Dominick's Secret Baby

by Iris Parker

  "Thanks," I said again, wishing I had Dominick here to help deal with the media.

  But Dominick wasn't coming.

  Ever again—Alton had been clear, even though he couldn't offer any explanation about why. Dominick simply wanted nothing to do with me, and there would be no explanation. At least not right now, while he was just recovering from the trauma of the accident.

  The thought was so upsetting that, once again, the news about the reporters seemed to matter a lot less. I felt numb to everything, and maybe that was exactly what I needed. As long as I made it home, as long as my family was safe, I'd be okay.

  Or at least that's what I thought. As I left the hospital, I was surprised to see just how much the crowd had grown in a short time. Maybe someone had spotted me when I went inside, or maybe I just had terrible timing, but now the cordon of journalists seemed as big as it had been on the day of the accident. Bigger, even.

  Biting my lip, I ignored the countless calls and questions as I made my way back to the car. Cameras were flashing in my eyes and strangers were shoving microphones into my face, but at least nobody physically blocked me as I walked through the crowd.

  "No comment," I said, my voice lost immediately to the deafening din of the crowd.

  Not that they would've listened even if they had heard me.

  They were insatiable, their questions endless.

  "Helena, Helena!" one of them called. "How's Dominick doing?"

  "Can you confirm that the baby is his?" another asked.

  "How does it feel to land one of the hottest bachelors in the city?" another asked, and I wanted to cry.

  "Are you going to sue him for child support? Was that your plan all along?" another voice said, and I wanted to scream.

  "How does Ellie feel about getting a half-sister? Do you think she'll be jealous that her dad isn't a celebrity?" someone else said, and I didn't even know where to begin with that one.

  I guessed that I should've just been grateful that fact-checking was a dead art.

  On and on the questions went, more of them than I could pick out from the myriad of voices. It seemed like I wasn't even a person to these people, or even a piece of meat. I was an accessory to a piece of meat, something to exploit to get saucy details on Dominick's private life.

  And then one question came through with crystal clarity, piercing through my ears and straight into my heart.

  "What will happen if Dominick dies?" asked a man standing near my car.

  I froze.

  Dominick was out of the woods for the most part, but the idea of losing him was unbearable. But of course, I'd already lost him. And even through the shock of the revelation, and how surreal it all seemed, the reminder burned through me like fire. The numbness that had been protecting me boiled away, anger and frustration building until I could feel myself trembling. I wasn't a violent person by any means, but as the smug reporter locked eyes with me, I wanted nothing more than to rush over and punch him.

  But I remembered Alton's advice, that giving them anything at all it would only make this worse. So I forced the feelings back down where they came from and pushed on, ignoring the tears that now flowed down my face as I slipped past the obnoxious man and into my car.

  Without missing a beat, reporters surrounded the vehicle and continued to shout questions at me. I wanted to explode with rage and tears, but the idea that it would all be instantly recorded and shared online was sobering.

  Taking a deep breath, I tried to ignore the harassment as best I could. I pushed the key into the ignition with trembling hands and started the car, but nobody reacted. Outside the car was a mass of professional vultures, shambling all over and confident that I wouldn't do anything crazy.

  Well, it was only a bad idea if everyone was crazy. As long as the reporters had some semblance of self-preservation, they would get out of the way. Very slowly and very carefully, I tapped the accelerator and shifted the car an inch backwards. The people closest to me reacted immediately, taking a step back to clear themselves of the vehicle.

  No one, it seemed, was willing to risk their life just to interview Dominick's conquest.

  That was fine by me. Checking all my mirrors carefully, I sped the car up a little more. The faster I got going, the faster I could escape from this nightmare and go back to…whatever my life was going to be now, I supposed.

  More and more paparazzi gave up on following me, and within a couple minutes I'd left most of them behind. Only a couple of scooters were trailing behind, but soon enough, they'd disappeared.

  The coast was clear.

  My whole body was trembling as I pulled away from the hospital, and I drove about a mile before I finally had to stop. My hands shaking, I pulled into an empty parking lot near a small store.

  Now that I was finally alone, I could again face the fact that I was alone. Dominick was gone, and I had no idea I was going to do next. I knew that I'd need to be strong for Ali's sake, but here in the car, I could let go for at least a little while. With my lips quivering, I rested my head against the steering wheel for a couple of seconds and let the barrage of tears flow freely on my cheeks.

  A couple of seconds turned into a minute, and then two, and then more. I cried as long and as loud as I needed, trying to purge the despair from my heart before going back home and putting on a brave face in the morning.

  But I had been wrong about something.

  I had been followed.

  Of course, I had been followed.

  I wasn't really alone after all.

  Chapter Eight

  Dominick

  "Mr. Henderson," the doctor tried again, but I'd already learned how to tune out his constant pleading.

  Blah blah blah induced coma, blah blah blah supervision, blah blah recovery blah blah who friggin' cared.

  Certainly not me.

