Indecision Read online

  BRITTANY FULLER

  Indecision

  Copyright © 2018 Brittany Fuller

  Copy Editor: Revise & Reprise and The Polished Pen

  Cover Design/Interior Design & Formatting: Tugboat Design

  All rights reserved. No part of this book can be reproduced, scanned or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission of the author. The author asks the readers do not engage in piracy of copyright in violation of the authors rights and materials.

  This book is a work of fiction, whereas names, places, characters and incidents are the product of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or events is solely coincidental.

  To all the girls in the world with a pen and a piece of paper dreaming and wondering what if...

  You can!

  I believe in you!

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Evelyn

  As my feet hit the concrete outside, I immediately slip and fall flat on my butt. Damn high heels and pencil skirt. Feet flying, arms flailing, my fall is nothing close to graceful. It’s inevitable the bruise will appear on my backside instantly. I look down at my feet and rotate my right ankle, making sure it still moves.

  Grimacing slightly, I look up at the sky. My mind instantly clouds with what just happened and what seems to be happening now. Rain? How did I miss that? It never rains in California; they’ve actually made songs about it.

  And Noah? He can kiss my ass—which is now soaking wet and turning a lovely shade of black and blue. Damn rain. Damn men.

  This is absolutely the last thing I need. What I need is to somehow get to my car and drive. Drive away from here as fast as I can and try to forget everything, including Noah and the terrible mistake he turned out to be. I knew the minute that tempting distraction walked into my life he’d be all kinds of wrong. I should have listened to myself.

  He turned out to be a terrible mistake; and the one man I know without a doubt, no matter how hard I try, I won’t ever get over. As the realization hits me my tears begin to fall, and so does more rain.

  Picking my clumsy self up off the sidewalk, I laugh at how stupid I must look. Looking from side to side, I run across the parking lot cringing at the idea of anyone seeing my fall, especially Noah.

  Why the hell did I park so far away when I got here?

  This is not what I need. What I need right now is a drink. A stiff drink. A very stiff drink, followed by several more until my brain goes numb and prevents me from feeling anything.

  I also need Gwen, my best friend and sister through everything. She is without a doubt the voice I need and want to hear. She’s known for giving me a swift kick in the ass to get my head and heart straight, and she sure as hell always delivers!

  Getting in my car, I peel out of the parking lot of Gatsby’s, hydroplaning and skidding everywhere.

  “Damn rain,” I say, cursing the sky.

  I run over the curb but keep on going, my reckless driving not even registering with my mind.

  How could he do that to me? How could he talk to me that way?

  Who does he think he is? I know exactly who he is, and it’s nothing like what I originally thought! If that makes any sense whatsoever?

  Somehow, I find myself laughing through my tears which then causes me to cry even harder. Even when that prick breaks my heart he still finds a way to make me smile. That is positively not fair. The realization that this relationship is sure as hell over has my whole body feeling poisoned, straight to my stupid heart for ever having trusted and allowing myself to let him in.

  God Evelyn, you really are a stupid woman!

  Deciding I need music to drown out the pain, I turn on the radio. Dierks Bentley’s “It’s Different for Girls” immediately filters through the speakers. Go Figure. I don’t even try to stop the tears that turn into sobs and eventually turn into convulsions as the rain falls harder and the stupid radio plays a song that mirrors my sad, pathetic, now broken heart and life. Turning the volume up, I let myself go, hitting the steering wheel as I belt out every last word, half in tune and half full of screaming anger.

  Fan-fricking-tastic! I’m a hot mess.

  I have no clue where I’m headed, but damnit if I really even care. If I would have just stuck to my original plan in life and not fallen for Mr. Too Damn Good to be True, this would never have happened. The inevitable thought that I could have avoided this makes me feel even more pathetic.

  Damnit, I thought I was so much smarter than this!

  Between the pouring rain and my pathetic tears, I’m not paying attention to the road and veer to the left. I quickly jerk my car back into my lane just in time to avoid a head-on collision. Even though it should, it doesn’t even faze me.

  Noah made me believe he was the right choice when I had spent my whole life planning for something more. We had actually started to build a life together … up until that jerk decided to pull a Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde routine and completely destroyed my life, my world, and my heart. Stupid heart! How can love go so sour so fast? How can feelings so sweet flip you inside out in an instant?

  The rain outside begins to pick up, and the sky turns darker suddenly. I turn my windshield wipers on full force, but I am still barely able to make out the road in front of me. My phone rings in my purse, and I know I shouldn’t answer, but if it’s that asshole that just ripped my world apart I know exactly what I want to say to him. I want to make him hurt! Somewhere, anywhere close to how bad I hurt.

  I feel around on the passenger seat for my purse. Reaching inside, I try keeping one eye on the road. The damn thing is lost and still ringing, only making my irritation sky rocket.

