I couldn’t be the wall that needed to hold her up that night. Because I was the one who pushed her off of the ledge, she was falling because of me.

She looked to the ground and wrapped her arms around herself tight. Her voice was soft, drenched in sadness. “Go away, Cooper.”

I returned to the hotel, and kept trying to call and text her. As I picked up my phone and dialed again, I sighed, listening to it go straight to voicemail. I listened to Derrick’s voice on her voicemail and felt a twinge of jealousy, but I instantly felt like a dumbass and left my pathetic message. “Hey—it's me again. We need to talk...all right? Well, otherwise the plane leaves tomorrow at 10:15 a.m.” My head dropped to the ground as I continued my message. “Andie…please call. I just want to know you’re okay.”

Chapter Thirty-Seven

I MET HIM at the airport. He rushed over to me to make sure I was all right. I wasn’t. I felt used, foolish. But I wouldn’t let him know that. After he saw me broken last night, I promised myself not to let him see me in that light ever again. I would stand strong. After a delayed flight, we finally boarded the plane, with not much time to spare. I ignored him the whole flight back to Wisconsin. Even he couldn’t be dumb enough to try to talk to me. I noticed his eyebrows frowning, and his hollow cheeks, but didn’t care one bit.

When we got back to Michelle’s family’s mansion, the house was already being set up for the party. Red and green decorations were draped throughout the house. The caterers were preparing the food, and the party planners were rushing around like madmen, finishing up the last details. I only had about fifteen minutes to get ready before our main dance, and I was a hot mess.

Walking into the living room, I saw Ms. Jacobson, Mrs. Rivers, and Eric comforting my mother, who was in hysterics. Daddy was sitting on the couch and looked shell-shocked.

“Mom, what’s the matter?” When she looked up at me, I knew what she had learned. My eyes shot over to Eric. “You told her.”

“No,” he assured me. “You just did.”

My mom was holding magazines in her hands and threw them at my feet. I bent down and saw the other magazines. My heart was breaking all over again. “I sure hope you know who this Cooper Davidson really is!”

She ran off crying, and Daddy and Eric raced after her. The two gossip queens followed after them, but I was pretty sure it was only to collect more details to share at their book club.

I STOOD SMOOTHING out my Victorian dress in the mirror when I heard his southern voice behind me. “We should talk,” he said.

“I’m busy.”

“I can explain.”

Turning towards him, I locked into his green eyes. I was stern with my next words, because the answer to them would determine every action I made after. “Did you know? About the pictures? About the magazines?”

Silence.

My heart sank.

He knew.

I turned away from him, unable to look at the person who I had given so much of myself to over the past weeks. I gave him everything.

“Andie…” he whispered. I could hear him coming closer and I sharply turned around.

“Don’t call me that! What the hell do you want, Cooper? You want me to act like we are now some couple falling deeply in love?” I shouted. I couldn’t believe he even had the nerve to walk into my room right now. My hands formed fists, with my nails digging deep into my flesh.

He lowered his eyebrows. “What are you talking about?”

I rolled my eyes, tossing my hands up in frustration. “Let’s stop acting like we are normal. Like this is normal. The first night we met, we fucked. The first few weeks all we did was have sex with each other.”

Shaking his head, he stepped closer. I stepped back. “You’re going backwards.”

“I’m telling you the facts.” I bent down to start putting on my shoes and cringed when I heard him use my nickname again.

“Andie, please.”

“DO NOT CALL ME THAT!” I screamed. Every ounce of me was boiling. I could feel my insides twisting, my stomach feeling sick.

He looked at me as if I were a stranger, and let’s face it, I pretty much was. His voice lowered in tone. “You need to get a clue. Figure something out because you are acting crazy.”

I couldn’t believe him. He was really trying to push me to the edge. My mother was sitting in the other room crying her eyes out because of him, thinking I was a whore of a child. Daddy was probably having a mini-heart attack thinking about his baby girl and what she’d done in New York City. And then he had the nerve to call me crazy? “You think I'm crazy?” I picked up my shoe and threw it at him as hard as I could. I cringed, watching him dodge it. So of course I threw my other shoe, harder. “You think I'm a lunatic? You were the one in the f**king mental hospital, not me!” I turned away from him before I saw his reaction. I knew it probably stung him, because after it came out of my mouth, it stung me.

“Who told you?”

Walking over to my desk, I tossed the magazines my mom gave me onto the floor in front of Cooper. As he bent down and picked them up, he shook his head back and forth.

The title on one read, "Iris Davidson speaks out: Cooper abandoned his family and takes trip to loony bin."

Another title read, "Cooper Davidson addicted to prostitution, three different women tell their sides of the story."

And another: “Cooper Davidson violent anger rages on as Iris shares her side.”

He tossed the magazines on the bed and turned towards me. A firm look took over his eyes—a look I had never witnessed before on him. “Yeah. I'm sure you learned a lot about me from those tabloids. I bet you feel like you know who I am now.”