  "I'll sign whatever papers you put in front of me, providing they get me the hell out of here," I said, an annoying headache threatening to turn the day even worse. "Waivers, liability releases, whatever. You've warned me, and I made my decision."

  The doctor huffed a little more, but I'd stopped listening. I closed my eyes and waited, ready to greet the horrific memories that continually played out in my head. Ali's unconscious body on the road, just seconds away from certain death. That image would never leave me, but it had since been joined by other nightmares.

  The paparazzi were after my family.

  Helena's family, I corrected myself with a wince.

  The worst part was, there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it. Ali and Helena were everything to me, but yet I was pure poison to them. As much as I wanted to ride to Helena's rescue, it was my fault she was in this situation to begin with. Anything that I did to defend her against the intrusion would've only made it worse, validating all their speculation and ensuring that this would never end for her.

  For the first time in my life, I felt completely helpless and hopeless. I was haunted by the utterly dejected look on Helena's face as the jackals in the parking lot recorded themselves trying to tear her into pieces, the footage vicious and impossible to watch.

  But more impossible to forget.

  And then came the video that truly convinced me I'd made the right call, that Helena and Ali and the baby could never be happy as long as I was around. Even the tabloid news networks didn't run it, but that hadn't stopped some enterprising asshole from uploading it to the internet for ad money. Two minutes of Helena crying in a car, gut-wrenching all by itself, made even worse by the idiotic speculation it'd caused.

  Is she crying because Dominick is dying?

  Is she crying because Dominick made a full recovery, and he's already cheating on her?

  Is she crying because she's just a stupid hormonal cow who can't control her emotions, and if so, what does it mean for Dominick's career that he'll never be able to escape the crazy woman?

  Fuckers. It was almost enough to make me lose all faith in humanity, and it'd certainly been enough
to make me lose all faith in myself. I'd all but destroyed the lives of those I loved, all because of my stupid and selfish desire to be with them.

  Oh, and I'd almost gotten my daughter killed in the process.

  I couldn't forget that, now, could I?

  The only way out that I saw was to just disappear. To become so boring and so reclusive that the public just stopped caring. The sooner they forgot about me, the sooner they'd leave Helena alone and she could live out her life in peace. It was a sacrifice, but hell, it was the only card I had left to play.

  I'd need to quit my job, of course, but I didn't care about that. I didn't need the money, and I sure as shit didn't need the glory anymore. No, the only regret I had was in losing my future with Helena—but that ship had sailed no matter what I did, of course.

  Part of me held out the tiniest shred of hope that, after I'd faded from the public eye, maybe I could come back and we could pick up. But that was nothing but a selfish fantasy, an impossibility that only served to keep me going a little longer.

  Like she could ever forgive me for any of this.

  Or that such a wonderful woman would stay single for that long.

  Or that my renewed appearance wouldn't just start the cycle all over again.

  Yeah, not happening.

  I could retire somewhere and…I don't know, become a lumberjack or some damn stupid thing like that. Alton's farmhouse was a good start, secluded and on private land, but they could still find me there eventually.

  Alton was the perfect accomplice, thanks to our unspoken rule about not prying or judging. Once a nurse finally brought me my damn release forms, the rest was pretty simple. Walking was still hard, but a few hundred bucks in bribes, a hat, an oxygen mask, and one borrowed wheelchair later, I'd successfully snuck out of the hospital.

  Alton was there to pick me up, just as planned. Into the deep of night we drove, as far away as we could go. The trip down the Turnpike was long and uneventful, exactly what I needed. To my relief, neither of us said very much.

  I didn't feel much like talking these days, to anyone.

  I might not ever be able to find peace again, but at least I'd found quiet.

  Alton

  Had I really survived three days of this?

  Had I really only survived three days of it?

  Three days of groaning, grumbling, and staring out the window for hours.

  Three days of listening to the bangs as every door and every cupboard got shut just a little bit harder, a little bit louder than necessary.

  Three days of refusing to engage in any meaningful way—except for the constant sighing, of course.

  Don't even get me started on the sighing.

  It's not like I was Touchy McFeels Face myself, or anything. I knew the value of keeping your mouth shut, of grinning and bearing it while you slammed down another beer. It'd gotten me through the tough times and left me stronger for it.

  But with Dominick, the student had truly surpassed the master—and now I was stuck babysitting the most insufferable man on Earth.

  Not wanting to talk about Helena or Ali, that I could understand. But Dominick's reticence went beyond that. It seemed to radiate out from him like an oppressive force, choking out all conversation. In the end, the entire farmhouse was smothered by a veil of silence that was broken only by the banging and the sighing.

  Suffice to say, dinner conversation was not very interesting.

  And neither was dinner itself, at least not for Dominick. Because in addition to not speaking, he also wasn't eating. Aside from the occasional scrap of stale bread and equally stale coffee, my oldest and closest friend seemed to now be subsisting entirely on beer.

  Stale beer.

  Because of course it was stale. If I didn't know better, I'd have suspected Dominick was opening up cans of the stuff in advance just purely to ensure it'd taste like ass once he got around to drinking it.

