And then, I dusted myself off. I went to night school, after waitressing during the day, to earn my teaching license. I applied for jobs, rented my first flat, read every baby book I could get my hands on and made it work.
I’d done it all without Vance Morley. Without his pigheaded stubbornness, or his arrogant, quiet charm. Without his intense looks that could paralyze me from halfway across a room. Without his foul mouth or protective embrace.
The man walked out of my life, and now that he saw what he’d given up, he wanted back in.
Well, I have news for him. And I know for a fact, from extensive experience dealing with the brute, that he isn’t going to like it.
He isn’t going to like it at all.
2
Vance
The first time I saw my son, I just about fainted.
Mum had asked me to run down to a shop she liked near the beach, for a bottle of wine to serve with dinner. Dad’s business partner was coming, and she was serving shepherd’s pie. I wasn’t home much and thought I could at least complete the simple task of buying the night’s alcohol. By all accounts, Dad’s partner was a dry bloke and I thought I’d need the aid of a good buzz.
Things at the Rogue Soccer Academy, the football organization I’d been signed to when I was eight years old, had been going well. I lived on the campus in Clavering, about a two-hour drive from Brighton, for almost ten years. While I love my family, I’d adopted two brothers-in-arms while at the academy, Jude Davies and Kingston Phillips. Together, they called us the three horsemen of the football apocalypse … someday soon we’d bring honor and many World Cup trophies to England.
But, four years later, I’m still stuck at the academy, riding the proverbial bench, while Jude and Kingston start for Rogue Football Club in London. I’m stuck in limbo, both professionally, and as I discovered mere weeks ago, personally.
It was midday when I’d walked out of the shop, a bag containing four bottles of wine in my hand, when I caught Lara in my peripheral. I hadn’t seen her since we broke things off more than two years ago.
She looked … magnificent. She’d cut her golden locks into that trendy style all the girls were wearing these days. Just above her shoulders, with a longer angle in the front and some fringe swept to the side. It still curled around the edges of her face, her high cheekbones dusted with color and eyelashes that were inky black and kissed her cheeks each time she blinked. The long tan trench coat over olive-green slacks and a cream-colored sweater made her look impossibly chic.
The whole ensemble made Lara appear much more mature than the teenage girl in a crop top and faded denim shorts who dared me to skinny dip in the ocean after a rave one night. But, her change in appearance hadn’t deterred my heart from slamming into my rib cage, threatening to dislodge itself from my body in an attempt to make its way back to her.
And then … I saw him. He came bounding out of the shop she’d been in, carrying a lollipop that was almost the size of his head. The little boy, the one who ran up to her shrieking “Mummy!”
He had my hair. And her eyes. And a slope of a nose that exactly matched my father’s. His chin was all Lara, but then I saw the boy smile, and bloody hell …
The same dimple I have in my left cheek appeared.
The bag dropped from my hand, two of the wine bottles shattering right there on the sidewalk. Lara and the boy startled, whipping their heads my way.
I heard her audible gasp from across the busy Brighton street. Up until that moment, she hadn’t spotted me. I’d had a few minutes to collect myself, to watch her from afar and observe the person who, at one time, had known me more intimately than anyone.
If I had a nostalgic grin, a bittersweet thump of my heart, or an idea to walk up to her and see how she’d been doing … that kindness flew out the bloody window.
The minute I’d seen my son.
It was clear that Lara believed she was staring at a literal ghost as she gaped at me. Bending at the waist, without taking her eyes off mine, she grabbed her son, pulling him up into her arms and smooshing his cheek against hers. The toddler, with his chubbiest cheeks, giggled as if his mother is playing a silly game.
And I was across the road, running into traffic without a care for bodily harm, in two seconds flat.
“Something you want to tell me?” Never one for small talk or pleasantries, I tower over the woman who’d bewitched my heart since the moment I kissed her on our hometown beach one Christmas.
Lara’s mouth falls open, gaping and floundering like a fish struggling for breath on the bottom of a boat. “Vance … I … what are you doing here?”
“I’ll be the one asking the bloody questions.” I could hardly believe my eyes as I stared down at the little boy in her arms, the one trying to fit the entire stick of candy he was holding in his mouth.
“Watch your language.” Her voice is harsh, those rich blue eyes cutting me down as they flit from me to the toddler.
“Lara, is he mine?” I almost choke on the words.
People are starting to stare, and I know that it’s because of who I am. I can’t return to Brighton without being stopped on the streets, without being asked for an autograph or a handout. I’m not Jude Davies, but I do all right. My own car, buying my parents their house. I have money in the bank, loads of it saved for the day when my body can no longer play the sport I love with every part of my soul. Heaven knows I don’t squander my wealth on flashy purchases like Kingston Phillips. No, I am steady, dependable, middle of the road one, both with my finances, and in life.
And steady, dependable, solid as a boulder Vance Morley didn’t get birds pregnant and not know about children he fathered. I’m just as furious at myself as I am with Lara at this moment.
Lara must realize that we’re drawing attention, because she grabs my arm, pulling me around the block and into an alleyway. The boy on her hip coos, giggling as he bounces at the hurried pace she’s keeping. My wine is somewhere on the street, forgotten. Everything but right now is forgotten.
