Pass me By (BFF Series Book 1)

by Kyra Fox

  “You ready?” I ask.

  It’s early noon, and we’re standing in front of a one-level single-family house in northeast Fresno. We can see the ample back and side yards from where we’re positioned on the sidewalk. Everything about the house is flawless down to the freshly mowed blades of grass, and the tan SUV parked in the driveway only enhances the picture-perfect image both Philip and I know isn’t true.

  The people in that house have had a lifetime of sorrow and pain dealt to them, just like us, and just like us, they’ve tried to live to the best of their ability. And here we are about to ruin the semblance of impeccability they’ve managed to create over the last two decades.

  “I’m never going to be ready.” Philip runs his hand through his hair and groans up to the sky in frustration. “Might as well get it over with.”

  We walk up to the front door passing an open window, and I’m pretty sure I smell apple pie. We proceed to knock twice. There’s clamoring inside and the voice of a woman calling out to wait one minute.

  The door opens, and we’re met with two familiar hazel eyes. It takes her a few seconds, but once she realizes who we are, Helen Macalister’s eyes grow wide, her hand flies to her mouth, and a cry leaves her lips.

  “Liam!” She calls out as tears run down her face. “Liam come here right now.” Heavy footsteps rush our direction, and the door jerks open. I knew who I was going to find looking at me from the other side but somehow facing him in real life is still a shock to my system.

  “Eric?” Liam Macalister’s emerald green eyes shimmer. “But you’re dead, we saw the police file with the photos.”

  I shake my head. The words are lodged in my throat, and I can’t seem to force them out.

  “He lied,” Philip finally says when he realizes I’m stunned to silence. “Elijah Wright lied; he faked the police file.”

  “But why?” Helen asks between sobs.

  “Because of me.” Philip looks at his feet, unable to meet the Macalister’s eyes. “He knocked her up and created the files to cover his tracks. It’s all in here.” He shows them the thumb drive.

  “And you are?” Liam’s jaw is clenched, the corner of his eye twitching. He doesn’t want to accept that we are who we claim to be, that not only is his grandson alive, but he also has another grandson he never knew of.

  “I’m Philip.” Phil seems to wither under Liam’s hard gaze, and I feel my older brother instincts kick in.

  “Can we come in, please?” I finally find my voice. “We only found all of this out yesterday, we just…”

  “We thought you deserved to know,” Philip completes the sentence for me. “and we wanted to meet you.”

  “Yes, of course.” Helen seems to have composed herself, ushering us in as Liam closes the door behind us. “I’ll get us some tea.”

  Liam leads us to the sitting room and directs us to two armchairs opposite a loveseat. The entire place is laid with cherry hardwood including the large library full of books, the walls painted in off white and the furniture in blush pink. The color makes me think of Zoe and how much I wish she were here with me, holding my hand and giving me strength.

  “You look just like her,” Liam suddenly says, and I realize he’s staring at Philip, who just nods without meeting Liam’s eyes. Helen walks in, holding a tray with mugs and a teapot.

  “I remember you,” I say as she sits down next to Liam on the loveseat. “Mom, she told us you threw her out when she got pregnant. But I always remembered a man who had my eyes and a woman who took care of me. She let me assume it was my dad who had abandoned us and the nice next-door neighbor.”

  Helen lets out another sob, and my heart wrenches.

  “I’m sorry. We didn’t come here just to upset you.” I run my hand over my neck. “She lied to us about so many things. We spent our entire lives resenting you only to find out she lied to you too.”

  “And how did you find all of this out, exactly?” Liam’s voice doesn’t soften even as he tenderly rubs his wife’s back in comforting strokes.

  “When mom passed last month, the police ran her prints and a file popped up, along with your names and information. And all the years you looked for her. For us.” I force myself to look at the couple in front of me—they’re not much older than Lenny and Martha, but it seems as if they’ve lived a lifetime longer.

  “Sharon died last month?!” Helen looks horrified. “We buried her twenty years ago!”

