Текст книги "Avoiding Responsibility"

Автор книги: K. A. Linde

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Текущая страница: 24 (всего у книги 32 страниц)

"Lexi! Hey!" Sandy said as bubbly as ever.

Lexi stepped forward into the hug that was offered and attempted to dispel her nervousness. She had never really been one for ill-conceived nerves. She typically held her own pretty well…or as best she could under the circumstances. Yet she knew that she was out of her league. She had swum so far out into the deep end that she was terrified she would drown. All she could think about was that she just needed to keep tredding water…keep kicking her feet. They might get tired and she might feel faint of heart, but she could make it out in the end. She could push on and eventually she would read the end and be hoisted out of the depths.

"I can't believe you're here," Sandy said stepping back from Lexi. Her smile never failed.

"Uh yeah," Lexi said tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. "I guess I couldn't miss it."

Seeing that Sandy was occupied for awhile, Seth bounded over to the remaining groomsmen: Hunter and Luke. Sandy stepped a little bit closer to Lexi sealing off the space that she had given them. "I just mean with what happened with you and Jack," she barely whispered.

Lexi gulped hard and sputtered a little in surprise. If there was one thing about Sandy that Lexi could say is that she had never thought she was intuitive or even that intelligent. Though she was nice, incredibly so, she had always seemed a little dim. She acted almost incorrigibly like a perky bimbo. So her having any knowledge of what had happened between her and Jack took Lexi as a complete surprise. She knew that Seth knew at least some of what had happened as he had been involved from the beginning, but the idea that that had been discussed between the two seemed unlikely to Lexi. "I don't know what you mean," Lexi said slowly after a minute.

Sandy rolled her eyes. "Lexi I really like you, but you are blind to that boy. You really didn't think that I noticed you sneaking off with him every night at the beach before graduation?"

Lexi's eyes widened in surprise. Her jaw went slack and she felt her pulse race. It was a feeling she only attributed to Jack. And though she had been so focused on Ramsey lately, she couldn't deny that he still made her pulse quicken. Though she wasn't sure if she could attribute it to her desire to be with him or without him…or just a natural fight or flight instinct she had since attributed solely to her instincts around him.

"You…you noticed that?" she asked knowing how she must look to Sandy…like a kid with their hand stuck in the cookie jar.

She smiled shyly. "A couple times, but at first I thought it was to see someone else. I think it was the sand that gave it away. Anyway we can't fight love when we have it in our grasps can we?" she asked her eyes immediately landing on Seth.

"Uh…well…I'm not in love with Jack," she told her.

"Ok," Sandy said brushing her words aside as if they meant nothing. "Either way. I just wasn't expecting you to be here for this. I would think it would be too painful…whether you still love him or not."

Lexi gulped again. "Well…it's hard to explain."

"You don't have to explain it to me," Sandy said her voice taking on her characteristic bubbly bimbo routine once again. "Can you believe I'm pregnant?" she asked completely diverting the subject.

"Oh! Yeah, Seth told me. Congrats!" Lexi said with enthusiasm that she wasn't entirely sure where she mustered it from. Sandy giggled and went into a full on discussion about the baby, arrangements, names, and all sorts of things that Lexi had never really thought of. Having a baby was about the last thing on her mind.

When Sandy finally seemed to have exhausted herself of subjects to discuss, Lexi made a quick retreat. She plopped back down into her seat as the inexplicabilities of new life washed over her. She seemed to miss the remaining relatives sidle into the private dining room.

Ramsey reappeared at her side after speaking with the swarm of family who had directed his attention and bombarded him with questions he would have rather left unanswered. His hand slid under the table and grasped her knee for a short second. She glanced at his handsome face covered with the mask of the County Club he had grown up in. His eyes smiled she finally met them with her own and there was where her true reassurance came from. This was not him. He was not that person.

The lights dimmed in the room and the candles flickered across the tables casting shadows on the faces of the guests. The whispers died down as Bekah's parents entered the room followed first by Jack's mother, then a short while afterwards by his father who looked rather uncomfortable taking the seat next to his ex-wife. Bekah's parents sat on the other side of the rectangular table leaving a gaping hole with two unfilled seats. All eyes stared at the missing couple wondering from where they would make their appearance.

Lexi, however, had her eyes on the empty seat to Ramsey's left. Surely Parker wouldn't miss Bekah's rehearsal dinner. After all, she was the maid of honor. She was Bekah's oldest friend, her best friend growing up. Lexi would have killed Chyna if she had not shown up to her own rehearsal dinner. Not that that seemed to be something in her immediate future. But still as Ramsey's father gruffly pushed back out of his chair, Parker's seat remained empty.

