Unforgettable: Always 2

by Cherie M Hudson

  “Just drive back this way a bit,” I said, hoping he wouldn’t think me some kind of weird nut job. “I don’t know where I’m going, but I’ll know it when I see it and tell you when to stop.”

  I got a skeptical snort from the man behind the wheel but, much to my surprise and gratitude, he pulled from the curb. Maybe he’d had in his cab before more than one Australian who’d just been blindsided by the fact he was a dad?

  I focused on the view outside the window as he drove. I didn’t let myself think about what I was going to say to Amanda when I arrived back at her apartment. Didn’t rehearse anything. Sometimes you have to surrender completely to gut instinct.

  I was starting to think I was never going to find where Amanda lived again when I spotted a familiar gum tree on the corner of two streets. I’d noticed it on our drive in, when Amanda was filling me in on the state of the American education system as she saw it. I’d thought it looked homesick in a bizarre way, like it was missing the feel of cockatoos and kookaburras in its branches.

  “Here!” I burst out, lunging forward to grab at the back of the driver’s seat. Judging by the way he muttered shit, I think I scared the poor guy with my sudden excitement. “Here, turn right here.”

  A few yards later – and after a few nervous glances from the cabbie – we pulled to a halt outside Amanda’s apartment building. I looked up at it, my gut clenching. Was Amanda living here because her father had shunned her? Had he disowned her because she’d fallen pregnant with my child? Was that why she’d called me? Because she had no support here apart from her sister?

  If that was the case, I really wanted to have word with Charles Sinclair. To tell him he needed to stop being a dick about me. To tell him to get over the fact I wasn’t good enough for his daughter.

  Pushing open the door of the cab, I noticed Mrs. Garcia was still in the window of her apartment. She watched me climb from the backseat. I smiled up at her. She didn’t smile back. In fact, she narrowed her eyes, turned her head to the side and made a spitting action.

  Okay, so I didn’t have a fan there.

  Despite that, I smiled up at her again as I walked the path to the entry. The eternal optimist. I was in a weird mental place. I was about to face the girl who had, let’s be blunt, lied to me via omission for the last eighteen months. Maybe even longer. A woman I’d believed with absolute conviction. A woman I loved.

  Did I still believe that?

  I didn’t know.

  Did it have any bearing on what was about to happen when Amanda opened the door to me?

  I didn’t know that either, but my gut said no. If there was another life in this world because of me, if another life existed because of me, then what I felt for Amanda, what I thought of Amanda, had no impact.

  I climbed the stairs to her floor. Normally, I run up stairs. When you run up stairs full tilt, it’s a great cardio workout. Go hard or go home, remember? These stairs, this ascension … I focused on each individual step, each footfall, each planting of the ball of my foot on the concrete rise. For the first time since storming from Amanda’s home a lifetime ago, it dawned on me I was barefoot. My joggers were still in Amanda’s bathroom, along with my socks.

  Rattled. Yeah. I was rattled. But ready. Ready for whatever came next.

  When I knocked on her door, my heart smashed into my throat with enough force to K.O. a guy. I stared at the brass number and letter screwed to the wood as I waited for her to answer. 4C. Foresee. There was something prophetic about that.

  Or perhaps life was just playing with me? Laughing at me? Perhaps life had a twisted sense of humor? Ha, you think you know what’s going to happen in your future, Brendon Osmond? You think you have some control over it? Didn’t foresee this, did you? Ha. Now who’s the optimist? Now who’s gravy?

  I was about to knock again, my heart pounding harder in my throat, damn near deafening me with each thumping beat, when the door opened.

  Amanda stood on the other side of the threshold. Her eyes were red and puffy. Her cheeks were wet. The tip of her nose pink. She caught her bottom lip with her teeth, studying me without saying a word. Haunted grief swam in her eyes. I couldn’t help but notice she didn’t release her grip on the doorknob, as if ready to close it again.

  “So …” I began. And stopped. I had no fucking clue what to say. Maybe I should have planned this? My gut wasn’t coming to the party at all.

