Page 38 of The Impact (Parachutes #3)

The kids weren’t due home for an hour and her curiosity killed any debate. Minutes later, Tahli was jamming that thumb drive into her computer, three attempts with quaking fingers before it fit. A roster of files popped up. The first, labeled introduction .

Sophie, the creative bitch of an ulcer.

“Hi, Tahli.”

Tahli took a slow seat at the dining room table, eyes scouring the screen, as the woman who had been a figment of her imagination because her details were so far in Tahli’s past, came to life.

Her doe eyes, heart-shaped lips, perfect hair and breasts.

All Tahli could envision was Vin drilling into Sophie on a sofa scattered with dead baby memories.

Sophie sat at a vanity, all glowing and stunning. Long, honey-blond tresses cascading down her back. Upper body modeling a white lace bra hugging her round tits like two lucky hands.

“I really do hope you get this on your birthday. If you do…Happy Birthday, sis. I know Dalvin likes to make it extra special for you.” Even her wink was sinister.

“I think last year was what? Your 35 th ? When he couldn’t make DJ’s swim meet?

You went to Greece, right? Oh, and your 34 th .

He had that um…singer that you like so much, come sing in your backyard, for like some intimate dinner by the pool,” Sophie rattled off the surplus of information she knew, wilting Tahli.

“Yeah, that one I overheard him setting up when he didn’t know I was listening.

What’s her name again? I swear you like the most boringest shit,” she slaughtered grammar.

“Oh. The Floetry chick. Yeah…that was your 34 th . I mean, what did I expect, anyway? Nobody messed with Tahli or Tahli’s holidays,” she sang in a mocking tone.

“No, we won’t ruin Tahli’s Christmas. No, it’s Tahli birthday.

I swear…I sacrifice so much for your princess ass it’s like I’m fucking you,” Sophie slurred into the camera.

“You know what, though?” Sophie rambled, moving a small glass dish in front of her. She leaned forward, and the sniffing clued Tahli to what was out of view. Sophie returned to the camera unsuccessfully wiping the white from her nostrils.

Sophie, the cokehead.

A wild look around her empty bedroom came with her next reveal. “You just missed your husband.” Sophie cracked up laughing after, and Tahli swallowed a rusty blade.

“You see this?” Sophie stretched her neck, showing off marks on her butter skin.

“He left me with this. Yo, I promise you, the whole time he was choking me, and I was sitting here thinking I’m really about to die…

I swear I looked in his eyes and I saw the devil.

I mean, your husband is a fucking trip. Do you know that?

Do you know how fucking evil he is? Like do you know what he is capable of?

Of course you don’t,” Sophie scoffed. “Because the whole time he was choking me, I’m thinking, he would never do this to his precious Tahli.

No, no, no. Not his baby love.” Sophie smirked. “Not his fucking. Pathetic. Parachute.”

Tahli was going to pass out. She felt her heart trying to punch through her skin.

“No. Dalvin likes to protect you. Which is why I know when I’m gone…there will be a different version of what happened. And your slick-ass husband is going to spoon-feed you his. Like a little baby love,” she pushed out her bottom lip mockingly, high as gas prices.

“So, I figured, why not give you a birthday gift? The gift of sight. See, I’ve had this gift the whole time, while your dumb ass lived in the dark.

It’s time to pass it to you. For twelve fucking years I watched you live the life that…

what? I wasn’t good enough for? Well, now you get to see the life I’ve been living. ”

Sophie adjusted her breasts into the camera, flinging hair back over her shoulders. Fucking with her. Tahli knew—the lingerie, the dolled-up look—Sophie was fucking with her. And it worked.

The image in her mind of Sophie lying somewhere rotting on the floor, dead, gray, and cold…was now replaced by this beauty queen with fresh marks of her husband’s presence.

Even in anger, Vin had touched her. Sophie, the mastermind.

“Happy Birthday, Tahli,” she leaned in enough to whisper, then simpered after. The screen went black. Tahli clicked out of the file.

“I don’t care… I don’t care,” she chanted, shaky hand to her mouth, holding cries at bay. But alone in this new house that still didn’t quite feel like home, lost…confused…Tahli broke.

