Not Forgiven, Yet
Not Forgiven, Yet
Presley stood staring at the water lapping gently on the shore. It was quite possibly the calmest the sea had been since she arrived. It mocked her. While everything seemed right in nature, her entire world was imploding all around her.
“Say something,” Cruz said from beside her, standing close enough she could feel the heat from his body and. yet it felt like the entire world was between them. “Tell me you don’t think I’m a pervert for wanting you when
you were seventeen or nineteen or twenty–one. Tell me you’re not going to leave me before we’ve even really
gotten started.”
She remained quietly watching the shoreline, the echoes of people laughing as they strolled the pathway
between her patio and the beach, straining her ears.
“Presley,” he stepped closer, his fingers reaching to grip her baby finger, “Ladybird, talk to me.”
“Was it a prank?”
“What?”
“When you called your friend to offer the job, was it a prank?”
“What do you mean a prank?”
“My entire life, or at least from the time I was seven, you, Anderson and Odin played pranks on me. Nothing was off limits. I got you back a handful of times with itching powder in your jock straps or ghost pepper sauce in your shampoo, but you guys always seemed to come back at me bigger and better. Did you send my boyfriend, the first real romantic love I ever had, away as a prank on me?”
“No.” He spoke resolutely. “It was not a prank. It was the actions of a mad man, Presley. Thinking it up, I knew it was wrong. Making the call, I knew it was wrong. Watching your heart break in your mother’s garden, all I wanted was to go to you, pull you in my arms and tell you what I did because I felt so badly.”
“Why then? Why would you? What was your end goal?”
“It was so stupid.”
“What was?”
“My plan,” he gripped her finger in his large hand, “I was thinking he’d go away, and I’d swoop in. I would go your father’s house, it was why I was there. I’d congratulate you on your graduation and offer to take you out for dinner to celebrate. I would flirt with you a bit and you would fall for my charms and then we would be together.” His swallowing was loud, “in my head, I guess, I didn’t consider it would hurt you. Arriving to your parents‘ house, hearing the sobs as your heart broke, was like a smack to the face. The reality of the situation far outweighed my romantic fantasies.”
“You were by then already moving to Toronto and splitting your time.”
“I could have made it go either way.”
“Why Ramona?”
The question surprised him and then he answered carefully. “She was your total opposite. She approached me at the bar. She asked for my number. She was blonde, tall, thin and didn’t have thirty–six freckles. She was
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< Not Forgiven, Yet
meant to make me forget.”
“While I was home wallowing with a broken heart.”
“I’m sorry Presley.”
“You keep saying it so it must be true,” she grunted angrily.
“It didn’t work. I never stopped thinking of you.”
“You were going to marry her, have a family and live in Toronto forever.”
“I wouldn’t have married her,” he tugged her closer to him staring down at her. “Look, I fell in love with her. I’m not going to lie to you and say I didn’t love her. I did. For a short while, she was the perfect distraction for how much of a giant asshole I was for ruining your relationship out of greed. If I was a prick, she would laugh it off. She never called me out on my s**t, and I didn’t call her out on hers. We never argued or fought. She kept her friends, and I kept mine and we rarely hung out together, mostly because her friends are shallow, superficial airheads despite their ivy league educations. We did things together and we did things separate. It was decent, then she changed and wanted more. She wanted to get married and do all the things you mentioned but when she proposed, I felt the rug get pulled out from under me.”
“Why?”
“It hit me as much as I cared for her, I didn’t want to marry her. She knew it. She saw it on my face and instead of accepting it, she pushed and pushed and then we were engaged because the guilt in me was there. Then she went off her meds and she went,” he waved his hand, “well you’ve seen her. She’s not right, Presley. We went from getting along to every single day was a fight. If I worked a minute longer than I said I would, she’d be throwing a fit. If I told her I’d meet her somewhere for lunch and I ran late, I could expect to get my water glass dumped on me. If we were supposed to go to her parent’s house and I didn’t gas up the car before picking her up, she’d get out of the car and call an uber while I was putting gas in the car because I clearly didn’t value my time with her. If I put the toilet seat up, it was a fight. If I put it down, it was a fight because I was being a doormat and not strong. The affection I held for her became loathing and when she finally snapped and moved out, I was thrilled. I slept that night like a log.” He sighed, “a couple of days later, Odin called me, and it immediately put you back forefront in my thoughts instead of at the back of my mind closet where I tried to keep you buried. I was going to make a trip home and see how you were, check on you but then I went to my car to drive to work, and it was totalled. Then the craziness started. For nearly two years she has hounded me and chased me and made me incapable of moving on with my life. The da on, the one you crashed, well she was the first girl I’d dated since Ramona. I’d had a couple hook–ups, but I wasn’t interested in dating anyone else. I finally decided to try and guess who swept into my life with a fire to remind me where I should have been all along.”
