Page 4 of Forgotten Desires

I rest my head on the wall. “No.”

“Upset?”

“I’m not here anymore. I’ve left this earth.”

She laughs at that. “And yet I hear your voice, are you a ghost?”

“I wish.”

“Why?”

Why? Because Charlotte invited the man I thought was going to be my forever. I loved him. I really did. I dreamed of him asking me to marry him, and when he left me that morning, I wanted to die.

Dramatic? Sure.

Do I give a shit? Not a bit.

“Is she okay?” I hear Phoebe’s voice.

“She’s in the bathroom—dead, but talking,” Charlotte calls back.

“You’re all going to be dead if you don’t let me wallow,” I warn.

The door opens and Charlotte, Addison, and Phoebe are standing there, looking at me sitting on the toilet seat.

“What if I was peeing?” I ask.

“Then you would’ve locked the stall,” Phoebe says back with one brow raised. “Do you want to explain why you ran into the bathroom?”

“Crew is here,” I say, knowing they won’t understand, but hoping it’s enough of an answer.

Charlotte purses her lips and slowly shakes her head. “I don’t know anyone here by that name and since it’s my wedding and all, I know the guest list.”

“Crew is Carson.”

“What?”

I explain it all, because they’re my family and they’re not my brothers, so they’re less likely to kill anyone or threaten to do that.

All these years and it took only one look in his eyes for everything to come flooding back. The day we met, the smiles, the kisses, the way he held me at night on the beach, telling me he would love me until the end of time. Falling in love in just days, looking forward to the years we’d have going forward.

But that was a lie too.

How can you love someone and then walk away without a goodbye?

“Wow,” Phoebe says, knowing the entire story of my past, since it sort of entwines with hers. “Was he your first after . . . him?”

She doesn’t need to explain who she means since I’ve only been with two men. The first one also ruined Phoebe’s life. “Yes.”

“Wow,” she says again. “Okay, so what do you need?”

I look up, not sure what the hell she means. “Need?”

“Yeah, do we change and go dig a hole, or are we ignoring him? Hoping he leaves? Do we pretend we don’t know your story? What do you need from us?” Charlotte answers.

“I always wanted sisters,” I say, tears welling up.

My brothers are great. I love them, I really do, but more often than not, I’m cleaning up their messes. They mean well, but they’re dumb boys and they fuck up—a lot. For the first time, I feel like I have people behind me, a squad that will have my back—and I’m so overwhelmed.

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