  Amanda pulled a slow breath and let it out with a soft hitching whimper. “I’m sorry.”

  I let out my own breath, a shaky sigh. “Think I should come in.”

  She nodded, opening the door wider and stepping aside.

  Walking into the living room, I cast my gaze about the empty space. “Where’s Chase?”

  “She went looking for you. I suspect she’s always wanted to be in a high-speed taxi pursuit and you gave her the chance.”

  A laugh hiccupped out of me, a nervous sound I’m pretty damn certain I’d never made before in my life. “So it’s very likely she’s out there at the moment chasing down some random taxi?”

  Amanda’s answering smile was as nervous as my laugh. She nodded, hugging herself as she leaned her back against the closed door. “It is.”

  I looked at her. Noted she’d replaced the towel with faded cut-off denim shorts and a loose black T-shirt while I’d been gone. Her hair hung about her face in damp strands. The makeup was gone from her face. She was beautiful. So beautiful. Gorgeous.

  And she’d lied to me for over two years.

  Another sigh tore from me and I crossed to the closest sofa and dropped into it. I met her gaze across the small room. “Okay, you need to explain things to me.”

  She nodded again. “I do.”

  “Firstly,” I said, mouth dry. “Were you pregnant when you told me we were over?”

  “Yes.”

  My chest tightened at the anguish in her whisper, even as a cold finger of anger traced up my spine. I looked at her, waiting for her to say something else. She didn’t.

  My fist balled before I could stop it. Dropping my stare to my clenched fingers, I willed them open. “Is that why you ended us?”

  “No.”

  The answer cut at me, a physical pain I didn’t know how to deal with. “Did you know you were pregnant?”

  “No. I found out a month later.”

  My head roared, a storm of questions I didn’t want to ask. I didn’t want to hear the answers to them. But wanting and needing can be two very different things.

  Raising my head, I looked at her again. “Why did you end us?”

  Confusion flickered across her face. She rubbed at her arms, as if she was cold. “You’d just told me you loved me. You were the first guy who’d told me that who I actually believed. You were also the first guy I wanted to say I love you back to.”

  I frowned. My gut churned. “So you ended us because we loved each other? Excuse me a moment for falling back on what may be clichéd thinking, but isn’t mutual love the reason to stay together?”

  A wry laugh fell from her. “Bren, you were twenty-two. I was twenty. We were both still students, from opposite sides of the world. How were we meant to stay together?”

  I ground my teeth. “We would have figured that out.”

  “Do you remember when you told me? That you were in love with me? Do you remember that night?”

  “I do. A guy doesn’t forget the first time he tells a girl he loves her. And when I’d told you I loved you, it was the first time I’d told anyone I loved them. Anyone. We’d been at La Jolla, on one of the beaches there, lying on a picnic blanket under the stars, listening to the waves break on the shore, doing nothing else but being relaxed, contented in each other’s company. It’d hit me, being there with you, that I’d never been more at peace, more happy and centered and present in my life, and it was because of you. Just that – a simple realization of a simple, undeniable fact.”

  The memory flooded me with pain and mocking happiness so absolute I couldn’t dra
w a breath. The realization had rendered me equally moved that night. I’d laid there, looking at her, overwhelmed by the truth of what I felt for her, and said “I love you, Amanda.”

  She’d studied my face for a long moment, the darkness of the night hiding her eyes from me, and then had pressed herself against me and kissed me until I was so fucking hard I was in pain.

  Three days later, I was on a plane back to Australia, numb. It wasn’t until I was back home, back at work, back in class, that I’d realized she’d never told me she loved me back. The color had already been bleached from my world by then. Looking at her now, I wondered when the colors had returned. And were they going to disappear again?

  “That night scared the shit out of me, Bren,” she said, her voice husky. “I wasn’t ready for it. I wasn’t ready to be in love, not even with someone as incredible as you. But I was. I spent the next two days trying to figure out what to do, growing more scared with every minute.” She shook her head, lowering her gaze to her feet so her face was hidden by the damp strands of her hair. “And then I did the second most stupid thing of my life – told you it was over.”

