Familiar.
“Gage… I wish I’d had a chance to prepare you for…”
I raise my hand, stopping his words. “It’s not your fault, Dad. I’m the one who left.”
“You left because you were hurting.”
“I left because I didn’t want to be like you, Dad.”
The words spit out with no filter. He swallows hard, nostrils flaring as tears rim his lower lashes, and shrinks back in the booth.
“I couldn’t risk holding onto Rayne if that meant breaking her heart while she waited on me to get my head together. Crushing her to keep myself from that pain. But now I see…” I drop my fork. It clangs against the cheap diner china. “I hurt her anyways. Maybe more. And now she’s with Preston.”
Dad leans forward again and grabs my hand. It feels off, almost unnatural. This sort of compassion isn’t something I grew up with. I try to pull away, but he grips my fingers harder. “No, Gage. You’re better than me. You did what I couldn’t do for your mother. You gave Rayne freedom when you couldn’t give her yourself. You put her needs ahead of your own, because you loved harder and better than I ever could. You showed courage.”
I snort. “Yeah—courage—but now I’ve lost everything. Forever this time. They’re having a baby. Nothing will ever be the same. Never can be.” I free my hand and gather my phone and wallet from the table. “A baby needs both its parents. I should know.”
“I wish you’d stay a little while longer. If you could only see the things I see. Understand the way I do. Experience brings so much clarity. Don’t lose hope, son.”
Hope? There is none, and that’s why I have to go. I stand up, throw a twenty on the table, and pull on my jacket. “I have to go.”
I glance at the passenger seat as the gravel of the driveway crunches beneath my tires. She was supposed to be sitting there.
She was always supposed to be there.
Now she never will.
My stomach somersaults, and I have to scramble from the driver’s seat and rush to the cluster of palms near the sidewalk. I drop to all fours as the convenience store coffee I grabbed on the road revisits me repeatedly. I sit back on my knees, wiping the sweat from my forehead.
The house I wanted so much is in front of me, and I can barely look at it because instead of the marine blue siding with white trim we’d once imagined, now I only see the weathered, gray wood, the dilapidated staircase, and the overgrown underbrush.
The future is gone. What could’ve been is gone. Only reality exists.
I grip the handrail, my duffel thrown over my shoulder, and trudge to the front porch. The sun’s last rays warm the surface of the cold, choppy water that rushes to shore in foamy gurgles. The small waves slap the sand and rock jetties, spraying water into the air. As if the ocean is crying along with me.
I reach into my pocket for the keys and turn the corner.
There it is—the swing, swaying on a ghostly breeze, the chains groaning under some invisible weight. My lungs forget how to expand, and I gasp for air, my head spinning from the lack of oxygen. I toss my duffel and keys to the ground and sit on the swing, running my fingers over the wooden slats.
This was for her. This was all for her.
I scream out, so loud and unexpected, that a few seagulls nesting in the dunes take flight. The tears streak my face, and I lie down and pull my knees up to my chest.
I’ve lost her.
Chapter 49
Rayne
I’
m tired of seeing Preston clench his jaw.
His ‘stressed out’ tick is habitual around me. Probably because I’m acting like a sullen brat, moping around the house except for the hours when I’m working at the coffeehouse, which are few and far between since Sharon cut my shifts because she’s worried about my swollen ankles that are muffin-topping out of my socks. Consequently, I spend lots of time on the couch, lying under piles of blankets and drowning my sorrows in infinite amounts of sweet tea.
The weeks since Gage left have been gloomy, gray as the blanket of clouds and drizzle that refuses to let up. If you ask me, my grief has permanently shifted the atmosphere into some sort of global depression, especially when every day’s the same with me standing still and everyone else moving forward with life. Wake, shower, eat, watch TV, work, eat, sleep, and repeat, sometimes but not always in that exact order.
