For3ver

by M. Dauphin H. Q. Frost

  I'd known Dana long enough I could trust her. She wanted a commitment from me, but I knew she wouldn't do something as stupid as to get pregnant to tie me down. I'd just take the kid and ditch her ass if that happened. Sometimes her being around worked out, like the nights I considered drinking myself to death, she was there to either make sure I didn't die, or to cut me off before I went off the deep end. Then, most of the time, her being around was a huge pain in my ass. She wanted to pretend we were the happy couple, even though she'd tell people right to their face we weren't together, but she still wanted the affection. She wanted all the shit that didn't appeal to me anymore, not after Ryley. Ryley made sure I'd hate who I used to be, and she succeeded.

  "Hey." Sometimes Dana's smile pissed me off.

  "I gotta head to Tennessee. Want to come?" That would be one of the times that having her around would work out to my advantage. She could distract me from everyone in that godforsaken state that I didn't want to see. The only person I wanted to talk to there was Gram, and, well....

  Dana was more than happy to go with me and I knew what her simple brain was thinking, this was bringing us closer. I decided that once I got back, she was gone. I'd find another steady piece of ass. I could have flown, but Gram's funeral wasn't for four days, what the hell was I rushing there for? I knew I'd have to take care of the house, clean everything out, throw it away, then get it on the market, and that was what I was dreading the most.

  An eleven-hour drive with a woman that has the bladder the size of a child's is some of the worst shit I'd ever had to endure. If she wasn't talking, we were stopped so she could pee. I was considering flying her back home while I drove. The only time her tiny bladder came in handy was as we got closer and dread started to fill me. I tried telling myself it was dread because my family was gone, with the exception of Megan, but we hardly spoke, and I sure as hell didn't speak to my mother. The dread wasn't because of Gram, yeah I was heartbroken about her passing, but the dread clutching my lungs and squeezing was from having to face Ryley.

  Ryley fucking Reynolds. My best friend. My one true love. The mother of my child. The murderer of my child and of my heart. I loved to hate her and hated I loved her.

  RYLEY

  No one in town wanted anything to do with me. The town whore who made both of the Porter boys disappear. Rumors spread the entire time I was pregnant, but the only people that knew weren't telling a soul. Jenny and I had become even closer and she knew what it meant to me to keep it a secret. My parents and I weren't on the best of terms, but they were never huge gossipers. I was able to keep all of it at bay, not answering anyone when they asked about the daddy. That is, until he was born. It didn't take long for word to get out that Able was his. If it wasn't obvious who he belonged to while I was carrying him, it sure as hell was after birth. I was stunned that I was even related to this child that I grew for nearly ten months. I never really looked at Liam's mom, they didn't know their dad, and Gram was too far removed to really have any huge resemblance to them, so I was never sure how strong their characteristics ran. I definitely knew now. The moment he was born I broke down, like most mothers do when they give birth to their baby. Mine wasn't because I was happy, though, mine was because he looked so much like Liam I wasn't sure if I'd be able to look at him without resenting him.

  Pregnancy without Liam there was hard enough, but I survived. I moved out of my parents' house and in with Jenny in her apartment. We both worked at the bar on Main Street so we made pretty good money in tips and were able to afford something that would be safe enough for when the baby arrived. I was getting used to the fact that Liam may never come back for me, at least until I looked into that tiny baby's light green eyes. Eyes that he shared with his father. That's when I knew it would never be okay.

  The day after he was born, the doctor came in to talk to me. I didn't want to breastfeed, I didn't want to hold him. Jenny stayed at the hospital with me because someone needed to be there to take care of us. I just couldn't do it. I was so scared I was going to hate my baby because he would be a daily reminder of what I lost. My doctor told me I had postpartum depression and that with some medicine I would feel better about my new role as a mother. That was a joke, but I listened because what choice did I have? I was stuck in the hospital bed. They wouldn't let me leave until I named him, and I didn't want to name him. I didn't want him to be mine.

