Chapter 39

            After Alex had dressed, he brushed his teeth and drank two glasses of water, hoping it would flush the alcohol out of his system that much faster. He walked over the nightstand and picked up his cell phone. He scrolled through his list of contacts until he landed on “Steph” and hit “call”.

            “Hello?” a groggy voice answered after a ring and a half.

            “Steph, it’s Alex, I need your help.” Steph was AJ’s AA sponsor, and this was not the first middle-of-the-night call she had received from him during the past five years.

            “Alex? What’s wrong?” she asked, her voice sounding more and more alert as they spoke. Alex told her everything that had happened during the course of the evening, including the way he felt as he drank the alcohol and the way he felt at that very moment as he talked to her on the phone.

            “Alex, the first thing you need to remember is that you have not ruined your sobriety. Whatever you do, do not start to drink again just because you did tonight, thinking that you’ve already lost the battle so what’s the point. That’s why it’s called a battle; you have to keep fighting it.”

            She continued throwing pieces of wisdom and advice his way for the next ten minutes, and he ate up every word of it. “Thanks Steph,” he said sincerely into the phone. “I was hoping I would never need you again like this, but I’m glad you were here for me.”

            “Anytime you need me Alex, you know I’m here,” she said, the same as she had so many times before. Alex flipped his phone shut and held it in his hand for a minute, reflecting on what Steph had told him. He walked over the sink and gulped down another glass of water. The alcohol was starting to wear off and he was beginning to think clearly again. “I guess it’s time to face the music,” he mumbled to himself as he walked towards the door to the living room.

            “Nick, there’s something that I want to say to you before you say anything,” Annie began as she, Nick, and Andrea walked into the living room and sat down. She adjusted herself on the floor until she was comfortable, while Nick and Andrea sat down on separate ends of the couch. “I know what is going through your head right now but you need to believe me when I tell you that Andrea did nothing to provoke this. She wasn’t going after Alex and she wasn’t leading him on to anything either.” She looked over at Andrea as tears filled her eyes. “The same thing happened that always does, the guy I’m with starts liking Andrea more than he likes me.”

            “What are you talking about!?” Andrea gasped, her eyes widening and a look of sheer denial forming on her face.

            “I’ve never stolen a boy from you!”

            “I know that,” Annie said quietly. “But boys have left me because they wanted someone more like you.” Andrea continued staring at Annie, her facial expressions prodding Annie to further explain herself. “Whenever we go someplace, the guys always notice me first. I think it’s because I’m tall and closer to their eye level, but whatever the reason they just notice me first. Then after a while, when we all start hanging out together and they get to see your personality come out, they start to like you instead of me.”

            “You’re insane. I don’t think that’s ever happened,” Andrea retorted, trying to figure out where Annie was going with this.

            “Hello, it just happened like four hours ago!”

            “Alex loves you, not me. He’s just confused.”

            “Andrea, he’s gotten to know you and he’s started to fall for you, the same way every guy that gets to know you does.”

            “You must be living in a different world than me, because if you can remember correctly, Michael was only the second person I ever dated. I never had numerous guys falling in love with me like you’re making it sound!”

            “Remember Dustin?”

            “Yeah, the waiter, what about him?”

            “He broke up with me because he wanted someone more like you. He couldn’t have you because you were dating Ben, so he moved on.”

            “You never even mentioned that to me, EVER! And P.S., we are the same person! How could someone say that you should be more like me when we could not be more alike?” Andrea was getting very agitated and the tone of her voice was reflecting that. She felt as if Annie was launching a personal attack against her as a vendetta.

            “No, Andrea, we are not as alike in the relationship department as you think. If you just think about it for a minute, you’ll realize that. You are the fun, carefree, it’s-a-two-way-street type of girl. You do things for the other person, you make them feel like the most special person in the world. I’m not like that, and not because I don’t want to be, I just don’t know how to be.” Annie looked down at her hands as she came to this blatant conclusion, feeling ashamed and inadequate.

            Andrea got up from the couch and knelt down the floor next to her cousin. “How do you know that’s what is going on with you and Alex though?” she asked softly, hoping he hadn’t actually said something like this to her. “Did something happen between you two that I don’t know about?”

            Nick, who had been sitting idly by listening intently to the conversation that had switched from being between him and Annie to Annie and his wife, now perked up and leaned forward, resting his arms on his knees, waiting with bated breath to hear Annie’s response.

