Love Always,

by Sonya Loveday

  I let the water push and pull me, uncaring what would happen so long as the pain went away.

  But then a pair of hands plunged through the water, yanking me against the vicious tug. I found myself being pulled away from the undertow and shoved up to the surface.

  “Maggie!” Andre shouted at me, pulling me back toward the beach. “Are ya crazy! Da wata is no place for a gurl like you at dis time o’ night.”

  “A girl like me,” I repeated sadly, spitting out gulps of water. A girl with a broken heart. A girl betrayed. A girl woken to a world of lies.

  Andre helped me on shore, and then to my feet, picking up a towel hanging off the end of a beach chair, probably left out from one of the resort residents that day.

  But the chill in my bones couldn’t be fixed by a towel.

  “I saw ya running from da office and followed ya out here,” he said, running his hands up and down my arms, trying to put warmth back into me. “You looked like a spooked horse.”

  I bit my bottom lip. Swallowed down the swell of emotions.

  “I grabbed ya letter for ya,” he said, tapping the side of his pocket. When my eyes widened, he added, “No worries doe… I didn’t read dit.”

  I couldn’t speak… couldn’t say thank you to him, because I knew the moment I tried, the tears would start. I was scared. Scared that once they started, they would never end.

  Andre must have sensed this, because he put his arm around me and pulled me into a hug.

  And I clung to him. More than I should have.

  I felt his hand on the back of my head as he said, “I see a fighta in ya, Maggie. Ya have da spirit in ya. Whateva it tis botherin’ ya, it’s na’tin dat a little rum can’t fix.”

  This made me smile, but only a little bit.

  “Come,” he said, guiding us back toward the docks. “I’ll get ya da best bottle der is, and den you can drown ya sorrows, pretty gurl.”

  I nodded.

  After he stopped at his house and grabbed a bottle, he saw me to my boat and handed me the letter saying, “Call me if ya need any ting.”

  “Thanks,” I managed.

  Once inside the cabin, I changed into an oversized T-shirt and plopped down on my bed, too tired to care about the salt sticking to my skin and hair. With the bottle in one hand and a glass in the other, I poured a shot.

  One for his lie.

  One for my loss.

  One for his unborn child.

  Until the fire burning up my throat eased into my belly and tingled through my legs.

  Screw him.

  Screw her.

  Screw everyone.

  I understood completely at that moment why I never gave more of myself to Scott. To anyone. And it was why I wanted to live on the ocean, just me and the call of the sea.

  Maybe it was a blessing.

  I couldn’t believe I had considered what my dad had said. What Hannah had said. I knew what I needed out of life, and it wasn’t some fairy tale that wouldn’t come true. It wasn’t love.

  It wasn’t Phillip.

  I took another shot for the lie I just told.

  I stood up, laughing at the way my legs wobbled and the boat rocked. Grabbing a piece of paper, I was determined to write him back and have my say. Determined to spill everything I felt onto paper so I could be rid of it.

  Of him.

  But nothing came.

  I was staring at a blank piece of paper. Blank like the space in my heart where he used to reside. A space that I would leave empty as a reminder that love was for suckers.

  Love was for everyone but me.

  A low whimper started from the bottom of my heart, crawling its way up the back of my throat, until my head was in my hands, and the pain of his words poured out from my eyes like hellfire.

  I hated feeling foolish. Hated feeling like a fragile spine his words had cracked in half. I wanted him… still wanted him. Still felt like none of it could be real. It was just a nightmare I’d wake from soon enough.

  But his letter sat there next to me on the table, open and mocking my tears. As real as the black pen strokes I’d come to love, made by the first man I’d ever truly allowed in.

  Made by the last man that would ever break my heart.

  My lesson had been learned, my heart smelted, cracked, and re-hardened. I wasn’t going to look like a fool any longer.

  I pulled off the ring he gave me, sliding it into an envelope. Gripping the pen tight between my fingers, I jabbed the point against the paper and took a long, drawn-out breath.

  I won’t be a coward.

  I won’t suffocate alone.