  And with each day that passed like this, I was beginning to lose my certainty that I knew better.

  The situation was getting downright frightening. I'd signed off on this plan assuming that Dom just needed a little time to straighten stuff out in his head, that he'd find his way to the end of the tunnel on his own. He'd always been the stable one, the guy I could count on to back me up when my shit hit the fan.

  Except now his shit had hit the fan, and I had no idea what to do about it.

  I'd tried to take him fishing, but somehow Dominick had found a way to turn three hours on a boat, drinking in near silence into…well, three hours on a boat, drinking in near silence.

  Except now, it was in a bad way.

  I didn't even know that was possible.

  If this kept up, I was going to go crazy myself. Dominick's aura of silence was slowly turning into a vortex of despair, taking everything good in life and twisting it until it seemed empty and joyless.

  Something needed to be done, even if I was completely out of my depth.

  "Hey, buddy?" I asked one afternoon while Dominick stared out the window, brooding in his usual silence. He grunted back a wordless acknowledgment, and I thanked heaven that we had so much history and such a strong friendship.

  It was the only thing keeping me from strangling him, after all.

  "This can't go on forever, you know," I said after a pause.

  "There is no this," Dominick replied.

  "The fact that you refuse to admit it is proof that there is, in fact, a this," I said, and he just grunted again before hiding behind another mug of cold, bitter coffee.

  "You need to talk about this with someone. You need help," I said, and cringed inwardly. I sounded like one of those damned social workers, parroting the words that I'd spent my entire childhood hating.

  Dominick rolled his eyes and turned back to the window. I pushed back the urgent need to snatch the damned mug out of his hands and smash it over his head. Something, anything to snap him out of this funk. Even anger would be preferable to this…this nothing.

  "Just fucking call her already!" I snapped, unintentionally screaming the words I'd been holding back for three days.

  Dominick didn't even grunt this time.

  In fact, he didn't acknowledge me at all.

  "The—the look on her face when you made me tell her, man. You're hurting her. Even I can see that, so why can't you?" I asked.

  And then Dominick did something unexpected. Placing the coffee cup on the windowsill, he turned around to face me. For the first time since his accident, my oldest friend finally looked me straight in the eye.

  And I realized that our friendship was the only thing keeping him from strangling me.

  Fine.

  If he wasn't going to do something, then I damn well would.

  I owed the bastard that much, at least.

  Helena

  I stared at Alton blankly, waiting for him to finish his bad joke and explain the real reason he'd come here.

  Alton stared back at me in silence.

  "No, really," I said, slowly, wondering if this was somehow the world's sickest joke. "What's the actual plan? You can't possibly have driven all this way just to make fun of me like that."

  "I'm serious, Helena," Alton said, his voice softer and more sympathetic than I was used to. More sympathetic and, beneath that, I heard traces of desperation. This was a man at his wit's end.

  I recognized it because I was there too, and had been for the past week.

  "I don't know how to make him listen to reason. Or to make him listen to anything at all. He doesn't talk, he doesn't eat, he doesn't do anything. He just sits there and tortures himself with stale coffee," Alton explained. "I've never seen him like this."

  "You told me he just needed more time," I said, fighting the lump in my throat to speak. It had been hard enough to hold onto Alton's original reassurance even when I believed he was right. Now that Alton himself was unsure of his own advice….

  "I thought he did," Alton said. "But it's not helping. If anything, it's getting wor
se."

  "Can't I just go there and talk to him myself?"

  "I don't think so," Alton frowned. "Any time I mention you, things go from bad to worse. I don't know what he would do if he sees you in person while he's like this. I just know that whatever it is, it won't be good. Not for him or for us."

  "Okay," I said, hugging myself and trusting that—even if we didn't get along—Alton knew his oldest friend and had his best interest at heart. The fact that he was willing to speak with me at all was proof of that. "But how is your idea any less extreme? It's…."

  "A really bad idea?" Alton offered.

  "I was going to say completely fucking insane, but we can go with that. It's the exact opposite of your original plan. It's literally everything we've been trying to avoid."

  "Well, the original plan was a spectacular failure," Alton began. "So maybe doing the opposite will be a success."

  "I…don't think that's how it works, Alton," I said, trying to push away the blind panic that was raging just below the surface.

  What if this didn't work? The prospect of losing Dominick at all made me feel like all the air was being beaten out of my lungs, but the idea of risking everything and still losing him…

  "Okay, yes. I'll be honest, it's probably a bad idea. But it's also the only idea I've got. Do you have a better plan?"

  Hugging my knees against my chest, I looked up at the ceiling and thought the question over. I'd been thinking about it all week, but to no avail. As long as Dominick refused to see me and maintained this self-destructive spiral, there was nothing I could do.

  Nothing except, I guess, for Alton's bad idea. Sure, it could go horribly wrong and blow up in my face beyond anything I could imagine. But it was my only chance to save the relationship.

  "Okay," I said at last, my heart pounding in my ears. "I'll do it."