  It’s killing me how much pain we’re bringing into their lives, how much unneeded sorrow.

  “The woman we buried was Sheila Mackenzie.” Philip’s tormented face mirrors my own inner turmoil. “Sharon Macalister died a long time before you buried her.”

  “How did she die?” Liam seems to have softened at our aggrieved expressions. I shake my head, I don’t want to go into specifics of that night, I haven’t told anyone, not Zoe, not even Philip. The only people who know that night to detail are the police officers who questioned me in the hospital.

  “She took her own life, didn’t she?” Helen grimaces at me with empathy, I can only assume my earliest memories of finding my mom weren’t her actual first attempts.

  “She wasn’t answering the phone, and I got worried. It wasn’t the first time I found her.” I shrug. “It was just the first time I was too late.”

  “Oh, Honey.” She rushes to my side and kneels on the floor next to me, placing her hand on mine tenderly. “I’m so sorry you went through that alone.”

  “I wasn’t alone. My… friend, she was with me the entire time.”

  “Tell us what else is on that drive.” Liam seems to have resigned his anger toward us.

  “Well, it starts at the point she ran away from home when Eric was three,” Philip begins, listing the information we read last night. “Your account of everything and the police reports that followed, that kind of stuff. Then the four years between her moving to Boston until I was conceived, mainly arrest reports or when social services had to get involved when she went on a rampage and Eric was alone.”

  “What did you do all those years, when she’d leave you?” Helen is looking up at me with so much guilt I have to fight the urge to hug her, tell her it wasn’t her fault, and she did the best she could.

  “We had a neighbor, Miss Audrey. She was older and lonely since all her next of kin lived out of state, so I’d stay there a lot. She taught me how to read and write, how to cook and clean. She taught me everything, really.” I smile at the memories. “Eventually she got permanent foster status. She was a retired high school science teacher, really big on Carl Sagan.”

  “I’m glad you had someone who took care of you.” Helen pats my hand and stands up, taking her seat next to Liam, sensing the hard part is yet to come.

  “Then there’s the report social services filed from the first time they got involved after I was born,” Philip continues. “A neighbor called the police because she was playing music too loud at 2 am. She was having a manic episode. That’s when she told them my father is Elijah Wright.” Philip practically spits the name out, and I can see his face contort with anger.

  “We sent him to find Sharon.” Liam sighs. “He must have been the dozenth PI we sent; he came highly recommended.”

  “We’re not sure what happened.” I decide to jump in and continue the story since Philip seems on the verge of explosion. “All we know for sure is that once he realized she was pregnant, he faked police files that she and I died on the streets when I was four, gave them to you and then he just disappeared.”

  “She used me as a bargaining chip so he wouldn’t tell you where she was.” Philip isn’t as forgiving as I am with the description of the events, and I can’t say I blame him. “And he let her, under the condition she’d get an elective c-section and get her tubes tied so she wouldn’t get pregnant again. His way of ‘looking out for me’ before running off to a non-extradition country.”

  “That’s very detailed.” Liam seems surprised.

  “She did
n’t spare any details.” I jump in again. “Social services tried to find him; he never signed a waiver of parental rights. Back then, the system wasn’t as well connected as it is today. She never disclosed your existence, and when you did find her in Boston you were told she was dead, so you stopped looking. No one ever connected us back to you when we were kids, and when Miss Audrey passed I was already old enough to take custody of Philip, so nobody bothered looking.”

  “But when the police ran her prints this time around, all the files connected to her popped up.” Philip sinks into the couch and sighs, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands. “The magic of the world wide web, if only it existed fifteen years ago.”

  “We’ll leave you a copy of the thumb drive, so you can look through it.” I place the drive on the coffee table. “See what her life was like after she left, learn more about us.”

  “I’m sorry.” Liam suddenly looks at us with misty eyes. “I should have verified the information he gave us. I should have followed up with the Boston PD.”