Ramsey's father cleared his throat silencing all further conversation among the attendees. "Thank you all so much for coming tonight to honor the soon-to-be union between my daughter Bekah and her fiancé Jack." He waited for the applause to die down before continuing.

But Lexi wasn't listening to him or his prepared speech. She had been to rehearsal dinners before and had learned to tune out speeches like this. Plus she had made it through three years of law school. She was pretty accustomed to tuning in and out of conversations, lectures, debates, and of course speeches when she saw fit.

She was thinking about how nice it felt for Ramsey's hand to stay on her thigh. How when he moved his fingers just a bit, a tremor ran up her body. How the pressure on her leg intensified the longer that his father stood up and spoke. She just wanted to leave this place with him. He had made mistakes, and there were still so many things that she didn't fully comprehend. But right now all she wanted to do was be tucked up in his arms lost to the rest of the world.

Of course they couldn't just disappear. Ramsey was a groomsman. It was his own sister's wedding. His entire family was here.

She couldn't keep trying to escape her problems. Running away from the world wasn't the answer. It wasn't going to fix what had happened between them, and it wasn't going to make anything easier. She needed to man up and face what was coming her way. Avoiding her responsibilities wasn't going to be the solution in her life. She had gotten herself into this situation and she could get herself out of it.

A passage from one of her existential philosophy classes came to mind as she finally realized what she had to do. For some reason the passage had hit home even then. She had copied it off the website onto a tiny piece of paper, and placed it carefully into her wallet. She knew what was making her think of it now.

Carefully so as not to disturb the endless droning of Ramsey's father's speech, Lexi popped open her hand bag, pulled out her wallet, and rifled through the slips of paper she concealed in its depths. Locating the one she was looking for she read it to herself:

"In some cases, however, a person will try to avoid taking responsibility by trying to avoid making conscious choices altogether. Perhaps she cites uncontrollable passion on her part... the presence of peer pressure… or she pretends not to notice the man's actions. Whatever the case, she acts as though she is not making any choices and hence has no responsibility for the consequences."

Lexi sighed heavily reading and rereading the passage. She knew why this had hit home the first time she had come across it. She had been taking that class her senior year…the semester after she had gone to the beach with Clark, Jack and the rest of his friends. She hadn't really thought about it much since then. The class hadn't exactly been her favorite.

But now the ideas behind the passage seemed crystal clear. She had to make a choice not act as if all the choices were out of her grasp. Wasn't that exactly what had gotten her involved with Jack to begin with?

She had done countless things citing just such things as uncontrollable passion and inability to do anything else. These weren't anything but excuses…and not even good ones. They were ramblings of a confused girl who didn't know what she wanted…who let other people, men sway her decisions for her.

Running away from everything wasn't the solution to what was going on with her right now. Sure she didn't want to be at the wedding, and if she had come to this conclusion about herself a week ago then she wouldn't be here. But now she had a made a choice…a conscious choice. She was here. She was with Ramsey…albeit a little hesitantly. She was going to carry through with her choice. She couldn't keep letting the past dictate her present…and future.

She swallowed hard at the realization that she had a lot of work to do. She needed to practically reinvent herself. She wanted to say that it was going to be easy, but it wasn't.

Just like people had been telling her for years and she hadn't listened, Jack had really done a number on her. She couldn't trust anyone, and she was manic when it came to him. She truly cared about Ramsey, but at the first sign of trouble she had jumped ship. What kind of person was she not to try to stick it out? What kind of person was she to have slept with someone else while being away from him?

She wanted to cover her face in shame. Yes, she had been happy with her Mystery Man for that brief moment when she hadn't had to think about anything else. But when reality set in, she couldn't even tell her best friend who he was. She couldn't tell anyone who he was. That wasn't the kind of relationship she needed. He wasn't the one who had stuck it out with her for a year, long distance to try to make things work. And yet she had been stupid enough to forget all of that with a moment of his warm touch.

Had she been so desperate to be wanted that she couldn't control herself? Lexi pursed her lips in annoyance. She was a despicable human. She couldn't even like herself in that moment. Let alone wonder why anyone else could like her.

Yes, everyone made mistakes, but she was just an idiot about it all. She just avoided everything at all costs…commitment, real commitment, and the responsibility of her actions. She hadn't been able to face up to them and what they meant. And she was terrified because she knew now that she would have to tell Ramsey.

