Chapter Sixteen

I sat in front of my mirror, brushing my long dark hair. It had hardly changed since high school, when Peyton had stopped dying hers and had let it fade back to brown.

I glanced back at the mirror. Back in high school, my mirror had been crowded with pictures of me and my circle of friends-Nathan, Lucas, Jake and Peyton. Pictures of cheerleading, a picture of Peyton's wedding.

Now my mirror had a gold frame. My dressing table was made of marble and was crowded with designer perfume and makeup, expensive, beautiful jewelry. The face that looked back at me still looked young, was still beautiful. It screamed 'upper class mother', opposed to 'party girl'. My conversation had dropped it's inappropriate edge slowly through the years, I'd stopped mentioning Mouth and Lucas.

Especially to Tonio. I never dared mention another man to him.

I smiled in spite of myself as I heard a giggle from somewhere in the house. Kylie. She was perfect-beautiful, intelligent, playful. She reminded me of myself.

Or of who I used to be.

He was different with her than he was with me. Indulgent. He bought us both anything we wanted, but he let her do anything she wanted. He spoiled her shamelessly. He spoiled me too.

But she was happy.

Was it Lucas I wanted, or was it Mouth? Did I love my husband, in spite of his faults, or was I merely clinging to expectations?

Luke and Mouth were so different, yet so the same. And so completely different from Tonio. They'd never hit me. They'd never tell me what to do, even if they did I wouldn't do it. Somewhere along the way my husband had made me believe that he knew my mind better than myself.

I recalled how heartily my parents had approved of my marriage. I was being my mother all over again-Daddy had been fifteen years older, and wealthy even then. Their approval should have been a warning sign to me. Nothing they'd ever wanted for me had ever made me happy. They'd always been against Mouth and Lucas.

Which one did I want?

My thoughts drifted to Peyton and Jake. They'd had a hard time lately. Jenny had become aware of their birth mother and had shut Peyton away. Callie had uncovered all the secrets of their past. She suspected that Lucas was her father. She was facing falling in love with her best friend.

Callie also reminded me of me. She was so beautiful, so cheerful, so terrible at loving. She was a party girl, a hookup girl. Peyton worried about her never getting attached to boys.

What she didn't realize was how very attached Sawyer Scott and Callie Jagielski were. For years I'd seen glances, I'd detected flirtation behind their banter. Noticed Sawyer believing he loved Jenny because she was so very easy to love.

Shuddering, I slipped the button up cardigan I wore over my shoulder, looking at the ugly bruise on it. It was healing nicely. Sometimes I thought he did these things strategically, hitting me in places he didn't want other people to see. Only him.

I slipped it back over my shoulder as the door opened and I heard him approach. I saw his hands in the mirror before his body. They held a gold chain with a diamond pendant over my white throat. I touched the gem-he was good at buying jewelry.

I met his eyes in the mirror.

"How's Kylie?" I asked.

"She's fine. Sleeping now," he said suggestively. He leaned down and kissed my neck, and I allowed him to lead me to the bed.

I was still as he "made love to me". His words, not mine. I'd never used the phrase, except with Mouth. As he finished, I saw his eyes skate over the bruise on my shoulder. His conscience never bothered him.

He was faithful to me, and I to him. Often I thought about going after I wanted-finding someone who wasn't twenty years older than me, as sexy as Tonio was sometimes. Someone who'd love me for me, who'd worship me without possessing me. Was it so much to ask?

I wrapped myself in the silk bed sheet, sitting up as he bustled around the room.

"What are you going to do today?" he asked. He said it absently, but I knew he really needed to know. I shrugged, to torture him.

"Oh, I don't know. I figured I'd go see one of my old friends-Lucas, maybe," I said lightly. He turned to me, and I saw his face tighten.

"With Peyton?"

"Maybe," I said, backing down. He nodded.

"Keep your phone with you," he advised. I scoffed.

"I'm not your daughter," I reminded him.

"No, you're my wife. And as such, do I not have the right to worry?" he asked.

He left. Ten years we'd been married, and still he didn't know me. He claimed to love me, yet knew me as well as the postman did. Mouth and I had known everything about each other. Lucas had grown to understand me like no one else. Even Felix could relate and understand me like few could.

When he'd asked me to marry him, I'd believed he could make me happy. He had been so handsome, so adoring. The diamond he'd presented me with had equaled all my dreams, as had my wedding. My wedding dress was the most spectacular thing I'd seen outside of a catalog. I'd been happy to become more like Peyton, in hopes of restoring our friendship back to its old ways. I'd only been slightly crestfallen when she'd arrived for my wedding to be my bridesmaid with Haley, their five collective kids and husbands in tow. I could never have three kids.

Two had been my dream number. And I would have, as well, had I not lost the first one just before my wedding. It had been a night of contemplation-despite my remorse at my lost, I contemplated leaving him. I didn't have to anymore. He couldn't do anything to me, like cut me off or take my children from me. He could protest, he could hit, but I could emerge nothing the worse for wear.

Sometimes I thought that I should have. But if I had, I never would have Kylie, my daughter. And I needed her. It was for her that I stayed in this marriage that made me so miserable.