“What do you want to do today?” Preston’s sitting in the corner chair looking out the window. He only had one class, and it was cancelled so he dropped everything and came here. There’s no lamp on and only minimal light filtering through the glass, but from my angle, his jaw’s moving. Clench. Clench. Clench.
I groan, repositioning my ever-expanding body on the cushions, and yank the covers to my chin. “Don’t know.” The words come out breathy and uneven. Who knew adding twenty-seven pounds would make you feel like a dump truck?
From across the room, his eyes connect with mine. “Don’t do this, Rayne.”
I already know what he’s going to say, and I already know he’s right. But I don’t care. I’m pregnant and I don’t want to face reality right now, so come hell or high-water I’m going to lay my ass on this couch and sulk about Gage even if it kills me. “Do what?”
Preston gets up, walks across the room, and kneels on the floor. “Don’t lock yourself up in this house and quit living. For the last month and a half, you’ve barely budged. Your eyes are swollen. Your hair’s a wreck.”
“If you’re trying to make me feel better, you suck.”
Preston’s eyes dart back and forth over mine. “I’m not insulting you. I’m trying to wake you up! I get it. You love him. He left again, but I’m here.”
He is, and I love him for it. Just not as much as I love Gage—who broke my heart again and again. Gage, who so easily lost faith in what we had. “Why did he leave again, Preston?” My voice quivers with each syllable. “Why couldn’t he do the math and figure out…”
“He’s the father?” Preston arches his eyebrows. “You told him I ‘comforted’ you when your Mama died. That was only a few days after y’all…” He pauses and swallows hard. “Besides, we’d all found out our parents weren’t who they pretended to be. It’s not hard to see how Gage might be a little screwed up in the whole ‘love’ area.” He snorts. “We might all be.”
He’s right. We’re all broken. Our families, our lives, ourselves, and no matter how hard we try, it’s possible the pieces won’t ever fit back into place. “Has he called you? Texted?”
“No.” Preston shakes his head and runs his hand down the side of my face, stopping to cup my cheek in his palm. “I know we’re all messed up, but it’ll get better. I promise.” He reaches down and tucks the blanket around me. “Take a nap. I’m gonna work on putting the crib together, and when you wake up, we’re getting outta here for a while.”
I force a smile and a nod, mostly to get some time to myself so I can think about Gage. The thought of him tucked away somewhere, pining for me is both heartbreaking and comforting. In that daydream, he’s still mine. It’s the other one that kills me—the thought of him in the arms of another. The vision creeps into the cracks of my happier daydreams, with the nagging thoughts that this must be the case. It’s the only reason he hasn’t called, hasn’t tried to win me back.
I clamp my eyes together and pray for sleep to come, pray for the pain to subside, and when the edges of darkness filter through, I welcome them.
Something’s buzzing. I flutter my eyes and lift my head to better see the mantle clock. A little after noon, which means I’ve been asleep for an hour and a half. Again the buzzing starts, and I glance around for the culprit. Preston left his phone on the side table.
I push myself up off the couch and walk over to grab it. If there’s something he’s needed for at work, Charlotte will be pissed if he doesn’t respond right away, but as I pick it up, it’s not Charlotte’s name on the screen. It’s Ashlyn’s.
; What does she want? Call it hormones, call it a Southern woman’s right to know, but no way in hell am I not reading that text.
How dare she call me “HER.” But that’s not the most disturbing part. As I thumb through the listing, multiple texts from Ashlyn, dating back to the week Gage left again, fill the screen. I click open a few, the fire coursing through my veins with each word.
Skank. With her, it’d be more like sloppy double digits.
Why were they talking about her body dripping with sweat?
Oh dear God. She knows the truth. He had to tell her. How could he do this to me?
My heart thumps loud in my ears, like tribal drums calling for Preston’s head to roll. I run to the end of the stairs and yell up at him. “Preston! Get down here now!”
Within seconds he runs down the stairs so fast he nearly plows into me at the bottom. One look at my face and he steels up, jerking to a stop. “Is it the baby? Are you…”
“What the hell is this?” I throw his phone at him, plugging him in the chest. “How dare you talk to her about me! How dare you tell her our secret? I hate you, Preston! I really hate you!”
