Chapter Twenty-Eight.

Knight It took begging and insinuating a possible life or death situation to get Maddie to Ryn's for dinner on a Sat.u.r.day night. She arrived with an annoyed frown plastered to her beautiful face. Ryn couldn't remember the exact moment her little girl became so bitter. It seemed to happen in a blink. One day they were each other's everything and the next Ryn was the unstable woman who ruined her marriage and her daughter's dreams.

"Who's dying?" Maddie stabbed her fork into her salad.

Ryn was too nervous to eat. She pushed her plate away and rested her crossed arms on the table. "How are things with your professor?"

Maddie shrugged. "Fine, I guess. I have a s.h.i.t grade in the cla.s.s, but I'm going to pa.s.s. Please tell me that's not what was so urgent. We could have had this conversation over the phone."

"If I moved what would it take for you to come with me?"

"I'm not moving." Maddie laughed as if the idea was absurd.

"Why?"

"Why? Are you serious? I'm in college. I have friends. Dad is here."

"But what if I weren't here?"

Maddie shrugged. "I'll come visit you when I can."

"Is there anything I could say or do or ... give you to make you come with me?"

She flipped her long blond hair over her shoulder. "What, like a bribe?"

"No. Just an incentive."

"Nope. I'm not leaving."

Ryn's heart ached. The crushing reality left her fighting back emotions.

"Maddie ... do you hate me?"

"What? Why would you ask me that?"

"Just answer the question."

With a roll of her eyes, she shook her head. "No, Mom. I don't hate you. G.o.d, you're so insecure."

"Shut up," Ryn said. It was nothing more than a whisper, a leaked emotion not meant for Maddie's ears.

"What did you just say?" Maddie leaned forward.

Ryn shook her head, years of defeat bearing down on her.

"Did you tell me to shut up?" Defense escalated in her voice.

"I just want to feel your love, but I don't feel it-ever."

"Well, I'm not feeling your love either. Wasting one of the few Sat.u.r.day nights I have off, to ask me to leave my life, then adding ashut up' on top of it is not the best way to feel my love."

Ryn clenched her teeth, breathing slowly through her nose. "I gave you life, and then I gave you mine-completely. Do you get that? Do you have even an inkling of what my life has been like? No. You don't. Because I've given everything to protect you from the truth, from the ugly, from the nightmare that has been my life."

Maddie stood. "I'm not listening to this. I'm not listening to your sob story. I'm sorry you had some mental breakdown, but it wasn't my fault. Get over it. Stop living in the past. Watching you hate my father is getting old."

She followed Maddie in her pursuit to the front door. "Don't you dare walk out that door. I'm not done."

Maddie laughed. "Well, I am."

"He hit me."

She stopped, hand on the doork.n.o.b. "No, Mom. He didn't. He told me you lost control and sometimes he had to restrain you from hurting yourself or anyone else, but he didn't hit you."

"He's lying."

"You're lying." She turned back around. "You're a f.u.c.king maid with no education, barely a dime to your name, a failed marriage, and some psycho boyfriend who is too young for you. What is wrong with you? The last thing you need to worry about is if I love you. What should bother you the most is I don't respect you. My number one goal in life is to be nothing like you."

Something unrecognizable took over inside of Ryn. With three long strides she had Maddie's hair clenched in her fist. She dragged her up the stairs. Her little girl with venomous words stumbled and cried in protest. Ryn heard nothing. Her need to protect her child from the ugly, that seemingly unbreakable bond, snapped and so did Ryn.

"What the f.u.c.k?" Maddie looked ten years younger with tears in eyes as Ryn shoved her on the bed. Maddie pressed her hand to her head where Ryn had attempted to pull a chunk of hair from her scalp.

"Reality is a b.i.t.c.h, baby girl, and there are some things in life that cannot be unseen. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then I'm going to give you a million words." She retrieved her fire safe key from the dresser drawer and opened the safe in the closet, pulling out several large legal-sized envelopes.

Maddie shook her head while pulling her phone out of her pocket. "I'm calling Dad or the police, you're losing it." Her voice quivered.

Ryn s.n.a.t.c.hed Maddie's phone, opened the window, and threw it outside. "Well, if I am..." Ryn opened one envelope and dumped the contents onto the bed in front of Maddie, followed by a second, and finally a third "...then I think I have a d.a.m.n good excuse."

Maddie didn't move, not even a blink. She stared at hundreds of photos spread out on the bed. Tears rolled down Ryn's cheeks. She grieved her baby girl. She grieved her lost innocence. She grieved that exact moment because Maddie would never be the same again.

With a shaky hand, Maddie picked up one of the photos. "Oh my G.o.d," she whispered, her other hand covering her mouth. Her body shook and then she released a sob.

"I'm sorry, baby. I didn't have time for college. I was busy raising a daughter. I don't have a dime to my name because I chose to leave-chose to live. And Jackson ... he gave me my self-esteem back. I love him, but he has to leave and if you don't come too, I'll have to choose between the two of you. He loves me. You? I don't think you love me and I know you don't respect me. But here's the thing. I choose you, Maddie."

She saw her little girl in pigtails playing with Barbie dolls and kissing Ryn's boo-boos. Maddie rarely saw Ryn without something broken, bruised, or st.i.tched up, but by the time she could understand or ask real questions, Preston limited the number of marks he left on Ryn that Maddie could see.

Ryn blinked, time vanished, and her baby girl was a young woman sitting on her bed, sobbing as she sifted through the pictures of her mother with black eyes, a broken jaw, st.i.tches, bruises, cracked ribs-a human punching bag. At the time, Ryn wasn't even sure why she took them and hid them from Preston. She just knew that someday she would need them. It never occurred to her that she'd need them to make her daughter believe her, trust her.