  Through the blurry sting, I wrote:

  September 9, 2015

  Phillip,

  I’d never thought you’d be the one to make a fool of me.

  Silly me.

  Love always,

  Goodbye,

  Maggie

  “SO YOUR REALLY DOING IT?” Ed asked, eyeing me from across our dorm room. “Don’t get me wrong, mate, but staying in school and working for the bloody Kennedys seems like you’re just giving up. Especially when you’re supposed to be somewhere in the Caribbean with your dream girl.”

  I felt as if my life had been switched to autopilot, leaving me numb. Broken. “How many times are we going to have this discussion?” I asked, tossing my hands in the air. I found myself doing that a lot since Sophia’s bombshell news.

  “Well, if it was me, I’d have a good long talk with m’self,” Ed replied, hitching his shoulder. I heard the disappointment in his voice, but I couldn’t find it in myself to want to change it.

  “Ed, you saw the sonogram picture. You heard her when she told me—”

  “I heard it, yes, but, Phil, don’t you think you should… I don’t know—maybe dig a little deeper into this?” Ed tossed the question at me as he spun my chair around and sat down in it.

  “Deeper into what?” I grabbed the sonogram picture off my nightstand, shaking it at him as I drew in a deep breath and continued, “Isn’t this more than enough proof?”

  Ed snorted. “No offense, but you have to be the single most gullible arsehole going if you just take that as solid proof,” he answered, tipping his head and squinting at me. “Never pegged you for that, but there it is.” He crossed his arms against his chest, leveling his eyes on me. “And, frankly, I don’t care how pissed you get with me. I’ll keep saying it over and over until you decide to finally listen to me.”

  I scrubbed my hands down my face with a groan. It wasn’t the first time he’d said something like that to me. “I told you before, Ed. I’m not the kind of man who will walk away from my responsibilities. I made this mess, and now I’m paying the price for my actions. The only thing I know to do is to stay in school, take the job Lyle Kennedy offered, and marry Sophia. My child will have my name. It’s the right thing to do. It’s the only thing to do.”

  “The only thing to do? You unbelievable sod! Here ye sit, wallowing in your misery, being played like a fool! And make no mistake…You. Are. Being. Played!” Ed yelled as he shot out of the chair and paced the floor.

  “Why are you shouting at me? I have enough shit going on in my life right now. I don’t want more piled onto my plate by fighting with you,” I said, crossing the floor and shoving the picture into his hands. “What the hell would you do if some girl showed up, handed that to you, and told you that she was pregnant. Huh?”

  He snatched the picture from my hands and waved it in the air at me. “I’d take her to the first clinic I could and get positive proof, you bloody idiot! Anything can be faked. How do you even know she went to a doctor?”

  “Is that not enough, right there in your hands? How much more proof does someone need?” I argued back.

  He stared me down for a moment. “Bloody proof…” he finally muttered, turning his back on me. After a second’s pause, he shot up out of the chair and stormed to his laptop.

  “What the hell are you doing?” I asked.

  “I’m showing you
what an idiot you’re being,” he answered as the printer on the corner of his desk hummed to life, dragging a sheet of paper through and spitting it out. He spun on me so fast, I had to take a step back.

  “Oh, Phillip, I’m pregnant and here’s your baby,” he trilled in a falsetto voice, taking a stab at me.

  “Knock it off, Ed!” I slapped his outstretched hand with the freshly printed image on it.

  “No, you knock it off, wanker. See how easy that was? Hit a button and presto, sonogram picture!” he said, shoving it against my chest.

  I caught it up in my hand before it fell to the floor. “Why are you so angry with me?”

  “What’s Maggie say about this?” he asked instead of answering me.

  “I’m not going to talk to you about Maggie,” I said hotly, refusing to look over at her last letter and the ring I’d given her enclosed in it on my desk.

  “Oh, and why not then? Ye’ve talked my bloody ear off about her up till now. She deserves more than this, Phil,” he said, dropping his hands and curling them into fists at his side.