“No. I don't. I don't know anything about you. Let’s face it though. You don't know anything about yourself either. You don't talk about Iris because it makes it real. Reality check, Cooper—it's real. And the kid you abandoned is real too. I can’t believe I believed you when you said it wasn’t your kid. Deal with your f**king issues.”

“You want me to deal with my issues? God forbid something reminds you of your dead fiancé!”

I was beyond pissed now. How dare he bring Derrick into this. “Fuck you!” I screamed.

“You already did!”

I couldn’t believe he’d said that. And from the look in his eyes, he could hardly believe it either. “I hate you,” I whispered as I shoved him hard in his shoulder. I shoved him again, and again…“I hate you! I HATE YOU!” I felt his hands wrap around my wrists as I kept pushing him. “Let me go, let me go!” I screamed, fighting the tears that were begging to fall. I wouldn’t let them. I couldn’t let them.

His eyes moved to his hands around my wrists and he instantly dropped them and turned away from me, running his hands over his face. “God dammit, Iris! Will you listen for one f**king second?!”

I paused as he turned back to me and I stared into his eyes. “My name is Andrea.”

His body shifted as his eyebrows frowned, recognizing his mistake. “I know that.”

My body began to tremble. I could hardly hold myself up, but I did my best not to show it. “You just called me Iris. See? This isn't real. You and me. We are two screwed up people trying to get over those who screwed up our minds.”

“Stop,” he begged. I wouldn’t. I couldn’t.

“Your mom tried to fix your dad and look how that worked out for her. Stop following in her footsteps. Stop trying to fix other people…”

“What are you talking about?”

“Your plan, Cooper. To try to fix people who are terribly broken. Iris messed up your first plan. She was too damaged for you to fix. So I'm your second choice.”

“That's not it.”

“Then what is it, Cooper? What happens when I mess up your plans? Do you run off and get a third?” He didn’t answer right away. His face fell to the ground and he rubbed his hands across his mouth, annoyed by my questions.

“Andrea.”

“But the truth is, you're my second choice. If Derrick were here...”

“He's not. He's dead Andrea. Derrick is gone.” He looked at me in the most sincere fashion, but his words bit me. His words slapped me. His words almost f**king slaughtered me.

“Stop it.” I softly spoke. The trembling was getting worse. Crap.

“You're living in a lonely place. And it’s dark and scary. And whenever you get close to moving on you panic and run back into your shell. And the truth of the matter is you don’t even know who Derrick really was.”

“Don’t you dare talk about him!” How could he say that? How could he speak about the one person who loved me?

“He cheated on you, Andrea,” he said quietly. So quiet that I almost missed the words.

What a sick bastard. I couldn’t believe he would stoop that low. “Get out!”

His face dropped and he realized what he’d said. “I’m sorry…”

“You’re disgusting. You were so desperate that you actually paid someone to spend fifteen minutes with you in a dirty club.” I wanted to make him hurt the way he’d attacked me with his words.

“Don’t do this,” he begged, his concentrated eyes glossing over with water.

I had to. “You are so pathetic that you found the need to sleep with someone from the strip club. You’re a f**king creep.”

He tossed his hands up in defeat. “What do you want from me? You want me to yell at you? Is that what you want?” He raised his voice to a level that was somewhat frightening. “You want me to f**king yell?! You want me to tell you that you were, in fact, the whore I paid to spend fifteen minutes with?”

“You should leave. Really. Whatever this was was fun. But it's over.”

“So that's it?” I remained silent when he asked. “What’s going on in your head, Andrea?”

“I took a pregnancy test in New York.” His eyes widened and pure shock washed over him. My insides twisted tighter. I knew what I was about to say would make him leave forever. “It was negative. And you know how I felt? Happy. Because I would never want someone to have such an as**ole as their father. You would make a terrible parent. And you would walk out on us just like you did Iris and your daughter.”

All color was drained from him. He was silent for a moment before he nodded his head in understanding. Sliding his hands into his pockets, he rocked back and forth. The same way he rocked the first night I met him in the club… “Maybe you're right. Maybe we are two people trying to make something work when, in all honesty, it just isn't there. “

He turned to leave and looked towards the magazine covers one last time. “And for the record, I would never abandon my child. It's kind of hard to abandon something that was never yours. Tell your tabloids to get their shitty facts straight.”

And with that, he was gone. My body continued to shake, but I turned to face the mirror, ran my hands across the back of my neck, and went back to smoothing out my dress.

I had a party to get to.

THE MOMENT I walked into the ballroom, I knew it was going to be a long night. But first, I had to dance. Thank God for dance. The group lined up. I avoided eye contact with Cooper and followed the steps. When I passed Ladasha, she whispered, “Are you all right?” I shook my head and kept moving. I switched to Cooper as my partner and looked away from him, our fingers hardly touching.

I overheard Bobby, Eric’s best friend, telling Michelle tonight was the night. I had no clue what they were talking about. But I didn’t care. I didn’t have room for more drama. I kept moving. Eric looked at me with worried eyes as I curtseyed towards him and moved to Steve.

“You all right, Andrea?” he whispered.