  I pass a construction worker holding a “slow” sign and subconsciously speed up. Like a girl can really slow down when she is running away from her heart and her mind. Knowing I can’t escape either one, I begin to cry in a loud, pathetic sort of way I didn’t even know I was capable of all the while subconsciously pressing my foot down onto the pedal harder. I look to the sky and silently beg the one above for some sort of answer.

  The phone’s still ringing, and in a moment of desperation, I figure to hell with it. I grab my purse yanking it unto my lap. Alternating between looking up at the road then at the purse in my lap, I finally pull the phone out from its hiding place. Glancing at the screen, I notice its Gwen. A smile slowly creeps across my face as a few more tears roll down my cheek. Hitting accept, I turn my attention back to the road in front of me.

  I don’t blink. I don’t breathe. My eyes widen as I hear my best friends voice coming through the phone. My foot hits the break, my ears hear the crash, and then there is darkness …

  Evelyn

  6 months earlier

  Standing at the end of the pier, I take a moment and get lost looking down into the ocean’s ever changing waters. Watching as they change from dark blue to green is hypnotizing, putting me at ease and calming every thought in my mind. I love how with every wave that crashes into the pillars, the ocean churns and gives wa
y to light blue and then white. Releasing a sigh, I breathe in slowly and tell myself what I always do standing at the edge of this pier, this is where I belong!

  I continue to watch the seaweed swaying beneath the ocean’s glistening glow. When the crisp breeze picks up enough, I can feel the mist from the waves dampen my skin. Orange County is home, even if my mailing address tells the world different.

  Overhead, I hear the seagulls out in full force. The birds call to one another as they fly out across the water to places unknown, their secret hideout safe from the people below them. Glancing around, I am suddenly aware the pier is more crowded than normal. Tourists with cameras in hand gawk and point at the amazing sight. Something locals might take for granted as the hurry around in their busy lives, but a sight which still steals their breath away when they slow down long enough to look at the paradise which surrounds them.

  I wouldn’t label myself a tourist, more like a relocated local. I make sure everyone knows I was forced to leave what I view as Utopia, the end of the rainbow if you will, as a preteen. My father got a job transfer he couldn’t pass up and my parents moved me and my older brother to Northern California to start a new life. Something I vow to never let them live down.

  I love it here in my hometown. The ocean is in my veins. The rise and fall of the waves, the salty mist that engulfs your body, the way the noise from the birds and people mix together in complete harmony. These things make up who I am and all I could ever want to be. When I am here, I can breathe. The deep soul-confirming this is where I belong type of breathing. Something I never feel up north.

  I watch the last of the sun slip beneath the glistening horizon and gather my thoughts the best I can. With light disappointment, I reluctantly turn to leave the pier. It’s later than I expected, and I had told Gwen I would meet her at Longboards, a local pub on the main drag just a few minutes walk from the pier.

  Gwen and I have known each other since I moved north. The two of us bonded immediately, and there is nothing we don’t share. We’ve absolutely been through it all. First loves and first heartbreaks, the experiential stages of high school and early college, Gwen’s parents’ endless fights and threats of divorce, even family tragedies like when death stole Gwen’s younger sister in a sudden car crash a few years back. We haven’t known each other our whole lives, but the bond between us is unmatchable. She’s my best friend, my sister. The one person I know I can always trust and always rely on without any doubt.

  We both applied to the same college straight out of high school. Long Beach State. We had dreams of the beach life. We even looked for apartments and picked out a few contenders, positive we’d ride off towards SoCal and the new life we couldn’t wait to start together. We were sure that the best was yet to come, and we were confident we’d conquer it all together. Gwen was accepted, while I got a rejection letter. We looked the same on paper, and there was no explanation. It was just one of those things. The rejection was not nearly as bad as the fact that Gwen got to live out my dream of moving south while I was forced to stay in the mud and dirt of Northern California.

  Still, it gave me added reasons to visit and move if I could ever afford it. Trying to survive in Northern California was hard enough, the amount of money you needed to sustain a life in SoCal was insane. I had my savings though, and recently started taking steps to hopefully make a move possible. I took a gamble and applied for a position at the L.A. Times, and even though they responded saying they had found another candidate, I vowed to myself I would never give up on my dream.

  My degree in journalism is the one thing in life which I’m the most proud of. The one thing I drown myself in when everything else around me won’t stop spinning. The one thing I won’t allow myself to give up on—nothing and no one can make me lose sight of what I’ve dreamed about since I was a little girl.

  A job at the L.A. Times is all I’ve ever wanted. And even though I knew the odds were low and couldn’t possibly be in my favor when I applied, I asked if they wouldn’t mind keeping my resume on file or if I could follow up with them later to see if things had changed. Which is why I’m keeping it my little secret and not telling anyone, not even my hotheaded crazy best friend who’s waiting for me at one of our routine meeting places.

  It’s packed when I walk into Longboards. That’s what Saturday nights are like at any bar on Main Street. I train my eyes in the direction of the bar, searching the faces for a glimpse of Gwen. With no luck, I look around at the tables near the back and eventually see her cozied up in the corner with some bar hound I am sure she only met a few minutes earlier.

