbed a large, expensive-looking vase from a side table by the door, turned, and hurled it across the room. The only satisfaction I got from that was the wide, scared look on your mother’s face when she whipped her chair around as soon as it shattered against the wall by her head.
I’m sorry, Shelby. I’m so sorry. I wish all of these words weren’t true. I wish I could take them back and make it so none of this ever happened, so that I was a stronger man and never walked away from you, but I can’t. I’m sorry.
—Eli
With my hands clutching tightly to the ballet barre attached to the mirrors that ran the length of the studio wall, I bowed my head and tried not to scream.