Ramsey. Lexi shuddered at the thought of his quick temper taking over when she told him. Ramsey who had lied straight to her face on a number of occasions and now Lexi knew without a shadow of a doubt that she owed him the truth. When they decided they were going to work things out, if they decided they could work things out, she needed him to know what kind of person she was. She knew he wasn't perfect by any means, but she felt like she was less than dirt in that moment.

Taking a deep breath to try to slow down her quickening heart rate, Lexi realized finally that she needed to come clean. That they both needed to lay everything down on the table and see if what they had left was worth salvaging. She didn't think she could ever face the idea of being with him again any other way.

"Are you okay?" Ramsey breathed barely loud enough to be a whisper. His green-gold eyes cut in her direction.

Lexi's hand dropped back to her lap. She hadn't even realized that she had been pushing her hair back behind her ear with such forcefulness. Not to mention her breathing was jagged. She was sending herself into a state of hyperventilation not unlike what her mother was accustomed to. She felt the pressure of Ramsey's hand increase for a second as he looked at her with concern.

"Yeah sorry," she said letting her breathing even out. She slid her hand under his and squeezed reassuringly. His smile lit up at the small gesture of togetherness.

Her heart sank again. She had meant to reassure him, but she was still too terrified to contemplate what he was going to think of her once she told him about what had happened. They had only been separated a short while and she had done something unthinkable.

She grit her teeth and tried to focus on what Jack's parents were saying now. If she thought too much about what she had to do in the next 24 hours then she might really hyperventilate.

"My son," Jack's father said, who was just an older version of his son, "is a remarkable individual – persistent, unyielding, and relentlessly hardworking." Lexi couldn't agree more. He had used just those qualities on her. "He is also a rather charming young man if I do say so myself. I am very pleased as his father to know that those charms won out such a wonderful young woman who not only shares his same aspirations in life, but who truly loves him for him. A father couldn't ask for me," he said getting a bit choked up at the end and abruptly taking his seat.

The heartfelt words his father uttered were better than anything Bekah's parents could possibly say about her. The way his eyes watered with joy, sadness, and pride was incredible to behold. She had never met the man who sat in that chair, but for some reason she wondered why more of those raw emotions hadn't been transferred to his son. Had the divorce destroyed that within Jack?

Before she could think on it further, Bekah's father stood once more and announced, "Without further ado, I would like to introduce you to the future newlyweds my daughter Bekah and her fiancé Jack."

The restaurant exploded with applause as Jack and Bekah materialized in the high arching doorway in which their parents had entered minutes earlier. Bekah looked radiant if it was even possible to say that about a person Lexi despised with every ounce of her being. Her typically stick straight blonde hair had thick loose curls in it. Her chunky bangs had been fluffed and pushed off her face. A short, white lace dress clung to her body. But what was most noticeable about her was that her eyes actually appeared not to be calculating and her smile wasn't malicious. She seemed content with the moment she was in rather than always looking to the next move in her intricate game. If she didn't know better, Lexi would think she was a real human being.

For some reason, Lexi had been so transfixed with her enemy that she hadn't turned to look at the man standing next to her. All traces of the downtrodden man who stood on Ramsey's doorstep less than a week earlier to tell him he was having doubts had vanished. He was as polished as Bekah could make him in a black three-piece suit with a baby blue button up underneath.

Lexi had recognized the man standing before Ramsey weak and disheveled with a five o'clock shadow and Converses. She had known that man for a long time. And though she had seen Jack dressed up before, he had always still looked like himself. He was gorgeous. There was no denying that. But he didn't look like her Jack anymore.

And he wasn't her Jack. He had proven that to her a year ago. The man standing next to Bekah belonged to Bekah. She had made him the person that he was…the person she wanted him to be. It was a tragedy in and of itself that he was so easily changed…that she so easily changed him. Lexi would have thought he would have put up a greater fight. Then again when Jack had changed her, she hadn't put up much of a fight.

Now they were standing here with other people and it felt surreal. Somehow she had never really expected this moment to happen. Jack was never supposed to end up with Bekah. Lexi didn't want him. She told herself that she didn't want him. She desired him for everything that they were, but not everything that they could be. They had no foundation left to build upon since it had all crumbled to the ground.

But still he wasn't supposed to end up with her.

Lexi tore her eyes away from the couple as they began their round of thanks. She couldn't look at them right now with so much else going on in her head. She hadn't anticipated having a mental breakdown in the middle of their rehearsal dinner.

Her eyes took in the room around her crowded in with people just as Parker entered stealthily through the back doors. Lexi clenched her jaw. This was the first time she had seen her since…well since that night. She knew that she was going to have to see her…even speak to her maybe, but she hadn't realized until that moment how much she was dreading it.