She rolled her eyes but didn’t fight him when he moved to sit on a chair and pulled her to sit on his lap. “I can’t believe you did all this.”
was
wouldn’t “If I could go back in time, I wouldn’t. It was selfish and immature, and I was thinking only of myself and not what was best for you. I’m a bit spoiled, if you’d not noticed. I tend to get whatever I want, when I want it, for the most part. My dad is stupid rich and all I ever needed to do was mentioned I wanted something and the guilt of killing my mother always made him give me what I wanted. I mean, I didn’t realize why it was this way until I was eighteen but it still made me a spoiled rotten brat and I saw you and I wanted you and sol removed the barrier which was in my way. It hurt you, Presley and for this I am so very sorry.”
“I don’t know if I forgive you, yet.”
< Not Forgiven, Yet
“I’ll take it. Yet implies it could happen in the future.”
“You never told anyone?”
+ Forsts
“f**k no.” He pulled his head back as if revolted by the thought, “there was no way I was going to tell Anderson or Odin how I was secretly aching over a girl too young for me especially one Anderson considers
like a sister and Odin didn’t.”
“Anderson thinks I’m like a sister?”
“Yeah. You and Sloane are tight. He told me you spent a lot of nights at her place growing up. He said he used to watch the scary movies with you and make you both jump.” He frowned, “he never said anything about Halima.”
“Halima wasn’t allowed to have sleepovers at other people’s houses. Her parents were really strict. It’s probably a good thing or both of you would have been jerking off to us in pjs.”
“Hey, not when you were babies.” He shook her leg playfully. “I told you, until you were seventeen it never crossed my path. I’d seen you a hundred times in bathing suits and bikinis and never once did it ever occur to me until I caught you in the bathroom putting on f*****g lipstick. You were leaned over the counter and your breasts were pushed up because you were on your tiptoes. Your ass, with a thin piece of black lace up your crack, was up high because you were bending to get closer to the mirror. You were pouting your lips in the
mirror.”
Presley stared at him incredulously as he got hard under her thigh from the simple memory. “Cruz!”
“Sorry Ladybird.” He tried to adjust her on his lap, “it’s a great memory for me, despite how wicked it was.”
“Wicked.”
“Sinful. Bad. I think it was part of the lure, to be honest. It was everything it wasn’t supposed to be, and it made the fantasy so much more tantalizing.” He caught her chin before she could look away, “the reality though, this, being with you, spending time with you, doing all the things I never dared hope for, is so much better than any dream I kept in my head. I want to be with you, Presley. I meant what I said earlier. If I could, I would marry you for real during the ceremony. I would put a ring on your finger and spend the rest of my life sniffing my shampoo bottle to make sure there’s no pepper sauce in it.”
“Have you been doing that?” she asked with a snicker.
“Yes. I removed the bathroom door. I expected far worse than the pepper sauce. I am grateful the hot water handle is back on the shower though.”
“I’m sure you are.” She sighed loudly and rested her head on his shoulder, “I don’t know where to go from here.
“Well, nothing has really changed a lot between you and I, other than you know I’m a dirty rotten piece of s**t who will do anything to win, including getting rid of any romantic rivals. We still have a media shitstorm back home. My father still wants to sue you. Ramona, as far as we know unless Paris really did work her magic, is still an issue. My PR team still needs a soundbite to fix my image from abusive, abortion–causing, steroid using whip wielding man with two c***s who serves as inspiration for Perris Brooks. A wedding, a romantic, sweet, wedding where we recité vows with our family and friends remains the best idea.” He studied her intently, “I’d love it if we made it real, but I know I’m pushing my luck.”
“You could have simply tricked me, you know. I would never have known it was real.”
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< Not Forgiven, Yet
He laughed, “sounds like a plot from a story you would write. Trick you into marriage, when you try to leave me, I tell you how it’s all real.”
“Yes.”
“I wouldn’t prank you with something like our wedding, Presley. When you say vows to me, for real, I want to know you’re saying them because you mean them.”
“You really love me?”
“If I’ve learned anything over the last week, I knew years ago you and I were meant to be, and I should have trusted my gut. I should have been bold and blunt instead of sneaky and manipulative.”
She pondered his words and then gave a nod, “I’m in love with you too.”