  It'd been two days and I refused to hold him, but the day that we could go home the nurse forced me to hold him, claiming she couldn't allow me to take the baby if I didn't know how to hold him. She just wanted me to get to know him since I refused to spend any time with him. I knew the minute I looked at him what his name would be. It was perfect.

  Raising a baby wasn't easy work. There is shit, and a lot of it. It's everywhere. There are bottles that never seem to end, dishes suck, the laundry doesn't stop, and you can forget about sleep. Add in the cost of diapers, daycare, and formula, and things just go downhill really fast. Even after Able was turning 5 I still got flustered with everything that could happen in one day while raising a child.

  Carl, my boyfriend, was getting better and better at helping out with Able. He would watch him if I needed to run to the store to make it easier on me. He would play with Able like he was his own son. But it seemed Carl wasn't around for me much anymore, he only wanted to spend time with Able. I hated watching the two of them together, though. It was a constant reminder that the one person I wanted in Able's life most wanted nothing to do with us.

  When I first met Carl, he was the nicest anyone had been to me since everything happened, so I immediately took to him, clinging to the one person in town that wanted to spend time with me, other than my roommate. Sexually, he tried to please me, it never worked really, but I thought it was nice that he tried. Honestly, every time the mention of sex came up, I cringed. Nothing was the same after Liam. Nothing.

  There had been more times than I care to admit that I looked at my child and saw Liam. He would be playing outside with Jenny and I would watch him, thinking back to when I first met Liam and how gentle he was with me, how sweet he was to me. I cried every day for the first year of Able's little life; I knew I was a terrible mother, but I couldn't change it. I tried. The drugs the doctor gave me didn't help, but I wasn't surprised. I wasn't hormonal, I was just flat out sad. I called Liam so much back then I'm surprised he didn't change his number. One time he answered, I couldn't hear his voice because Able was throwing a shit fit because he was hungry, but he answered and the line stayed connected for longer than it ever had before. When the line finally went dead I knew that was it. I couldn't try contacting him anymore. He obviously didn't want anything to do with me, or the screaming baby in the background.

  Doing better every day, I still struggled getting through a day without thinking about how things could have turned out. I always dreamed of getting out of that small town, but once Able arrived and I saw the love in my parents' eyes for him, I didn't have the heart to leave. I knew what it felt like when a loved one left you, and it wasn't good. As hard as they had been on me, they were still my parents and they were still Able's only set of grandparents. Being out on my own was never in the cards for me. Here with my parents' and Jenny was the only place I had support.

  As I headed out to take Able over to my parents' house, I knew that I made the right choice staying.

  It was still hard to look at Liam's old house. You would think that after all the time that passed one would be immune and numb to the feelings, but I had never stopped loving him. Sure I hated him for what he did, but I loved him for everything else. I'd loved him since I was a kid, he was my first love, my only true love, and he would always have a special place in my heart.

  I still didn't know where Gram was after all those years, the only thing I knew was she didn't live in the house anymore. My parents mowed the grass and help with the keep-up of her place, so I assumed they had been in contact with her, but I didn't push for answers. I didn't really wa
nt to know much about Liam's life or how happy he was without me in it.

  I parked the car and Able ran toward the front door before I was even out of the car. I laughed because he was so incredibly excited to be staying the night with my parents', and I was so incredibly excited to be able to sleep in the next morning.

  My dad opened the door and gave me a look I couldn't place, then he leaned down to pat Able's head before ushering him inside with promises of cookies and movies all night long. Grabbing his overnight bag, I headed up the steps of my parents' house, trying to block out all of the memories that rushed over me every time I went here.

  My mom opened the squeaky screen door and stepped onto the porch, wrapping her cardigan over her and folding her arms in front of her. She gave me the same look that my dad just gave me and then I knew something was wrong.

  "What, what is it?" I asked, worried.

  "You should probably sit, Ryley," she said as she took the bag from my hands and set it on the step.

