Page 9 of Second Chances (Passion and Perseverance #2)

Chapter Five

Beth woke to the sound of her alarm starting to go off. Grabbing her phone, she snoozed the offending noise, looking at the clock to confirm that it was seven in the morning.

Wow, was she sore – sore and sated.

Her whole body felt like jello, topping off one of the best nights of sleep that she’d had in a long time. It was weird, she couldn’t even remember setting her alarm…

Darcy.

She knew he wasn’t still in bed with her otherwise he would have been wrapped around her.

That was the one thing she had noticed over the past few nights: if he was still in bed when she woke up, he was holding her somehow; she loved it.

Half-rolling over just to be certain, she found his side of the bed made, with no signs of its previous inhabitant.

Muscles protesting, she sat up against the headboard and opened up her phone, turning off her alarm and checking her email.

Deciding on a nice hot shower to relax her before work, she went to set her phone down on the nightstand again and realized that there was a note waiting for her.

Classic Darcy, she thought, smiling to herself a little.

She picked up the piece of stationary and crossed her legs to sit Indian-style, resting her elbows on her knees, and began to read:

Beth,

I hope your alarm woke you up for the right time. I’ve had breakfast sent up for you - I’d hate to see you be late to work again.

Yours,

Mr. Intolerable

She smirked at his playful tone. Today, he would be the reason she made it to work on time - the complete opposite of yesterday. Her stomach grumbled, drawing her attention to the other small piece of information in his brief message: breakfast was waiting .

Climbing out of bed, she pulled on her t-shirt and made her way out of the bedroom.

She was about to turn and walk to the kitchen when she saw the breakfast tray sitting in the living room by the couch.

She smiled and bit her lip - he knew she loved to watch the city in the morning.

She sat down on the couch, pulled the lid off of her plate and browsed over her breakfast; it looked like an egg white omelet, whole wheat toast, and a bowl of yogurt and fresh fruit.

She went to pick up the fork and noticed another small piece of folded paper:

I didn’t think the fruit was as tasty as what I sampled last night.

Eat it all, you need the calories.

Darcy

Even as her eyes rolled at his characteristic bossiness, her face flushed at his first statement, remembering what had happened between them in the dining room.

God, it had been incredible.

Looking back, she almost couldn’t believe that it was her.

If she wasn’t still feeling the after-effects, she probably wouldn’t have.

She jumped as her phone buzzed on the table, startling her from her recollections.

She set down the note and picked up her fork, taking a huge bite of the omelet.

Grabbing her phone with her spare hand, she unlocked it since the text was from Anne.

~ Hey, how is everything going with D? Anne asked.

- Good! For the most part. Just trying to make things work.

~Oh, good. Just checking. I have no news on the mom-front; I know that Phil is working with us now but I have no idea what she is scheming up next; I’m trying to keep her busy.

- Ok, well I’ll just take it a day at a time.

~Good luck!

- Thanks! Hey, I have a weird question, actually.

~Shoot.

- I know you’ve known Darcy for a long time. Did you know he was in a relationship for several years?

~Yes. I’ll call you later though - can’t talk !

Interesting. Beth looked down at the plate and realized that she had eaten all of the food on it. Covering it back up, she went back into the bathroom to shower, wondering how much Anne knew about Darcy’s past.

Turning the water on hot, she stripped down - momentarily freaking out when she thought her upper inner thighs were bruised; turned out it was just from the blueberries.

Stepping into the stream of water she relived their conversation last night.

She wasn’t too surprised by how his father had raised him; she had initially assumed that that was the sole reason for why he responded to her and treated her the way that he did.

To learn that it was because of another woman, that had shaken her, especially when he said it was a woman he thought he loved.

She couldn’t understand how anyone could treat another person the way he had been treated; not that she understood a lot of peoples’ actions these days, but still.

To be so young, in your first ‘serious’ relationship, and to have the other person constantly breaking you down, forcing you to bury your emotions and be a controlling sex machine all the time; it was abuse, there was no other word for it.

