Page 31 of Secrets That Bind Us

Verity

Present Day

Coffee… coffee… motherfucking COFFEE.

The mounds of coffee that arrived at the unfinished bookshop– which we’ve decided to name The Ink Plot Bistro– are staggering.

Fourteen boxes of nothing but different samples of coffee are stacked so high I’m afraid to walk beside them in case one of them falls and then I’m crushed to death by a fifty-pound box of coffee to the head.

Tarps are still up. Thankfully, the floors are finished but-

“Yellow?”

“Do not yellow me, Zo. There are fourteen fifty-pound boxes of coffee samples that were just delivered.”

“Oopsies.”

“Zoey! How are we going to try-“ I look at the list I was given, “Ninety-eight coffee samples?”

“By pulling all-nighters for a week straight.” She replies dryly but I’m very sure she’s serious.

“Zoey! You are very close to being murdered.” I whisper-scream into the phone.

I can hear the way she holds back a laugh by the way her voice trembles, and it’s strained. “It’ll be alright, okay? We can… we can go to every farmer’s market from… this weekend until opening and give out samples and keep a tally. The one that has the most is the one we’ll carry in-house.”

My face drops and I can feel my blood rush down to my toes.

“Has it occurred to you that maybe I can’t go every weekend to the fucking farmer’s market when I have a deadline, your wedding, the bookshop, I’m getting the barn ready for the wedding, Savannah hates me, Noah’s being weird, and I-I-I- oh my God, I can’t fucking breathe.

Oh, fuck, I can’t breathe!” I try to inhale, but my lungs feel frozen– constricted and barely contracting. God this hurts.

“Shit. Verity. I’m sorry. I didn’t think. Okay, uhm, breathe .”

I roll my eyes, ignoring her, trying to avoid my very semi-public panic attack– in front of Will and his crew. Oh God, not here. Not in front of them, please. I lift my arms over my head, trying to expand my lungs as my cheeks go numb and tears well into my eyes. I blink them back rapidly.

“I was already on my way. I’ll be there in five.”

Zoey finds me on a chair that Will brought in for me from the dumpster outside to sit on after he called the paramedics who told me I had a panic attack after I told them that sometimes I have anxiety attacks.

Go figure.

While sitting on “the cleanest” chair from the dumpster is gross, I’m grateful. I can’t look at her right now. I’m fucking mortified. So no, I can’t look at anyone, really. Not while my cheeks are barely getting their feeling back.

“I really am sorry. I was just so excited.”

The thing about being friends with someone for almost twenty years?

It’s hard to stay mad at them because you know how they are.

So I know she was just excited. Her spontaneity when we were kids helped me get out of my shell in so many ways.

There were times when I was in New York and facing something where I would just have to ask myself, WWZD?

But sometimes, there was a price to pay for her spontaneity and I was often the one who had to pay out of pocket for it.

So, I nod. Just nod at the ground while staring at her… Crocs? “What… in the motherfuck… are those?” I rasp out.

“You can’t look at me, but you can judge my shoes?”

I glare up at her. “They’re hideous. Oh my god, Evan did this to you, didn’t he? They’re like those sweaty Jelly shoes you made me buy in 2007.”

She laughs.

I tilt my head. “Zoey, if he’s torturing you-“

“I’m not pulling out of this wedding again.” She assures me.“Besides, he’s pretty good at torture. Of the sexual variety.”

I ignore that comment, not wanting to think of Evan as a sexual anything. “Well, they do say the third time’s the charm.”

She sighs and wraps her arms around me, rubbing my back in soothing circles. “Are you okay, Ver?”

I lean into her, feeling the tears springing to my eyes again. “Savannah said she hated me. Blamed me for Micah leaving. Said the ‘F’ word three times.”

“Big words for a twelve-year-old that doesn’t pay bills.”

I snort then shake my head. Then I proceed to tell her about the break-in, Dean coming to check everything out, seeing Savannah, to which she gasps and then scolds me for keeping that from her which makes me feel shitty.

I continue with admitting I haven’t made a move to have him properly meet Sav, nor that he left his cards all over the property and my car windshield wiper and now my stomach is cramping because God, I really am a horrible fucking person.

A tearless sob chokes out of me, panic rising again.

I shove my face into my hands. “God, Zo, what am I doing here ? Why am I here? Everything was fine up there.”

“Everything was not fine up there and you know it. You’re here because the porch lights have been flashing for a long time. It was time to come home, Ver.”