  Gwen catches my eye and immediately waves me over. “Ev, Ev … over here!”

  Maneuvering my way through the crowd, my annoyance thickens as drunken men and drunker women fill the room. It’s only 7:30 in the evening and they have most likely been drinking all afternoon. Orange County is a tourist destination that’s for sure. Even people who live inland come to the beach on the weekends, making an already crowded location even more hectic—and most times insanely frustrating.

  The bar life annoys the hell out of me, although Gwen loves it. She thrives on it. The thrill it gives her is enough to make me laugh and not only endure it, but sometimes suffer through it if only just for her sake when we finally get the chance to hang out together.

  “I was just talking to, what’s your name again?” Gwen asks her flavor of the night as I approach the table. She is already slurring, having taken no time starting the night off without me.

  “Excuse me, I’m talking to you! What’s your name?” she continues, pestering the stranger further by poking the poor guy in the ribs. His attention is already elsewhere, on some younger early-twenty-something batting her eye lashes at him from a table close by.

  “Tom, the name’s Tom,” he says, barely glancing back at Gwen.

  I throw my purse on an open chair at the table, and then proceed to take off my coat sizing up the situation in front of me. Not exactly what I wanted to encounter on what was supposed to be girls’ night out, but I’ll go with it as long as I can figure out a way to ditch the stereotypical man-whore later.

  “Nice to meet you Tom,” I say, trying my best to hide my annoyance. Tom’s attention still hasn’t moved from the girl at the table next to us. Rolling my eyes, I look around the bar in the hope of catching the eye of a nearby waitress.

  Bar hounds are all the same, preying on the easy and vulnerable, and unfortunately there are many conquests readily available to such a sorry excuse for a man. Not my Gwen. She’s the kind that’s in the wrong place, at the wrong time, on a bad day.

  Gwen leans in close to me and whispers, “I met him here last night. He bought me a drink, and you know how I can’t say no to free drinks!” Holding up her nearly empty beer bottle, I smile sadly.

  Oh, I know.

  After her sister’s death, Gwen had gone on a downward spiral. She had some days, weeks, and months that were good, although some she drowned herself in substance abuse. I’ll never hold it against her, and I’ll never blame her. I lost my grandmother shorty after moving north and never fully recovered.

  My best friend studies her bottle for a minute, and then I watch as she chugs the rest of its contents in a lighting fast rate. This is obviously a bad day. Time to put up a guard for the both of us since there is no way she will be thinking clearly.

  A waitress finally appears and asks the table if we wish to order anything more. Her attitude and annoyance is evident as I try to raise my voice loud enough for her to hear me ordering a Tom Collins, my go-to drink whenever I need something on the strong side. As I place my drink order, I notice man-whore Tom waves his hand in a sense that he can’t be bothered, still unwilling to take his eyes off the barely legal girl to the right of us. The waitress and I both roll our eyes in a silent acknowledgment of disgust. She leaves, and Tom finally turns his attention back to our table, meeting my eyes for the first time since I arrived—perhaps the only reason being the young bar slut he had
been trying to flirt with got up and left the bar.

  “So what’s your friend’s name,” he asks Gwen without ever taking his eyes off me.

  “This is Evelyn, but we all call her Ev,” she replies. Her attention is now on her cell phone, checking Facebook or texting someone no doubt. Gwen loves her phone. It barley leaves her hand and hardly ever leaves her side.

  Tom continues staring only at me, and I notice him lick his lips as his eyes graze over every inch of my body. I feel the pit of my stomach, revolt by the idea of what must be going through his mind. His stare is enough to make even the sluttiest of woman uncomfortable, and I have to stop myself from getting up and leaving immediately.

  I’m definitely not in the mood for nasty bar men who think every girl that walks into a place is easy. Swallowing hard, I tell myself quietly that I’m here for Gwen, and from the looks of it, she definitely needs me right now.

  “Ev, huh,” Tom says slowly. He begins looking me up and down again like he is picking out a steak he’s going to devour later. There’s nothing I hate more than being sized up, especially by stereotypical bar assholes. Exhibit A: the guy standing right in front of me.

  “I got me a friend too,” Tom says, cocking his head to the side and scratching his chin, his gaze resting a little too long south of my face. “Hey, Bud! Bud over here,” he shouts.

  Bud? Is his friend’s name actually Bud or is he calling his buddy? The stupidity of it all has me silently giggling. Wingman buddy, no doubt. I doubt this situation can get any worse. Gwen is so oblivious. She must have drank more than I first assumed.

  Before I have a chance to think about looking towards where Tom gestured, I feel the breath of another person on the back of my neck. Stale and gross, it makes me break out in goose bumps of disgust. I feel hostile and nauseous. No doubt in my mind this has to be Bud.

  “Well aren’t you a pretty little thing,” I hear Bud slur. His breath smells of whiskey. I don’t even bother to look up at him. I keep looking straight ahead at Gwen whose eyes still haven’t left her phone.