He reaches down and grabs the phone from where it’s fallen to the carpet and looks at the screen. A part of me wants him to deny it, to pretend it’s all some giant hoax, but when he looks back up at me, eyes wide, skin pale, the truth is evident. “This is all a mistake…”
“Hell yeah, it’s a mistake. My mistake! I trusted you, and now you’re talking to her? About me? About the baby? Is this your plan? Some sort of revenge?”
“No! It’s nothing like that. It’s—”
“Oh really? Sloppy seconds? She’s hot and sweaty? The baby isn’t yours? How would she know that if you didn’t tell her?”
“Okay. I did tell her. I freaked out when Gage showed up and you got all depressed. But it’s nothing… she and I… we’ve been friends forever…”
“She’s no friend of mine! You had no right! Go be with her. Make your mom happy!”
“I don’t want her. Look at the phone.” He shoves it in my face. The repetition of her name in the sender line makes me want to puke. “Look. How many did I respond to?” I set my jaw and turn my head away from him. “None. Not one reply.”
“Uh, ‘per our discussion’ sounds a lot like replying.” The stink eye from over my shoulder riles him up.
He clenches his fists and slams them into his thighs. “That was from work. We signed a new client—a yoga studio downtown. They gave us free passes to different classes, and she wanted the hot yoga. That text was just her fooling around.”
“That’s right. My bad.” I whirl around and slap my hand across my heart. “Ashlyn is so innocent. She’d never be a psychotic bitch on purpose. She’ll do anything she can to get you.” The rage whips within me, slamming into my insides like it might blow me apart. A searing pain shoots through my abdomen causing me to grit my teeth for a second to withstand the pain. Preston takes my shoulders and walks me to the armchair. I sit down and breathe through it.
“I’m not encouraging her. She’s just jealous and petty, but she doesn’t mean…”
“Stop it. You may not be encouraging it, but you sure aren’t discouraging it either. I’m done with this. I let Gage leave without telling him about the baby because of our agreement, and then you carry on with her?”
Preston jumps to his feet. “You’re right. I’m putting an end to this. Right now.” He slips his phone from his pocket and calls her number. Before she answers, he puts it on speakerphone.
Her honeyed voice spills through the line. “Hey Pres. Finally you call.”
“Ashlyn, I’m sick of these texts. I have to deal with you at work, but that’s it. Do not text me. Do not talk about Rayne. Do not make advances at me. And, most of all, don’t you dare even breathe a word of Rayne’s baby to anyone or I’ll tell my dad and you’ll never work at the company again. Leave us alone.”
“She’s sitting there, isn’t she?” Her voice is silky-smooth, unscathed by his words. “Say whatever you need to make her happy and keep her from having one of those psychotic meltdowns like her dead Mama. You and I will be together, Preston. You know it. I know it. That fat, pregnant, gold-digger better know it. I won’t let her stand in our way.”
Before he responds the line goes dead, and with it, my hopes this situation will be over.
Chapter 50
Gage
“S
ome housewarming party this is,” Taryn leans over and says, wiggling her fingers in air quotes. She sits beside me, arms folded, eyes shifting around the room and stops only to lean back and flick apart the blinds on the picture window behind us, as if she’s expecting the cops to show at any minute.
In her defense, the rap music is pretty loud, vibrating the newly-hung picture frames on Farrah and Clara Jean’s apartment walls. Still, it’s a moot point to worry over the neighbors calling the cops when all the neighbors are busy dancing and shooting tequila in your living room.
She sighs loudly, like her twin powers will have some cosmic effect on Farrah. I smile. Taryn looks the part of an 18-year-old, and dresses the part, too, though her style ranges more on the conservative end of the spectrum as opposed to Farrah’s over-the-top, so-revealing-she-might-as-well-be-wearing-a-bikini wardrobe. She doesn’t act her age, though. Uber mature, thoughtful, and intelligent, she’s a stark contrast to her sister’s party-girl attitude.