How could he have stayed with her? S he wondered.

Although it was pretty common for victims to want to stay with their abusers, especially in this case where the abuser made Darcy constantly feel and act like he was in control when the reality was that he wasn’t.

She couldn’t imagine the type of damage that could do to your mind, even after seeing only some of the repercussions.

Looking back, she saw all of their previous encounters in a new light; everything that Darcy had said and everything that he had done.

Every time he had acted on his desire for her in such a dominating and controlling way was because that was how he had been trained to respond to his sexual urges, how he had been trained to believe that that was the right thing to do, and how he had been emotionally punished until that response was instinct for him. What a bitch.

I wonder who she is .

He would never tell her. She assumed that and he probably was right not to; it was in the past and Beth wasn’t sure what she would do if she learned the woman’s name.

She sighed as she turned off the water. She still had so many questions: has he seen her since she left?

What about the other women he as dated and/or slept with since then?

How have they handled this? Has he talked to anyone about this?

Who else knows what happened with this woman?

The thoughts were endless - a small part of her wished she could have just accepted the way things were without opening this can of worms.

She dried off in front of the mirror. I wonder what she looks like - the thought came unbidden to her mind. Throwing her towel onto the floor, she stalked into the closet to get dressed and get to work ASAP; she needed to focus her mind on something else or she was going to go crazy.

Going through the motions, she was out of the door in another 20 minutes with her hair only still slightly damp.

Even with stopping next door for her usual coffee, Beth made it to her office half an hour early.

It wasn’t the best scenario for her inquisitive mind, but it was better than being in Darcy’s apartment, where everything reminded her of him.

Opening up her computer, she just managed to click on her email when her phone started to ring.

Anne.

Great - so much for not thinking about Darcy and his abusive ex. Deep down, she was thrilled to see Anne’s name because she was too curious for her own good.

“Hey, thanks for calling,” Beth answered.

“Of course! Sorry, I couldn’t chat earlier. I was at my mom’s place and knowing her, the whole building is probably bugged so I figured it was better for me to wait and call you.”

“I wouldn’t put it past her. I won’t keep you, I was just wondering what you knew about Darcy’s ex-girlfriend, if anything?” Beth asked, trying to seem nonchalant. She didn’t want to reveal everything that Darcy had told her because it was obviously very private and not her information to share .

“I don’t know too much. I mean, I’ve known him for a long time, Beth, but I don’t actually know that much about his life.

We’re close friends but only because of having to deal with our parents, and now mostly my mom and her expectations,” Anne began.

“I know he was seeing someone for a while but he never told me who it was, so that I can’t tell you. ”

“That’s ok, I probably shouldn’t know that anyway,” Beth admitted.

“A few weeks into their relationship, he started to tell me a little about her, and he seemed like he had really fallen for someone. Not long after that though, he started to change. Some days when I saw or talked to him, he would be on top of the world, other days, he seemed almost depressed. I heard him one time on the phone with her; he kept asking where she was, telling her, begging her to come home. When I asked him about it, he just brushed me off and said that he had everything under control, but he was visibly shaken. I don’t know what was going on, but it only got worse.

Darcy became more distant from everyone and even the mood swings disappeared, but what replaced them was just a cold callousness.

It was like he switched off his emotions or something,” Anne surmised.

“I see,” Beth acknowledged her, processing how Anne’s description fit in with what Darcy had told her of this woman.

“Like I said, I don’t know who she was. Sometimes I remember having the impression that she was someone that I knew, someone who was in our social circle, but I never saw her or heard him say her name.

Whoever she was, she did a number on him though.

I mean, if I happened to catch him on one of those bad days, he was a whole different person.

Even his other friends, like Charles, noticed but he pushed us all away.

I don’t know if he realized he was doing it or she was forcing him to do it, but aside from that relationship, his other ones faded almost into nothing during that time. ”

“Wow, so he really shut himself out of the world while he was with her,” Beth responded, thinking out loud.