Mia stretches, sitting up and seeing me next to her. “How’s Carter?”
“No change,” I say. “But the good news is, he’s not declining. So that’s good.”
She nods. “How are you doing, Liane?”
I rub my hands over my face. I can’t imagine what I look like right now. “I want to see Blake.”
She nods. “I think at least for the next few weeks, you should stay on the medicine. You have a lot to deal with, sweetie.”
“I know. I think the combination of you being here and that medicine is keeping me as sane as I am right now. What am I going to do, Mia? Blake was arrested? What is that going to mean for us? He needs to be here. And Ronan deserved everything he did and then some. How do I get this fixed?”
“You don’t have to,” a voice comes from behind, and I jump, whirling around. Blake stands there, his hands wrapped and his clothes stained with blood. His eyes are bloodshot, and he looks exhausted. I rush for him and bury my face in his chest, wrapping my arms around his firm body. He leans his head on top of mine, and I feel his lips kissing my hair over and over. Neither of us says anything, and I’m so lost in what emotion I should feel first that I don’t hear someone else come up behind us until they clear their throat.
I pull back just far enough to look and see if it’s a doctor, and my eyes narrow. Ronan is standing behind us, looking like death. I almost smile at what Blake has done to him, but I can’t make myself. I hate this man so much. I start shaking, and I feel Blake’s arms tighten around me.
“Can we talk?” Ronan speaks up. I tip my head up to look at Blake, and identical tears shimmer in both of our eyes. We ignore Ronan’s question for a moment as he takes his bandaged hand and puts it on the side of my face. No matter what, I love this man, and we will get through all of this together; we’ll be stronger than ever and more determined to move past what has been taken away from us.
“Blake,” I whisper, knowing we’re being watched but unable to care. Ronan has stolen so many of our moments; he isn’t getting this one, too. “I love you.”
He leans forward so our foreheads are touching and our eyes are connected. “I love you, Li. I’m sorry I left you.” I know what he means, but for some reason it seems like so much more than just an apology for last night.
“Don’t be sorry,” I whisper, careful as I put my hands in his. “I understand.” He nods, but we don’t move away from each other.
“How’s our son?” A sob escapes my lips just as one tear rolls down Blake’s face. Our son. Blake and I have a son. God, I’ve wanted that for so many years, I still can’t wrap my head around it.
“Same. But that’s better than being worse. Are you okay?”
“Fine. Ronan dropped charges.” Both of us swing our eyes back to Ronan, and I remember he wanted to talk. I want to thank him, but I can’t make myself. There’s no thanks that he deserves. Not now, maybe not ever.
“Why don’t we all sit,” Mia’s counselor voice comes from behind us. “We have a lot to talk about.”
“Who are you?” I roll my eyes at Ronan’s question.
“She’s my friend,” I snap, the first thing I’ve said to Ronan at all. “Mia, I’m sure he doesn’t need any introduction, but this is Ronan.”
“Yeah,” she says. “I got that.” Blake snickers behind me, and I turn to him and smile. It’s all that keeps me from cracking. We all sit, and Mia pulls a chair so she can see all three of us. She looks at Ronan. “Would you like to begin?” Lord knows neither Blake nor I have anything to say that Blake hasn’t already told him with his fists.
He shifts, and I can’t help but wonder if he shouldn’t be hospitalized. His face is as white as the wall behind him, with the exception of the two black eyes he’s sporting, the swollen nose, and the red lacerations. I wish I could turn to Blake and tell him he did a good job, but there isn’t anything that can be done to Ronan to equal the manipulation and lies that has been done to us.
Blake takes my hand, and I look down at his hands, wondering how bad they are. I look up into his tired eyes and handsome face. I wonder how in the hell I never knew that Carter was his. Now I can see it so easily. I wonder if I just refused to entertain that idea his whole life, but I know that’s not true. I’d wanted Carter to be his just as badly as I wanted to be with Blake right up to my wedding day.
“I know I’m sorry isn’t going to mean anything,” Ronan says, and he’s right. I don’t care how sorry he is; nothing is going to change what he did.
“Why don’t you start at the beginning,” Mia says. “They need to hear everything. Don’t leave anything out.”
Ronan looks at Mia, and I know what he’s thinking. He hates anyone getting involved in his personal business, and he’d rather die than go see a “shrink”. But he isn’t holding the cards anymore, and it’s time for him to give it to us straight. I wonder if it’s really in him, though.
“I never wanted you to be with him,” Ronan starts, looking at a spot above both of our heads. “I always knew he was in love with you. Why wouldn’t he be? And I knew I couldn’t compete with the lifelong friendship. Then my parents pressured me into breaking up with you, and I knew I’d be basically giving you to him.”
I bite my tongue to keep from lashing out at him. I need to let him talk, even if what he’s saying is asinine. He acts like I’m some possession to be traded or shared. “So when you got back, and you refused to be back with me, I was shocked. It wasn’t like you, Lia. You always had done what I wanted. I knew I had to do something to get you back.”