“No, Zo, what am I doing here? Seriously. This is crazy. I took my kids away from the only life they’ve ever known. Micah is dead. Mama’s dead. My life isn’t here. This bookstore–“

“ I’m here.” She states roughly. I flinch and she goes back to soothing me because I still can't bring myself to look at her. I just watch dust particles dance in the sunlight and listen to the buzzing of a saw cutting into wood that’s going to be used for the children's loft area. “I’m here and I’m still your family.

I’m here and I love you. I’m here and I want you here with me because I need you here.

Dean is here. You’re alone up there, Verity.

Every time I saw you, yeah, you had more and more money, but you were alone.

Even married you were alone. If I had known Micah was gonna be such a shit I would’ve said something at the courthouse when you eloped.

But I thought, ‘He’s loved her just as long as Dean has.

They’re having a baby together. Maybe it’ll be okay. ’”

“Noah isn’t Micah’s.” I blurt my truth in a whimpered whisper and then, “I think.”

See? I’m a terrible person and an even shittier friend. I can’t look at her. My stomach is hurting so bad. I move my hands to wrap them around my middle and rock back and forth. This must be what it feels like when guilt eats you alive.

Her hand stops rubbing my back and Zoey pulls it away.

Seeming to take in the very public space we’re in.

At least some things have changed. She takes a step back and asks Will if she can borrow a few of his guys for twenty minutes to load up the coffee samples into my SUV.

Once we’re inside and in private with the AC blowing on high she glances at me from behind the steering wheel because I’m spent from my episode and still shaking. “Spill.”

I don’t want to. But I need to get this off my chest. I’ve been holding it in for so long, I feel like one day I’ll spontaneously combust. Maybe that’s happening right now and I just don’t know what the symptoms are to look for it. “Remember your second engagement party?”

“The costume party?” She asks, stopping at the stop sign.

I dip my chin. “There was a man there. Micah and I had just had this huge fight. I had called off our engagement and kicked him out. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to spoil your day.

So, I flew down here, and we went to the venue in the hotel, and…

” I slide my fingers under my glasses and pinch the bridge of my nose, hiding my face.

“I just wanted to feel something, Zo. I wanted to know what it was like to go wild. Just once .” I fix my glasses with a sigh, looking out of the window as we pass by Noah’s school.

“When I got back to New Haven, we worked things out two weeks later… then I found out I was pregnant with Noah six weeks later.”

“Did Micah know there was a chance Noah wasn’t his?”

I nod. “I told him as soon as I found out I was pregnant. But he kept insisting we get married. I don’t know why.”

“Oh, cut the shit, Vee. You know exactly why! It’s just you and me in here so you don’t have to hide it. You don’t have to be humble and kind here just because he’s dead. That fucker would’ve run you dry if he had full access to your bank accounts and you know it.”

She’s right. I do know it. And that’s embarrassing in itself. God, I’ve made so many mistakes in this life.

“Verity… I just… I can’t believe you never told me.” The betrayal is evident in her voice, along with disbelief and anger. And I deserve that.

“I was embarrassed.” I whisper, staring out the window, my stomach doing that weird feeling I’m sure means I’m going to puke later.

I shouldn’t have had that second cup of coffee this morning.

“The first thing he asked was if it was Dean’s.

” I scoff. “When I told him it was impossible, that Dean hadn’t gone to the party, that’s when he pushed for us to get married before I started showing.

Said we'd deal with it if it turned out not to be his. He just wanted me to finally be his wife. I’m not ashamed of Noah.

I want you to understand that. I love my son with my whole heart, no matter who the father is.

He's mine. I was just embarrassed that my first one night stand ended up getting me pregnant. I was twenty-four! And we used protection!”

Zoey stops at a stop sign and turns left, heading toward the direction of the storage unit. Smart. I hadn’t even thought of that. “Look, I love Little Man, and never once did I ever think you didn’t. But you have to know, Dean was very much at the party.”

I deadpan. “No he wasn’t.”

She nods looking through the windshield, not at me. “His name is in the guest book. He signed in. He was at brunch the next morning, asking about you. Could Dean be Noah’s daddy?”

I shrug. “I didn’t see him, so I don’t think so. It was my first and only one night stand, Zo. We… you know… kept the masks on.”

She stays quiet for a moment, rolling her lips inward. “Well… was it at least good?” she smirks, turning into the parking lot.

Leave it to her to ask for the important details.