  I sat down on the swing, the same swing that I told Liam I had 'taken care' of Able six years ago, and waited, staring at my mom. My mom was getting older and it was starting to show. As a kid, every adult seems old, but when you are an adult yourself, you start to see things differently. The lines in people's faces, their posture, it was all there in my mother now.

  "Ryley, Mr. Montgomery called. He had some bad news. Liam's grandma passed away in her sleep last night."

  My throat felt like it was on fire just from the mention of his name. My mother knew not to use his name around me, but this was different. No. Gram couldn't be dead. She wasn't that old, was she? My throat burned, my eyes started to water. I couldn't believe she's gone.

  "Oh, Mama...." I let a tear slip down my cheek as I mourned for the most kind-hearted woman I had ever met.

  "I don't want to be the one to remind you, Ryley, but you know she only has one living relative outside her sister," she said gently, not knowing much about Liam's mother.

  It was then, six years after Liam burned down my entire world, that I realized I was going to have to face the man that ruined me. The man that I loved, the man that I absolutely hated, the man who was the father of my child.

  I was going to have to face him, and tell him he's a daddy.

  CHAPTER 8

  LIAM

  Luckily my great aunt called and asked me to come to her place first. I was more than happy to oblige. I had no idea if Ryley still lived at home with her parents; part of me thought not, she probably got out of town. She had dreams to do something with her life. We were going to do them together at one point in time. It was inevitable and I knew I had to go to Gram's house, but I wanted to put it off as long as I could.

  "Is this where you grew up?" I almost forgot Dana was in the truck. Either I'd blocked her out for the last hour of driving, or she actually shut the hell up.

  "No. This is my aunt's house."

  She didn't hesitate to get out, and actually, having her around was putting me more at ease.

  "My word, Liam!" Aunt Hope bellowed when she saw me. "You have grown up so, so much." She suffocated me in a hug and started trying to kiss me, but I fought out of it and quickly turned to Dana.

  "Aunt Hope, this is my friend Dana."

  "Hi, sweetheart." She pulled her into a hug and when I heard Dana softly grunt from the abrupt tug, I chuckled and walked around them into the house.

  The house smelled like old people, but there was a faint scent of Gram and I almost called out for her, forgetting what the hell I was in town for.

  "Shit," I breathed, inhaling a deep breath, not ready for it all to hit me.

  Old people die, I get it. Gram wasn't that old, but she was pushing eighty; I guess some would think her time was up. Hell, if I thought back, it was surprising she survived what she did. All the bullshit she put up with from me, Gage, even Ryley.

  A chuckle made my lips curve up when I thought back to the time me and Ryley took Gram's car through the field around the pond. It was pure mud; we brought her maroon Lumina back covered in a sheet of brown mud, there wasn't one inch indicating the color of that car. Gram just so happened to be shaking out the rug, standing on the front porch when we pulled up. We'd hoped we could get back and get it washed off before she noticed. Not so much. Her mouth dropped, then when Ry got out, covered as bad as Gram's car, I thought Gram was going to have a heart attack. We got stuck and Ry insisted she push; she was scared to drive. Well she got covered, then running from the flinging mud, she slipped. Cutest damn thing I'd ever seen; Ry covered in mud.

  My brows furrowed when I realized I was thinking about her as Ry and that I was thinking about her in general. I scrubbed a scowl back onto my face and turned around to face Aunt Hope and Dana. Aunt Hope directed me to the room Gram had been staying in for a while, then she took Dana into the kitchen. Afraid to touch anything while in there, I just sat on the bed thinking maybe if I left it all like it was, the facts wouldn't be real.