  “The second most stupid thing?”

  She looked up at me again. Her eyes swam with tears. “The most ridiculous thing was not telling you I was pregnant.”

  And here we were. At the main topic of conversation.

  I drew a slow, steadying breath into my lungs. Anger scraped at my sanity once more. “Okay then,” I said, holding her stare. “Tell me why you didn’t.”

  Her wobbly laugh surprised me. She shook her head, rubbing at her arms again. “Damn you, Brendon, I wanted you to ask me if it was yours.”

  I frowned. “Why?”

  “I wanted you to give me a reason to get indignant. But you believe me. The thought didn’t even cross your mind, did it? That you may not be the father?”

  “No.”

  She laughed again, although this time it was more a harrowed sob. “See? This is why I didn’t tell you. Because you are Brendon. This is how you approach life. With one hundred percent conviction. You didn’t even try to suggest you may not be the father. You’re incredible and giving and trusting. If I’d told you, you would have thrown everything you’d planned in your life away to come back and do what you thought was the right thing.”

  “What I thought was the right thing? It is the right thing, Amanda. No thinking required. It is the right thing. But you denied me that.” My anger flared hot as blood roared in my ears. I clawed at the back of my neck and looked away. “You didn’t even give me the chance to be a part of this.”

  “A chance at what? Being trapped? Being in love is all well and good, but love won’t stave off resentment and contempt when you look at your life – full of dirty diapers, puke-covered clothes and sleep-deprived nights – and remember the plans and dreams you had. You weren’t only managing a business in Australia, Bren, you were talking about creating a chain of them. You were getting amazing grades, had an amazing life, and amazing goals. Goals I knew you would achieve. And you are achieving them. Look at you, already talking to a bank manager about a business loan. What twenty-five-year-old does that?”

  “The same twenty-five-year-old who would have wanted to know he was going to be a dad the second the woman he loved found out.”

  The accusation – for that’s what it was – left me on a flat snarl. Yeah, I was angry. It had been a while since I was this angry. The last time I’d punched Raphael Jones and then got into a brawl with a gun-carrying bodyguard. This time I had no outlet for the rage building inside me, unless I could get to a gym, a boxing ring, somewhere to let out my pent-up physical energy ASAP.

  I didn’t like that. And I sure as shit didn’t like that I was angry. I didn’t do anger like this. It wasn’t me, it wasn’t the Brendon I wanted to be.

  “I’m sorry, Bren,” she said, tears freely rolling over her cheeks. “I didn’t …” She stopped, scrubbing at her face. Sniffed.

  A part of me – so small it was worrying – wanted to stand up and walk to where she still hugged herself against the door. I didn’t.

  Couldn’t.

  “Did the thought of telling me ever cross your mind?”

  “I called you twice,” she said, with another one of those shaky laughs. “The first time was a week after I found out. I hadn’t told anyone, not even Chase. God, I couldn’t even begin to think how I’d tell Mom and Dad. Dad …” She stopped, closed her eyes, sighed, and then looked at me again. “I was sitting in my car, outside an abortion clinic, waiting for it to open, when I called that first time.”

  An empty chill pressed at something deep inside me. I stared at her. Had I thought I was angry before?

  “I called you to tell you. To apologize for fucking up. To ask if you’d come back so we could talk about it. I so desperately needed you to hold my hand, to tell me it was going to be okay, it was going to be gravy.” Another laugh, choked in a sob. She wiped at her cheek with the back of her hand, her shimmering eyes flicking around the room. “I sat there in my cold car, aching for your warmth, your strength, staring at that closed abortion clinic, and some girl answered your cell and said you were busy. The international clock app on my phone told me it was one am in Sydney. I figured you’d moved on.”

  “Are you fucking kidding me?”