  “So what, you’re going to hit me now? Go ahead, take your best shot. There’s nothing you can do that would make me feel any worse than I already do. There’s nothing you can say either. So go ahead, hit me!” I shouted, taking a step toward him.

  He shook his head. “Not gonna do it, mate. I’m right pissed at ye, but I’m not taking a swing. Had my fill of fighting a long time ago. Punching someone in the mouth hurts like a bitch. Done it once, ya know. Look right here. See that white line? Some bloke’s tooth cut right through it. Hurt like hell for the longest time. Think I even had part of his tooth in that bone right there,” Ed told me as he held his hand out for my inspection.

  “Jesus…” I stumbled back until the mattress hit the back of my legs and sat down hard. Ed had the oddest way of turning a story over in the middle of a conversation that made my head hurt.

  “If you really love Maggie, then you should do everything you can to find out the truth. The real truth, and not whatever story Sophia concocted knowing you’re the kind of man who would take it at face value and do the honorable thing.”

  Everything Ed told me came together into a bigger picture. A picture that hadn’t been clear to me at all up until that point. And, after seeing it, really seeing it from a fresh prospective, I knew in his odd little Ed way, he was right.

  I knew I couldn’t get my hopes up. And worse, I’d spilled my guts to Maggie and wrote her that letter.

  “Oh no…” I said, stabbing my fingers through my hair and catching it between my knuckles with a twisting tug.

  “Oh no, what? Because that could mean a million things, Phil, and I damn sure am no mind reader,” Ed said, kicking my foot to get my attention.

  When I looked up at him, he winced. “You already wrote Maggie. Didn’t you?”

  I could only nod.

  “You bloody fuckin’ sot!” he said, lunging at me and grabbing me by the shoulders.

  “I had to. I had to tell her. I had to break it to her the only way I knew how!” I cried out as he did his best to shake the shit out of me.

  “How could you? Why didn’t you wait? Argh, get your keys and your bag,” Ed told me, releasing me and grabbing the laundry sack of clean clothes I hadn’t put away.

  “What are you doing?” I asked as I watched, unable to move as he rummaged through my desk drawer.

  “I’m looking for your… ah-hah!” he said, pulling my passport from my desk drawer and dropping it in the bag.

  “What do I need all that for?”

  “You’re a wanker, Phillip. A sodding wanker,” he said, muttering under his breath. “You’ll bloody need it in order to bloody fly out of the country. That’s why!”

  “Wait, what?” I asked, confused by not only the aggravation rolling off Ed, but also the frenzied way he moved about our dorm room.

  “Don’t just sit there, man. Get the hell up!” he said, waving the laundry bag at me in a hurry-up motion.

  “What are you doing? Have you completely lost it?” I asked, trying to tug my laundry bag from his death-like grip.

  “No, but you will if you don’t get up off that bed!” He spun on his heel, grabbed my keys and wallet from my desk, and flung open the dormitory door. “Move your ass!”

  I got off the bed and followed behind him all the way to my car.

  “Get in. You’re driving since I have no idea where that lying bitch lives,” he said, opening the driver’s side door and pushing me toward the seat.

  “Sophia’s house? You want me to drive you to Sophia’s house? Why?” I said, putting my hands up to catch the keys he tossed at me.

  He didn’t answer until he’d buckled himself into the passenger seat. “Because I’m not leaving you to figure this shit out on your own. She’s pulled the wool over your eyes before. I won’t allow her to do it again. She better be damn ready to prove her claim. Nobody breaks our Maggie’s heart and gets away with it,” he said, tapping his fingers in a fast beat against his knee. “Well, get on with it then!”

  I put the car in drive, wondering if I’d fallen into some sort of alternate universe with a demented wingman as my copilot.

  ED WHISTLED AS WE PULLED up to the house. There were cars lined up along the drive like some sort of sorority rush party.

  Ed’s voice held a hint of disbelief as he looked out his window and said, “Fuck me, if this doesn’t take the piss, Phil.”

  I parked the car and turned it off, wondering what sort of party Ed and I would be crashing. I hadn’t heard anything from my parents, and usually when Lyle Kennedy had any sort of event going on, my presence was all but demanded.