  I decided Aunt Hope could handle the room, I had to deal with the house. Not that night though. That night I needed to find a hotel and get the fuck out of her house. I kept thinking I heard Gram and Gage, then worst of all, I swore I heard Ryley saying my name. I knew it was all in my head because it was the same way she said it five years prior, the last time I answered the phone. Even hearing her voice in my head, there was still that commotion of kids, or babies, I don't know, a room full of people. "Hello?... Liam?" It started playing in my head over and over. I quickly scrubbed my hands over my head then found Aunt Hope and Dana. We needed to get out of that house. I needed to get Dana to the hotel and I needed to get Ryley out of my head.

  Fucking Dana would get Ryley out of my head, the only problem was, to get off, I had to put Ryley in my damn head more than she already was.

  Dana wasn't as vocal as usual and I think it was because of how rough I was going, but to maintain a hard-on I had to think about the woman I hated.

  "Liam?" Dana said and her fucking voice wasn't hers. It wasn't Ryley's.

  "Fuck!" I grunted, getting hit with the most painfully intense orgasm I didn't know was possible. I almost screamed out Ryley's name.

  Releasing my orgasm felt like something in my chest snapped, like the ties that were binding my heart just burst from the pressure of my throbbing artery. Needing away from Dana, away from any woman at that moment, I got out of bed and into the shower.

  The next morning I was up early, hoping to get the house taken care of as soon as possible, and hoping Ryley became some lazy drone to society and wouldn't be awake before I finished; if she still lived with her parents. Something told me that would never happen and something else told me she wouldn't be living there anymore. What if she wasn't even in the state anymore? What was she doing with her life? All the thoughts started to flood. I can't lie and say I hadn't thought about her constantly in those six years. About the little girl we could have been raising. In my head, I made my baby a little girl. It always made me smile to think that I would have had a baby girl that looked just like her mom.

  "What're you thinking about?" Dana grinned at me and I realized I was smiling.

  "Nothing." I put the scowl back on my face.

  The speed limit was twenty-five, but I was driving ten to fifteen miles per hour, willing to buy myself more time before I got back to the place I grew up.

  "Is that it?" Dana pointed to Ryley's folks' house.

  "Next door," I muttered and pointed to Gram's one story that was a hell of a lot smaller than The Reynolds' Victorian style house.

  "How cute." She was fucking lying. It was a shit hole, especially compared to the house next door.

  Maybe The Reynolds moved. Relief started to fill me until I saw her dad's truck. Didn't move.

  "Liam!" Dana screamed, making me slam on the brakes right before I plowed over a little kid chasing a basketball. I was watching the house and didn't see him.

  "Fuck!" I grunted, pissed off at how much that scared the shit out of me
.

  It took a minute to realize Mrs. Reynolds was the one to scoop the brown haired boy up. I shook my head a little as thoughts of me and Gage as little kids filled my head. Mrs. Reynolds stood on the side of the road, apologizing profusely while holding the squirming little shit. It finally hit her that it was me in the truck and the little fish out of water slipped from her arms and ran for the house.

  "Shit," I breathed in shock she had another kid.

  She was older than my mom and that kid looked three or four maybe; that would put her in her mid-forties when she had him. I shook it out of my head because I didn't want her to see the disapproval on my face.

  My guess was when Ryley left home Mrs. Reynolds couldn't take it and she got knocked up. I chuckled a little, wondering what Ry thought of this. She had always wanted a little brother or sister, but I wasn't so sure at that age.

  I pulled in the driveway and killed the engine, fumbling with my phone and playing with the keys a minute hoping Mrs. Reynolds went in, but when I get out she was staring at me like I was a ghost. Finally when I smiled at her, she headed for me.

  "Liam," she said like relief gave her breath.

  "Mrs. Reynolds. Staying busy, huh?" I chuckled and hugged her back.

  "I'm so sorry about your grandmother. She was such a nice woman; you know she was like family to us. You both were. Gosh, Liam, it's so nice to see you." She was still holding me and because I was so uncomfortable, I looked toward their house.

  That little kid was in the window, partially blocked by the sheer curtain. I shook my head at how careless it was for her to have another child. She'd be old before he'd graduate high school.

  "Cute little boy, Mrs. Reynolds."