Her face tightened in a cry, and she shrank down, resting her head on the table.

Sobs shook her body as she clamped her wet lashes to her cheeks.

Every kiss was tainted. Every declaration of love was sordid.

There was someone else in their marriage almost the entire time.

After a minute, Tahli sat up, sniffing in composure.

“Okay, bitch.” She took the bait, trembling hand clicking to the next file. “Let’s play ball.”

The next MP4 file opened to Sophie again, this time with box braids coiled in a bun. She wore the kind of hot pink sundress that made men fuck their “baby-mamas”, cradling a toddler who looked like toddler-Dali in her arms.

DJ.

In front of them sat a smash cake with Elmo holding the number “1”.

“Vin! Come on. Let’s take a picture!” Tahli’s breath hitched. People moved in and out of the frame as Tahli waited. Sophie called him three more times. Tahli hoped someone else would come, or no one would.

Then…Tahli’s husband came into view, cell phone in hand. If she had to guess, he’d just ended a call. Maybe with a lie to her.

“Hey, baby boy. Happy Birthday.” She watched Vin join Sophie at the head of the table, tickling DJ’s belly until he giggled adorably enough for people to snap photos.

More leaves of strength and roses of self-worth that her father, Vanessa, Cree, her friends, her teachers, and God had planted inside of Tahli, and had bloomed over the years—they withered.

“Look over here, DJ!” whoever was controlling the camera called out. Sounded like a young girl. The older woman next to Sophie had to be her mother.

“Hi, DJ! Hi, DJ with Mommy and Daddy,” the Camera-girl cooed, and Vin fired a glare. It was brief, but Tahli read it like The Bible. Because she knew his annoyance, even if she didn’t know him. He didn’t want to be on camera.

Tahli watched them sing Happy Birthday with soured vomit waiting in her throat. Happy Birthdaaaay to Dalvin Junior , was a knife to the heart.

The junior he always said he never wanted.

Watched her husband grin at his junior.

Watched Sophie beam at the particles of happiness she received.

Watched them celebrate the life they created. Together.

“Oh, my fucking God,” Tahli scrubbed her fingers down her face, dragging the skin from under her eyes.

She swallowed a glass of wine for the next file.

Made another vanish for the one that followed.

And then, obsessively, they became a blur.

More birthday parties and Christmas gifts.

DJ’s football games and his fifth-grade graduation.

Tahli had never been a go through the cellphone type of girl, but she imagined this sickening, detached-from-the-world feeling had to be a version of that.

Her mind prickled. Cold sweats beaded her crawling skin. Sophie had triumphed. Sophie, the champion . Tahli’s heart stacked bricks of bitterness with each betrayal. Secrets layered on top of one another. Fuck a basement. Her husband had a panic room buried inside of him.

By the time each file was opened, she was numb. A photo of Vin and Sophie with DJ, dressed up wearing a graduation cap and tassel, froze on her screen. Sophie’s smile, successfully haunting. And Vin…Tahli didn’t even recognize him. Vin, the shapeshifter.

Tahli spooned up a heap of Greek yogurt, convincing herself it was vanilla ice cream.

Sucked it slowly, imagining Vin’s dick gliding out of Sophie’s mouth.

Stupid thoughts. Ridiculous, outlandish, outrageous thoughts.

It’d been nine months since those cops dropped DJ and his dead mother onto Tahli’s doorstep in an early Christmas present, but Sophie’s birthday surprise hadn’t just picked the crust from her scab; it had infected it.

“Hey, you.”

Tahli tensed, before allowing Drew’s strong fingers to knead her shoulders.

“Damn, baby. You just tight all over, huh?”

Tahli snickered off his sexual humor, as his skilled hands took on the impossible task of working away her worries.

She hadn’t had a massage in months. Ellie had come to the house three weeks after DJ’s reveal.

She was the masseuse Vin had on a schedule, paying Tahli house visits when Tahli complained about work not allowing her me-time.

“Ellie, with all due respect, I don’t want anything from Dalvin anymore. Please go away and never come back.”

