Rachel Gibson - True Confessions

“What am I going to do?” she whispered. A part of her wanted to go. Just pack up and leave. Run away from this place. Gospel wasn’t her home.

She lay down and pressed her cheek against the cool, clean tile. Yet there was another part of her that rebelled at the thought of running away. She’d been knocked flat before, but this time she wasn’t going to hide from life. She wasn’t going to let the pain get the best of her again. She wasn’t the same woman she’d been before she’d driven into Gospel. She wasn’t going to stay down. Her heart was broken and it hurt like a bitch, but she was going to live her life on her feet.

She raised her head, the room spun, and she lay back down. Yeah, she was going to live life on her feet. Just as soon as she could pick herself up off the bathroom floor.

Dylan looked across the table at his son. Adam rolled his corn on the cob across his plate for about the five-hundredth time in the past five minutes. It bumped into the bites of steak Dylan had cut up for him, then rolled into a biscuit. “Why don’t you eat that instead of playing with it?”

“I hate corn.”

“That’s funny. Last time we had corn on the cob, and you ate four or five pieces.”

“I hate it now.”

Yesterday they’d taken one step forward. After the ordeal in town that morning, they’d taken two steps back. Seeing Juliette so upset, Adam blamed himself. He blamed Dylan, too. In his seven-year-old mind, he figured if he hadn’t acted naughty, his mom wouldn’t have brought him home early. She wouldn’t have been in Gospel, and the reporters wouldn’t have found her. She wouldn’t have cried.

“Your mom’s going to be okay,” Dylan tried to reassure his son.

Adam looked up. “She said they were going to cancel her angel show.”

She’d said a lot of things during the hour-long drive to the Sun Valley airport. “She was just upset. No one will cancel her show.” In all the time he’d known Julie, he’d known she could be very dramatic, but he’d never seen her that dramatic. She’d cried and ranted that her life was over, and when he’d tried to reassure her, she’d accused him of being insensitive. She’d also accused him of bringing a tabloid reporter into all their lives. She’d made it quite clear that she blamed him as much as she blamed Hope.

Hope. Even if Hope hadn’t known about Adam and Juliette before she’d moved to Gospel, she’d run with the story the moment she’d discovered the juicy details. He didn’t believe for one second that she wasn’t responsible for that scene outside the Cozy Corner. And even though she’d denied involvement, even as she’d stood there surrounded by other tabloid journalists and paparazzi, looking into his eyes and telling him, “I didn’t do this,” it was just too big a coincidence for him not to think she wasn’t involved up to her little blond ponytail.

He’d gone into the relationship with Hope thinking he would end it when Adam returned home. He’d thought he could spend a couple of weeks enjoying her company and then go back to the way things had always been. He’d quickly discovered that he didn’t want to go back. When she was around, she made him laugh. She made him happy, and she made his life better. He hadn’t wanted to give that up. To give her up. He hadn’t wanted it to end, but it had. It was over, and it was ironic as hell that it had ended according to the original plan.

“Why aren’t you eating?” Dylan asked Adam.

“I told you, I don’t like corn.”

“What about your steak?”

“Hate that, too.”

“Your biscuit?”

“Can I put jelly on it?”

Since nothing had gone Adam’s way since he’d been home, Dylan decided to give in about dinner. “I don’t care.” He bit into his corn and watched his son open the refrigerator.

“Where’s the grape jelly?”

“I guess we’re out. Try the strawberry.”

“I hate strawberry.”

Dylan knew that wasn’t true. In a pinch, Adam would eat it.

“Why didn’t you get some?” his son asked, like he’d committed a heinous crime.

Dylan set his corn on his plate and wiped his hands on his napkin. “I guess I forgot.”

“Probably too busy.”

And they both knew what Adam meant. Hope. He’d been too busy with Hope. Ever since they’d returned from the airport, Adam had been spoiling for a fight. Dylan recognized what was happening and tried not to let it get the best of him. “Are you going to eat any of your dinner?”

Adam shook his head. “I want grape jelly.”

“Too bad.”

“You’re not going to get me jelly?”

“Not tonight.”

“I won’t be able to eat breakfast without jelly.” Adam stuck his chin in the air. “Lunch, either. I guess I won’t ever eat again.”

Dylan stood. “That will save me the trouble of fixing you anything to eat.” He pointed to Adam’s plate. “Now, you’re sure you’re finished?”

“Yes.”

“Then go brush your teeth and get your pajamas on.” For a few tense moments, Adam looked like he was going to fight about that, too, but he stuck out his lower lip and left the room. Dylan grabbed Adam’s plate and put it on the floor. “Here, dog,” he said, and Mandy crawled from beneath the kitchen table and devoured the steak and biscuit in seconds. She licked the corn, then turned away.

He should have saved himself some trouble and just fixed Wheaties for dinner, he thought as he picked up the plate from the floor. A little over twenty-four hours ago, he’d thought his life had gone straight to hell. He’d been wrong about that. It hadn’t quite hit bottom yet. Now. Now it was hell.

Before dinner, he’d spoken to his mother on the telephone, and in her most optimistic voice, she’d reminded him that “things could always be worse.”

Yeah, he supposed she was right. He could get kicked in the nuts or Adam could get sick, but barring physical abuse or illness, he didn’t see that things could get much worse.

Dylan left the dishes on the table and the pans on the stove and relaxed in front of the television. He reached for the remote and started to flip channels. Jeopardy! Wheel of Fortune, and Inside Hollywood. Just as he was about to flip to the next channel, a picture of Julie flashed across the screen.

“Heaven on Earth star, Juliette Bancroft, has a seven-year-old son that she has kept secret from the world,” the report began as film footage rolled of him and Julie and Adam leaving the Cozy Corner. “An unnamed source informs us that Juliette’s son lives with his father in the small town of Gospel, Idaho, about fifty miles west of…”

Dylan watched himself shove Julie and Adam into his truck. A few seconds elapsed and Hope burst from the crowd and grabbed his arm. She appeared pale and as beautiful as ever. He watched her lips move, but the microphones didn’t pick up what she said. But then, he didn’t need to hear it. He knew. He knew she pleaded her innocence. It was a lie, of course, but even as he watched her image fade from his television, even though he knew she’d lied, there was a part of him that wanted to believe her. She twisted him inside out and had the power to make him want her even after what she’d done. Even after what he knew about her. She made him want to grab her and shake her and hold her and bury his face in the side of her neck.

Wanting her was a constant ache in the pit of his stomach, like he was standing on the edge of a cliff, swallowing air.

Disgusted with himself, he switched the television station to Cops and tossed the remote onto the couch.

He was absolutely going to stop thinking that things could not get worse. Because the minute he thought it, they sure as hell did.