  “It’s not your fault, she…” I try to let him know we’re not mad at him for falling into the same web of lies we’ve believed ourselves for the past twenty years.

  “It is.” He cuts me off. “Sharon was my responsibility, you boys, you were my responsibility, and when you needed me the most, I took the easy way out, accepted the easy explanation without a second thought.”

  “Liam, don’t.” Helen puts her hand on his arm. “We thought they were dead, we spent years trying to find them, and we just wanted to mourn.”

  “He dotted his ‘i’s and crossed his ‘t’s.” Philip leans back. “The man I’m ashamed to call my father.”

  “He’s not your father, Phil.” I shake my head. “Just a misfortunate sperm donor.” I blush and look up apologetically at Helen and Liam, who just laughs.

  “That sounds accurate.” Helen shakes her head and looks up at the ceiling. “How long are you boys around for?”

  “I’m here for a few more days,” I provide. “I have to get back to Boston by Thursday morning.”

  “I’m up at Berkeley for at least another year, so…” Philip trails off, a dozen different emotions run over his face as he struggles to understand what to make of the whole situation.

  “Cory and Steph live in Berkeley.” Helen smiles at him. “Our son and his wife. She’s a museum curator, and he runs his own law firm, following in his daddy’s footsteps.” Liam’s chest swells with pride at her words.

  “That’s funny.” I shake my head though I’m not laughing. “Phil has his sights set on law school when he graduates college. Nature versus nurture, huh?”

  Philip shoots me a sideways glance with a quarter of a grin, and I resist flipping him off because I know exactly what he’s thinking. That Zoe’s rubbed off on me in more ways than one.

  “There’s so much we don’t know about you,” Helen is tearing up again. “Cory will be so happy; he was only seventeen when Sharon took off, and I think the news, well fake news, of your death, hit him worse than anybody else. He loved you like a brother.”

  “What your grandmother is trying to say is that you should stay. We have a spare bedroom if you don’t mind sleeping with pink fairies and rainbow unicorns.”

  Philip and I look at each other. I can tell he’s as conflicted as I am as to what the right move here is. That he’s just as surprised to hear Liam call Helen our grandmother, just as startled that it kind of feels right.

  “Cory and Steph are coming over for dinner with the girls tomorrow. Please at least stay until then,” Helen pleads us, and I know they’re afraid that if we walk out the door, we’ll never come back.

  I can’t say I blame them. I’d been thinking about turning the car around since the “Five miles to Fresno” sign, running back to Boston and going through the motions like I’ve been doing for the past twenty-seven years. But I know that I have to stay, for Helen and Liam, for Philip, for Zoe, but most of all, for me.

  If I run away now, I’ll prove what Zoe said to me that night was true. That I’m the one that walks away because I’m afraid everybody I care about will abandon me. It will prove that as much as I blame everybody else, I’m the one that’s just like her. Like my mom. And I don’t want to be like my mom.

  So, I nod.

  Liam raps his knuckle on the table, sealing the deal. “Good. Now let’s have some apple pie and catch up some more.”

  “I’ll help.” I jump up as Helen moves toward the kitchen. We work in silence for a while, slicing up pie, and scooping vanilla ice-cream on top.

  “So, this friend of yours…” Helen starts.

  “Zoe.” I take my time placing each scoop of vanilla in the center of the pie slice.

  “Zoe. She’s more than a friend?” Helen smiles at me, and I can feel my cheeks heat up a bit.

  “She was. I’m not sure she’s even that now.” Just like that, the heat disappears, and the emptiness returns. “I made a stupid mistake.”

  “You think you did more damage than you can fix?” Helen wipes her hands and looks at me expectantly.

  “I hope not.” I lean on the counter and look at Helen. “I need to figure things out, so when I tell her that I’m done letting fear dictate my life, it’s for real and not just to get her back.”

  “I like her already.” Helen grins. “Any girl who makes you want to change your life for the better, find a way to let happiness into your world and not just fake it, is a keeper. She must be some special kind of lady.”