Before she could stammer out a reply, Tahli had slammed the door in her Russian face. Back when innocent bystanders were catching stray bullets from Tahli’s wrath.

“How’s that yogurt?” Drew asked, lowering his hands. “I don’t think it’s cutting it.”

He stole her spoon, rinsed it, then exchanged her yogurt for a container of Talenti gelato. Yes, he was starting to know her. Most importantly, he wanted to.

“You okay?”

“Yeah.” Tahli swallowed down much more satisfying vanilla swirl.

“Look, Tahli.” Drew pulled up a chair. “You don’t have to pretend for me. I know you’re hurting. Being with someone as long as you and Vin were, that’s not something I expect you to get over easily.”

Tahli sighed, frustrated beyond what she let on.

She didn’t want to hear Vin’s name. Didn’t want to talk about him or be in the same room as him.

For the past two months, she managed minimal contact.

Ponying up excuses of her demanding teaching schedule restarting.

He’d try to corner her into conversation, and Tahli would tango right out of that bitch.

I’m worried about you, baby love. Talk to me. What’s wrong?

His text came when he couldn’t get her face-to-face.

I’m busy, Dalvin. If I need to talk to someone, it’s not you anymore. I have people for that.

That had shut him up for two days. Then his rebuttal, still via text.

I thought we were good.

If you’re good as an individual and I’m good as an individual, then I guess we are good. The kids are good. That’s what matters. But we, as in you and I, do not exist. We can’t be good, bad, or anything.

That had shut him up ever since.

“Fifteen years is a long time.”

Tahli dropped her spoon, nauseated. Drew had experienced love with his wife.

The way he spoke of it, a real genuine kind.

The traditional kind. Not a love like Tahli and Vin’s.

How did she know? If Vin would have died in the sweet spot of their love—and like Drew, there were no children to stay strong for—Tahli would have died too. It would have obliterated her.

So he sat here, speaking on these fifteen years as if they were the foundation of her pain.

But their love hadn’t been built on time.

It began as a blaze of passion, wrapped over in connection, bonded with friendship, ignited by obsession, and strengthened by addiction.

Protected by love. There were layers to chisel away to free the old Tahli. Layers of Vin built around her.

“I’m fine.”

“I know. But I know that shit from that woman fucked you up.”

Drew and Abby were the only ones who knew. Not Paige, not Tahli’s father. Not Vin.

“Divorced or not, I know that wasn’t easy to see.

” Drew was a talker. He liked to talk things through.

“Tahli, listen…these six months since we reconnected have been the best days for me in a long time. I get off work and I can’t wait to see you.

I laugh with you. I love making love to you. Your kids are great. I’m…”

Drew shook his head. “I’m all in. Just tell me what I have to do to be there for you. I know it’s going to take time and I’m not saying tomorrow, or the next day…but I do wanna have the conversation of…do you see yourself being with me? Because I see myself being with you.”

Hold up…

“I know we both joked about not wanting to go back to the toxic dating pool and how we enjoyed being married. Having stability, having a partnership. But I’m not joking right now.”

Tahli blinked. Was this a pep talk, or…?

“I guess I’m asking you…is that something you think we can work toward?”

Tahli pinched her lip between her teeth, her brows furrowed over the open jar of ice cream.

“Yeah.”

She didn’t want to be alone. Who wanted to be alone?

She watched Drew’s eyes expand with hope and realized she had answered aloud.

“Yeah?” He seemed as shocked as she was.

“Yeah,” Tahli repeated. Drew was a good man. Why not let a good man love her?

She’d had the flame-filled kind. Ended up with second-degree burns.

Why not try the easy stuff? Give untainted happiness a chance. Drew was cute enough. Kind enough. A tender lover. Patient enough. Funny enough.

Enough.

Happiness had somehow sought her out in this bleak room of misery. So why not take its hand? Why not try water?

“I’m gonna make your days so much brighter, Tahli. You’ve been my dream girl since 2008, baby,” he laughed, prying out her smile.

The worst feeling: looking at a man and finding absolutely nothing wrong with him. Only to realize the lingering disturbance was within.

“You’re such a good guy, Drew,” she reminded them both.

A dream guy, even.

Goodbye to nightmares.