Once we’re out of the earshot of bystanders, she whips around, cradling her son to her as if I might steal him. My vision snags on the ring she’s wearing on her left hand. A small, round diamond set on a gold band.
She’s engaged? The thought throttles through my brain, shooting down my spine and into my heart like a shock of electricity. Lara, my Lara, is with someone else? I don’t even have time to address the agony ripping the organ in my chest to shreds, because her voice cuts through the pain.
“What do you think, Vance? Look at him, you’re not daft!” Her tone is meant to be offensive, as if I’m the one who did something wrong here.
“Why are you acting like I’m the one who’s committed a crime here? I asked a question to a fact that I was, apparently, never aware of! Or were you just going to keep this secret from me and from him for the rest of our lives?”
I want to punch something. The brick next to Lara’s head looks mighty tempting. But I hold off, knowing that if I unleash the beast threatening to explode from my chest, I won’t be able to cram him back in.
“His name is Mason,” she says quietly.
I’d been so stunned into silence after she told me his name, that I couldn’t talk. It provided Lara with an escape, and she scooted out from under my glower. And since that day, just five or so weeks ago, I haven’t seen my son. Each text I’ve sent, all the calls I’ve made to Lara … they’ve gone unanswered. I know I might not have handled the initial meeting or my confronting her as well as I could have … but bloody hell, she hid my son from me.
Mason. I have a son and his name is Mason. That fact has blown my world to smithereens, it obliterated my ability to speak for hours. I stood in that alley long after Lara retreated with our child. I pictured his face and felt my entire world shift on its axis. Nothing means what it used to, and somehow my five senses feel different. My skin feels too tight, and I can’t figure out which way is up.
I’m a father. And how much of his li
fe have I already missed?
The compulsive part of me, the perfectionist that lives in my gut, is fraught with grief and failure. My son doesn’t know me. I’ve missed so many major moments in his life, and I’ll never get those back.
That’s why I am back in Brighton. I gave Headmaster Darnot, the prick who runs the Rogue Academy, an official notice of leave this morning. It only affords me two weeks to tend to my business, and then I have to be back on the pitch for the second squad. Football is my passion, the reason I wake up in the morning and why I was put on this earth. I truly believe that. But, in the more recent past, the club I work so hard for didn’t believe in me.
As a twenty-two-year-old keeper, who gives every ounce of sweat and blood I have to the sport, I should be playing at a top-level club on an international scale. But because RFC has a brilliant keeper, Remus Bayern, who is in his prime and winning matches for them left and right, I’m relegated to the academy until they’re ready to call me up. But who knows when that will be … it could be never. They’re keeping me in Clavering, among the lads just learning how to play, in my best years. They can’t even show me mercy enough to let me go, or sell me to another club so that I can play my greatest years on a first squad.
I’m as loyal as they come, but once I learned about Mason, I knew it was time to be selfish. When it came to Rogue, and when it came to Lara. I’ve sat idly by for too long, both on the football bench and when it came to sorting things with my ex.
As I drive along the coastal road, my vision skates over the stone beach where I first kissed her.
I’m back in town, and I’m not leaving without the two people I came here for.
3
Lara
We’re only two months into the school year, and already I can feel my students tuning me out as I begin to flip open my copy of David Copperfield.
“There is this idea that Dickens evokes in this novel, that of being our own hero or allowing someone else to be the hero of our life. How do you think you can be the hero of your own story?”
I ask the question and get crickets. Pure silence, the kind that makes educators cringe with self-doubt. I swear, I do love my profession, but when I decided to throw caution to the wind and get my teaching license when I was pregnant at the age of twenty … I thought I’d be inspiring a bit more than I do now.
Granted, it is the last hour of the school day, and these students have probably been through a full teenage life cycle before they make it to my English class. A girl in the front row has red-rimmed eyes, indicating a fight with her best mate or the boyfriend she’s probably been seeing for all of a week’s time. Someone in here smells like an ashtray, and I can tell that person has been sneaking an electric cigarette in the bathroom. Two blokes near the back are poorly hiding the fact that they’re using their mobiles under the desk, and a young lady in the middle row, seated next to my other whiteboard, is scarfing down lunch. I wonder, idly, what caused her to miss her lunch hour that she’s only now eating her peanut butter sandwich.
A timid hand catches my attention, and I latch onto it.
“Yes!” I point my finger at Tommy, a black-haired boy with blue-rimmed glasses, who is one of the only souls in here to indulge my discussions.
I’m not normally so naff, on the contrary, I know for a fact I’m considered one of the ace teachers at Brighton Secondary School. But this group of students has proven to be particularly difficult to engage, so I’m putting in all the pep I’ve got.
“Well … I think that David doesn’t end up being the hero of his own story. He’s an observer, not an active participant in his own life. And while that might allow him to be a better writer he’s only witnessing the moments. He’s letting them pass him by. What I took from the book is that we have to be do-ers, if we want to be our own hero.”
My heart sings, because if I’ve only gotten through to one person today, if the literary works I love so much have spoken to a student as much as they speak to me … then that answer hit the nail brilliantly on the head.
