Page 26 of Coming Unraveled
She watches as her mother narrows her eyes in condemnation, a look both Avery and Nikki have mastered since having their children.
“What?”
“Why would you want an annulment, sweetie? You love him.”
“No, I don’t. My heart is too dark to love.”
“No, it’s not,” the women all chime in at one time.
“Look, I’m broken. I’ve been broken for a long time. Maybe this is for the best. He deserves the chance to be happy and he isn’t going to get that with me.”
The room grows silent as Everleigh folds into herself and listens to the clock on the mantle ticking away the seconds of her life.
“I never raised you to turn your back on love,” her mother speaks, drawing everyone’s attention. She has that air about her, the confidence to draw everyone’s eyes in a room. If she speaks, you listen.
But in an act of defiance, Everleigh lashes out like an animal backed into a corner, “You mean like dad did? I must get it from him.”
“Everleigh,” her sister Sydney whispers in shock beside her.
The affair her father had while separated from her mother isn’t a topic brought up in the house. Most of the family didn’t know about it until Avery arrived at the door about a year ago, but Everleigh had known. She overheard a conversation between her parents when she was five and she had never forgotten. She had been the reason her father left. Along with her bad case of colic as a newborn and her father’s dedication to his job, his marriage and family of five had become too much. Her parents had separated and he had fallen into an affair with Avery’s mother.
Instead of screaming at her, or lashing out, her mother smiles. And not just any smile, the wide smile that tilted the corners and exaggerated the deep laugh lines.
Just as Everleigh begins to apologize her mother interrupts, “I’m sorry, Everleigh. I’m sorry that we have let you down. And I’m sorry that you feel that our separation is due to a lack of love. That was never our problem. The separation happened because your father and I lost sight of who we were. But we quickly realized that who we wanted to be was a part of each other’s life. So, I am sorry, sweetie. Now I wonder if that is why you stayed in that terrible relationship with Rich for so long. He was always too controlling of you. I guess I can see it clearer now.”
And Rich had been controlling. He would tell her what to wear to school, what friends to have, and when they had been each other’s firsts it had been his decision, not hers, which ultimately led to their demise.
“How were you able to forgive him, Mom?”
“Because I love him. It was a growing experience for us, but we never questioned the love we had for each other. And that’s how I know you love Brooks.”
“How do you know?” she murmurs, her mother’s capturing everyone’s attention.
“Because you still have the annulment papers.”
Blackness begins to creep in and shrouds Everleigh in darkness.
“Oh my gosh,” she speaks softly as she closes her eyes, taking in her mother’s words.
She does love him. Somehow, someway she loves him. He did what no one else had been able to do, to tear down her walls. Maybe it is the way he always fought back against her, how he never takes her anger personally and gives her a left hook whenever she comes at him with a right. Maybe it is the way he takes care of her without having been asked, or how he seems to always know what she needs before she even knows herself. He is the person her siblings have all found with their partners.
“I think she figured it out,” Cassidy says, but her voice is simply a piece of background noise to the turmoil surging inside.
She’s not sure how long she sits there in silence, but when she finally lets the realization sink in that she indeed loves Brooks the room has been emptied out. Focusing on the chatter coming from the other room Everleigh moves from the couch and heads towards the kitchen. Just outside the entrance, she overhears her sister’s whispering about a broken mission.
“I thought we were all in agreement with the mission.”
“I thought so too, but maybe it became too much. I can imagine it can be tiring,” another one chimes in.
A third voice pipes in and says, “I’m going to go make a call. I need to work some things out if this isn’t going to work out as planned.”
The sounds of the footsteps grow louder until the speaker startles finding Everleigh in the hall.
“Oh…um, I need to make a call. I’ll be right back,” Avery adds as she scoots down the hall to the guest bedroom she had given birth in only a few months prior.
Everleigh steps into the kitchen and hops onto the now-vacant seat Avery left behind and takes the glass of water her mother offers.
“We have a plan,” Cassidy, the head of a world-famous fashion line, claims in her most business-like voice. She reminds Everleigh of someone about to acquire a new company, and perhaps she is - Everleigh’s love life.
