Page 28 of Second Chances (Passion and Perseverance #2)

Chapter Fourteen

As soon as the Uber driver closed the car door behind them, Beth’s phone started to buzz again; she knew who to expect was the caller this time.

Beth desperately tried to hit the ‘decline call’ button as tears clouded her vision.

Now that she was alone with Jane, the mask that she had been fighting to maintain began to quickly crumble around her.

Guess she hadn’t learned all that much from Mr. Intolerable after all.

Angrily wiping the tears from her face, she opened up the text messages from him to reply.

- Please leave me alone.

She hit send before she could begin to second guess herself. Her phone buzzed back immediate with his reply.

~ I’m sorry. I love you.

So now he was sorry? Now? Not hours ago?

Not sorry enough to even leave a voicemail apology.

She wished that saying you’re ‘sorry’ just magically fixed everything, but it doesn’t, and neither does ‘I love you’.

No, she needed some space, some time to cool off and decide what she was going to do, how much she was willing to compromise on.

- I need some space. Please.

Her anger softened as she thought about how he was probably suffering, too; even though he deserved it, it still hurt her to know that he was hurting. Beth quickly turned her phone off.

God, I’m a mess.

She was so overwhelmed with all of her emotions, many of which conflicted with one another.

She wiped her face again as the tears she wasn’t able to control kept falling.

She didn’t even know where to start to tell Jane, who, God bless her, was just sitting quietly patient as Beth tried to figure out what to say .

They finally arrived at the apartment; making their way upstairs, Beth opened the door to what felt like a previous life.

Just like her parent’s house, the apartment she had shared with Jane felt foreign to her; it no longer felt like her home.

It wasn’t that things inside it had changed, but things inside her had; specifically, the thing in her chest that felt like it was being crushed at the moment.

A wave of sadness crept over her, completely different from all her emotions tied up with Darcy, a sadness at feeling like a guest in what used to be her home. Beth froze a few steps into the apartment.

“Are you ok?” Jane asked from behind her.

Beth’s throat was thick as she stared blankly at the two giant bouquets of what had to be fifty roses sitting on the kitchen counter. Unable to hold them back any longer, tears washed down her cheeks in torrents and a sob escaped her.

“Oh, hun,” Jane said, turning her around to hug and comfort her.

Jane slowly maneuvered her into the living room and onto the couch, holding her until the body-wracking sobs subsided.

When Beth had finally calmed down enough to breathe steadily, Jane left her with the tissues to go make them some tea.

Beth watched as Jane carefully moved the roses off the counter and out of sight for now.

How he knew she would be here and how he got them in here were the least of her concerns right now.

Returning with their tea and some Milano cookies to snack on, Jane sat next to her sister and waited patiently for Beth to open up to her.

“I’m so sorry, Jane,” Beth began, “I feel like I’ve ruined such a special day for you.” Her tears began to fall faster now, thinking about what a horrible sister she must me.

“Oh, Beth, how could you say that?” Jane exclaimed.

“Of course you didn’t ruin my day. You know these things don’t mean that much to me, I’m just glad you could be there with me, but more importantly, that I can be here for you now.

You’re always the strong one, Beth, it’s ok to be hurting; it’s ok to unload on me.

I can’t even count how many times I’ve done the same to you over our lifetime. ”

“I know, I just…” She had to pause to blow her nose.

“God, I’m a mess, Jane. I don’t know what to do.

I feel like I’m in over my head, like maybe I’ve made a mistake.

I don't understand how people do this - be in a relationship with someone. What if I’m not cut out for it?

What if Darcy and I aren’t meant to be? Or what if we are and I’m just giving up too easily?

” Beth rambled on, thought after thought, fear after fear.

“Woah, woah… just slow down for a minute. Take a deep breath and just tell me what happened and we’ll go from there,” Jane suggested softly, trying to prevent Beth from getting all worked up again.

Beth nodded shakily as she began to tell Jane what had happened earlier that day. As she spoke, she relived those moments leading up to her walking out on Darcy, trying to process every detail, every word that was said, trying to find some sort of clue or explanation for what had set him off.

Without getting into detail about how the woman had used Darcy’s feelings for her to turn him into her sex-slave, Beth had to tell Jane about the emotional trauma he endured, being repetitively abandoned, and then, when she was there, always being forced to remain in a constant state of controlled performance.

Beth could tell that she had shocked Jane even with the most basic facts about Darcy’s past, even though Jane tried to hide it well.

“Oh my God, Beth, that is terrible,” Jane murmured. “How could someone do that to another person, especially to someone that you are in a relationship with?”

Jane always saw the best, assumed the best of everyone; as much as Beth had been shocked about it when Darcy had told her, she knew just how much more difficult it would be for Jane to comprehend that people actually hurt people in this way.

“Am I missing something, Jane?” Beth asked, redirecting her sister back to the present. “I know you only know the bare-bones of what’s going on, but did I do something or say something that would put him on the offensive like that? What could I have done to flip that control switch on? ”

“Well, you obviously didn’t do anything intentionally, or even something outright that was just misinterpreted,” Jane mused, “Could it have been one of us?”

“I don’t see how he, or anyone, could have a problem with you which leaves either mom or Caro.

I don’t know that much about Caro but I’ve never heard him mention her, good or bad, even when Charles has brought her up on occasion.

I mean, Charles is his best friend, I can’t see him hating his best friend’s sister and not saying something to me about it, especially when you are marrying said best friend.

I guess she is a remote possibility, but out of the two, I feel like mom is the more likely culprit…

” Beth trailed off, considering the possibility.

“What has mom done though? Aside from being herself…”

“True, I don’t remember Charles ever saying that there was any animosity between his sister and Darcy, not that she’s been around very much for the past several years.

And mom, well, unless he thought that you might say something to her about the two of you?

I don’t know why that would matter. Ok, so maybe it wasn’t us,” Jane concluded.

“Was he stressed about anything else unrelated? Maybe it was just an outlet, you know, how sometimes you get so stressed out about one thing and then something completely, normally harmless, happens and you react disproportionally.”

“Well…” Beth started, biting her lip. Shit. With a deep sigh, she heaved into the events of the previous night, being forced to leave her event, only to find out that Darcy had run into his ex-girlfriend there.

“Oh dear, poor Darcy,” Jane whispered, as Beth finished explaining what had happened.

“I mean, of course, what he did was wrong, but do you think it could be because of the stress of seeing her again? Or of wondering what she might try to do to him or to you? I can’t imagine coming face to face with someone who had abused me like that, fully expecting to never have to see them again. ”

“I didn’t think about that,” Beth began, “but we talked about it the night before, and that morning. I agreed to let his security people follow me around and make sure that I’m ok.” Her justification sounded weak even to her ears .

“I know, I’m just trying to look at it from his perspective because I understand yours; we just don’t understand his,” Jane said, giving her hand a reassuring squeeze.

“Now, just because you talked about it and he said that he had a plan to keep everything under control, do you think that makes the stress of the situation go away? Think about a few months ago when you were stressed out about not knowing what was happening or was going to happen between you and Darcy. Even when you decided that there was nothing between you, after Darcy left with Charles, did that make your stress go away completely? Were you completely free of worrying about or thinking about Darcy while you were at work or at home? I mean, I saw you; I know that you weren’t ok.

Stress and fear make it easy to give in to our worst qualities. ”

“I guess, I didn’t even think about that,” Beth said in awe. It wasn’t a pass for what he had done but she certainly hadn’t stopped to consider the emotional stress he was under knowing that his abusive ex was not only back in town, but back with the express purpose of seeing him.