She didn't want to see Parker. She didn't want to be around Parker. The thought of seeing her and Ramsey in the same room made her skin crawl. The knowledge that she would soon be sitting next to him made her feel physically ill. She didn't want Ramsey anywhere near Parker. Too much history pulled them together despite the fucked up circumstances of their relationship.

Lexi wondered if this is how everyone always felt about her and Jack. She knew she could hardly equate the two. Her and Jack had never officially been together, and their relationship was on a completely different level. However, there must be some similarities in the feeling. Jealousy. Anger. Resentment.

Not to mention Parker looked stunning, and not in the same way as Bekah…or even really Lexi tonight. Parker looked like she had just thrown on the first dress in her closet, hastily threw her hair in a tight ponytail, and stormed out of the house without a hint of makeup. Lexi knew it was probably because she had had to change straight from the hospital, but she didn't care. She just wished that for one night the girl didn't look so gorgeous when she had clearly just thrown something on.

Parker scampered across the room until she found her assigned seat. "So sorry," she breathed to the table as she slid neatly into the cushioned chair and demurely crossed her legs.

"Where were you?" Ramsey asked his eyes steeled on her.

"I got caught in surgery," Parker said her eyes moving from Ramsey to Lexi and then back again quickly as if she had been caught doing something wrong. "I couldn't just leave."

"You had to change in the hospital?" he asked holding back a smirk.

"Is it that obvious?" she asked adjusting the hem of her dress unnecessarily.

"Only because you don't look like the Club," he murmured under his breath.

"I hate the Club as much as you do," Parker responded quickly before ducking her head to show that the conversation was over until the couple had finished their speeches.

Lexi was surprised to find that the remainder of the rehearsal dinner went off without a hitch. The delicious food came and went. The conversation at their table was light and refreshing without any of the biting remarks Lexi was fearful of being involved in. And after Parker and Ramsey's brief exchange, they acted as if they hardly knew each other. When a question was directed at the both of them, they answered it separately without their eyes cutting to each other or the easy banter that she had seen fall between them. On the outside, the evening seemed to be a rousing success besides Lexi's momentary mental breakdown at the beginning of the night.

As the dessert dishes were whisked away, Bekah stood once more. "Now I know it's me and Jack's night tonight, but we personally," she said smiling down on him, "wanted to give a special announcement. This is known to very few people, and we thought we would share it with our dearest friends and family first and foremost."

For some reason, it was like Lexi could feel Bekah's eyes on her. She had no idea why. The room was dark with a spotlight on the front table. Therefore the likelihood that she was speaking directly to Lexi didn't make any sense. Why her eyes would find Lexi in this crowd of people when she spoke made no sense to her. Bekah had done her damage with Jack a year ago. She knew that they had mutual distaste for the other, but whatever this announcement was Lexi couldn't see how it would have to do with her.

"Ramsey do you mind coming up here?" Bekah asked. Ramsey stared forward at Bekah in confusion. His eyes narrowed calculating what he could possibly have to do with any of this. "Come on," she sing-songed forcing her hand as the bride-to-be.

Ramsey stood slowly hating that he had to do as she said. There were too many other people that would cheer him onward if he didn't immediately follow his sister's orders. "Of course." He nodded walking toward hers. His head turned once just once and met Lexi's gaze. She had no idea what to expect in that moment. She was holding her breath unsure as to what Bekah had in mind. Warning bells hadn't started going off yet. She was still too confused.

"Now you all know my dear brother," Bekah said a little too cheerfully. "He's been off running his own business and being a star." Lexi knew for a fact that him running his own business had never made his family think that he was a star. They all hated that he owned the clubs. "But we're thrilled to announce that he is finally coming home and taking on as the position as vice president for Bridges Enterprise's newest company."

Lexi's mouth dropped open in shock. She had heard not a single word of this. She had lived with him for two months. All of this had to have taken longer than the month she was gone to put together. Why hadn't he told her any of this? Was this was Lola had meant about Ramsey making it all up to her? Was this why Brad and Jason had been so secretive about him doing all of this for her? Was this why they had been forced to move out? Did this announcement somehow answer all her questions? She couldn't see how.

She just couldn't understand. Ramsey hated the idea of working for his father…for the company. He had bucked the status quo for so long that she had no idea why he would possibly want to do this.

Bekah's voice cut off Lexi's train of thought. "I'm pleased to announce along with this new development that the new wing of the company is going to be a full-time medical wing, and to head up our medical wing with my brother is none other than our own Parker Mackenson. Parker come up here!" Bekah shrieked excitedly.

K.A. Linde