Cream of the Crop (Hudson Valley, #2)(53)

I’d gone shopping downtown, taking the subway when Thomas was teaching his undergraduate class one afternoon and I actually had some time to myself. He was home so much more than he used to be, not making all of his lectures for some time now, staying in, with me. For the first time in a long while, I was alone, out and about, actually feeling myself relaxing for a change—coupled with exhaustion. And then she saw me, and I could see on her face just how bad I looked.

If you lose that amount of weight in that short a time, there’s a slackness to the skin, a person within a person, almost. But factor in the stress, the lack of laughter, my poor health and well-being, and I knew I didn’t look myself.

I let her take me home. I let her wash my face. I let her talk on and on about how much she missed me, how much she worried about me, how many times she’d tried to call me but Thomas told her I was busy. But when she tried to make me a sandwich and put some cookies on a tray, I left.

And went back to the Bronx, where Thomas was waiting for me, wondering why in the world I’d been gone so long, and shouldn’t I have put on some lipstick if I was going out?

But something happened that day—even though I didn’t realize it at the time. Just being in my home, with my mother, had opened the tiniest sliver of a door. She’d wept when she saw me, and she’d wept when I’d left, but she was so grateful to have seen my face, even though it was too thin and sad-looking. She was happy to see my face.

And Thomas? He was never happy. He used to laugh, make jokes, and tell funny stories—but that night, as I lay next to him in that fourth-floor walk-up studio where our bed was a mattress on the floor, I realized that his humor always had a slant to it, a dark edge or a mean vibe.

He never thought anything good about anything. There was always an angle, someone wanted something from him, or someone was going to try to screw him over for something, or he wasn’t going to be able to get something done because someone always had something more. More money, more power, more connections. Stripped down to the naked truth, he was mean.

I used to think abuse was someone getting hit.

Now I know it’s anything that makes you double over with pain, that makes you question anything and everything about yourself that you knew to be true. It’s anything that tells you that you’re only good if . . .



I felt a drop of water splash onto the back of my hand, and I realized that while telling this story, which I rarely shared with anyone, my eyes had filled with tears. Shocked, I looked up to see Chad and Logan watching me, their own eyes filled with sympathy.

“I’m so sorry.” I sniffed, snatching up a napkin and wiping my face. “I don’t know what happened there. Truly, I didn’t mean to go on so.”

“You didn’t go on, it was—”

“Seriously, I’m so sorry, I never talk about that stuff, it’s ancient history.” I hurried on, dabbing at my nose, horrified to find that it was running. What the hell was I doing, spilling my guts to two men I just met?

“Natalie.” Logan covered my hand with his. “Stop.”

I looked up at him through still-teary eyes, shaking my head. “I should have never—”

“Shut the hell up and let two gorgeous men hug you,” Chad interrupted, no nonsense. Surprised, I laughed, still wiping my face and knowing I must look a fright.

But I let them hug me. And I realized that sometimes strangers can make for the best company ever.



When Chad and Logan dropped me off at Roxie’s a while later, I felt wiped out. Emotionally drained. Wasted.

I hated revisiting that stuff, so I don’t know why it all came out today in a blubbery mess in front of two people I barely knew.

I thought about Thomas from time to time, of course. Not intentionally, but sometimes he’d flash across my brain when something about old New York architecture would come up, or someone would be talking about their dissertation.

Or the time I was sitting in a booth behind some couple and the guy started telling the girl that she’d had enough to eat and she shouldn’t get dessert, and by the way my mother is coming over for dinner next weekend and don’t you think it’s time you learned how to make a decent coffee cake?

That time was bad. I had to leave the table to hide out in the bathroom for a few minutes while I got the shaking under control, and then I had to leave the restaurant entirely when I poured a pitcher of water over that *’s head and was asked to leave by the manager.

But not before I gave the girl all the cash I had in my wallet and my card, and told her to call me if she needed a place to stay for the night.

She never called. I knew she wouldn’t. But I was glad I gave it to her.

I stood outside on Roxie’s porch now, watching the taillights of Chad’s car disappear into the early evening, and took a moment to banish all bad thoughts from my head. I was good at it by now; visualization was the key. I could take about ten deep, cleansing breaths, visualize Thomas’s rotten stupid stinking face, and poof! Gone.

I took the breaths. Poof. I opened the front door and let myself in.

“Yo. Rox,” I called out, climbing the stairs two at a time. All bad thoughts gone, I was already moving on to the night ahead and seeing my best friend.

She was just emerging from the bathroom clad in a towel, with a plume of steam following her. “Hey, girl, thanks for understanding about tonight. Sorry you had to take a cab over.”