  The question was out before I could stop it. And with it, my anger. I rose to my feet, gaping at her. “You called to tell me I was a dad and bailed when some chick answered my phone? When was this? A week after you found out? Which was a month after I left? So, what? Five weeks of me being back in Sydney?” My brain tried to pinpoint the night she was talking about. All it could come up with was I must have been at a party. I’d tried to erase the memory of Amanda by partying. And by partying I mean getting drunk, sitting in a room full of my fellow students, hating the noise, the smell, the taste of everything. I had vague recollections of Heather looking out for me. Vaguer ones of her stopping Shelly White from giving me a blowjob on the front lawn of Mackellar House during one particularly bleak bender.

  “Jesus, you have no idea who it was who answered my phone, but you immediately leap to the conclusion I was fucking someone? What? Getting you out of my system with my dick? What kind of guy do you really think I am, Amanda?”

  She flinched.

  Guilt smashed into me. I closed my eyes, dragging my hands through my hair as I attempted another steadying breath. The first one hadn’t done its job, after all.

  “Sorry,” I said, dropping my hands and opening my eyes again. “I’m sorry. That … I shouldn’t have said that.”

  “If it helps, I didn’t think you were fucking me out of your system,” she said, a sheepish smile pulling at the edges of her lips. “I just … I just realized you’d done what I told you to do, which was to get back to your life. And even though I wanted you there with me, that realization helped me at that very second.”

  “How?”

  Her smile turned warm. Her eyes grew soft. “I started the car and drove away from the clinic and never went back. I knew then any child of yours would be all about living life to its fullest. And I wanted that in my life. I wanted your energy, your optimism, in my life. I wanted to be connected to it in the most unbreakable way imaginable.”

  Remember how I said I’d always been able to tell what Amanda was feeling? But how, since arriving this time, I couldn’t? Now there was no denying what she was feeling. Not at all. It was all there, in her eyes. Sorrow, regret. And love. I could see it. I could feel it. Oh man, could I feel it.

  “And every time I hold Tanner,” she continued in a husky whisper, “every time I kiss him, cuddle into him and breathe in his smell, I think of you and thank you.”

  A heavy lump filled my throat. “My son’s name is Tanner?”

  Amanda nodded. “Tanner Fitzgerald Sinclair.”

  I let out a wry laugh. “Fitzgerald? Oh, Mandy, no.”

  Fitzgerald is my middle name. Don’t ask.

  Amanda
raised her shoulder in a little shrug. “Sorry?”

  I chuckled again. The fact I did surprised me. Honestly, I hadn’t expected to. “When was the second time you called?” I asked. I don’t know if I wanted to feel angry again, if that was the reason for asking, or if I needed to know when a future I could have had had been denied me. If I needed to be able to identify the moment fate had fucked me – us – over.

  “About a year ago. I saw you on YouTube, beating up some royal bodyguard.”

  With a moan, I dropped back to the sofa. “Crap.”

  “I called to see if you were okay. And then I realized I couldn’t talk to you without telling you about Tanner, and that made me realize how much I’d completely messed up, how long it had been since we’d spoken, and so I hung up before the connection was even made.”

  I watched her lean against the door. Watched her let out a soft sigh. Watched her waiting for me to say something.

  “Did you want me in your life, Amanda?” I finally asked.

  She curled her lips in a sad smile. “Every day I wanted you in my life. And not just when Tanner wouldn’t sleep or he was sick and I was covered in poop or vomit. On the day he was born I wanted you there more than I can say. To show you what you’d helped create. It hurt so much that I’d … I’d robbed that of you. The first time I held him, I saw you in him. Oh, God, Bren, I wanted you there so much I felt you in my very soul. And then, as he was growing up, there were days I’d ache to turn to you, to share him with you, to feel your hand on my shoulder as I blew raspberries on his tummy … The first time he sat up, I actually called your name, looked for you to share it with. The first time he crawled … his first step …”

  Something hot and tight twisted in my gut at her words.

  A tear trickled down her cheek. “But as those days passed, as too many days passed, I didn’t know how to do it. I didn’t know … and I was so scared you’d hate me, scared you’d hate us for destroying your life. If you didn’t know about your son, you couldn’t hate him, right? Better to not know about him than … than hate …”