“Well done, Tommy. Through David’s inaction, I’ve always thought Dickens was trying to tell his reader that we must not be merely witnesses to what happens around us.”
“But in order to act, to be our own hero, one needs the qualities in his or her personality to do that,” Kitson, the girl who was just munching her sandwich, speaks up.
Her eyes dart around, and I know she needs a push, so I give her one. “Interesting point, how do you mean?”
She shrugs her shoulders, her eyes shooting down to the desk. “David is naïve in his childish trust of other people. He doesn’t read social cues well, allows others to take advantage of him. If you don’t understand the vicious world you’re walking into, I can believe that it’s hard to be the hero of your story.”
Bugger all, what happened to this girl today?
Nodding my head slowly, I try to spin her depressing views into a positive. It might be the hardest task as a teacher, taking the bad things and making them good. Novels like to do this for us, sometimes, but there are always the students who will interpret it into melancholy. Teaching is not unlike parenting in that way, and it makes me anxious for the years ahead with Mason.
“That’s not untrue … but perhaps having those qualities initially can create a balance that makes a better, more compassionate hero? If you trust, and are burned, maybe you learn from that. And then through that lesson, you can become your own hero. Take those child-like, wonderful qualities and merge them with the hardened experience of someone who has been through tough times. I think, then, you can be your hero.”
I know I did, I want to add. But this isn’t the time for a confession of my deepest character flaws. My eyes linger on Kitson’s, and I know she’s internally chewing over the brain food I just gave her.
If she’s anything like me, she’ll take that idea and use it to construct the life she wants for herself. Because as melancholy as the thought is, no one is coming to save her.
A few minutes later, the final bell tolls, signaling the end of the day.
“Don’t forget, your assignments on Dickens’ life work are due on Monday!” I yell out the door at my retreating students’ backs.
Hand to God, at least three of them will forget about the paper over the weekend and come in next week, pedaling excuses. I can’t worry about that now, though. It’s Friday, I’m done with work, and headed to see my son.
My mobile buzzes in the pocket of my coat as I walk out into the blustery parking lot of the school.
“Hi, love.” I pick it up, a smile on my face.
“Someone is having a splendid time with his after school blueberry muffin snack.” Louis’s voice comes through the other end, and I can hear Mason in the background, babbling on.
“Has he smashed it into his clothes and hair?” I chuckle, picturing my chubby-cheeked toddler cackling while caking food on every part of himself.
Louis chuckles with me. “Oh, yes. We’ll have to throw him in the rubbish bin!”
I hear Mason clapping and giggling, because he thinks the word rubbish is hilarious. The sheer amount that he knows and picks up on now astounds me daily, most days I can’t believe he grew in my belly and at one time just laid on my chest for hours on end.
I also can’t believe I have a fiancé who watches my son when I can’t pick him up early from nursery school on Friday. After Vance, I never thought I’d find love again. That sounds cliché and daft, but it’s true. What we had was intense, all-consuming—that first time kind of love that you remember forever and compare everything that comes after it to.
Louis walked into my life when I was four months pregnant, fresh off a heart-wrenching breakup, and so bogged down in preparing for the life I wanted, that I barely gave him the time of day. No, really, I walked off when he asked me what time it was. We were standing at a bus stop, waiting for an eight a.m. bus that was going to take me to my course at the local university. Louis, with his kind brown eyes and average
appearance, had turned to me and asked if I had the time, because he suspected the bus was late. I pretended not to hear him until he tapped me on the shoulder again and smiled down on me.
He was only meant to be a rebound. When he asked me for dinner the next week, at that same bus stop, I’d thought, why not? I was hungry and short on money, and he seemed nice enough. He was a small-town prosecutor who’d grown up in Brighton and had been four years ahead of me in school.
What it turned into was a two-year relationship that resulted in an engagement. Louis had been next to me in the hospital when Mason was born; the revelation of my pregnancy never swayed his loyalty to our relationship. He’s the man who helped me care for a colicky infant, and the responsible one who planned out my life insurance policy and will, God forbid something happens to me. Louis is the one who fixed my broken toilet and held me when I cried in those first months of us dating, even if we both quietly knew it was over Vance.
And on Mason’s first birthday, he got down on one knee and presented me with a ring. There was no other answer I could give besides yes. Louis is a good man, and an excellent stand-in father. He cares for Mason like his own, and he is reliable, dependable.
Even if I don’t love him with the passion of a thousand blazing suns … I can be happy in a life with him.
“Listen, we have that meeting with the caterer tomorrow. You’ve still got your mum coming to watch Mason, right?”
A thud of guilt drops onto my heart like a boulder. Not only have I completely forgotten about the wedding appointment we have tomorrow, but the age-old shame of my baby’s father kicks at the rusted organ like a car that won’t start properly.
To this day, Louis and I have never discussed who fathered Mason. He tried to broach the subject only twice, both of which I shut down quicker than a laptop from the nineties. Now, he doesn’t bring it up, and I don’t supply anything.
The Mighty Anchor: Rogue Academy, Book Three Page 2