            Annie’s eyes dated from Andrea to Nick and back again. She could feel perspiration forming on the palms of her hands and the room suddenly felt very warm. “I heard him on the phone a few weeks ago,” she started as she began flapping the neck of her shirt in an attempt to fan herself. “I picked up the phone in the kitchen to make a call and I heard him talking on the handset in the bedroom. He was talking to his sponsor about how the urge to drink again was coming back because of some problems he was having with a relationship. He told her about me and our engagement, and then he told her about yours and Nick’s engagement.” She stopped, taking a deep breath and pleading with herself to keep going.

            “And then what happened?” Nick asked gently, knowing he needed to hear this just as much as Annie needed to say it.

            “Then he said that he wanted to have what you have, that he was developing feelings for Andrea and he didn’t know how to handle them. He said that he knows he loves me, but he’s not sure he can marry me if he feels this way about someone else.” The tears flowed freely down her face as she sobbed.

            As Annie was talking, Andrea was doing some quick math in her head. She said this happened a few weeks ago, but they moved the wedding up two weeks ago, so did they move it before or after this phone call? And why would AJ move up the wedding if he was having these doubts? “Annie,” Andrea started out loud, breaking her internal train of thought, “when exactly was this phone call?”

            Annie lifted her eyes from the ground to her cousin, knowing she had been caught, knowing she was going to have to explain more than she thought she would have to, or wanted to for that matter. “I didn’t want to lose him,” she began, more tears rolling down her red face. “I figured that if I could just get him through the “I do’s” then I would have something to hold onto him with. I love him so much and I know he loves me and I didn’t want him to leave me!” Her shoulders were retching and her body was shaking as she covered up her face and cried harder. “I didn’t want him to leave me,” she repeated between sobs.

            It was Nick’s turn to get off the couch and kneel down on the floor by Annie. He pulled her into a hug, thinking to himself how unfair it was that she feels like she did something wrong when she was just the victim in this situation. “Annie, Alex loves you so much. I don’t know what’s going on with him or why this is happening, but he wants to marry you. He’s always had problems when it comes to women, and I’m sorry that you are experiencing them now.” He wiped her tears away with his thumb and smoothed her hair back from her face.

            “So I take it you followed him out of the reception after he followed me out and that’s how you knew he kissed me?” Andrea asked, trying to breakup the tender moment between her husband and her cousin.

            “When I saw you walk up to him after his speech I know something was up, so yeah, after he left I followed him. I walked outside through the side door and stood behind the bushes next to the terrace so I could hear what you were saying to each other.” She looked directly into Andrea’s eyes, shame and hurt floating around her green irises. “I actually thought that you two were having an affair.”

            “Annie Elizabeth Helke, how could you think that!?” Andrea was shocked and almost disappointed in her cousin. “I would never--”

            “I know you would never do that to me, but I had all these crazy thoughts running through my head, especially since I knew that he had feelings for you and he was so good at hiding that up until now,” Annie cried, cutting Andrea off mid sentence. “What am I doing? I am going crazy and I’ve done things that are not forgiveable!”

            “Annie, don’t say that,” Andrea said supportively as she hugged her cousin. “You did what any woman would have done in your situation. It’s all forgivable and it can all be made right again. Everything will be okay.”

            “I don’t think it will,” she said cautiously and the tears that Nick had previously wiped away were replaced with fresh ones.

            “What do you mean?” Andrea asked, suddenly feeling that Annie was keeping something from her.

            “I’ve done something that I can’t take back,” she said quietly as the tips of her fingers brushed across her flat stomach. Between sobs she told them about her doctor’s appointment a month ago and how she had to stop taking her birth control for a while because of the problems she was experiencing while taking them.

            “You didn’t tell him you stopped taking your pills, did you?” Andrea questioned her cousin, already knowing the response that lay ahead.

            Annie shook her head from side to side, realizing at that very moment that she had become the person that celebrities were constantly being warned about—she was a “trapper”. “I didn’t really think it would happen though,” was the only reasoning she could offer up.

            Andrea and Nick inhaled sharply as they looked at each other then back to Annie. “You’re pregnant,” Andrea whispered, more as a fact than as a question. Annie shook her head again, this time up and down. “And he doesn’t know,” Andrea said again using the same tone as she had in her previous comment.

            Before Annie could respond they heard footsteps in the bedroom, followed by the door opening as AJ emerged from the bedroom and walked into the living area. “I’m assuming you’re talking about me, so what don’t I know?”