I suck in a breath. Hearing it from Blake had been one thing, but having Ronan admit what he’d done is hard to hear. Mia looks at me, and we have a silent conversation. I know I scared her last night, but I’m okay right now. “So I drove to South Carolina with that letter you wrote me. I was able to erase the ‘a’ at the end of Lia so that he thought it was from you. I’d already planned to go there, but when you gave me that letter, it just worked out. I told him that we were together now and that was from you. He believed me.”
“Then I went with you to your dorm,” Ronan continues. “I was convinced that I’d keep Blake away from you and earn you back. I really thought we were soul mates, Lia. I was so young and stupid. I know that’s not an excuse for my behavior. Then, Blake called your dorm room and I talked to him. I was scared because I knew he was there, and if he found you, it would all be over for me. So I rambled a bunch of shit I don’t even remember to him and hung up. I went outside to find him, and that’s how my nose got broken. I thought he’d leave after that, but he didn’t. When I kissed you, I knew he was down the hallway. I saw him.”
“I never should’ve left,” Blake mumbles. “I didn’t fight hard enough.”
“No,” I say back. “This is not your fault.”
I can’t look at Ronan because I want to do things that I’ve never wanted to do before in my life. I drop my head, staring at my hand in Blake’s. “After I left there, I arranged for a friend of mine to find Blake. It just so happened that Blake had decided drowning his sorrows in booze was the best way to handle losing you, so she was able to break him down rather easy. She took those photos.”
“Emma,” Blake whispers next to me.
Ronan nods. “So then Emma told me she had the photos, and I arranged for you to get them. I was wrong, in so many ways. But then… you called me and you wanted to come to New York. I had no idea what I’d done to deserve another chance, but it was the happiest I’d ever been. Then you told me you were pregnant. As hard as it was to be a teen dad, I loved you and wanted to spend my life with you.”
“Tell me about our wedding day,” I say, forcing my eyes up to his. Mia nods.
Ronan sighs, looking over at Blake. “I heard some commotion, so I went in and saw your dad talking to Blake. I was terrified, because I always knew you loved him more than me. At this point, we knew Carter was on the way and had our plans for our life. So I had to make sure he left without seeing you. So I showed h
im the ultrasound picture.”
“You never let me make my own decisions, what I wanted or what was best for me,” I say. “You’ve done that our whole lives, haven’t you, Ronan? I was just this little passive woman who did whatever you wanted, no questions asked. You didn’t love me, you loved that you could control me.”
“I realized several years ago that I needed to let you go,” Ronan continues. “But I was still selfish, and I wanted Carter to have both of his parents until he was grown.”
I snap my head up. “Oh, yeah. Let’s talk about both of his parents, Ronan. How long have you known?”
Blake sucks in a breath next to me. I know this is excruciating for him, because at least I got to be Carter’s mother for the last eighteen years. Ronan looks at me for so long, I’m not sure he’s going to answer me. Mia even shifts, getting ready to intervene.
“Fourteen years,” he says finally. My mouth drops open. He’s known since Carter was four. I think back and realize that was right when I wanted to have another baby and we’d gone to the doctor. He’d gone by himself and then told me everything was okay. He’d lied. Again.
Blake stands, dropping my hand. Just when I wonder if he’s going to grab Ronan again, he walks past him and begins pacing around the room. Ronan breathes out as he realizes Blake isn’t going to pummel him again. I look at Mia, wondering if I should go to him. Her eyes are following him as well.
“Blake,” she says. “Come on back. Let’s get this out, okay? Tell us how you’re feeling. Don’t stuff it in.”
He stops, his eyes going back and forth between the three of us. I can see the pain all over his face, and I wish I could do something. He nods and walks back, settling in the seat next to me again.
“Why couldn’t you have been a man?” Blake’s voice is low, but the meaning is clear. “You knew that boy was mine. This is still all about you, isn’t it, Ronan? You couldn’t man up and tell Li the truth so she could decide what she wanted to do, and so I could know my son! He’s mine! You not only stole the love of my life, but you stole the right I had to know my son! All because you had to win! Have you ever done anything that hasn’t been selfish?” He’s squeezing his hands together so hard that his arm muscles are rigid, and his jaw is set. He’s trying so hard to reign in what he wants to do right now. All I want to do is take my son home and let him meet his father.
“I don’t have an excuse,” Ronan admits. “I was and always have been a coward. I knew if I told her, she’d go find you. I love him, Blake. I do. He’s a great kid.”
“Excuse me for not caring that you love him. I don’t give a shit what you say about my son. The point is, you never gave me the chance to know him because you were too selfish to think about what was best for him. Have you thought through what this is going to do to him? He’s an adult now. He’s the age that you were when you and Liane got married! Now not only is he going to find out that his parents are divorcing, but that you aren’t really his dad! Did you ever really think through how destroyed he’s going to be? And then what? Then he’s going to look at me like the asshole that ruined everything he knew, even though none of this is my fault!”
He’s right; every single thing he’s saying is true. As much as this has shaken us to our cores, we know the fallout isn’t over. Carter isn’t even awake. And when he is, he’s going to have to deal with getting better on top of learning that his whole life is a lie.