  “Just ask Phil. I’m pretty sure he has a huge crush on her.” I chuckle, though it’s only half a joke. I do have a sneaky feeling Philip is a bit starry-eyed for Zoe.

  “Eric.” Helen suddenly turns serious and places her hands on both sides of my face, a gesture that throws me twenty-five years back into my memories, and I suddenly recall a much younger version of her holding the face of a much younger version of me the exact same way as we collected vegetables in her garden. “I know this is a lot. I can’t imagine how much courage it took for the two of you just to walk up to our front door like that, how difficult it was to agree to stay. But you need to know that both of you are part of this family, and from this day forward we won’t let anything change that.”

  I can only nod and hug her. I’m afraid that if I try to speak the tears will spill out, tears for over two and a half decades lost, twenty-five years of pain and despair that didn’t have to happen, a lifetime of sleepwalking through existence.

  Then one day, I saw a petite brunette with purple streaks in her hair and a mouth that could swear down a drunk pirate while still looking innocent with those big chestnut doe eyes, and she sparked me back to life.

  And I intend to do whatever it takes to be the kind of man she deserves.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  ZOE

  I inhale through my mouth and exhale through my nose before walking into Brain Juice.

  Eric texted me he’d be there after my Thursday class, he wanted to talk.

  Learning my lesson from last week I canceled class today, a fact I neglected to mention when I said I’d think about it. Which meant I had come specially to meet him, not something I’m particularly thrilled about, but I just couldn’t stop myself.

  “Hi,” I say in a near whisper, willing myself to look into his eyes despite knowing I’ll be captured by the startling green of them, that it may betray my longing for them. For him.

  “Hi.” He looks relieved as he stands to greet me, not making a move to touch me though he seems to want to. “I ordered you a mocha.”

  “Thank you.” I give him a small smile and sit across from him. “How’s Philip?”

  “Not amazing.” A pained look crosses Eric’s face. “I want to thank you, for everything you’ve been for him since our mom died, for how you’ve cared for him.”

  “I told you, he’s family.”

  “Speaking of family…” There’s a long pause as Eric seems to try and organize his thoughts. In the meantime,
I drink my coffee, waiting for him to decide what he’s willing to tell me if anything.

  “We read the files,” he finally shares. “We weren’t really expecting to find what we did.”

  Over the next couple of hours, Eric tells me what they found in the police files, about his grandparents looking for him and his mom, about how she lied, first to him about running away because Eric’s grandparents requested custody of him when she failed to stick to her treatment, then once more about Philip and his father.

  “Oh, God.” My hand shoots to my mouth, and I feel tears well up in my eyes. “No wonder he’s falling apart.”

  “I made him promise to answer next time you call.” Eric smiles, and I can see the gratefulness in his eyes. “I don’t think I can give him what he needs, I’m pretty sure I haven’t been able to do that for a while now.”

  “What about what you need?” I can’t stop myself from asking, from caring.

  “I started seeing a therapist that specializes in treating family members of people with mental disorders.” His hand goes to his neck. “Helen and Liam’s therapist recommended her.”

  “That’s good, Eric.” I smile, happy he’s finally trying to make peace with his past.

  “Your dad told me something when you left the table, that day we were at Señor Hernández. I wish I would have listened.” Eric’s gaze turns to his coffee, he looks miserable. “He told me I should sort my shit out before I drown in it.”

  I laugh, crudely. It’s so my dad to say something like. No threats, no menacing my boyfriend, just laying it straight on him by putting a mirror up to his face.

  “You’re not my dad, Eric, just like I’m not your mom.” I lean back and sigh, acknowledging that Eric may be a little bit like my dad, cliché as it may sound. “Do you want to go sit in Stout? I need a real drink.”

  “Yeah.” A wide grin spreads over Eric’s face. “I’d like that very much.”

  We walk in silence to the pub. I fight the need to take his hand the entire way and judging by how his fists clench and unclench I assume he’s in the same war with himself.