  “Doesn’t take the what?” I asked, not understanding at all what he meant by that.

  He waved me off and got out of the car. I had to double step it to keep up with him and just barely managed to by the time he’d pushed the front door open.

  The loud sounds of thumping party music rolled in from the open back doors, bouncing off the walls inside the grand foyer of the Kennedy’s multi-million dollar estate. There was no doubt we’d crashed a party. But whose?

  I stepped up beside Ed just in time to see Sophia hoisting a bottle of champagne in the air, surrounded by a large group of people cheering her on near the pool. She made a toast to herself before she tipped the bottle back and proceeded to chug the contents.

  Anger washed over me. I could feel it burning like a raging fire through my veins as I ran through the house and jerked the bottle away from Sophia’s mouth.

  “Phillip!” Sophia shrieked with rounded, startled eyes, big enough to fall out of her head.

  “What the hell are you doing?” I growled, towering my full height over her.

  She made a grab for the bottle, but I held it behind me, waving it for Ed to take.

  “Let’s try this again… just what the hell are you doing?” I repeated as the crowd formed around us.

  “I was trying to enjoy a party thrown in my honor to celebrate our engagement,” she said, mustering as much snootiness as she could in her voice.

  “I could give two shits about your party,” I answered, making sure to curl my lip in disgust as I gave the gathering around us a dirty look.

  “There’s no reason for you to talk to me so vulgarly,” She shoved her hand on her hip, stumbling as she tried to toss her hair over her shoulder.

  “And you shouldn’t be drinking while you’re pregnant. I guess we both have things to work on,” I tossed back at her, fists clenched by my sides.

  The crowd around us closed in, hanging onto every word. Snickers and gasps filled the silence of our staredown.

  It took her a second to gain control of her expression, retraining her features as she said, “Let’s go inside and talk, shall we?”

  “No, I don’t think we shall,” I answered, blocking her escape.

  Twin patches of red blazed across her cheeks. “I won’t do this with you right now, Phillip,” she hissed as she leaned
forward to whisper, “For God’s sake, I didn’t want them to know yet, and I wasn’t drinking. It was sparkling cider.”

  “Ed?” I called out, not taking my eyes off her.

  “Right here, mate,” he answered as he elbowed someone out of his way to stand beside me.

  I put my hand out to take the bottle from him, but Sophia was quicker than I expected. Before I knew it, she had yanked it out of our hands and threw it into the crowd as if it were a live grenade.

  The sound of glass shattering and a shriek scattered the cluster of people around us as shards of glass splintered around their feet.

  “Does she really think that’ll work?” Ed asked, crossing his arms and bracing his feet in a stance that told me if Sophia thought I’d been vulgar, she was about to get schooled by the best. “Cause I gotta tell ya, I don’t think Dom Perignon sells cider. But then again, what the fuck do I know, eh?”

  Sophia sputtered as she tried to come up with something to diffuse the situation, as she looked to her closest friends for help with an explanation. Anything to pull her out of the rut she’d found herself in.

  I wasn’t going to let Ed handle the final takedown that Sophia deserved for wrecking my life. The pleasure of that would be all mine.

  “So let’s just get all of it on the table. You’re not pregnant. You might as well admit it now, because if you tell me you are, Ed and I will stuff you into my car and I’ll take you to the first hospital, clinic, or veterinary office I come across. I will know the truth by the end of today, no matter how I have to do it.”

  Sophia froze in place as she gulped huge, sucking breaths of air.

  “So I’m right? You lied to me and made me give up everything!” I could barely keep my hands at my sides and not around her neck.

  “Oh, please, you’re such an ass, Phillip! Do you think I honestly wanted to marry you? The thought of being with you for the rest of my life and having to deal with your boring ass is enough to make me want to vomit,” she hurled at me.

  “Is this bitch crazy? She’s the one who has done everything to make you marry her, and you make her want to vomit?” Ed jumped in, clearly offended by what Sophia had said.