“You’re right,” Ronan concedes. “I haven’t really thought about this at all. This wasn’t the way I planned on anyone finding out…”
“And when were you going to tell us? If this wouldn’t have happened, when were you planning to drop this bomb on us?”
He looks at me. “I don’t know,” he admits. “I knew I needed to tell you, but I didn’t have a plan on when that was going to be. I’ll be there to help the transition. I’ll tell him everything.”
Blake closes his eyes. “Great. So now you’re going to be the man you should’ve been. Fabulous.”
“Why did you lie to me?” I ask. “This was when the doctor tested us, right? That’s when you found out?”
“Yes. He told me I have a genetic condition that would make it virtually impossible to have children. My dad has it too, but his wasn’t as severe. Without getting into sordid details, I was told that there was a 99.9% chance that I would never father a child.”
“So you decided to hold onto that 0.01% that they were wrong? I just don’t understand why you would do that to us. Hasn’t it eaten you alive, all these years? Looking at Carter and hearing him call you Daddy? What if someone had done that to you? Do you ever think that way?”
“I think I always knew, somewhere in the back of my mind,” he says. “And yes. It ate me alive. That’s one of the many reasons that I threw myself into my work. I loved both of you, but seeing you reminded me of all the things I’d done. That’s also why when I knew Carter was headed off into his own life that I had to let you go.”
“And even then you were a coward,” Blake stands again. “I swear to god, Ronan. Thank God you’re unable to have children. You aren’t a man in any way, shape, or form. So instead of being honest with your wife, you leave her a letter and throw her out of your life like she’s not worth the paper you wrote that letter on? You leave her crying on your front lawn and drive away? Who the hell are you? Don’t you have a soul?”
I smile, my heart swelling for Blake. He’s standing up for me. I love him so much. He turns to look at me and crosses back to me within two steps. He pulls me into his arms. “Li,” he breathes like he needs me to continue standing. “I’m sorry,” he says, and I don’t know why the hell he’s apologizing. He has nothing to be sorry for. “I have to ask this.” Still with a firm hold on me, he turns back to Ronan.
“How many other women were there?” I open my eyes wide in shock, staring at Blake. Why would he ask that? I can’t turn to look at Ronan or Mia, so I focus on the look on Blake’s face.
“Blake,” Mia’s voice is a warning, and I know why. I can’t handle hearing this. I don’t know why he thinks this is important, but I’m sure it has something to do with being men. He looks down at me, and whatever he sees there must stop him.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers. “Forgive me. I just can’t stand any of this.”
Ronan stands with effort and walks to us. “I haven’t been faithful to you,” he says, looking directly in my eyes. “I’m not going to get into the rest because it will only hurt you. We’re moving on and I’m doing what I should’ve done years ago and giving you back to the man you should’ve been with all along. You’re a family.”
“No thanks to you,” Blake spits out. “We could’ve been a family a long time ago.”
It’s the final straw, and I can’t hold it in anymore. I wail, clutching onto Blake like he’s the last life preserver in the world.
“I ASKED YOU not to do that,” Mia says. I look over at her, guilt seeping through my veins. Li is passed out on my lap after Mia had to give her another sedative. Ronan had made himself scarce, asking one of us to let him know if there was any change in Carter. I wish I could never see him again, but I know that it’s necessary for him to be a part of this. “You weren’t here last night, Blake. You didn’t see her lose her shit. She’s lucky I was here. They almost Baker Acted her.”
I stop caressing Li’s back, my eyes wide at Mia’s admission. “What?”
“I got here right after you ran out,” she explains. “I saw the police cars in the parking lot and all. I had no idea it was you, of course. But when I got up here, that nurse was just about to call psych. Blake, you don’t want to see her like that again. Only because I’m a psychiatrist did they stop.”
“What was she doing?” I’m afraid to know, but I need to know.
“She was screaming and crying. She wasn’t making sense. She was in a full blown panic attack, and she was being irrational. This is all too much for her, Blake. First the divorce, then you and all the deception she found out about,
and now Carter? I’m not sure how much more she can take.”
I look down at her sleeping form. She’s exhausted, but she’s still the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. “Thank you for being here, Mia.”
“She’s my friend,” she answers. “But you know this isn’t over, right? What’s about to happen is just the beginning. The things you guys have worked through already is nothing in comparison to what’s going to happen next. Are you going to be able to do this?”
I know she doesn’t mean it the way it sounds, but it offends me. I’m not Ronan Collier, spineless asshole of the century. “That’s my family,” I say. “That boy in there has lived his whole life without knowing me. I don’t know what his favorite food is, or what his favorite subject was in school. I don’t know what his room looked like, or what his favorite story was. I’ve missed out on being a father. I love both of them. I’m going to be here, no matter how hard it is or what it takes to get us where we need to be. I’m not walking away from Li, ever again. And now that I know I have a son, he will know how loved he is by me.”
She nods. “How are you doing with your sobriety? Any temptation to drink this problem away?” I think back to all the times over the years that I’ve wanted to drink. Mostly every year on the anniversary of our last summer together. Ironically, until she just brought it up, I hadn’t thought at all about drinking. All I want to do is be here for Li and our son.
Twisted Paths Page 18