That’s probably why Taryn and I have bonded as cousins ten times more than Farrah and I have. Every time I speak, Taryn stares at me as if I’m a jigsaw puzzle in pants, some experiment she can pick apart and dissect like the fetal pigs from her medical classes, then bandage up again in like-new condition.
She leans forward and picks up a bowl of fried mozzarella sticks and crinkles her nose, tossing it back on the table. If this were Taryn’s party, there’d be petit fours and finger sandwiches and punch. Traditional Southern stuff. Not the wings, dips, fried cheese, beer-and-liquor-fest this is.
Clara Jean weaves through the crowd and sits on the coffee table across from me and Taryn. She hands us each a shot glass of tequila and a wedge of lime. “Shoot ‘em!” she laughs, and I throw mine back then bite the lime, its sour fingers wrapping around my tongue.
Taryn stares at hers, holding them both mid-air. “Go ahead,” I say, leaning over to her ear. “It can only make this party better or make you not care. Win-win.”
She smiles and chucks it back, lapsing into some sort of full body shiver as she swallows. Clara Jean reaches for the shot glasses but pulls back when her phone buzzes. She squeezes it out of her skin-tight leather pants and glances at the screen, eyes narrowed.
Taryn leans forward and grabs her arm. “Is it him again?”
She nods, and I can’t help noticing the bright redness that creeps into her cheeks. “Same old thing. I miss you. I love you. I want to get back together.”
“Yeah, you’ve only heard that one about nine hundred times.”
“Yep, and that’s 899 times too many. I’m done with it.” Clara Jean says it with authority, but her voice trembles on the back end like she’s putting on a front. She’s nowhere near as strong as she says she is.
She scoops up the glasses and heads to the kitchen, where once again she pauses by the sink to check her texts. Damn, this guy is persistent, and not in a good way.
“He cheated on her,” Taryn whispers. “More times than I can count. Talked down to her, telling her no other guy would want her. Did a crazy number on her self-esteem.”
“Her?” I shake my head. No way. “But Clara Jean’s a beautiful girl. She’s smart and funny. Why does s
he listen to that?”
Taryn shrugs. “If someone tells you that you suck long enough, you eventually start to believe them.” She stops and stares at Clara Jean and bites her lower lip. “She keeps going back because he’s her first love. First love’s a bitch, and it’s rarely love at all. More like a walk down Hell’s highway.”
The edge in her tone hints that she speaks from experience. And then I realize these two wonderful girls are reeling because of dipshit guys, and my mind immediately goes to Rayne. Is this the way she feels about our relationship? Is that why she’s with Preston now? Because I’m the dipshit guy who messed her up?
But no matter what happened between me and Rayne, what we had was real love. I know because I still feel it, even more if that’s possible.
Three hard knocks sound at the door and Taryn immediately stiffens, as if the police are about to charge in and throw everyone in handcuffs. She does a quick count, noting each guest with a head tick. “Who could that be? Everyone’s already here.”
Clara Jean ducks out of the kitchen and walks to the door, pausing to smooth her shirt and hair before opening it. She takes a deep breath and blows it out slowly. She obviously knows who’s waiting on the other side.
The door swings partway in when a blond guy in a gray sweatshirt with Greek letters grabs it, throwing it the rest of the way open. Behind me Taryn groans, confirming my suspicions. He grips Clara Jean’s elbow and directs her into the hallway leading to the bedrooms, but she resists, pushing back against him.
“I told you it wasn’t happening again, Jeremy. I’m over it.”
He jerks her closer to him, leaning down to look her almost eye-to-eye. “You know you always come back to me.”
“Not anymore. Never again.” Clara Jean shakes her head profusely, tears welling in her eyes as she wrings her hands. “Now I want you to leave.”
“I’m not going anywhere until you talk to me,” he growls.
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