"I only had to show the judge three of these pictures and a copy of my medical records to get the restraining order."

"Mom ..." Maddie said her name with a tenderness Ryn hadn't heard in years.

She always wondered if somewhere in Maddie's subconscious she remembered kissing her mama's boo-boos. The horror on her daughter's face confirmed that she did not remember those years.

"I hate him," Maddie whispered, tears splattering the pictures.

"Come with me, Maddie. Let's start over some place a world away from your father and-"

"No." Maddie shook her head and held up one of the worst pictures of Ryn-her face barely recognizable.

That was a "biking" accident. Ryn didn't own a bike, but Preston caught her snooping through his stuff after he came home from a business trip with everything in his suitcase smelling like perfume. She wasn't proud that the trips to various ERs included questions she couldn't answer. When the nurses or doctors asked what had happened, she always looked at Preston for the explanation. He always had one, perfectly recited, not so much as a breath of hesitation.

"What do you mean ano?'"

"You never told me. Twenty-one years and you never told me."

"I did. I told you-"

"Just recently." Maddie's voice grew angry.

"And you didn't believe me."

"You didn't show me these."

Ryn ran her fingers through her hair fisting it. "What if I didn't have these? Jesus, Maddie! I'm your mother. I raised you, cared for you. I love you. I've never given you any reason to not trust me. If you told me someone harmed you, I would believe you. I wouldn't need proof. The day you told me about your professor I didn't once think you were lying. I jumped to your defense." She grabbed a photo of her eye swollen shut and held it in front of Maddie's face. "n.o.body should have to see this s.h.i.t, Maddie!"

"Your father has used you as a weapon against me for years, and the second I stood up for myself he pulled your college funding. He's the reason you're not in medical school, not me. How can you be so smart and yet so stupid to not see that? You question everything I do right down to the shoes I wear and the way I style my hair. But never ... never have you questioned a G.o.dd.a.m.n thing about the man who has been nothing more in your life than a sperm donor-the biggest mistake of my entire life."

Maddie stood, tipping her chin up, teeth clenched. "Well, if he was a mistake then clearly you must think I was too."

Ryn sighed. "That's not what I mean."

"You can't have it both ways. Either we were both a mistake or neither of us were. Which is it?"

"We were both drunk ..."

"So a mistake. Is that your final answer?" Maddie punched holes into Ryn with her contemptuous glare.

"I don't know how to make you understand."

"I hate you both. I'm nothing more than the product of a drunk night between two people who didn't love each other. Neither one of you wanted me." She ran out of the room.

Ryn let her go. Words did not exist to explain her feelings toward Maddie. How could Ryn tell her she regretted that night with Preston, yet loved Maddie more than life? It wasn't black and white. Maddie's conception and her entire childhood was a shade of gray: her daughter the light, her husband the darkness.

Chapter Twenty-Nine.

Day The bride-to-be stretched in all directions. A smile crept up her face like the gentle rise of the early morning sun. An intense floral scent overwhelmed her senses as she took a deep breath. Jessica opened her eyes.

"Oh. My. G.o.d." She sat up.

Her bed. The top of the dresser, Luke's chair, and every inch of the floor was covered in a kaleidoscope of rose petals.

On her nightstand, amongst the petals, was a cup of tea with a sticky note.

Good morning, Miss Day.

Her face already hurt from smiling. She took a sip of tea and slid out of bed, curling her toes into the velvety floral confetti. Cinching her robe sash, she spotted a hot pink sticky note stuck to the full-length mirror next to the closet.

See you at the altar. I'll be the guy at the front wearing the s.h.i.t-eating grin and chanting, "I can't believe she said yes."

Jessica grabbed the note and held it to her chest. "I'm getting married today. I'm getting married today!"

She jumped up and down, squealing like a little girl. Then she bent down, grabbed two fists full of petals and threw them in the air while twirling in a circle. "I'm getting married today!"

"Yada, yada ..."

Jessica stilled. Her unexpected visitor startled her.

"What are you doing here?"

Jude heaved himself onto her bed, sending petals flying. He picked one up and brought it to his nose. "I'm in charge of getting you to the church. That is ... if you're still going to marry the shrink." He shrugged. "It's not too late to skip town. I'll take you anywhere you want to go."

She narrowed her eyes at him.

"s.e.x with the same guy for the rest of your life. Sounds like a death sentence."

Just the thought of Luke almost brought her to o.r.g.a.s.m. It would take a million lifetimes-minimum-to feel a breath of boredom with him.

She flopped down onto the bed beside him, forcing his arm behind her head for a pillow. "I want you to find this, Jude. Finding someone who loves you and accepts you, the real you, it's everything. I'm just a girl with Luke. I know it sounds crazy, but I feel safe with him. Maybe that's it. The thing that's been most exhausting to protect has been my heart, but I gave it to him because I trust him explicitly. And when we're not together I don't feel alive. It's like I'm holding my breath."

"You trust him more than me?"

"Yes."

"Ouch." Jude pressed his free hand to his chest. "Way to not even hesitate."

"Luke and I don't have secrets. Well ... at least by the end of this weekend we won't have any secrets. But you..." she jabbed her finger into his side "...you're not telling me something. I know it. I feel it. It's eating you up inside. Why won't you tell me?"

"I got a tattoo on my p.e.n.i.s and it's infected. I fear it's going to fall off. Hopefully not during the wedding."

She giggled. "Shut up."

He smiled.

"What did you get tattooed on your p.e.n.i.s?"